Reiki, Fact or Fiction

What is reiki anyway? Some holistic mumbo-jumbo advanced by charlatans with promises of relief from pain and suffering, where modern medicine and pharmaceuticals have failed – a claim too sweet for the sick and desperate to ignore?

Well, according to Wikipedia, reiki is a spiritual practice developed in 1922 by Japanese Buddhist Mikao Usui, which has since been adapted by various teachers of varying traditions. It uses a technique commonly called palm healing or hands on healing as a form of contemporary therapy and is sometimes classified as oriental medicine by some professional medical bodies.Through the use of this technique, practitioners believe that they are transferring universal energy (i.e., reiki) in the form of ki through the palms, which allows for self-healing and a state of equilibrium.

So is it for real?

I don’t know, but balancing the body through the use of healing energies makes a lot of sense.  Plus this spiritual tradition has been around since the mid-nineteenth century (actually, since the time of Christ and Buddha).  So I’m open to the possibility until proven wrong.  Why is it so difficult to believe that healing is possible using the safe and simple life-force energy that flows through us naturally, when we believe in such toxic, expensive, and often worthless remedies as radiation and chemotherapy?

Mothers have the capacity to soothe their children’s physical, emotional, and spiritual hurts by the healing touch of their nurturing hands.  Are they unknowingly performing reiki?

In my novel, Between Now and Forever, one of my characters, a psychic teen named Tessa, quietly and effectively performs reiki on her classmates. The nice thing about fiction is that I can create a world, where wishes, hopes, and dreams become real and doubts and fears turn into obstacles to overcome. Anything is possible in a make-believe world, the kind of world Albert Einstein, Jonas Salk, and Louis Pasteur lived in until their world turned out to be real.

My heart is open to all forms of holistic healing.  In fact, I write about ancient spiritual traditions and their potential for healing in all four of my novels.  Between Will and Surrender introduces the Native American Medicine Wheel, which threads through my entire book series; Between Darkness and Dawn, introduces Wicca; Between Yesterday and Tomorrow, incorporates the labyrinth and divination tools such as Taro; Between Now and Forever highlights meditation, yoga, visualization, affirmation, and inner/psychic/healing abilities.  Nothing wrong with fostering a little hope.

I enjoy writing about ways in which ancient wisdom and modern science (East and West) merge.  Think Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, and Quantum Physics.  Think the Dalai Lama, Jack Kornfield, Wayne Teasdale, Larry Dossey, Ken Wilbur, and Max Planck.  Think Stanford University, the Esalen Institute and the Institute of Noetic Sciences.  Think bridges between religions and beyond.

So I’m not writing off reiki anytime soon.

Here’s to the success of my novels in leading to the revaluation of some ancient spiritual aids long ignored – as well as to entertain.