Catholic Reiki masters group rebuts bishops guidelines

A group of Catholic Reiki masters has responded to the controversial new guidelines on Reiki issued in March by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, issuing a point-by-point rebuttal and calling for further dialogue with Reiki-practicing Catholics.

"Catholic Reiki Masters do not agree with the Bishops Guidelines about Reiki," the Catholic Reiki masters said in a statement published at MilwaukeeReiki.org.

"In preparing their document the bishops did not consult any Catholic Reiki practitioners, but instead based their evaluation purely on research and the internet . . . Many Catholics who use and practice Reiki find it to complement their Catholic spirituality not contradict it."

Click here to read the statement in its entirety.

The Catholic Reiki masters' statement explains that "Catholic theology as it is done by the bishops is almost exclusively based on a western philosophy of the world. This is largely based on the classical Greek philosophy of Plato and Aristotle. . . In this worldview there is no concept of "'universal life energy.' 

"Eastern philosophy has a very different view of the world and humanity. The concept of a basic energy force (chi) that is responsible for the health and well-being of all living things is an ancient idea that originated in China over 5,000 years ago. In Japan this concept is called Ki. . . . Coming from a completely different worldview it is easy to see why the bishops fail to understand the basic premise of Reiki."

In response to the bishops' claim that "Reiki lacks scientific credibility. It has not been accepted by the scientific and medical communities as an effective therapy," the Catholic Reiki masters wrote, "They do not support this statement with any evidence. The document is not short on footnotes but they do not cite a study that shows Reiki as ineffective."

The Catholic Reiki masters go on to cite evidence that Reiki is frequently used in hospitals along with several studies. "The large number of hospitals who have Reiki programs indicate that while Reiki is not completely embraced by the medical community it is far from rejected by it. The on-going study and research of Reiki will continue to provide valuable insight into this healing modality. . . .

"For Catholics who practice Reiki, Jesus is the source of healing," the group said in the statement.

"The medical practices and studies illustrate that one cannot merely claim Reiki is only 'superstitious.' Catholics who practice Reiki believe that Reiki can help them on their spiritual journey, not provide a dangerous exposure to evil forces. To claim that the worldview, which helps one to understand 'universal life energy,' is a 'no-man's land that is neither faith nor science' is a prejudiced view against Eastrn philosophy and belief. The bishops' document is merely a guiding document to help bishops discern the appropriate use of Reiki in Catholic institutions. The concerns expressed in the document can and should be adequately addressed in dialogue with Catholic Reiki practitioners."

The statement does not list its authors by name, but the site where it was published, MilwaukeeReiki.org, is owned by Reiki Master Jeffrey Montoya.

Two weeks ago we reported on the American Holistic Nurses' Association's response to the bishops' denunciation of Reiki, last week we told you about the fallout from the decision and some of the Reiki programs that have been discontinued as a result. For those just joining us,or readers who want to see all our articles on this topic on one page, click here. The latest articles will be on the top.

The bishops' guidelines and their impact will be among the topics we'll be discussing on Tuesday, May 19, in our first BlogTalkRadio discussion. You'll be able to call in and comment, or just listen, and/or chat, all in real time. And if you aren't able to join us live, you can listen to the archived version anytime. Stay tuned for more details next week.

Meanwhile, we welcome your comments: just add a comment to this post on our web site, or email editor@thereikidigest.com.

Catholics and Reiki in the wake of US bishops' ruling

Greetings to our many Catholic readers. We know you're there even though we've only received a few comments. We know because our web traffic has quadrupled in the past week, ever since the US Conference of Catholic Bishops officially denounced Reiki. We know because while we can't see all the details for each visitor, we have noticed quite a few who've surfed in from a particular convent or church or Catholic hospital. And we know because we've had the biggest one-week jump in subscribers since this publication began nearly three years ago. 

Here are the comments we've received so far on this issue, and a couple of interesting items we've found on the web this week.

Kaddu wrote: "Ha ha ha! Religious leaders are simply hilarious... all across the world! :-D"

Lori Wilson wrote: 

"Because I write grants for a Franciscan group and am a Reiki volunteer at a local Catholic medical center, I felt compelled to respond to this article. While I am not Catholic and may not have an entirely unbiased perspective, it does seem as if there is a disturbing trending away from Reiki and other forms of alternative healing since Pope Benedict XVI replaced Pope John Paul II.

But here's the interesting thing: the leaders of my Reiki volunteer group at the medical center are also lay Catholic ministers and perform pastoral functions for the patients. They are passionate about Reiki and their ministry in equal parts.

And, if the Catholic-based corporation that runs the medical center did not approve of our band of Reiki volunteers (which includes at least two nurses and one nun), it would have never let us offer Reiki in the cancer center, in med-surg, in pain management, or the ICU. We are expanding into other different departments of the medical center because Reiki works: it does no harm and can only help at physical, emotional, and spiritual levels. A few of our patients and their caretakers are leery of the offering of Reiki, but so many more are glad to receive it because they realize that it just might be another avenue to recovery or comfort might support their healing in other ways.

I might add that the other major hospital in our city, which is secular, does not have a Reiki volunteer program. Thus, we offer a unique and helpful service, regardless of whether it's Catholic or not.

After reading over the Bishops' guidelines, I suspect that they may be purposely clouding the concepts of both Reiki and healing that can be otherwise translated across any belief system (or no belief system, for that matter). That tells me that, at the very least, Reiki is starting to make inroads in places that we might not have seen it in as few as five years ago.

So, while I'm definitely concerned about witnessing a kind of fear and suspicion that faintly echoes back to the Inquisition and earlier, I am heartened to know that Reiki is becoming more and more visible and accepted as a healing system by the public and that there are many, many liberal Catholics who will take their own counsel about Reiki and not the Bishops', as they have with other controversial issues in the Church."

JoAnne Robinson wrote: 

"I realize that this document is considered "The Word" according to the US Catholic church, but note which particular bishops signed the actual document, not one is from a major metro area like New York, Los Angles, Chicago. I just have to wonder why such a controversial topic did not get enough backing from the major areas of the country to warrant their signatures?

In my opinion, all publicity is good publicity. Reiki certainly is getting people to take a look and think about many things. It saddens me that many will suffer as a result of this document."

Dennis Dupuis wrote:

"Hello. I just want to share an email that I sent this morning to the “webcoordinator @ usccb.org”, the website of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. It probably isn’t the appropriate address, but it IS the only one that I could find listed on their website.

