But I'm not qualified to assess this. Wait till Wolfgang takes a look. He's the closest thing to a scientist around here.

Yes, and I'm hoping he takes a look at the studies Two Bears posted too - from Hartford Hospital and Harborview Medical Center in Seattle. Here's quote from the Harborview article:

Researchers at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, Washington are attempting to add to the depth of knowledge about reiki by using a $304,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health to determine whether it can ease the pain and suffering associated with fibromyalgia, a debilitating rheumatic condition that affects roughly six million Americans.

In the words of Dr. Nassim Assefi, an internist and women's health specialist at Harborview,

"As a medical student, I had studied traditional Chinese medicine in China, and had seen some remarkable results from qigong and acupuncture treatments that could not be explained by the Western biomedical model, so I was already open to the possibility of other healing paradigms," Dr. Assefi explained in an e-mail to Acupuncture Today. "Shortly after my patient passed away, Harvard offered me the opportunity to receive reiki training, and soon thereafter, I integrated reiki into my everyday patient care. I remain an open-minded skeptic about the mechanism of reiki, but I have been impressed by my anecdotal experience; every time I use reiki on patients, they feel better.

"No high quality studies have thus far been published on the efficacy of reiki for pain. Thus, I set out to apply the highest scientific standards to objectively answer the question of whether reiki is beneficial in the treatment of fibromyalgia, a chronic pain syndrome that is not well treated by conventional methods. If reiki proves to be effective for the treatment of fibromyalgia, our unique clinical study design will help answer preliminary questions about how reiki works."2

There are two other areas of abuse that concern me even more than abuse of scientific research methods or bureaucratic procedures - and those are

1) abuse of the public by preventing them from being accurately informed about / provided with natural alternative therapies which may eliminate their need for costly and dangerous drugs, as well as reducing time spent in hospital wards and clinics, thus freeing up those facilities and medical personnel for the next person who requires them:

2) abuse of the public through all the misinformation and charlatanism out there disguised as "New Age healing methods". Remember that techniques like Reiki and Huna work by affecting what the scientists are now calling the body's "Biofield". There is very little scientific understanding as yet about this subtle bioelectric "field", although it has been the focus of traditional Chinese medicine like acupuncture for thousands of years.

In the hands of an unscrupulous or improperly trained practitioner, techniques like Reiki can be dangerous to both the "healer" and "healee". They can affect a (receptive) human being on all levels, mental, emotional, physical and spiritual - not to mention financial - for better or worse. Unfortunately, I do have quite a bit of personal experience with this. Reliable public information about these techniques from the medical/scientific community will go a LONG way toward putting the charlatans out of business.

Re Karla's article: I see no better way of bridging any "chasms" between Science and the "New Age" than learning about, practicing and working towards at least a modicum of scientific understanding of traditional spiritual/energetic healing techniques like Reiki and Huna. I don't see how books like Karla's help the situation, except by generating profits for those who choose to engage in such "wars" rather than getting out there and putting their "new-age" techniques to practical use, helping others.

GUEST Ooh-Aah, I know Two Bears personally and at the risk of speaking for him, I suspect he's just being his usual out-spoken blustery on-line self, and not making a play for anyone's sympathies. He does not take people's responses to his work or his opinions personally, be they positive or negative. In spite of the image his posts create, he DOES have a healthy respect for the rigours of scientific method and procedure, and recognizes it's importance. He just doesn't consider Science to be the be-all and end-all, the "last word" on this subject in any way - and neither do I.

daylia