Is Reiki bogus or legit?

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JohnStrachan

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My sister-in-law is a “reiki practitioner” - an accreditation she apparently earned after doing a two week course on line. There doesn’t seem to be a great deal of medical evidence supporting this alternative procedure. She tells me she can promote healing via the body’s energy fields and that she is able to channel negative energy away from the body. She can even do this over the phone. It seems almost demonic to me. What are you thoughts and what does the church say about this?
 
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The Atlantic has a really good examination of this subject that’s worth a read:


The consensus seems to be that it does seem to work in many cases, and is becoming an accepted practice at many large, reputable hospitals, even though scientists don’t fully understand why.

As for whether it’s demonic or not, I don’t know. I don’t see any reason to think that it would be, but I have no personal experience with it myself from which to judge.
 
Yes, it is bogus. Any temporary healings that come from that are from the dark side.
YouTube has many testimonies of people who were brought out of that darkness.

Moira Noonan wrote a book “Ransomed from Darkness”…“The New Age Christian Faith and the Battle for Souls”.

She tells her story and gives her testimony in the above book. It was Our Blessed Mother who helped her out of new age practices.
 
I just take it as the preternatural abilities of humans. We didn’t lose everything in the fall.
 
This is very similar to acupuncture, which shouldn’t work but does in some case. The answer appears to be the one-on-one attention and the placebo effect. One interesting thing about acupuncture is that done incorrectly it is just as effective as when done correctly.
 
Reiki is an occult, new age practice, which is basically magic by another name. It is not acceptable for Catholics and would be a sin to participate in and could open you up to demonic influence. The Church document “Jesus Christ the bearer of the water of life” is somewhat helpful for these topics.
 
JohnStrachan said:
My sister-in-law is a “reiki practitioner” - an accreditation she apparently earned after doing a two week course on line. There doesn’t seem to be a great deal of medical evidence supporting this alternative procedure. She tells me she can promote healing via the body’s energy fields and that she is able to channel negative energy away from the body. She can even do this over the phone. It seems almost demonic to me. What are you thoughts and what does the church say about this?
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USCCB:

GUIDELINES FOR EVALUATING REIKI AS AN ALTERNATIVE THERAPY​

 
Is Reiki bogus?

The ‘spiritual practices’ of Reiki?

Yes… Unequivocally. The so-called philosophy behind Reiki’s spiritual aspect definitely goes against Catholic belief.

The physical aspect of Reiki?

Maybe… Maybe not.

Let’s look at the physical aspect of Reiki outside of the spiritual mumbo-jumbo. There are recorded results of Reiki. Whether these are placebo effects or are actually caused by the physical process of Reiki has not been fully determined. The jury is still out.

Before we dismiss it, I think it will help to look at other Eastern medicinal practices which have recorded benefits but also have debunked philosophies surrounding them. Yoga is the most popular of these. Catholics cannot participate in the occultic or spiritual beliefs surrounding the practice, but they may practice the movements as a form of low-impact exercise. It is especially beneficial for those suffering from arthritis as the movement helps promote lubrication in the joints. Acupuncture also has a debunked philosophy but many doctors have noticed results. The doctors know that it does, in fact, work in some cases. They just don’t know how. While not as widely known, the most accepted Eastern medicinal practice is cupping. The philosophy has been debunked and was dismissed by the Western medicine for decades, if not centuries. Despite this, some doctors studied the practice and, after years of research, actually figured out how it worked. It is now available at most Physical Therapy centers and I have personally benefited from cupping in rehab for a knee injury.

Looking at the physical process, one thing jumps out at me about Reiki which could have medical value. I practiced martial arts as a form of exercise for years and learned about pressure points. There are some pressure points which inflict pain with slight pressure but there are also points which simply provide huge amounts of nervous stimulation without the pain. Many of these non-painful points are located under the positions of the hands in Reiki. If used in quick succession, these points can provide so much neural stimulation that it can cause a person to temporarily pass out.

