Before Reiki: The Ancient Roots And Modern Evolution Of Energy Healing

What came before Reiki?

Long before Mikao Usui’s experience on Mount Kurama in 1922, human beings were already exploring breath, touch, vitality, consciousness, sacred points on the body, invisible influence, prayer, trance, and the possibility that one person might affect the well-being of another.

In Before Reiki: The Ancient Roots and Modern Evolution of Energy Healing, Dr. Constance Santego follows that healing thread across cultures and centuries—without forcing every tradition into one convenient origin story.

The journey begins with ancient Indian concepts of prāṇa, nāḍīs, chakras, and marma points, continues through Chinese qi, meridians, and acupoints, and explores the development of Japanese ki, tsubo, hara, palm healing, spiritual practices, and reijutsu. It then moves westward into Franz Anton Mesmer’s animal magnetism, hypnosis, Spiritualism, mental healing, New Thought, and the growing exchange of Eastern and Western ideas during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

The book also examines an especially intriguing historical question: Was Reiki being discussed before Usui? It explores Mataji Kawakami’s use of the term Reiki Ryōhō before Usui established his system, as well as early prāṇic-healing writings that described hands-on treatment, self-treatment, and even distant influence before 1922.

When the story reaches Mikao Usui, Chujiro Hayashi, and Hawayo Takata, the focus shifts from mythology to historical development. Rather than dismissing familiar Reiki stories, Dr. Santego carefully distinguishes what historical evidence supports, what comes from oral tradition, and what appears to have been added later.

This book does not attempt to prove or disprove Reiki. Its guiding principle is simpler:

Say what we know. Identify what we believe. Acknowledge what we do not know.

A special section, One Human Body, Many Maps, compares how different healing systems repeatedly identified significant areas such as the palms, feet, abdomen, chest, and head—without assuming that similarity automatically proves a shared lineage.

For Reiki practitioners, energy healers, holistic-health students, teachers, and anyone fascinated by the history of healing, Before Reiki offers something rare: a way to respect spiritual tradition without sacrificing historical curiosity.

Before the symbols. Before the attunements. Before Mount Kurama. There was already a healing story unfolding.

Before Reiki tells that story.