Dear sir,

I must take a moment to share with you my disappointment in the recent guidelines from your organization regarding Reiki. The point I most wish to share with you is that Jesus did this. He did not call it “Reiki”, but it was the same thing. I am a Catholic who has a deep belief and desire that I should live my life as Jesus lived his. “What would Jesus do?” is a wonderful approach to every life situation. The laying on of hands and wishing to be an instrument of God’s love in the healing and comforting of another living being, especially our fellow humans, especially when this fellow human is suffering, is how Jesus lived and how I believe he would have us live now. How can this not be in accord with our Catholic faith and practice? I think our Bishops got this one wrong and pray that God will guide them to further consideration, information, and understanding.

In Peace,

Perhaps The Reiki Digest could provide its readers with an address, email or otherwise, where we could share our thoughts with the bishops? Especially those of us who are Catholic. Thanks for the heads-up."

Peace, Balance & Joy, (PB&J!)

Dennis
Barrington, NH"

The bishops didn't seem all that open to input on the issue, but in any case, here's their snail mail address and phone:

U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops

3211 Fourth Street, N.E.
Washington, D.C. 20017
(202) 541-3000

Sue Routner wrote: 

"Dear Janet,

It is very sad that the bishops feel the need to denounce Reiki and feel justified to do so publicly. I also find it very odd that they argue on the basis of scientific proof, as they have up until now not provided any such proof that God exists.

I found out not so long ago, via a programme on EMTV (now called Controversial TV (!)), that the Inquisition still exists, and its name is something along the lines of Symposium of the Doctrine of the Faith, and it's headed by the current Pope, Ratzinger!

The bishops' attack on Reiki finds a parallel in the Codex Alimentarius which is currently being hotly debated and aims at curbing people's right to access vitamins and minerals, as well as to abolish univerity degrees in complementary medicine. The culprit in this case is the pharmaceutical industry aiming to eliminate the competition, but seen from an overall perspective, in both cases it's the establishment working hard on eliminating freedom of choice and freedom of belief.

Although it sounds odd to say so in the 21st century, the witch hunt is far from over and we need to remain alert and stand united to prevent the attacks on complementary therapies from getting worse.

Sue Routner

Reiki Practitioner"

At CatholicReiki.com, we found this thoughtful post, and we hope the author doesn't mind our quoting it here: 

". . . The Bishops offer these as guidelines only. I don’t see any thing that requires a change in belief.

While it is a carefully thought out work, it’s done from an outside view, not one that’s experienced the connection with God through Reiki. With the very many views on what Reiki is, I can’t really blame the bishops. We don’t really have one voice as to what Reiki is. In some ways this is good as we must internalize the message of what Reiki is rather than following a message from a Reiki central authority. . . ."

Click anywhere on the quote to read the whole post.

Meanwhile, we thought The Guardian in the UK had fairly high standards, but unfortunately it repeats some of the most common misinformation about Reiki. Can you point out the mistakes about Reiki in this article?

There's been much discussion of the bishops' new guidelines at Beliefnet, including this post found on the web from a nun who practices Reiki, and in Jacksonville, Florida, a reporter interviewed local Reiki practitioners as well as a spokesman for the local Catholic church.

Thanks to all who have contributed to this discussion. To share your thoughts on this issue or let us know about a news item or commentary on it elsewhere, just click on the word "comments" at the bottom of this post on our web site, or email editor@thereikidigest.com.

Reiki pioneer Paul Mitchell responds to Catholic bishops' guidelines on Reiki

(Editor's note: Before he met Hawayo Takata in 1978, Paul Mitchell had spent 10 years studying for the Catholic priesthood and later taught religion in a Catholic high school. He was one of the 22 masters trained by Takata. Mitchell and his wife Susan have practiced Reiki for more than three decades. He sent this response to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops as well as to The Reiki Digest.)


Response to the US Conference of Catholic Bishops on Guidelines for Evaluating Reiki as an Alternative Therapy


By Paul D. Mitchell

I received my Reiki training from Mrs. Hawayo Takata, the woman who brought Reiki out of Japan to Hawaii about 1934. As I am one of the 22 masters that she trained, I can speak with some authority about how she understood Reiki and what she taught. I have been practicing Reiki for 31 years and am also a practicing Catholic.

Hawayo Takata defined the Japanese word “Reiki” as universal life energy or God-power. It was clear to her that this energy came from the Source of all life and being. The bishops analysis of the practice of Reiki came from purely academic research without one interview with anyone who practiced Reiki whether Catholic or otherwise. Academic research without the benefit of human experience is simply…academic research. In any case, the bishop’s evaluation focused on two fronts: Healing by Divine grace and Healing by Natural Powers.

Reiki as a natural means of healing

The bishops attest that “universal life energy” is unknown to natural science. Is this really true? Can we say that life energy is unknown to human experience? What makes a seed special? Is it not that it contains a spark of life? What is the difference between a living and a dead plant, animal, human being, or a living or dead cell? There is an energy of life. It is universal to all living things. Does natural science know much about the energy of life? No. Does that make it not real? Not at all. Universal life energy is simply a name for the energy of life, which all living things have an intimate relationship with, or they would not be alive.

Western science has very little to say about life energy. Why is that? Possibly because our scientific method is limited by its tools of measurement. Plato posited the existence of atoms and it took centuries for science to develop the technology to verify their existence. What tools have been developed to measure the energy of life?

The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, under the National Institutes of Health has funded 5 studies on Reiki. There have been other studies. The difficulty remains that we do not have the mechanisms to measure subtle energies.

The placebo effect is known to medical science and it is unexplainable. Research subjects know that they may receive a treatment that will help them. Of those that are given the placebo, approximately 1/3 will show a benefit. We do not know how this happens. What this tells us is that there are huge gaps in our knowledge and understanding of the dynamics of healing. Why is it that the placebo effect is not the target of massive research?

Assign a hundred million dollars to researching life energy and we will know much more about it. Why would the bishops ask us to avoid something that science hasn’t researched although millions have found it helpful and useful? While it is now known how aspirin works, it was prescribed and used for 70 years before the mechanism of action was understood scientifically.

While we often assume that the essence of scientific research is to understand that which is unknown, it is more accurate to say that scientific research is about measuring. True science is much more impressed by what it doesn’t know than by what it does know. Why refer to this area of unknown as “no man’s land” as the bishops did? The spirit of scientific inquiry is to endeavor to understand our natural world as experienced by humanity. For all of our advances in medicine, there is a huge area of the unknown and unexplored in the realm of health and healing. Where a given scientific community chooses to focus its research at any given time in history is not the measure of reality, simply a choice affected by many factors. In our country, one of the major factors in medical and health care research is the drug company lobby.