The possibility of Reiki actually having some effect may lie in these pressure points and nerve clusters. As the effects of the pressure points are temporary, it may be that the stimulation caused by Reiki affect the brain through these nerves to temporarily disrupt normal brain patterns, resulting in the effects which have been observed in some cases. This is in line with the pressure points above, as the points are in slightly different locations person to person and different pressures being applied to those points affect each person differently.

So, to sum up…

The philosophy of Reiki?

Bogus.

The physical reactions to Reiki?

The jury is out.

God Bless,
Ben
 
Hmmm. Do you have some articles or citations? About cupping, acupuncture? For their effectiveness, that is?
 
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I think a lot would depend on the practitioner. But in general I would go with what the science says if there is any. This and Therapeutic Touch are similar and I think the supporting studies are slim.
 
I don’t have any articles I can cite. I received my information from various doctors (and a PhD candidate friend).

Cupping I had explained to me by both my physical therapist and a friend of mine who is in the PhD program for physical therapy. Cupping creates a suction over the skin above the injured muscle. This suction draws blood into the injured area, stretching the capillaries in the tissue, allowing for a temporary increase in blood flow following the cupping procedure. This allows more nutrients to flow to the affected area and allows for faster healing. Cupping, along with deep tissue vibration massage, helped cut my recovery time in half for a torn meniscus.

The acupuncture has been explained to me by both my physician and my PhD friend. The needles are believed to act in a similar way to the possible pressure point reasoning for Reiki above. They are believed to stimulate clusters of nerves under the needles, especially when combined with a slight electric current, to affect the nervous system into dealing with internal stimuli differently, causing the results which have been recorded (primarily in the realm of pain management and combating nausea in cases of chemotherapy).

The problem with proving the acupuncture results are that every person has these nerve bundles in slightly different places (and thus the acupuncturist doesn’t always hit them correctly) and even if the needles were properly placed, every person reacts slightly differently to the stimulation.
 
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This article is a good survey of the practice.

There is a prevailing myth in our culture that the placebo effect is trivial, as in “just a placebo effect.” I saw a documentary about brain scans done on people under the placebo effect and, oddly, it can be a healing thing in and of itself for many conditions. How Placebos Change the Patient's Brain

As a Catholic, however, I’m uncomfortable with reiki.
 
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If it’s a physical therapy thing, and provides relief for a patient, I’d say it’s good. Massage helps, heat/cool, stretching and whatever else.
Yoga exercise is good. I don’t believe the devil is waiting for a person to do the right sequence of stretches to possess their soul.
I almost think, “he banishes devils by the power of the devil”.
The “spiritual” part, I say, “Pooh!”
Dominus vobiscum
 
JohnStrachan said:
My sister-in-law is a “reiki practitioner” - an accreditation she apparently earned after doing a two week course on line.
Click to expand...
Oh yeah, that sounds SUPER legit. :roll_eyes:

Not even worth giving this two minutes of thought, honestly.

If there is some physical benefit, I would think one would at least need hands-on in-person training to learn and practice it properly.
 
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From a spiritual standpoint it is indeed dangerous as it invites demonic influence. From a scientific standpoint it is unproven. It is extremely unethical to charge people for things that haven’t been scientifically proven. As I explained it to a client of mine, it would be like me charging someone to pray for their soul. Science has yet to prove the Christian concept of a soul and science has yet to prove universal energy or Qi/Chi/Meridians etc.


 
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If someone is already trained and registered as a physical therapist, this training period is somewhat similar to the certification for use of other specialty techniques or equipment. The courses like this aren’t usually meant to teach from a layman’s perspective. I know from some research that others who have attended similar professional Reiki training courses were required to be nurses, physical therapists, licensed massage therapists, etc… before they were accepted into the program. It was possible that this training course had similar requirements.

If it was an intensive full two weeks, then I believe that it probably was legitimate. The online portion may have just been because of COVID-19.
 
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I think that it does work for some people - power of suggestion if nothing else. It was not originally a new age thing. It comes from Japan, from a Buddhist monk who was interested in healing and took it upon himself to learn about different healing techniques.
'Throughout his education, Dr. Usui had an interest in medicine, psychology and theology. It was this interest that prompted him to seek a way to heal himself and others using the laying on of hands."
However, learning it online is a bogus new age thing.
 
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