The Reiki Digest for August 23, 2006: Reiki Reaches 1.4 Million Viewers on Reality TV Show

Did last week's Celeb-Reiki, Tom Collett, walk on fire as part of his new-age experience on the reality TV series 30 Days? That's the question that remained as last week's edition of The Reiki Digest was published, just hours before the program aired.

Yes, he did. And so did this week's star Celeb-Reiki, Collett's then-girlfriend, now wife Misti. Tom may have been the primary one undergoing the experience, but Misti was even more profoundly changed.

Our other Celeb-Reiki was also featured in the program, although not connected to the Colletts: cancer survivor Taylor Matthews, who talked about how Reiki and other alternative therapies made the surgeries, chemotherapy, and other cancer treatments she had "so much more bearable."

All of us who practice Reiki owe these Celeb-Reikis our thanks. None of them was famous before the show premiered last week, but now they've all opened up in front of an estimated 1.4 million viewers: FX Network viewers at that. All those viewers are one reason we're featuring the program again in this week's digest. The other reason is the handful of Reiki Digest readers who, in their own new-age way, have Internet access but not cable television and didn't get to see the show.

Kudos as well to "30 Days" producer Morgan Spurlock (a Celeb-Reiki last week) and his crew for putting together not only a fairly accurate representation of alternative healing, but a compelling story as well.

A few weeks ago when I first met Celeb-Reiki Barbara Biziou, the life coach who led the Colletts through their monthlong transformation, she mentioned that she'd been doing a lot of work in television, and she was especially happy to be reaching more of middle America. I saw her again last night and I can report that after the "30 Days" episode, she's even happier to be reaching so much more of middle America.

Biziou isn't a Reiki practitioner per se, but she did train in the related art of Johrei early in her new-age career, according to her book, The Joy of Ritual. Unfortunately, the Reiki practitioner who gave Tom his first session was not named in the program.

The program includes, of course, the de riguer interview with the guy who says "this is all bunk" (possibly the motto of the magazine he edits, predictably called Skeptic.) It also includes an interview with a doctor at a respected hospital who points out that those who dismiss alternative therapies would subject them to much more scrutiny than they do conventional medicine.

It's a double standard, says Dr. Kara Kelly, Director if the Integrative Therapies program at Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital of New York-Presbyterian at Columbia University Medical Center. "They want to see evidence for the use of some of these therapies when they're not looking for the same evidence with conventional therapies."

"How important could it be to have these therapies available at every hospital?" Spurlock asks Dr. Kelly.

"I think it would help tremendously," the doctor says.

Matthews, the young cancer survivor, agrees with the doctor, and her personal story is even more convincing than the doctor's reasonable argument.

The unnamed Reiki practitioner greets Tom when he arrives for his first session, and explains Reiki a little differently than I would: "I'm a person that has had their channels cleared that I can channel this life force into you and relieve a lot of stress and pain. It's very subtle, but extremely profound."

During the session, the practitioner says something else that I wouldn't -- in fact, I rarely speak while the client is on the table, except to ask them to turn over or break the news that it's time to get up. She asks Tom if he has any pain in his knee, and tells him, "There's a lot of fire coming down this way. I'm starting to sweat."

The best part of the show, from a Reiki practitioner's point of view, is the peaceful, happy look on Tom's face when he gets up after the session:



"She felt the stress coming out of me, which surprised me because she said she was sweating profusely, which, normally, that's what I do. "It was pretty neat," he said. "It was amazing. I'm super-relaxed."

There's a brief glimpse of what appears to be a bottle of Young Living Essential Oil in the hospital Reiki scene, and we also see a cameo appearance by the New York Open Center as Tom joins a yoga class -- by the way, I'll be teaching "Qigong for Reiki Practitioners" in that very same classroom at the Reiki Symposium in January 2007.

What makes the reality show a real-life drama, however, is Misti. At first, she is suspicious of the word "spiritual," protesting that, as a Christian, she is skeptical of spirituality. The tension builds as Tom tries more and more new-age treatments or activities under Barbara's guidance, and Misti 's objections grow stronger. When he comes home with marks on his back after a cupping treatment from an acupuncturist, she blows up. It seems that Tom may have to back out of the show in order to save his relationship. But when Misti finally meets Barbara, she likes her immediately and becomes less and less skeptical. By the time the firewalk comes up, Misti is even more enthusiastic than Tom.

If you missed the show, don't worry: the first season of "30 Days" is already available on DVD, so it seems likely the second season will make it to DVD as well.

In other Reiki news this week, the latest edition of Reiki News magazine is now available online, featuring some but not all of the stories that will be in that magazine's fall edition. As far as I can tell, that is the only regular print magazine -- so far -- devoted entirely to Reiki.

Meanwhile, in the scientific world, physicists announced this week that they have finally confirmed the existence of dark matter. So according to the latest research, the matter we can percieve makes up about 5 percent of the universe. Dark matter, theorized but not yet confirmed, is thought to make up another 25 percent, and the rest -- 70 percent of the universe -- is so-called "dark energy" which also (so far) cannot be perceived. That news reminded me of Reiki.

This week's edition of The Reiki Show podcast, meanwhile, is bilingual, as the guest is Kansaku Yosei, who chairs the Japan Holistic Reiki Association.

But wait -- there's more. This week we introduce a new weekly feature: the Question of the Week. This week's question: Do you usually talk during Reiki sessions? Please answer by adding your comments to this post.