I cannot accept the bishop’s conclusion that Reiki has no support from natural science. First, because the existence of the energy of life cannot be denied even though our tools for such measurement are understandably limited. Further because there have been and will continue to be studies on the effect of Reiki treatment. We must be fair in our assessment of studies being inconclusive. Just because we cannot measure something at this time does not mean it does not exist or is not beneficial.

Reiki and the healing power of Christ

Hawayo Takata identified Reiki as coming from God. The bishops assert that for Christians, the access to divine healing is by prayer to Christ as Lord and Savior. Is this the only access to divine healing available to Christians? Jesus taught us to pray to the Father for whatever we need. Was he excluding healing in this teaching? The gift of healing is listed by St. Paul as one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Does the Holy Spirit grant the gift of healing to Catholics and Christians alone?

There are some basic misunderstandings about Reiki that the bishops concluded from their academic research. Mikao Usui did not invent Reiki, he received it. He was a gifted healer, but more important, he was able to pass on this gift. It is a blessing to mankind. Do all human beings have the potential to be healers? The fact proves the possibility. Throughout human history there have been people blessed with a special touch. This is simply true.

The gift of healing touch can be passed on. Reiki is one form of this passing on. Can we explain it? Not really. It is not necessary to fear or exclude what we cannot explain adequately. One of the bishop’s main arguments against Reiki as divine healing is that the practitioner has healing power at their human disposal. In truth it is paradoxical, it is and it isn’t. Life energy does flow through the touch of the Reiki practitioner but the outcome is not predictable. Sometimes an obvious health benefit is seen, sometimes not. What does seem predictable is that the individual feels better. In this way it is very similar to prayer. We may not get what we want, but if we pray, we always feel better. Feeling better is a significant part of healing.

For some people who have experience with prayer, doing Reiki is prayerful. I have been studying and practicing Centered Prayer as taught by Fr. Thomas Keating. Resting in God is how he describes this form of prayer. Often people doing Reiki feel that they are resting in God and in that resting and allowing, well-being is enhanced for the one receiving treatment.

If one looks on the Internet, the information about Reiki can be very confusing. Reiki is very simple and very profound. The simplicity and the profundity can be difficult to comprehend and explain, and each person with experience of Reiki does the best to explain their experience in the terms that they are familiar with given their particular worldview. The explanation is not the experience.

To do justice to an investigation of Reiki in relationship to the Catholic faith, one must begin by asking questions of Catholics who have had experience with Reiki. Perhaps the first question might be: “How has Reiki affected your faith as a Christian and a Catholic?” This is the starting point. There are other questions that can follow. But without this research grounded in real human experience, everything else is simply…academic.

More comments on the Catholic bishops' guidelines on Reiki

Our discussion continues on the US  Conference of Catholic Bishops' recent denunciation of Reiki. If you're just joining us, you can find previous comments on this topic here and here.

Before we get to this week's comments, I'd like to sound a cautionary note about what we're doing here. While all comments are welcome as long as they are on topic and civil, I'm becoming concerned about the tone some are taking. I believe we should be focusing on speaking for Reiki, rather than criticizing the Catholic church in general. For one thing, "dissing" the bishops or the Catholic church is probably the least effective means of getting them to reconsider. Also, Reiki practitioners who are Catholics can speak for themselves within the organization. Those of us who are not, IMHO, would be more effective concentrating on correcting the misinformation on which the bishops' decision was based. Thanks!

Lilia V. Marquez wrote:

I was disappointed with the announcement made by the Catholic Bishops. I was raised as a Catholic and attended a Catholic school during my grade school years.
Each one of us has an innate ability to heal ourselves and Reiki is one of the many tools that we can use for ourselves.

Reiki is a Japanese healing technique that utilizes deep relaxation to calm the mind, reduce stress, relax the body, and ease the spirit. Reiki can be combined with other healing modalities. Reiki is NOT a religion. . . .

“The mission of Usui Reiki Ryoho (Healing Art/Method) is to enhance mutual well-being for oneself and others, on one hand, by fulfilling a peaceful and joyful life mentally and physically and, on the other, healing the sick”. –Usui Sensei

Reiki is such a Blessing in my life and one of the reasons why I'm enjoying life to the fullest.

Michelle wrote:

I am blown away every day at how our religious leaders attempt to 'control' the masses....so many sisters practice this healing technique, will they be banished! The Pope has not yet given his blessings either way, how did it get this far without it! But then again, a Pope who has no time to visit with victims from an earthquake in the most holy of lands shouldn't be expected to think about peoples healing....

Rose de Dan wrote:

As I wrote in my blog article Reiki Attunements for Animals (the writing of which was inspired by the very same ruling of the Catholic Bishops), it was this history of persecution that caused me to break away from the Catholic Church as a teenager, a decision I have never regretted.

As a former Catholic it saddens me to see that the Catholic Church has once again chosen to act from the emotions of fear and segregation, rather than choosing to embrace the true teachings of Christ which teach love and acceptance. What are they afraid of?

Their stand does not seem to offer healing or Christ-like compassion to those who are ill and who need it most. Many people who could have benefited from the complementary modality called Reiki may now suffer for the Church's narrow-mindedness.

It is my intention to send Reiki to the situation. Hopefully other "healing" institutions that have their focus on the true benefits of complementary health care for their patients will expand the programs that they offer.

John Coleman wrote:

It is encouraging to see that the Bishops are aware of Reiki. It is disappointing to see that they appear to fear Reiki for what it can facilitate (self empowerment for one and why would they fear this, I wonder!!).

Some years ago in Ireland a leading Catholic Priest came out with a similar stance on Reiki. The result was a growth in the use of Reiki by many Catholics. I trust the same outcome will come as a result of this sad publication.

Interestingly they are guidelines only, surely if they felt so strongly about Reiki they would make it compulsory not to use it, or do they simply prefer..as usual.. to spread fear in the minds of the laity who still respect them.

Alice Norris wrote:

I am Alice Norris, an extraordinary Reiki Master. My beliefs are Christian to some, and atheistic to others. I no longer adhere to many concepts that the church supports. The state of the church saddens me. I left the non-Catholic church I was in due [to] belief disagreement. It seems that Christ's teachings have been completely lost in today's church. The love and power that Jesus spoke of is no longer in the church. The church I attended was completely against any form of healing, while Jesus said we would do greater things than he was doing. He was a healer, and if I want to follow him, I should be doing similar things. I am (although it may sound horrible to some of you) hoping that this further church dogma will shake some great people into realizing the truth beyond their familiar authority figures.

William Lee Rand issues rebuttal to bishops on Reiki, others preparing responses

It's been nearly two months since the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' new guidelines denouncing Reiki, and now some of the best-known names in Reiki are issuing responses. 

