To understand the rise of Reiki in popular culture, it helps to understand what popular culture is. In short, it is the total of ideas, perspectives, and attitudes preferred and established by informal consensus within the mainstream of any given culture.

This is especially true of Western culture in the early to mid-20th century and emerging global culture of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Popular culture is heavily influenced by the media and is defined as anything that survives the fad or tadpole stage of life. The surviving ideas of popular culture permeate the daily life of a given society.

The main agent for the delivery of Reiki to the West was Hawayo Takata. Takata was born on December 24, 1900 and finally brought Reiki to the West shortly after World War II. However, Reiki did not enter the American mainstream until the 1970s. By the time of Takata’s death on December 11, 1980, Reiki had taken hold in the United States. Hawayo had initiated and trained 22 third-level or master-level practitioners.

With the exception of people who were already engaged in alternative perceptions of reality, the general public initially received Reiki with skepticism. Many thought that art was the domain of charlatans.

A study conducted by Dr. Eisenburb at a Boston hospital showed that more than 80 million Americans had participated in alternative medicine, including Reiki healing. Alternative medicine participants had spent more than $ 14 billion in expendable income on complementary health care. Today some colleges, like Naropa in Colorado, formally teach Reiki to students alongside other alternative healing technologies. In fact, 75 of 117 US medical schools offered elective Complementary Alternative Medicine (CAM) courses or included CAM topics in required courses.

During the 1970s, a registered nurse Dolores Krieger began introducing Reiki to her patients. Due to his efforts, the amount of research on Reiki has increased. Several medical research studies have verified the effects of Reiki, but have not explained how it works.

In 1998, the United States Congress established the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM). Since then, NCCAM has published a survey that reveals that more than 60 percent of doctors in divergent specialties recommended alternative medicine to their patients. A total of 47 percent of those doctors reported that they used alternative therapies themselves.

At the University of Saskatchewan, Dr. Ahlam Mansour of the College of Nursing received a research grant from the Canadian Breast Cancer Research Initiative (CBCRI) to conduct a study of the effects of Reiki in patients receiving chemotherapy for the breast cancer The study addressed anxiety levels, physical problems, spiritual well-being, and blood counts.

It would seem that from the ashes of World War II, Reiki has come to life like a phoenix would, bringing needed waves of relief to sick people everywhere. Despite religious controversy, primarily with Rome, Reiki continues to appeal to the public, and now the medical industry, as an effective and reputable healing technology.