This is the most comprehensive Reiki course we have ever offered. In addition to applying a critical lens on the Western Reiki Model, in this program we primarily focus on the culture & traditions that inform the practice of energy healing in Japan. In hopes of providing the deepest and most comprehensive context and frameworks, we hope to support your journey in making your Reiki practice as authentic as possible. This program is suitable for the energetically curious to seasoned practitioners trained under a Western model.

Learn more on this page below, or our course landing page (linked below)

Traditionally in both Japan and China, energy healing is seen as a legitimate form of medicine - and perhaps the most vital to East Asian healing arts.

So why in the Western world is it defined as pseudoscience?

At Energetic Ecology, we blend years of learning, study, practice, and culturally-passed down teachings to provide you with the most authentic, culturally relevant, and universally accessible Reiki program possible.

The Mask Comes Off Western Reiki

In 2013, I participated in my first “Reiki” training, which I now can identify as a training adhering to what I call the “Western Reiki Model”. As a second generation (Nissei) Japanese-American, I had high hopes that this “weekend workshop” would help me feel more connected to my heritage and traditional healing practices - but I left the training feeling more confused about my identity, about Japanese culture, and about the Western world’s understanding of it. Things just weren’t lining up. What followed was a process of unlearning and reclamation.

A Journey of 10+ Years
Has Brought Me Here

After feeling disillusioned by Western culture’s fetishization, misrepresentation, and commodification of an ancestral practice, and unable to find any instructors/teachers that taught Reiki from a more authentic perspective, I decided to embark on a journey - if someone can’t teach me traditional Reiki, I’m going to find it. After years of working with different teachers, countless hours of study, and endless digging, I can firmly say:

There is no one true Reiki.

I don’t think I’m the only one that acknowledges this truth. Even highly respected members of the Western Reiki community acknowledge that, in their efforts to find the actual “roots of Reiki”, they realize that Western Reiki’s messiah, Mikao Usui, was only one of many teachers of his time teaching energy healing practices & techniques. While folks like William Lee Rand and Frank Arjava Petter perhaps have been able to get to the roots of Mikao Usui’s lineage of teachings, they still lacked the ability to see hundreds of years of tradition that motivated and inspired many of Usui’s practices and teachings. They were missing the forest through the trees:

What lies in the soil from which Western Reiki (and all other forms of Japanese energy healing) has grown is the traditional cultural cosmology that reinforces the existence of energy throughout every aspect of life itself. This culturally-reinforced worldview is what sustains energy healing as a universally accepted folk healing practice - that has gone widely undocumented.

The Heart of Our Praxis: Understanding the
Beating Heart of the Forest

Even with Western Reiki’s best efforts to undo the damage of cultural appropriation, misrepresentation, and more, we still lose the forest through the trees. That is why my life’s work at Energetic Ecology is to understand the beating heart of the forest - and to share that with the world. 

Our focus is to provide students with as much cultural context as possible, so that a practice that is both authentic to Japanese tradition, and to their own lineages, can emerge.

$200

To make this course as financially accessible as possible, we offer 6-month access to this course for only $200. 

This course is for you if:

  • You are energetically curious and would like to begin your own energy cultivation practice. Maybe someday you would like to offer energy healing to others, but for now you just want to do some exploration, and would like to learn about Traditional Japanese Healing Arts.

  • You are a new or established practitioner who was taught/trained under the Western Reiki Model, and are looking to apply a critical consciousness perspective on the complexities of race, cultural appropriation, and healing modalities.

  • You are a new or established practitioner who wants to learn more about Japanese culture, and would like to have a greater breadth of knowledge of the traditions that Western Reiki draws from, getting to the roots of the practice and how to be a carrier of this tradition with integrity and accountability.

T H E C U R R I C U L U M

Module 1

  • History of energy healing in Japan, dating back to ancient times.

  • The cultural contexts that inspired Mikao Usui’s “discovery” of Reiki, a critical analysis of the Western Reiki Model.

  • The importance of representation, visibility, and the preservation of ancient folk medicine practices.

  • The mechanics of energy cultivation - foundational exercises to prepare the body for energy cultivation practice.

Module 2

  • What is an “energetic cosmology”? And how our culture & worldviews shape how we understand energy.

  • The energetic cosmologies of Japan, and the animist & elemental worldviews that reinforce them.

  • Energetic frameworks adopted into Japanese Culture (the 3 Tanden System and 5 Element System).

  • Traditional Japanese energetic frameworks (Ichirei Shikon: One Spirit Four Souls).

  • The cause of illness & disease, energetic patterning, and our role as healers

Module 3

  • Healthy energetic pathways and the influence of the 4 Element System (Ichirei Shikon)

  • The Four Pillars of Energy Practice: cultivating, channeling, transforming, and directing.

  • What is Optimal Health? And bringing a critical eye to ableism in the frameworks/culture of western energy healing

Module 4

  • The Kami Spirit: Understanding the ultimate intentions of a Shinto way of life

  • Shinto energetic hygiene practices, and universal energetic hygiene practices

  • Byosen - the practice of body-scanning

What Past Students Want to Share

  • A.B. - 2023 Cohort

    Marika knows her sh*t in the best way possible. I seriously appreciate how inclusive, mindful, thoughtful, and respectful her course was for both students and the practice of Reiki. This is the reason why I chose her and her course to begin this study, and will continue to be looking here for my future work.

  • Joshua Swift - 2021 & 2023 Cohorts

    I am so grateful for the wisdom and resources Marika shared in the Reiki for Beginners course. As someone who studies energy healing, but was missing the background of a more typical reiki workshop, I learned so much. I plan to return to the course content and dig into the supplemental resources as I continue my learning - thank you for everything!

  • Anonymous - 2023 Cohort

    I've been interested in learning more about reiki since my first reiki session earlier this year. Marika's course was just the right fit. The virtual format was great as it allowed for alot of flexibility and I felt I could go through the content at my own pace in between virtual sessions. But the highlight was Marika's deep knowledge of the content and her ability to share the historical and nuanced elements of reiki that only comes from a first hand understanding and deep respect for Japanese culture.

About Your Instructor

Marika Clymer

Owner of Energetic Ecology

Marika is a member of the Nissei community (second-generation Japanese American), and grew up in the Pacific Northwest. She has been a Reiki practitioner for since 2013, and began her studies in Traditional Japanese Healing Arts with her meditation & energy cultivation teacher, Hideki-san in 2012. Her energetic healing practice has evolved over many years of practice, study, and exploration. Marika believes in the power of her ancestral medicines, and seeks to bring integrity to how Reiki is practiced in the United States and around the world, providing vital cultural knowledge and experience as the foundation of her teachings. To learn more about Marika, click here.