William Lee Rand, executive editor of Reiki News and president of the International Center for Reiki Training in Southfield, Michigan, issued a prepared statement earlier this week. The statement began with words of caution about Internet research:

"When considering the value of the bishops’ statement, it’s important to note the sources they accessed. Much of their research came from information published on Internet Web sites. Overall, the Internet isn’t a good source of factual information because there is no requirement that information published there be checked or approved for accuracy. Anyone can set up a Web site and publish anything they wish," the statement said.

"What often happens is that authors of sites copy from each other, so if inaccurate information is published on one site, it can easily spread to many sites across the Internet. If one makes use of the Internet for research, one must use a developed set of selection criteria that limits one to only the most respected and reputable Web sites. Otherwise, one runs the risk of accepting rumor and misinformation as fact.

"This is especially true for Reiki Web sites. Reiki information has been riddled with inaccurate ideas from the beginning of its practice in the West. Many Reiki practitioners, teachers and authors fail to check the accuracy of the information they base their teaching and writing on, and this has had a detrimental effect on the quality of information published both on the Internet and in Reiki books."

Rand's statement goes on to correct some common misinformation about Reiki and cite several scientific studies on humans and animals that found Reiki to be helpful for various conditions. He also cites the American Holistic Nurses Association's response to the bishops' guidelines.

The statement concludes:

"Reiki is practiced by followers of many religious traditions. Although some practitioners integrate Reiki into their existing religious beliefs, Reiki is not a religion, doctrine, or dogma. Reiki is grounded in the principle of compassionate action, which is common to all religious traditions. While each religion has the right to create its own rules, it’s within the nature of human dignity and free will for each person to decide which path to follow and what activities are appropriate for them."

Meanwhile, in Australia, Frans and Bronwen Stiene of the International House of Reiki have announced that they "busy getting ready a VERY long article about Reiki and the Catholic Bishops" as many of their students have been asking for a response from them.

We'd like to hear from other Reiki teachers and practitioners: have you prepared a response to the bishops' guidelines to give to clients, students, and/or your local media, or posted a statement on your blog or web site? If so, please send us a link. The Reiki Digest has become a hub of information about the controversy and we'd like to make our collection of news items and comments on the subject as comprehensive as possible. 

Send your statement or comments to editor@thereikidigest.com, or add them as comments to this post on our web site.

2009: The year in Reiki

Note to our email subscribers: you'll receive the email version of our year-end edition on Tuesday, December 15.

Welcome to our special year-end edition of The Reiki Digest, in which we look back at the year's most notable events in the world of Reiki as well as some of the highlights from a year's worth of Digests. If you missed any of those highlights, just click on the name of the month in each item below to see the archives.

This year we'll also be including a couple of new features: the Reiki Story of the Year and the Celeb-Reiki of the year.

There's no question on what the story of the year has been: the denunciation of Reiki back in March by a group of men who seem to know little about it except for some popular misconceptions. That attention only raised Reiki's profile all over the world.

And while we've had many exceptional Celeb-Reikies this year -- a Celeb-Reiki is a celebrity somehow associated with Reiki -- one in particular stood above the rest. He's the world's best-known Reiki-practicing athlete, and we're happy to report that he's NOT Tiger Woods.

So let's get started by rolling the calendar back to January, when our readers had some great, wide-ranging discussions on Reiki and personal responsibility, nonduality, and the Law of Attraction. And when an airplane landed in the river outside The Reiki Digest's world headquarters, we discussed how following the Reiki precepts helped everyone on board survive. We also reviewed some great Reiki meditation CDs and talked about our favorite Reiki music.

In February, we continued our discussion on Reiki and oneness (and our differences on that topic).

We spent much of March discussing what it means to be a master, but the year's biggest Reiki story broke at the end of that month, when the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops suddenly issued guidelines denouncing Reiki. Subsequently, although Reiki training and services were eliminated at most Catholic health-care facilities, more people than ever began asking, "What's Reiki?" And that in turn led to a surge in demand for Reiki treatments and training -- perhaps not the result the bishops had expected.

In April, we met Reiki's ambassador to medicine, and we held our first annual Cherry Blossom Festival, which included a cherry-viewing gathering and Waka Fest, a celebration of the 31-syllable poetic form that is an unheralded part of the system of Reiki.

By May, the fallout from the Bishops' guidelines was affecting many Reiki practitioners and clients. Reiki made the pages of Time magazine, but unfortunately the article misidentified Reiki as "faith healing" and included other misinformation. Also in May, We discovered that although it was widely reported that actor Matthew Broderick was a Reiki master, he told an interviewer that it wasn't the case after all. A small study found distant healing to be effective for chronic pain, and we began our Reiki Update Training online classes to help Reiki practitioners bring their training up to date without starting over in a new lineage.

In June, this publication celebrated its third anniversary, and we heard from a Reiki practitioner in New Hampshire who felt she should send a thank-you note to the bishops even though her Reiki program in a Catholic health-care facility was discontinued in the wake of their new guidelines. We published several other responses to the bishops' guidelines, and a study found Reiki effective on cells in test tubes -- presumably none of the cells had any expectations about the treatment so the placebo effect wasn't a factor.

July's Tour de France three-week bicycle race saw a great performance by Hayden Roulston of New Zealand, the world's best-known Reiki practicing athlete and the 2009 Celeb-Reiki of the Year. Thanks to Reiki, Roulston came back from a life-threatening heart condition to win Silver and Bronze medals in the 2008 Olympics and distinguished himself in his first Tour de France, placing third in one stage after leading the pack most of the day. Days after the tour ended, Roulston became a father. Just a few days ago, he talked to a television reporter about how he first laughed at, then tried Reiki, and began feeling beneficial effects right away. You can watch the video online and see Roulston receiving a Reiki treatment.

In August, we launched our Global Reiki Census, and since then more than 400 Reiki practitioners have submitted their information for our count. But we know there are far more than 400 people practicing Reiki on this planet, so if you haven't done so yet, click here to include yourself in the census. Also in August, we published the first installment in an ongoing series, Mikao Usui: In Context. And we participated in Mari Hall's Virtual Reiki Retreat, led this year by Pamela Miles. We also learned a little about the art of Japanese calligraphy.

In September, we established our Reiki Events Calendar, and while we've had a few glitches, it has been a popular free service and continues to grow. One of the glitches is that for some, the calendar displays only Greenwich Mean Time, so if it appears that some events are taking place in the wee hours of the morning, look more closely at the listing or contact the organizer for the correct details. We also learned about spiritual self-protection for Reiki practitioners, and published the second installment in the Mikao Usui: In Context series, this time focusing on Christianity in mid-19th Century Japan. To our surprise, we discovered that tens of thousands of Japanese people were openly practicing Christianity, even though it was officially outlawed there, months before Reiki founder Mikao Usui was born.

