Rei \u2013 ki = spiritual \u2013 flow (of energy)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Increasingly more people in the US and the UK go to reiki practitioners.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Reiki, a healing style created in Japan, is also increasingly administered in prestigious Western hospitals and taught at academic medical centers, including Harvard and Yale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Motives may be mainly negative: many people\u2019s disillusionment with established medicine, its rising costs, and depersonalized care.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Also, many have the intuition that the real cause of much illness lies elsewhere and that in many such cases, the illness is not solvable within the generally materialistic view of medicine on health and healing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Reiki explanations<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n These go from very esoteric (quantum, magnetism, biophotons) to \u2018generally spiritual:\u2019 not knowing how it happens but with a healing side effect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There is no evidence at all of any substance or energy flow, no measurement of reiki efficacy above placebo. Of course, performing double-blind studies with reiki is difficult. Practitioners and patients generally know what they are doing and receiving \u2013 or not \u2013 in a study compliant to patient consent. What would a reiki-placebo be like if not very much reiki itself?<\/p>\n\n\n\n This way, no state-of-the-art study has yet proven or disproven reiki\u2019s efficacy. Scientifically, placebo is seen by many as the explanation of what happens in the real world. To many in the \u2018scientific camp,\u2019 this is also where it ends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Compassion<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n To me, if performed well, it is a clear example of mainly Compassion at work. If done very well, it becomes an art. [see: \u201cIs Compassion Art?<\/a>\u201d] Of course, to some degree, there is also always some placebo involved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The reason that Compassion is not generally seen as the crucial factor lies in a general misreading of Compassion itself as a force of healing. [see: \u201cOnly Compassion Works<\/a>\u201d]<\/p>\n\n\n\n This also makes it essential to get beyond any supernatural explanation of reiki, apart from the blatant non-science itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Beyond reiki<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Call the mysterious \u2018Chi\u2019 force \u2018Compassion.\u2019 It doesn\u2019t come from the external universe, but from the universe inside, the one that we should urgently find out more about since it is us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Reiki belongs to the domain of poetry, which is principally OK, but it should be open. Don\u2019t let poetry and rationality be enemies to each other. This means getting rid of placebo-lies. They are not durable in the long term and have many side effects. [see RG: \u201dPlacebos have many \u2018side-effects\u2019 <\/a>\u201c] They set up rational thinkers against the more poetically inclined.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Not recommendable. Moreover, if science stubbornly sticks to the merely conceptual, people will increasingly turn to reiki and stuff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The only way out<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n seems to be to scientifically delve into Compassion, even if that means that we have to broaden the science. It\u2019s better than to throw half of healthcare into a wasteland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Also, if reiki-as-placebo is administered with Compassion, the placebo will increasingly be less needed. We\u2019ll get rid of non-scientific esotericism from the inside out. No such explanation is required. This way, we may develop a better view of underlying factors and deploy them towards inner strength and better health with less cost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It matters whether \u201creiki is real.\u201d It also mattered concerning astrology and alchemy, opening doors to astronomy and chemics. Or should we throw those out? No way. Even more so concerning us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is also my answer to acupuncture and any other deep-yet-irrational\/non-scientific healing method. [see: \u201cChi: Poetic Energy<\/a>\u201d] The future belongs to science. We can go there either fighting or Compassionately.<\/p>\n