What is Hatsurei Ho?
September 5, 2026
What does ki actually mean in Japanese?
September 7, 2026
Byosen Reikan Ho is the scanning practice of the system of Reiki: passing the right hand over the body to sense imbalance or illness as a sensation, an echo from the body. It is taught by the Usui Reiki Ryoho Gakkai in Japan and appears in a 1933 book by one of Usui’s students, so we can reasonably assume Mikao Usui taught it.
Byosen Reikan Ho means to sense imbalances, or to sense illness, in the body. It is a scanning practice.
The Usui Reiki Ryoho Gakkai, the association in Japan, definitely teaches it, and the student of Mikao Usui who wrote a book in 1933 definitely taught it as well. So we can assume it was taught by Mikao Usui, since his students learned it and used it.
I think what has happened in the West is that there were lots of scanning techniques that had nothing to do with the system of Reiki, and people brought that idea in from the West at the same time as others brought this one in from Japan. I am not sure these are the same techniques or come from the same source, so keep that in mind.
In Japan it is often taught with just the right hand. The left hand can be loose or slightly clenched, and you scan over the body sensing for phenomena, for an echo from the body, some sort of sensation. That is the practice of Byosen Reikan Ho.
The name. Byōsen Reikan Hō, 病腺霊感法. Byō means illness, sen is a line or gland, the place where something has gathered, reikan means spiritual sensing, and hō means method: the method of sensing where illness has gathered.
Where it sits in the system. It is most often taught at Okuden, the second level, as part of hands-on healing, and it is the last step of the second version of Hatsurei Ho: meditation, contemplation, then sensing, then hands on.
A common misunderstanding. That you are looking for something wrong so you can fix it. You are listening for an echo and then sitting with it. The sitting is the treatment.
Try this. Scan your own body slowly with the right hand, a few centimetres above the skin, from head to belly. Where anything at all changes, stop, place the hand, and stay for a few breaths.
You might also ask: What is Hatsurei Ho? · What is Enkaku Chiryo Ho? · What does Reiki energy feel like?
Learn Byosen from a Japanese perspective with me inside Shinpiden+.
Byōsen Reikan Hō is one of 116 Japanese terms explained in my Japanese Reiki Glossary.
More questions answered: Reiki Questions Answered.