In October, we published a dramatic story of recovery by a Reiki master who suffered traumatic injuries in a freak accident, and discovered that the Reiki precepts can turn dog-walking into walking meditation.

We gave thanks in November, enjoyed a musical Reiki session, and faced the illusions of fear.

And in December, we found some poinsettias that received Reiki as part of the care they got from master gardener volunteers, we went shopping, and we discovered that Santa Claus was visiting Japan years before the system of Reiki was founded.

Barring any breaking-news developments in the world of Reiki between now and the end of the month, we'll be taking some time off for an end-of-year retreat until the New Year! Happy holidays to all, and thanks to all our contributors, our readers, and our advertisers for your support and participation in our 5,000+ global community of Reiki practitioners.

Reiki Roundup

Our ace reporter, Google News, seems to have become a bit nearsighted of late. We ask it to scan the globe for news about Reiki, but the last few weeks it's been searching almost exclusively on the United States -- most likely because we're searching from within the U.S. 

This week, we've specifically assigned it to search several other countries, and in other languages, in hopes of better serving global community of readers in more than 150 countries.

We begin in Swindon in the United Kingdom, where Reiki Awareness Week will be celebrated June 6-13. Highlights include a radio broadcast about Reiki and free Reiki sessions at the public library.

From there, we travel to Argentina for an El Turista article about the benefits of Reiki, and on to Chile for an article on Reiki and eating. 

Next stop, Armentieres, France, where we find a brief article about Reiki for health and well-being. We go from there to Austria, where -- gesundheit! -- we find a derStandard article about complementary medicine that mentions Reiki.

In the United Arab Emirates, Reiki gets a mention in an article on dealing with stress. And in British Columbia, Canada, hospice volunteers are being trained in Reiki and other modalities.

In Israel, the Jerusalem post has an article on a "spiritual bar-cafe" where a "former world Reiki master"  with a "million dollar career" is one of the featured attractions. We've never heard of a "world Reiki master" and we wonder what that is, exactly, and how it differs from any other Reiki master. We've also never heard of a Reiki master with a million dollar career -- not in Reiki, anyway.  

A local (but not global) Reiki master gets a writeup in the Falkensee, Germany, newspaper. And in India, we discover in a report from London that Jennifer Aniston's dog, Norman -- a frequent Reiki recipient -- is not always as welcome on the set as his owner might like.

There are a few Reiki news items from the U.S. as well, including this one (with a lovely photo) from the Star-News in Wilmington, North Carolina, and a Davenport, Iowa, article about entrepreneurs, including a Reiki practitioner, whose businesses are flourishing despite the slow economy.

In Orange County, California, Marcus at California Reiki has a great article on how Reiki has helped a breast cancer survivor. And in Florida, Pamir of Reiki Help blog is celebrating the tweeting and plurking of his 200th Reiki One-Liner(SM). Congratulations, Pamir!

Finally, in addition to our ongoing conversation here, there's a lively discussion under way at Pamela Miles's new blog on "Bishops' Syndrome" -- that's her name for the "unfortunate malaise" (as she puts it) that's spreading as fast as swine flu. The symptoms include:

• incomplete information
  
• inadequate investigation
  
• illogical conclusions
  
• finger-pointing
  
• arbitrary lines drawn in sand
  

The comments so far show that many Reiki practitioners are just now learning about the March 25 statement from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops denouncing Reiki.

And at About.com, Holistic Healing Guide Phylameana Iila Desy also has addressed the Catholic/Reiki controversy -- and so have her readers. 

We've received some comments on that very subject since our last issue, including this from Pamir:

While the Bishops' statement is not irrelevant, I question (with an open mind) if it's really worthy of so much attention and energy.

I've been teaching Reiki for 15 years and haven't received a single question from my students.

I haven't commented here for the reason below and am doing so now to say this:

"Opponents confront us continually, but actually there is no opponent there. Enter deeply into an attack and neutralize it as you draw that misdirected force into your own sphere." --Morihei Ueshiba, founder of Aikido

Thanks, Pamir.  

David responded to Pamir's comment:

It's unfortunate that the Bishop's statement is not completely irrelevant: Reiki is being discontinued in certain Catholic institutions.

I, too, wondered about the energy being spent trying to "reason" with an almost completely "unreasonable" institution. Logic is not what makes the Catholic Church tick.

It is imortant, however, that everyone who is writing so eloquently and energetically is presenting the truth about Reiki to the public, and that the Bishop's ignorance is being challenged.

Thank you all for doing it!

Pamir replied:

Reiki is and will always be. This is a blip on the horizon of Reiki.

And Reiki Master Tim wrote:

I am shocked. It is everywhere in the Bible about healing hands. for instance, 1Cor 12 7;9 and in Mark16 18 and in luke17 11;19 also in Acts4 30 also in Acts 28 8;9 and also in John 14 12. how can the Pope condem this when there is proof? It is in the greatest book ever written,,,,The Holy Bible

A clarification regarding that last comment: the Pope has yet to offer an opinion on Reiki publicly -- the March statement was from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. Perhaps some of the misinformation on which the bishops' statement was based can be cleared up before the Pope addresses the issue. From what we've read, many Reiki practitioners are "sending Reiki to the situation." 

Public TV's Religion and Ethics Newsweekly features Reiki and the Catholic Church

Nearly a year after the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops issued a surprising denunciation of Reiki, a national television newsmagazine has aired a feature on the controversial guidelines issued last March by the bishops. This week's episode of Religion and Ethics Newsweekly leads with this report:



Correspondent Kim Lawton interviews Sister Madeline Gianforte, a nun who is also a Reiki master, and who continues to practice Reiki despite the bishops' guidelines, and Lauri Lumby Schmidt, a minister and Reiki practitioner who learned Reiki from nuns. She also talks with Father Thomas Weinandy, Executive Director for the Secretariat of Doctrine at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, about the guidelines.

Weinandy's comments indicate his unfamiliarity with Reiki, along with some unfortunate misconceptions. "God is God," Weinandy said, "And human beings are human beings, and we can petition God, but we can’t manipulate him, and we felt that this was what was happening in the context of Reiki...."

If Weinandy believes that Reiki practitioners manipulate God, then as we say in journalism, there's your story, Josephine! It would be headline news indeed if anyone were proved to be manipulating God! If he believes that Reiki practitioners believe they manipulate God, that's an unfortunate misunderstanding that could have been cleared up with even a modicum of research. And it makes us wonder what sort of research on Reiki went into the guidelines in the first place. From here, it looks like a few minutes of Googling, cherry picking the most extreme items that came up to prove a predetermined position. Condemning anything because of what a few people might say about it on the Internet is a troubling precedent.

