Is Reiki Faith Healing?
Image by BüniD
One of the most commonly asked questions about Reiki, is whether it is the same as faith healing. In short, the answer is no. Reiki works just fine without faith. When someone is fairly certain that Reiki cannot work, it still often works, but in my experience, such a person refuses to acknowledge any benefits, or that it was because of Reiki.
Going deeper into the topic, though, I would say that I don’t believe that there is such a thing as faith healing. I believe the term was coined to explain away things that science couldn’t understand. My post Placebo is a Myth, explains this in detail. What is faith healing after all? The common definition of faith healing is, healing that occurs purely out of faith. Is healing even possible without some degree of faith?
When you go to a doctor, would you go to him if you had no faith in his capacity to heal? If you were to have a candid chat with a doctor, he would tell you how many patients get healed even with the wrong treatment (and how many remain sick despite the ‘right’ treatment). Scientific studies have proven the effectiveness of fake pills time and time again. The faith healing a surgery can bring about is even more powerful. The Western medical industry banks on faith to bring about a very large percentage of healing. They’ve just made it uncool to have faith in anything else.
What is it that really heals?
One thing most people have forgotten, is that it isn’t the technique or the doctor/ healer that brings about the healing. Why else would people die after ‘successful’ surgeries? How could they survive after surgical or medical disasters?
Studies have also shown how doctors who show a personal interest in the patient have better results. Too often the Western medial system makes a patient feel like a lab rat, reducing the potential to heal. A doctor or therapist who can truly empathize with a patient will bring about healing even before the patient takes any pills or treatment. (Not a very lucrative option if you work for a corporate hospital with targets to meet) Haven’t some of us experienced this already? Would you call that faith healing too?
What really brings about healing, is a genuine desire – from the subconscious mind, not from will power – and a genuine openness to heal. An empathetic doctor/ healer can help you get there sooner. A faith in the doctor/healer, will make this process even more easy. When faith helps you open up to healing, THAT is faith healing.
Author of ‘Healing Through Reiki’, Ashwita learned Reiki in 1997, and started teaching it in 2006. She now incorporates other forms of energy healing, as well as hypnotherapy and past life therapy in her work. In her free time, she enjoys cooking, crafts, reading and painting.
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Interesting perspective. I have one question. In your first para you say that Reiki works without faith. And in the next para you say that healing is not possible without faith. Contradiction?
Thanks for your question, Preetam. Yes, I know that it sounds like a contradiction.
However, the faith I am talking about in the first case is the conscious kind, and in the second case it is of the subconscious kind.
A person who does not have (even subconscious) faith in the system will not even try it, because to him, it really is impossible.
In the first scenario, the conscious mind says it is impossible, because that is their belief system. But somewhere deep inside, they know it works, and that is when they are willing to ‘give it a shot’. And then, of course it works.
What a wonderful secirve. I offer my secirves for free at hospitals in my area. I am a cancer survivor (2x) myself and used Reiki to heal myself. I am so happy to pay it forward. I will send Reiki to this organization as well.