Associated (bad) Press: Reiki makes the newswires

Do you think of Reiki as "humming and waving [your] arms as if shooing evil spirits" or "rubbing a quartz bowl with a wand"? 

I don't, and I'm a Reiki Master in three lineages. But now hundreds of thousands of newspaper readers, radio listeners and television viewers may have that unfortunate false impression, because this week the Associated Press described Reiki that way in a story that got picked up all over the place and prompted several of our readers to let us know.

The story was the first installment in a series "examining the use and potential risks" of alternative medicine," and it's clear from the introduction that this is not neutral or balanced reporting. Just look at how it's introduced:

"Ten years and $2.5 billion in research have found no cures from alternative medicine. Yet these mostly unproven treatments are now mainstream and used by more than a third of all Americans."

That is to say, let's start with an unreasonable premise -- that the only way a treatment can have any value is if it provides a cure -- and then attack natural healing modalities, which do not promise cures, for not meeting that false standard. Wow, what investigative journalism! 

Although a few local editors changed a word or two here and there, the story has remained the same everywhere it ran. Only the headlines have changed: 

"Unproven remedies: Top hospital willing to try 'mystical mumbo jumbo' "

"Alternative medicine popular despite science"

"Alternative medicines' effectiveness questioned"

"Alternative medicine is becoming more mainstream, but is it safe?"

"Alternative medicine goes mainstream"

"Alternative medicine has gone mainstream despite lack of cures"

And so on and so on, ad nauseum.

You can even watch the report in video form on YouTube.

The report was distributed by the news service along with a file photo of two Reiki practitioners working in the trauma unit at the University of Maryland hospital, identified as being from October, 2008. We suspect it may actually be from October, 2007, when it (or a very similar photo) was used to illustrate a Baltimore Sun article headlined "From a Curiosity to a Cure" (the article is no longer available on the Sun's web site) Here's what we wrote about it at the time:

"The otherwise excellent article is not well served by the headline, "From a Curiosity to a Cure," which attributes more power to Reiki than its practitioners do -- Reiki is not a cure."

Here's how medical Reiki expert Pamela Miles addressed the issue at the Integrative Healthcare Symposium earlier this year:

"It’s a healing practice, so healing, we’re not talking about cure. We’re talking about healing. Cure requires an outside authority to let us know if that’s happening. Healing is something that we have to decide for ourselves, right? It’s not dependent on tests. It’s subjective. And it’s ongoing. . . Reiki balances people, and that can help your bodies address whatever symptoms or conditions, or support the conventional approach to cure."

One of the Reiki-endorsing medical professionals interviewed for the report even says, on camera, that "We don't tell them that it's going to cure them. . . ."

In fact, the distinguishing characteristics common to all so-called "alternative" healing modalities -- from acupuncture to Reiki to chiropractic to aromatherapy to herbal remedies to massage -- specifically rule out any mention of "cures." Ethical, law-abiding alternative, complementary, or integrative medicine practitioners do not diagnose, they do not prescribe, and they don't promise to cure anything.

And there are many medical conditions that doctors treat but cannot cure: my mother-in-law's congestive heart failure, for example. She's on a dozen prescription medications and now has a pacemaker, but nobody's claiming that any of those treatments will restore her heart to full health. Yet the Associated Press isn't investigating any of that.

A generation ago, women with breast cancer were routinely subjected to the mutilation of radical mastectomy, which was considered necessary to cure them. It didn't. Children underwent tonsillectomies and women got hysterectomies as a routine rite of passage, with the promise that they'd be healthier as a result. That practice is no longer so common. On doctors' orders, patients took prescription drugs that are now considered so dangerous they're no longer on the market -- and more likely than not, many of the drugs now being prescribed will meet the same fate. And the AP wants us to wonder whether Reiki is "safe."

For the record, Reiki is completely consistent with the Hippocratic oath: it does no harm. The news reports suggesting it might not be safe never specify what the danger might be, except the false premise that it might somehow keep someone from seeking medical care. But Reiki is not a substitute for medical care, and I've never met or heard of a Reiki practitioner who claimed it was. 

So why the attack on Reiki and other natural modalities? Having spent decades of my life as a reporter, I know that, for one thing, journalists love to play not only the skeptic, but the cynic. It makes them feel like they're better than other people, and it makes them feel more like the classic caricature of the trenchcoat-wearing, cigar-chomping, hard-bitten reporter. And they get subtle but persistent reinforcement to play that role, especially when dealing with something that competes with their advertisers. Look at the advertising in any magazine, newspaper, or television newscast: prescription drug ads are what keeps the news organizations going. There will always be more money in pills and procedures than in prevention or in natural remedies, so these investigations based on false premises help everyone in the news business feel like they're doing their jobs, without threatening (or even questioning) the hand that feeds them.

A more important question is, what can we as Reiki practitioners do about it? We need to get our story straight, and we need to be clear about what is Reiki and what isn't. Sound healing, whether with crystal bowls or other means, is a recognized modality and it may be helpful: it's just not Reiki. Some Reiki practitioners also use aromatherapy -- but aromatherapy isn't Reiki. The AP didn't force the practitioners in Baltimore to wave their arms or hum -- that's how they represented Reiki. So we have to accept our own responsibility for these unfortunate misconceptions.