For the record, Reiki practitioners do not manipulate anything.

Fortunately, the producers of Religion and Ethics Newsweekly did do quite a bit of research, although that kind of television report is by nature a "some say/others say" structure that allows no comments or conclusions.

So please watch for yourself, or read the transcript, and tell us -- and them -- what you think!

Holistic nurses group responds to Catholic bishops: 'Denying Reiki is unethical'

Is it ethical to deny Reiki treatment? Or to prevent a nurse from administering Reiki?

The American Holistic Nurses Association says no, in a statement issued in response to last month's new guidelines from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops denouncing Reiki and calling it "inappropriate for Catholic institutions." Since then, Reiki programs at some Catholic health-care facilities have been discontinued.

The AHNA points out that "the practice of holistic nursing is not subject to regulation by religious organizations such as the Catholic Church.

"Further, it is important to understand that any person, organization, or institution denying a patient Reiki or prohibiting a nurse from administering Reiki violates the ethical principles of patient and nurse autonomy."

The AHNA statement quotes Midge Murphy, JD, PhD, a professional liability risk management consultant:

"One of the essential core principles of health care ethics is respect for patient autonomy. Autonomy refers to the patient's self-rule and the opportunity to make meaningful choices. . . Disrespecting autonomy means ignoring, insulting, or demeaning those choices by not honoring the decisions and preferences of the patient . . . The [Catholic bishops'] Guidelines in effect would violate the ethical principle of patient autonomy because the Guidelines would deny a patient in a Catholic hospital or health care facility the right to choose Reiki as part of the patient's treatment plan." 

The statement goes on to point out that the bishops' guidelines also conflict with the AHNA's Standards and Scope of Practice. It also cites five studies "that support the efficacy of Reiki in reducing anxiety, reducing pain, facilitating wound healing, creating a sense of well being, increasing hemoglobin levels, and decreasing free radicals." The AHNA statement concedes that "studies involving Reiki are not conclusive and the exact mechanism in which Reiki healing occurs is unknown. . . 

"Not all natural phenomena are understood by science -- new discoveries are first ridiculed, then argued against, then accepted as obvious," the statement concludes.

Many thanks to holistic nurse and Reiki Master Teacher Lilia V. Marquez for alerting us to this news.

Bishops denounce Reiki: our discussion continues

Our readers are continuing to comment on last month's denunciation of Reiki by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops.

From Jean Bromage:

Janet,

This news pushed quite a few buttons for me last week and I found myself deeply disappointed. As I was raised Catholic and then left the church in my adult life, I have found Reiki a magnificent tool for connecting more deeply with my faith and coming to terms with some of the issues I've had with the Catholic church. Just recently I returned to the church where I grew up, after over a decade had passed, only to find myself in a completely different environment. I was amazed at how Zen the interior looked. The dark altar with all the heavy furniture had been replaced with a simple altar and a couple of chairs and a beautiful skylight had been installed. The baptismal in the back had a beautiful running fountain with stones and plants, inviting a touch of nature into the space. There was a beautiful lightness throughout the building that I had never experienced growing up. I wondered to myself if perhaps a subtle shift was happening within the church as a whole or if it was simply my own perspective that had shifted. I thought about my own spiritual journey over this past decade and how I've come to feel more deeply connected to my Catholic faith than I ever did when I was practicing, and I attribute much of that to Reiki. Just as Dennis mentions in his commentary, the teachings of Jesus in the gospels are filled with the idea that we are here to be channels of love, compassion, peace and healing for each other. Reiki has given me an outlet to practice these teachings in my daily life and to see where God speaks to us through the simple blessings we experience every day. Whether one believes in a God, the Universe or nothing at all, Reiki brings us more deeply into the journey of self discovery and that is indeed where Jesus was leading his followers - down that path of finding our own sense of God within ourselves. I have come to recognize for myself that I can have faith in these teachings without buying into a political structure that doesn't empower me to evolve spiritually. A great debate that has arisen from the different gospels ever since they were written is the argument of whether God is an external, enigmatic entity that we are here to serve, or if God is that great force that lives and breathes in each and every one of us. Reiki guides us in the direction of the later belief and I saw that belief represented by many of the Catholic teachers I had over the years. I also witnessed the former being taught and always found that to estrange people from the church instead of bringing them closer. Jesus did indeed teach his followers that it is possible to heal human suffering and every one of the Reiki principles can be found in the gospels. I do hope that some day the shift I had so gently and beautifully experienced that day when I returned to my hometown church manifests on a greater level. If everyone keeps the faith, it will indeed happen someday.

Peace & Light, 

Jean

From Graxwarrior:

I state a vested interest: I am a Reiki practitioner and a failed agnostic.
Statement of Fact.
Reiki is a Complementary Therapy. Not an "alternative" to anything!
Personal opinion
From the title onwards the "Bishops" have got it wrong, but the Roman Church has never been hot on truth; only "The Truth" - as they want everyone to believe it.

As for "Reiki lacks scientific credibility"; Have these people ever sought any scientific credibility for the events that they celebrate on the Friday of Holy Week? When they do, perhaps they'll be better qualified to comment on things they evidently do not understand.

Perhaps they should stick to astronomy.

The next item isn't a comment: it's a news story on a development that seemed inevitable in the wake of the bishops' statement. Two Catholic hospitals in New Jersey and New York will stop offering Reiki to patients. 

US Catholic bishops group denounces Reiki

We had to hold the presses overnight for this week's edition of The Reiki Digest to bring you coverage of an important story that broke just as we were about to publish our email edition: The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops committee on doctrine issued a ruling denouncing Reiki, calling it "not compatible with either Christian teaching or scientific evidence" and "therefore inappropriate for Catholic institutions."

You can read the full text of the ruling (in PDF) here.

It's breaking news, but this Reiki story has been developing for some time. Over the past few years, especially since Pope Benedict XVI replaced Pope John Paul II in 2005, various individuals in the Roman Catholic Church have made similar statements not only about Reiki, but yoga, acupuncture, and other modalities. Ironically, many Catholics, including nuns, have been practicing and teaching Reiki, often in Catholic institutions, for years. One of them, Sister Roseann Kasayka, Ph.D. and Reiki Master Teacher, of the Order of St. Francis, was the subject of the very first obituary in The Reiki Digest when she died in 2006. She was a pioneer in the field of geriatric care, and in December 2006, a different committee of the same organization that denounced Reiki this week dedicated a training conference to her memory in recognition of her contributions to the field. 

