Editor,
Wednesday’s article “Spiritual healing via touch,” by Alexandra Swanberg addressed the field of Reiki (an energy healing practice) irresponsibly.
In the article, the author writes that the lack of scientific evidence to prove Reiki’s effectiveness is due to “too few studies on the subject and the inevitably poor quality of the studies.”
Following it is reference to an article written by the UK Reiki Foundation — an organization whose legitimacy rides on the effectiveness of this practice, so it should be taken with a grain of salt.
UKRFPhysicists have found the very detection of these biomagnetic fields as ridiculous.
Victor Stenger, Ph.D. of University of Hawaii at Manoa. in writing for The Scientific Review of Alternative Medicine (a medical journal) said, “Physicists have measured the magnetic dipole moment of the electron (strength of the magnetic field) to one part in 10 billion. … They surely should be able to detect any electromagnetic effects in the body powerful enough … in causing or curing disease … No elementary particle or field has been found that is uniquely biological. None is even hinted at in our most powerful detectors.”
The energy fields that are being read by the two doctors mentioned in the article are fields of radiation attributed to radiation left by the big bang, not a biologically exclusive field.
This is just the beginning of the flaws with the “energy healers,” who claim to heal by altering peoples’ energy fields.
Another study, done by a 9-year-old, Emily Rosa, was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. It called on both experienced and relatively new practitioners of the Therapeutic Touch (a practice with nearly identical methods to Reiki) to detect Rosa’s energy field through a cardboard partition.
The results showed a success rate of 44 percent (random chance is a 50 percent success rate,) and additionally the statistical spread of ability to detect her “field” and experience in the practice (1-27 years) was r = .23, which is well below the .7 that Statistics 145 teaches is required to be usable for linear regression.
This being the case, Reiki being framed spiritually gives it the effect most likely to be true: the placebo effect of making patients think they’re being healed; so at least it is as effective as taking a pill of sugar.
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Proponents of Reiki and other energy field healing “techniques” will point to the statistics provided by the placebo effect and claim victory without testing control groups (no studies on Reiki.org or the UK Reiki Federation’s website mention testing) would make the studies non-scientific in nature.
To talk about this practice as not only acceptable but successful is ludicrous, and I sincerely hope anyone who has spent money on such practices stops before they blow a fortune on something with no true effects.
Aaron P. Rivera
UNM student
