Pranic Healing vs. Reiki: The 3 Biggest Differences
For the hundredth time, a person responds to me “Oh, is that like Reiki?”
Most of the time, that’s the first thing people say when I tell them that I practice Pranic Healing.
Which is totally cool! Reiki has killed it in making itself the most popular energy healing modality. It’s practically a household name. Kudos to Reiki.
But my answer is no, and yes. Pranic Healing has similarities and differences to Reiki.
Reiki is another wonderful modality of energy healing that uses life force energy to heal the body, mind and emotions. It’s been around a few decades longer and it’s more organized and established professionally.
My Journey with Reiki
I started my energy healing journey with Reiki. After I had my spiritual awakening in the Peru in 2017 with a powerful plant medicine ceremony, I derailed my travels plans of slowly traveling north through central America. Instead, I flew to Rishikesh, India, to explore the worlds of yoga, spirituality and energy healing.
I studied Reiki with a Master in Rishikesh, India during the summer of 2017.
My first few months there, I studied with a local Usui Reiki Master. I received the energetic attunements and took the three levels of Reiki she offered.
I loved Reiki! It was easy, simple, mystical, magical and very spiritual. For me, it was a wonderful entryway into the world of energy healing.
My Shift from Reiki to Pranic Healing
But as I continued practicing, I started having more questions than I was getting answers from people in the Reiki community where I was. As I did more research into questions like “how does energy healing work, what are chakras, how do you protect yourself energetically” I kept on stumbling across answers from Pranic Healing. I knew it was a sign.
A few months after I’d landed in India, I decided to put Reiki on hold and study for a few months with a lovely older Indian couple in Dharamsala who integrated Pranic Healing with other forms of energy healing, including mantras, mudras and yoga asana.
Once I started learning Pranic Healing, which is a more modern, systematic form of energy healing that has a more scientific, experimental foundation, I never looked back. Click here to learn how Pranic Healing works.
Pranic Healing just resonated more with me than Reiki because it approached energy healing with a more mental and intellectual lense. Pranic Healers want to know why. There’s so many courses and classes that dive into the different areas of energy healing, the chakras and spirituality.
Reiki has a more “feminine, go with the flow and channel the energy vibe”, whereas Pranic Healing has a more “masculine, let me scan your energy field and thoroughly remove your energetic blockages.” Pranic Healing feels more surgical and Reiki feels more intuitive at first glance.
Some people resonate more with Reiki; some people resonate more with Pranic Healing. Ultimately, whatever you’re attracted to, do it. Follow your intuition. You can get fantastic results with both modalities depending on which energy healer you’re going to.
Comparing the Origins of Reiki and Pranic Healing
Usui Reiki is a Japanese healing art given/channeled/brought to Dr. Mikao Usui when he was fasting and prayer on Mount Kurama for 21 days in the 1920s. “Reiki” is a Japanese word that means “universal life energy.”
Pranic Healing was researched, experimented with and developed by Master Choa Kok Sui in the 1980s in the Phillippines. He was an engineer by trade and wanted to create a more systematic, scientific modality of energy healing that anyone could learn and practice.
I feel that both founders had a lot in common. They were both spiritual men ahead of their times who dedicated their lives to discover a newer, better way to heal the body, mind and emotions using life force energy.
The Similarities between Reiki and Pranic Healing
They have a lot of similarities! Both Reiki and Pranic Healing:
Work on the same energy body and its system of chakras and meridians.
Heal parts of the energy body with life force energy to restore the natural flow of life energy.
Increase the rate of healing of the physical body, mind and emotions by healing the energy body.
Channel healing energy from higher spiritual beings in more subtle dimensions.
Hold organized structures of titles denoting different levels of mastery.
In my experience, there are big differences between Reiki and Pranic Healing. I’ll just be comparing them as healing modalities, not their broader spiritual perspectives or spiritual practices.
#1: Reiki practitioners require an energy attunement to practice at each level; Pranic Healers just need to take a 2 day course for each level.
Energetic attunements are like energetic initiations into higher levels of Reiki. When graduating to a new level of Reiki, you receive a transference of a specific type of energy from a Reiki Master.
From my experience, these attunements clear energetic blockages and introduce you with a Divine higher frequency energy so you can handle higher and more powerful frequencies of healing energy being channeled through you.
If you don’t receive the attunement, you technically don’t graduate to the next level. There’s advantages and disadvantages to this.
I feel that it keeps the study and practice of Reiki more spiritual and intuitive. It also feels more exclusive and special to practice Reiki with an attunement. It feels like entering a secret society. The downside is that the barriers to entry are higher.
In the first Basic Pranic Healing class, I feel that a similar initiation is awakening the hand chakras so you can feel and scan energy with your hands.
However, there’s no official atunement or necessary transference of energy to get started. You learn how to do it, practice it in class, and go home armed with the ability to heal after only 2 days.
But, technically, you don’t even need to take a class to start practicing Pranic Healing. You just need to purchase the first book, Miracles Through Pranic Healing by Master Choa Kok Sui.
That’s what I did in India before I took my in-person course. I read the book on my kindle and started practicing right then and there. I feel that the barriers to entry are lower because of this, although I’d highly recommend taking the in-person classes.
#2: Reiki consists of energizing the energy body with healing energy; Pranic Healing is a system of removing negative energy in the energy body and then energizing with fresh life force energy.
When I practiced Usui Reiki, I was taught to energize the major chakras by channeling healing energy. I would energize one major chakra at a time for a few minutes before I’d move to another one. After energizing all of them for a few minutes, I would energize any part of the energy body that needed more healing before ending the session.
There’s positives and negatives to this.
