Reiki

[Fanatic]

Has anyone tried Reiki? Could you tell me a little bit about it?

Have you ever considered that you might be very patronising, entropygirl?

Have you ever considered your posting style?

Why don't you read through this whole thread s-l-o-w-l-y and do an objective analysis of your posts?

comfortmewithapples - it's clear that entropygirl DOES know more about the scientific method than many posters on this thread. This is not extraordinary at all. In fact, IRL, the method is pretty commonly poorly understood.

There are only so many ways you can say "the facts do not support your belief"

and to be honest people get offended when you point this out, however you do it.

I have tried a simple: "this has been shown not to be effective" and people still whine about respecting their beliefs....

maybe I should try: so you all seem like lovely well balanced educated people. I thought maybe you would like to know that unfortunately the balance of evidence from clinical trials suggests that Reiki doesn't work for any illness it has been tried against. I mean obviously some people feel it works for them, but that's likely the pesky placebo effect making life complicated. I found it lovely and relaxing though and the lady who did it was really friendly and smiley and it was a great way to escape from the house.

I think the question 'should people be allowed to discuss complementary medicine on MN without their threads being de-railed?' is quite interesting actually - you should start a new thread with this comfort.

Yes, entropygirl, that would be better, and more consistent with MN's purpose.

Do you think I enjoy being attacked, LeBFG? Do you think anyone does?

The aim of the rudeness is to drive people off the thread, and close down debate, and that is what it does.

And anyway the question really is: should trolling be allowed to fuck up MN?

Comfort, it isn't personal. We're discussing ideas. I don't think anyone means to deliberately offend anyone in a personal way. Offend an ideology, yes perhaps. But not individuals.

Re-read the thread, LeBFG.

I really can't be bothered to C&P all the rudeness, sneering and personal attacks. Surely you can read the whole thread yourself.

A few minutes on Pub Med and I have already found research with good results using Reiki and complimentary therapies.

This study (2012) on patients using Complimentary therapies including Reiki while under going radiation for breast cancer found significantly lower skin toxicity scores were reported in CAM users vs nonusers, respectively (mild: 34% vs 25%, severe: 17% vs 29%, P=.017).

Thisstudy (2012) on energy therapies in oncology (including Reiki, Therapeutic Touch and Healing Touch) and says there is growing evidence that energy therapies have a positive effect on symptoms associated with cancer.

Hilarious. At last. God, how I wish I'd done a quick google.

I daresay those PubMed studies will be rubbished by the "scientists" however.

Unfortunately, I haven't got full PubMed access, but the first study is prospective, not randomised double-blind and the second is a review. There is plenty of crap published in scientific journals too - at least this can be debated openly in journals without offending anyone's sensibilities.

It's all the crap around these therapies that gets me. Like CrunchyFrog says, we are apes and social animals. Touch and being with nice, warm, empathetic people makes us feel better. We don't need auras, chakras and minute amounts of distilled substances to explain this.

Why not roll up all these therapies into one single therapy and call it Touch-based Niceness Therapy? Explain that it is good for the mood, and also helps to reduce pain and inflammation, and hence healing after surgery/chemo (this is essentially what the placebo effect does - there's a good book on it by Dylan Evans). Make clear that it can't heal AIDS/cancer/heart disease/schizophrenia etc, but that it helps people feel better as they're going through gruelling medical treatment.

Thank you Dolly Dowser they look interesting.

I think when it comes to trials etc the phrase "lies, lies and damm statistics" comes to mind as people can really skew the data to promote whatever they belive in. Only today I saw an article (Daily Fail) saying that apparently now men are being told that smoking, drinking etc has no effect on fertility wheras they were before so "science" can shift and change as much as the rest of us.

I would be very happy to do a trial on Reiki. The only thing is that we all conduct healing energy. Its just that if you have studied Reiki you learn how to become more attuned to this energy. So entropygirl it could be that if you took the part of a "sham" Reiki master that you may actually carry alot of healing energy anyway. Thats why I think a Reiki trial is actually a hard one to carry out.

I think its great that you are so passionate about physics but I do think that you need to acknowledge that whilst this is your interest other people are allowed to have other beliefs and interests too.

Yes, of course, LeBFG; there is just so much crap published in scientific journals.

Can't quite see the agreement between 'plenty of crap too' and 'just so much crap'. Have you heard of the Jeff Randi Foundation? They offer a prize of one million dollars to someone, anyone who can prove their powers. If the science doesn't convince you, aren't you surprised no one, I repeat no one, has been able to claim it?

oops, James Randi

Oooh, what a FUN site, leBFG! Cheers

If Reiki therapists can detect an energy field with their hands, then they can clearly do so blindfold. Yet when I asked a reiki therapist, who said she could easily detect my energy field, to close her eyes and tell me when I moved, she was not able to do so. When I sat absolutely still, she thought she could feel me moving near her.

This supports my suspicion that reiki practitioners can be quite genuinely feeling "something", but what they feel is internal to them rather than to any other person. It seems quite feasible that a person might feel some response of her nervous system to the known presence of another person , and misinterpret that as actually feeling an emanation from the other person.

Ever sit close to an attractive stranger on the train? Feel anything? Of course you do- but is what you felt an internal response to the stranger or reception of an emission from the stranger? There's a worldview paradigm shift in how you answer that question.

I'd like to see simple blind tests of whether a reikologist can actually detect the presence of someone behind a screen on a better than chance basis. I would expect any effect (no matter how honestly believed in), to vanish.

forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=61429
Me like :)

Of course it is possible that my generally hateful disposition, as comfort so continually seems to allude to, would prevent me from even conferring the placebo effect....

If I could actually make someone feel more unwell by waving my hands over them (on average after a control trial) then this would be equally valid evidence that Reiki works.

I am not going to rubbish the studies....if you do enough studies it is a statistical certainty that some will show efficacy. It's not their fault if they got unlucky/lucky depending on perspective. I will wait for the next Cochrane review to come out and let them rubbish or praise the study and report on the new balance of evidence.

I have just had a horrible thought....you could do a test with live people and heated corpses and see if a Reiki master can tell the difference. Obviously only exposure of a bit of leg or something would work and the live people would have to lie very still......