Reiki is perhaps the world's most popular form of energy healing, first sourced by the late Japanese mystic Mikao Usui. The word "Reiki" is most commonly translated from Japanese kanji as "universal life force energy." But it can also be interpreted as "divine life force energy," a translation I prefer since it feels more aligned with my belief that Reiki comes directly from the Divine. My journey with Reiki has been an amazing one, starting with traditional training in the early 1990s, going through the master level in 1995, and eventually experiencing a profound visitation in 2007 from the spirit of Mikao Usui himself.

The visitation happened while I was traveling alone in Laos, working on the final edits of my first book, The Reiki Magic Guide to Self-Attunement. I was eating lunch at a small Indian restaurant in Luang Prabang, the former royal capital of Laos. As I sat at a small outdoor table, I suddenly felt a powerful presence in the empty chair across from me. I immediately sensed this presence was the spirit of Mikao Usui.

Almost immediately after sensing his presence, I experienced a ball of white light come from Mikao Usui's spirit directly into the area of my heart chakra. After the ball of light was transmitted to me, the spirit of Mikao Usui vanished. I did not initially understand all that this ball of light was about, but in the days and weeks afterward, I began getting downloads of information about Reiki that became my second book, Reiki for Spiritual Healing. New symbols and techniques were revealed to me as if out of thin air, and each time I tested these new symbols and techniques, they worked powerfully.