In local news, the Plain Dealer reported on the “Hands to Heart” Reiki clinic at MetroHealth hospital. The same reporter wrote about her own Reiki session a day earlier.
Finally! A clinic dedicated to administering placebo. Naturally, we have to give it an Eastern-sounding name, and plenty of positive testimonials, and it becomes a virtual gold mine! Of course, they assure us that the sessions at the clinic are free, but what about when their clients become hooked, and start wanting private sessions? And what about the peddling of CDs, books, and other merchandise along with the sessions?
While the article felt like it was trying to do its best to remain neutral, there was definitely a strong hint of implied acceptance of Reiki for what it claims to be. There were several points in the article that would threaten to mislead an unknowing consumer into thinking that Reiki is a plausible treatment.
From the article:
The hospital’s clinic offers unconventional therapy for those who have found conventional medicine only goes so far.
Only goes so far?! And how far, pray tell, does Reiki go? This would imply that Reiki somehow goes beyond “conventional” medicine. If this were true in any sense, then Reiki would become conventional medicine!
The article is a bit deceptive in a few other places. It says,
…[R]eiki has found acceptance among the hospital’s nurses as a complementary therapy. But the doctors are “a bit of a more challenging group to get,” she said, because there are no medical studies that prove [R]eiki’s effectiveness.
What it should really say is, “There are studies that tested Reiki’s effectiveness, and found no effect.“. Here’s one, for good measure.
The article also fails to mention that, if the principles behind Reiki are true, they would invalidate most of our laws of physics and our understanding of biology and physiology. So why haven’t any “Reiki masters” been invited to Stockholm for the Nobel ceremony?
I applaud the doctors for being “hard to get” with respect to this foolishness.
August 19th, 2009 at 4:13 pm
They teach us to be dilgent and God fearing, yet in church they fail to teach that when Christ healed, he used his hands. Hmm. Interesting.
With respect to this foolishness? Our world is filled with mysteries that have not yet been discovered. We live with conventional everything because it what we’re being told is all that’s available.
National Geo has only computer images of the bottom of the sea, but we haven’t actaully been there yet. Space, all we have are telescopes and ‘evidense of ice’ with could mean life exitisted. But we haven’t actauly seen it for ourelves. I’ll bet you follow that with avid interest.
yet, ask you to belive in something and keep an open mind and it is foolish.
The reason there is no documentation of Reike’s healing effects is because skeptical evidense hounds want something hard and solid. They would not even bother to spend thier precious time looking into it because of thier jdugement of it from a distance.
I have been recieving it now for months. I can relax much easier, I have had an easier time letting go of guilt issues and anger issues. I’m at better balance then I was and the old things that used to keep me up at night, like O.C.D. are slowly going away WITH OUT DRUGS.
Why aren’t people like us being asked our opions? Becasue our world still has a way to go about what is FAIR medical knowedge. and we need to have a world view- not a tyrantical world view- a healthy loving world view of peace and healing for all, without greed.
You think a doctor is going to tell you to go get reike when he would loose his valuble income? No! Of course there are no studies done on it. Sometimes you need to have several sessions done on a weekly basis to see results. Why?
becasue its about ENERGY, our body’s range from very very dense energy to subatomic particles! Do you recall sceinece calss in grade school.
What is everything in the universe made up of? Atoms. What are atoms? ENERGY.
Our emotions are even a form of energy. If not dealt with properly, stay in our energy bodys and ‘clog’ our cells causing dis-ease. When we use good energy to flush out the bad, amazing things happen. We start to feel better again.
Do us a favor and actually go get a session, pay for it. Document your findings. get another one. Ask questions, document your findings. get another one. Thing of a childhood issue that you have been forced to burry in your gut and ask the practictioner to help you release it.
Document your findings. Then write another article.
August 19th, 2009 at 5:28 pm
@sarah,
Do me a favor, and go take an actual science course at a community college. Take a course in logic… mathematics… physics…anything that will help free your mind from this convoluted, Bronze-age thinking that entraps your consciousness. (This is, of course, after you take a course in grammar.)
I won’t get a session of Reiki, for the same reason that I won’t go on an expedition to find Santa Claus.
Medical knowledge is not fair, and it shouldn’t be. Either a certain treatment works, or it doesn’t. If it works, it will become part of mainstream medicine. If it doesn’t, it should be rejected. Reiki has been rejected by medicine. It has no effect beyond placebo, and no aspect of it is plausible under the currently known laws of physics.