Expert: Joe McSorley - 11/7/2006

Question
Joe,

You've been very helpful in the questions I've asked before. I'm trying my best to stay the path.  Anyway, I'm a physician and have recently been reading/learning about Reiki.  I was interested in your thoughts.

Thanks

Chuck  

Answer
Dear Chuck,
 Although I am deeply involved in Eastern Philosophy and martial arts I am also a great lover of science and the scientific process.  I know of the claims of Reiki and of qigong practioners and the many mythologies and stories surrounding both.  My take is basically a contradiction.  There was a high school science fair project undertaken by a young girl several years ago that simply consisted of a sheet of cardboard with two six inch diameter holes cut in it and placed perpendicularly in front of them.  In other words, you sit in a chair with a wall in front of you with 2 holes cut in it for your hands to go through. On the other side, unseen, is another person or no one.  The test was to have a Reiki person on one side and someone or nothing on the other.  If the Reiki artists can read energy fields then they should be able to determine whether or not there was a person on the other side. They put their hands through the holes and there was or was not, a person's hands directly under them by about 3 or 4 inches. Reiki and qigong practioners are emphatic that they can 'feel' human energy fields without any doubt, that this is a real and empirical experience.  Well, they failed miserably, far less than the law of averages would permit, picking an empty table top more than when a humans hands were under them. That's pretty discouraging.  On the other front qigong artists were asked at a major university to effect a petrie dish full of living cancer cells.  There were many types of chi/ki artists there from Reiki to Chinese traditions.  There was no observable effect on the samples save by one artist.  One Chinese qigong master, a rather formidable looking fellow, did effect the cells in that they increased their growth rate formidably.  The researchers did not know what to make of this, perhaps he increased the health of the cancer cells?  Who knows.
 Now, on top of all that here is my anecdotal experience.  I had experienced neck pain just left of C1 for many years.   There was a knot there that I thought was a bone spur.  It never changed and I constantly rubbed it.  While at an Osteopaths one day he recommended I come back to see a medical fellow that was interning under him from the Osteopathic hospital of Phila.  He told me this guy was a natural with necks and had a gift.  So I came back a week later and this guy talked about qi and all those things I've studied for years.  I lay on my back with his hands under my neck for about a half hour. All I thought was, "what a waste of time and money, he's doing nothing".  The Doc walked in and asked "How's it going" and the fellow replied ,"He's done........now".  I snickered to myself and sat up knowing nothing had changed.  When I reached back to my neck where the knot was it was gone, 100%, nada, zip and in fact it did not feel like the neck I've rubbed for 20 years.  I was dumbfounded, it was completely cured, full mobility. It has not come back now, 6 years later and my neck still feels like it's not my own. So, what do I think about Reiki? Skeptical but not throwing it out by any means.
 By the way, over the years I've met many masters of different disciplines who claim to have certain abilities.  I've only seen them play out about 10% of the time.
 I hope this has helped in some way.  Take care and let me know what you come up with.
         Joe