The positive thing is that this is simple and easy to practice—just pump fresh life force energy into the energy body so it can use it to heal itself and positively affect the physical body, emotions and mind.
The only downside to this method is that the negative, stagnant energy that’s causing blockages in the energy body in the first place isn’t directly removed by the practitioner. It’s gradually pushed out by the new life force energy being pumped into the energy body.
That’s not a problem unless there’s a healing crisis in which the client can experience uncomfortable physical, mental or emotional symptoms as this negative energy is being released.
On the other hand, Pranic Healing is a more systematic modality that removes negative energy, energizes with fresh energy and comes with step-by-step healing protocols of major illnesses and diseases. Click here to learn more.
In Pranic Healing, practitioners are taught to scan and feel energy with their hands. When they detect negative or stagnant energy in parts of the energy body, they channel cleansing energies and remove this negative energy.
Then, Pranic Healers dispose of the negative energy into a bowl of water and salt, which acts as an energetic garbage can.
Cleansing the energy body of negative energy that’s disrupting the natural flow of life energy is emphasized in Pranic Healing. Only after cleansing does energizing with fresh life energy come into play.
I’m gonna be honest-- this is the reason why I chose Pranic Healing over Reiki as my modality. In my experience, Pranic Healing sessions are faster, more effective and deliver better results because that negative energy is removed before energizing with fresh life force.
But I was meant to be a Pranic Healer, so that’s reflected in my personal experience. I know a lot of people that love Reiki and get great results from it. I’m not knocking it in the slightest; they’re just very different energy healing modalities.
Different strokes for different folks. Try them both and see which one gives you better results.
The benefit to Reiki’s simplicity is that it tends to have a more feminine, intuitive, spiritual quality to it. That creates a space where deep, spiritual healing can take place. As a practitioner, it’s easier to turn your brain off, let go and channel the energy in a very meditative state. That experience attracts a specific type of practitioner and client.
On the other hand, Pranic Healing is presented in a more masculine and scientific way. There are step-by-step protocols to follow, different types of energies to use and during a healing, you’re constantly scanning to see how much negative energy is left to clean out of the area you’re working on. You need to use more of your mind than in Reiki.
Early in my journey, I was looking for a more intellectual, modern day understanding of energy healing. That’s what Pranic Healing offers. I imbue my own intuition and channeling into it to balance the masculine with more feminine energy to make it my own. Pranic Healers are told that it’s an art-- as your experience grows, you make it your own. I’m sure it’s the same with Reiki practitioners, too.
#3: Reiki uses sacred symbols to channel the energy of higher spiritual beings; Pranic Healing uses prayer and invocation.
My favorite thing about Reiki was the sacred symbols. During a session, you can draw certain symbols with your fingers to channel blasts of high frequency energy.
At the time, I didn’t know how they worked and neither did anyone around me. But I was amazed at the energy that would come through me when I drew the symbols, like lightning bolts. Other Reiki practitioners used the symbols creatively, too, which I loved.
Draw one on your bed before you sleep; draw one on each wall of your room to cleanse and protect the room, draw one on your plate of food before you ate it, etc.
I still remember this story. In a book I had about Reiki symbols and their many uses, a woman recalled that her car had run out of gas and sputtered to a stop. She got out of her car and made a Reiki symbol on her gas tank. She got back in the car and, miraculously, got herself to the nearest gas station a few miles away.
Did that actually happen? Who knows. But that story communicates the magical, mysterious, powerful quality of Reiki symbols that drew me in like a moth to the light.
How do they work? I believe that the symbols are connected to powerful higher spiritual beings in higher dimensions. It’s similar to the various alient-looking, ancient symbols of Archangels. Those symbols hold a direct line of communication and access to the energy of specific Archangels.
So, when you draw a Reiki symbol with intention and faith, you channel a blast of that spiritual being’s energy. I don’t know what types of beings or who they are, only that they’re of a very high level of consciousness and specialize in healing (it’s not a coincidence that their symbols were channeled to the founder, Dr. Mikao Usui).
My guess was echoed to me by a higher level Pranic Healing instructor, Chandon Parameswara, at a Pranic Healing course in Denver, Colorado.
On the other hand, Pranic Healers access blasts of higher frequency energy from higher spiritual beings through prayer. invocation and conscious connection throughout a healing session.
At the beginning, end and during a Pranic Healing session, Pranic Healers invoke for and channel the energy of the Supreme Being, Higher Spiritual Beings and the founder of Pranic Healing, Master Choa Kok Sui to make the healing more strong.
In fact, the more I consciously stay connected to these beings throughout a session, the more powerful and deep the session is. The more I hand myself over as a channel of their healing energy, the stronger the healings get. It’s been an exquisite journey of faith and surrender that continues over time for me.
Other Differences Between Reiki and Pranic Healing
In Reiki, energetic hygiene and contamination isn’t considered; in Pranic Healing, it is.
Reiki is more organized and regulated with major professional associations; whereas Pranic Healing currently lags behind, although I’ve been slowly watching it catch up.
I’m doing some Divine Healing from Pranic Healing, which is a typical Reiki technique!
Both Reiki and Pranic Healing have their strengths and their specific, unique ways of delivering healing to the body, mind and emotions.
Both Reiki and Pranic Healing can offer the relief, transformation and healing that you’re seeking. It just depends on which one you resonate with more.
Whichever one you’re attracted to-- find a practitioner you trust and commit to investing in your own healing and transformation. We’re all connected; by healing yourself, you’re doing your part in healing humanity and Mother Earth.
Click here to check out the energy healing services I offer.
For those of you who practice and/or receive Reiki, Pranic Healing or both-- what are your thoughts? Comment below!