While Pope John Paul reached out to other religious and spiritual groups, Pope Benedict has been more confrontational, controversially criticizing other religions as well as science. Benedict has yet to make any statements on Reiki himself, at least not publicly. This week's ruling comes not from the Pope, but from the official leadership body of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States.

The document speaks for itself and we recommend reading it in its entirety, but the key points are in the conclusion:

"For a Catholic to believe in Reiki therapy presents insoluble problems . . . a Catholic who puts his or her trust in Reiki would be operating in the realm of superstition, the no-man's-land that is neither faith nor science . . . Since Reiki therapy is not compatible with either Christian teaching or scientific evidence, it would be inappropriate for Catholic institutions, such as Catholic health care facilities and retreat centers, or persons representing the Church, such as Catholic chaplains, to promote or to provide support for Reiki therapy."

The document cites some sources, including a few books about Reiki, but the major reference books on the subject are conspicuous by their absence.

We've been in touch with several Catholic Reiki practitioners since the ruling, but perhaps understandably, most declined to speak publicly about it. One of them wanted to spend some time in prayer before commenting, and others said they have no plans to abandon their Reiki practices because of the ruling. 

Dr. Olga Rodriguez Rasmussen of suburban Washington, D.C., a Catholic theologian who practices and teaches both Reiki and yoga, had this reaction:

"I read the US Conference of Catholic Bishops' Guidelines for Evaluating Reiki as Alternative Therapy with great interest - as a Catholic, a theologian, and as a practitioner of Reiki.

It is first of all, important to note that the operative word in this document is "guidelines." While everything in the document is consistent with traditional Catholic teaching, it does not carry the binding force of an Infallible Papal pronouncement or the weight of an Encyclical Letter. There is a hierarchy of importance that is accorded to documents that are released by the Vatican, and by local Conferences of Bishops.

There are many Catholic practitioners of Reiki, including religious women and priests, who have beautifully integrated the practice of Reiki in their healing ministry. I have had the pleasure of working with some of them who are deeply committed to their faith and their vocation. There are also a legion of individuals whose lives have been transformed by this practice.

Currently, there are many studies that are taking the practice and effects of Reiki under consideration. I for one, have humbly witnessed the healing of many of my Reiki clients - on a physical, emotional, and spiritual level. In some cases, Reiki has helped some to die and reconciled them to their faith.

It is also important to note, that the Catholic Church has historically taught that each individual must ultimately respect the dictates of his or her informed conscience. Personally, I do not believe that the practice of Reiki is inconsistent with my own faith. I believe that God is revealed in many ways, and many practices - if one is but open to the Presence of the Divine in one's life.

The practice of Reiki has become very mainstream and I believe it will continue to flourish."

Olga Rodriguez Rasmussen, D.Min.

Thanks, Olga.

As our regular readers know, The Reiki Digest has made an effort to correct misinformation about Reiki since our founding nearly 3 years ago, and we feel obligated to do the same in making a few points about this controversial ruling. 

The ruling states that "Reiki is a technique of healing that was invented in Japan in the late 1800s by Mikao Usui" -- actually, Usui founded the system of Reiki in 1922.

It also states, "According to Reiki teaching, illness is caused by some kind of disruption or imbalance in one's 'life energy.' Perhaps some Reiki teachers say that, but so far none of the teachers we've encountered in three different Reiki master programs has put it quite that way. Instead, they made the point that in Reiki we do not diagnose. If we do not diagnose, then we don't claim to know where any illness comes from. That's not our job.

The document states: "Much of the literature on Reiki is filled with references to God, the Goddess, the 'divine healing power,' and the 'divine mind.' " We don't know what literature on Reiki the bishops are referring to as they do not cite a source, but, again, that's not what we learned from any of our teachers.

". . . Likewise, the various 'attunements' which the Reiki practitioner receives from a Reiki Master are accomplished through 'sacred ceremonies' that involve the manifestation and contemplation of certain 'sacred symbols' (which have traditionally been kept secret by Reiki Masters). Furthermore, Reiki is frequently described as a 'way of living,' with a list of five 'Reiki Precepts' stipulating proper ethical conduct," the document states.

First, sacred ceremonies are not exclusive to either Catholicism or Reiki, nor are they necessarily in conflict with them. For example, my daughter received her bachelor's from a major European university that was founded by a 14th-century Holy Roman emperor. Her studies began with a sacred (but not Roman Catholic) ceremony with some secret aspects, the same ceremony used to initiate students since the school was founded in 1348. Second, which, if any, of the Reiki Precepts is in conflict with the Roman Catholic Church?

For today only:

Do not anger,

Do not worry,

Be humble,

Be honest in your work,

Be compassionate to yourself and others.

The document further states that ". . . Reiki lacks scientific credibility. It has not been accepted by the scientific and medical communities as an effective therapy. Reputable scientific studies attesting to the efficacy of Reiki are lacking, as is a plausible scientific explanation as to how it could possibly be efficacious."

People used acetylsalicytic acid, the active ingredient in aspirin, for thousands of years before there was any "scientific explanation as to how it could possibly be efficacious." There is no record of the Catholic Church denouncing it before scientists found an explanation.

The document continues, "The explanation of the efficacy of Reiki depends entirely on a particular view of the world as permeated by this 'universal life enegy' (Reiki) that is subject to manipulation by human thought and will. . . for the Reiki practitioner the healing power is at human disposal." Again, that's not what my Reiki teachers taught me. On the contrary, they taught that the meditative techniques used in Reiki help us keep ourselves out of the way as much as possible when giving a treatment, and the better we get at using them, the less we interfere with the energy. 

Another point on which all my teachers have been in agreement is that Reiki is not a religion, and neither the practitioner nor the recipient need believe anything in order for it to work. 

From a scientific perspective, we can reasonably conclude that the e. coli bacteria who received Reiki in laboratory experiments had no belief in Reiki at all and no opinion as to whether it would help them.

More unfortunate misconceptions: The document claims that Reiki is ". . .a technique that once mastered will reliably produce the anticipated results." In the footnote on that sentence, the authors state, "Reiki Masters offer courses of training with various levels of advancement, services for which the teachers require significant financial remuneration. The pupil has the expectation and the Reiki Master gives the assurance that one's investment of time and money will allow one to master a technique that will predictably produce results." They do not cite a source for any of those claims, all of which are completely contrary not only to what I learned from my teachers, but what I paid them for my training.  I do not tell my students anything of the sort, nor do I require "significant financial remuneration." I have heard that members of the Reiki Alliance once had a standardized fee of $10,000 for Reiki master training, but if that is still practiced then it is the exception rather than the rule, and Alliance members are now greatly outnumbered by practitioners who are not part of that organization.

