a community of practitioners

Studying and testing Reiki and other energy therapies

It's an early Sunday and I've had only 1 cup of coffee. Perfect time to throw something out to the forum to bend some minds and get people to think. "Evil Wicked Grin"

A lot of studies that I have reviewed "please don't ask me to cite specific studies at this time" find the effectiveness and skills of energy therapy practitioners to be inconclusive at best. Results of such therapies have been explained by the scientific/medical community to be more placebo effect since effectiveness of the practitioners can not be established or quantified in any form of measure. The type of studies I am referring to are blind studies testing the practitioner's ability to sense energy fields and/or specific issues or conditions in a test subject.

I offer an explaination for the lack of success in these studies. What is being tested is energetic activity on very subtle levels. These subtle energies are highly reactive to intent. So I wonder what the intent is of those who conduct these tests. Is it their intent to prove, or disprove the notion that energy terapies are affective? What is the intent of the participant in the study? Do they believe in energy therapies, or are they participating because they want to help disprove it? What if energy therapies are against their religion?

In my own experience, energy therapies are most successful when both the practitioner and recipient are open to whatever results from the session. When ego comes into play on either side, it limits and can totally disrupt the flow of energies.

Comments?

(I am double posting this string on the forum and also on the Energy Therapies group. Please forgive the cross posting, I am looking for perspectives from those who embrace energy work and also from those who may not)

Peace

▶ Reply to This

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Mary Ellen Derwis-Balaz on October 18, 2009 at 8:36am

Ah. The western mind strikes again. Results are subtle and sometimes the most subtle are the most profound. Kind of like titration of substances in Hoeopathy. What the western mind cannot measure does not exist! I encourage practitioners to keep on providing opportunities for the general public to heal themselves. Healing is about empowerment and is very subtle. Many times it cannot be measured.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Christopher A. Moyer on October 18, 2009 at 9:52am

Hi Gerry.

I like the questions you are posing. For what it's worth, they happen to parallel a discussion I was having with a student just the other day.

I don't see any reason why experiments could not be done with persons who are strong believers in the type of therapy being examined. However, it would be important that the experiment include randomization to treatment and control groups, and that it be double-blind in design. Otherwise, it would be impossible to distinguish any treatment effects from competing explanations such as placebo effect or spontaneous improvement.

To the best of my knowledge, all studies of reiki and similar practices performed under such conditions show no effect.

There is another way in which the existence of such energy therapies is challenged - no one has ever been able to detect the so-called energy. Proponents of the practices usually respond by noting that the putative energy is very subtle - though they usually do not define what they mean by that - and difficult or impossible to detect. This claim does not wash, though. Techniques of modern physics are able to detect and measure all kinds of miniscule energies. Further, if there are no instruments capable of detecting these putative energies, that needn't be an obstacle to such research - the providers and recipients of the therapy could be used as detectors. In other words, if there is any such energy at all, a person should be able to tell us when it is or is not being delivered. Again, this would have to be done under carefully controlled experimental conditions to be convincing. Again, to the best of my knowledge, all such efforts yield no findings.

As it happens, there are some very good and well understood psychological processes that explain the perceptual phenomena associated with energy medicine practices.

-CM

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Christopher A. Moyer on October 18, 2009 at 10:00am

Hi Mary Ellen.

Could you say more precisely what you mean by "the western mind"? Is there an eastern mind or mental process that we must use in these circumstances?

You mention homeopathy as an analogous therapy, but all scientific evidence for homeopathy seems to indicate that it yields nothing more than placebo effects. You go on to say that what cannot be measured does not exist - but surely there are, in fact, many things that do not exist, no? I allow that there are things that surely exist that we have not yet uncovered, but that does not mean that everything we can imagine but have not yet measured probably exists, does it?

Finally, you go on to say that "many times [healing] cannot be measured." Could you give a specific example? Wouldn't any detection of such healing in fact be a measurement?

-CM

(NB: I am not being sarcastic - I mean those questions exactly as they are worded.)

Mary Ellen Derwis-Balaz said:

Ah. The western mind strikes again. Results are subtle and sometimes the most subtle are the most profound. Kind of like titration of substances in Hoeopathy. What the western mind cannot measure does not exist! I encourage practitioners to keep on providing opportunities for the general public to heal themselves. Healing is about empowerment and is very subtle. Many times it cannot be measured.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Trevor Chisman on October 23, 2009 at 4:56am

Hi Gerry

What a great question, as a massage therapist I work in the same clinics as other therapist who offer energy work, most commonly Reiki. I myself have never "trained" in any form of energy work and therefore don't offer it as a treatment.

I am often surprised at how many clients come in specifically for energy work and how extremely defensive of the practice energy workers are, as mentioned above it is often stated as being very subtle and hard to measure and often also hard to define, this is also sometimes what it is marketed on as well.

I feel that as long as the therapist giving and the client receiving the treatment all feel the benefits of the treatment then does it actually matter if anyone can measure the energy, perhaps we should be measuring the benefit the client feels from the treatment, is that not more a measure of its effectiveness? Obviously someone who doesn't believe will probably feel no benefit and someone who does will feel great benefit, but each to his own. Should we be actually saying to the believer that it isn't measurable with science so it doesn't exist. is this not all too similar to people believing or not believing in religion? Can you prove it can you measure it?

I myself practice Chi Gung and have done under several teachers for over 10 years, I like it because I can forget about all the energy that is suppose to be moving around channels in my body and take away all the eastern philosophy from the practice and I can still see and feel a benefit for my body and my mind, I get a great stretch, I feel stronger and calmer but I don't think this comes from unblocking energy pathways and circulating energies, I think it comes from using my body in a certain way, making requirements from my joints, ligaments, tendons, heart, lungs and of course my brain.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Lorri J. Medaugh on October 23, 2009 at 10:52am

I total agree with you . Everyone involved has to be opened to what ever happens .. Here is something else to think about

The energy (to me is spirit) that is working in the room is not connecting the tester. Because that depletes the energy for the ne needing heaLing? Not saying this is so . Just a thought. Lorri