It appears that rather than doing comprehensive research or reaching out to request information from Reiki teachers and practitioners, whether Catholic or not, the bishops have created a straw man version of Reiki, then ruled against it. What a pity that a significant part of the ruling is based on misinformation.

Meanwhile, I am reminded of what a Reiki colleague of mine was told when she showed up for her regular volunteer shift at a local hospice. "The archbishop says no Reiki," she was told by a sympathetic nurse there, "So from now on, just call it Therapeutic Touch."

Readers, we invite your comments on this issue. Add them to this post (click on the word "comments" at the bottom of this post on our web site -- you don't have to log in, just scroll down in the comments window and type into the blank white rectangle. Or you can email your comments to editor@thereikidigest.com.

Reiki mentioned in New York Times: 'US Nuns Facing Vatican Scrutiny'

It's in the last few paragraphs:

". . . another decree that affected some nuns was issued in March by the Committee on Doctrine of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. The bishops said that Catholics should stop practicing Reiki, a healing therapy that is used in some Catholic hospitals and retreat centers, and which was enthusiastically adopted by many nuns. The bishops said Reiki is both unscientific and non-Christian.

Nuns practicing reiki and running church reform groups may have finally proved too much for the church’s male hierarchy, said Kenneth Briggs, the author of “Double Crossed: Uncovering the Catholic Church’s Betrayal of American Nuns,” (Doubleday Religion, 2006)."

No longer welcome: Fallout from Catholic bishops' decision on Reiki continues to spread

It's been more than a month now since the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops issued new guidelines -- based in large part on misinformation and misunderstandings -- denouncing Reiki and declaring it inappropriate for Catholic institutions. The repercussions have now spread not only through the Catholic health-care system but beyond.

Here are a few of the latest news items:

Springfield, Illinois: Reiki therapy masters at odds with Catholic church

Grand Rapids, Michigan: Reiki teacher resigns from Dominican Center. . . .

Nashua, New Hampshire: Church ruling pushes reiki therapy out of hospital facility

And there are other stories that haven't made headlines. Here's a letter we received from a Reiki practitioner who lost her practice space as a result of the bishops' guidelines:

Hello,

I just wanted to share a situation that happened to me recently to see what you (and or others) think.

I am a Reiki Master Practitioner. In Dec. of 2008, I approached a local chiropractor asking if he had space to rent me so that I could begin to practice clinically. After a few discussions, he said yes and was excited to be able to tell his clients what I was offering, but also excited to help me get up and running.

Jan. 2009 I began my own practice out of the Chiropractic office. It's a small office with two massage therapists, a chiropractic assistant, and an administrative woman. I saw clients in January, February, and March. I even held an open house with a "Reiki Information Session" for the public in February that had a large draw, including a few people who traveled over 100 miles for the information session! I was only renting space on Tue and Thurs, and acquired a second location to see clients on M-W-F. From Jan - March I accumulated 48 clients!

At the end of March, I received a call from the Chiropractor who seemed disturbed asking to meet with me. I asked what it was regarding, and he said, "Contra Indications to 'what I was practicing' ". I agreed to the meeting. When I arrived to the meeting, the chiropractor grabbed a stack of papers and led me into an office. As I was sitting down, he said that the office admin had a 'problem' with Reiki. It seems that it was "against her religion". He showed me a stack of papers that she had printed off from the internet with highlighted sections of things like: Against Jesus, occult practice, work of the devil, etc. The chiropractor told me that he was ok with what I was doing. In fact, as a result of my working with his wife, she is now in the process of signing up for her first Reiki course. There was a knock at the door, and in came the admin woman. She was quite red in the face, and very nervous, shaking and at one point, even through her pen! The meeting lasted a little more than an hour and a half with the first half grilling me on my own personal beliefs. The chiropractor had a client to treat, so he left, and the admin continued to grill me about the information she found about Reiki. I told her at first that I really didn't feel qualified to discuss her Religious concerns as I did not have formal training in that area. I shared that Reiki was a spiritual practice, and not affiliated with any religion. I tried to talk about the difference between spirituality and religion, and she just got more red in the face. I guided her to speak with a member of her religious order, and she stated she already had. I asked her what she wanted from me. She gave me a laundry list of things she was demanding to have me prove that they were not evil in nature. From the "sacred attunements", the use of symbols, to the fact that it was a Buddhist monk who was "enlightened"...and much more! I told her I would have to gather some data for her, but that I would do it from an educational stand point, to share what Reiki is....and is not.

A week later, after much contemplation and discussing the issue with my husband, Reiki Masters, friends, and from leaders from my church, I met again with the Chiropractor, the admin woman, and I brought one of my 3 Reiki Masters along to help me "smooth things" if necessary. It was another fairly long meeting. I spoke, and so did my Master about the peaceful nature of Reiki, what it is, etc. The admin woman was still adamant, and actually told my Master and I that we were doing "the work of the devil" and she would "pray for our souls". I shared that I understood and respected her opinion, but that I held a different one. I stated that I was going to continue to practice Reiki. I asked the Chiropractor where this left our rental agreement. He stated aloud to everyone, that he did not feel that Reiki was harmful to clients, and that he supported it. He asked the admin woman how she would feel if I continued to practice at the clinic. The admin woman said she could not deal with it, and would have to leave. The chiropractor then stood up, paced, said, "I can't believe you both are putting me in the middle of this". He turned to me, and said, if one of you has to go, that I would have to leave. She has been working with him longer, and he does not "pay" her for her services...she does it in trade for chiropractic. I was given no notice, and had to leave. He then left the room, left the clinic and drove away.

I have had many responses to this situation. One of my Reiki Masters said to let it go...be the bigger person and walk away. One of my Reiki Masters said get a lawyer!

I am a very peaceful person. Even more so since I started practicing Reiki! I pretty much avoid conflict like the plague. I do completely understand that the admin woman was only able to see this from her (as skewed as it seems to me) perspective. One with certain beliefs that dictate how she acts. I can respect her desire to follow her beliefs. I am not ok however, with her expecting me to change my beliefs because they do not match hers. This is where the situation changed from one of ignorance to one of intolerance.

I have contacted a couple of attorneys, and I also spoke to someone from the Department of Human Rights in our state. The attorneys stated that I could pursue the business issue of "breech of contract", but that it could get drawn out, and may cost more than the current awards are being given. The man from the Department of Human Rights could not help me either. Although religion is a protected class, there are 7 categories it could fall under. In this case, it would be business as I was not an employee of the Chiropractor. Wouldn't you know that religion is NOT covered in only one category....business. I asked the man from the department why this was, he did not know and suggested I contact my local representative or senator's office. I did. The local representative's aid blew me off and told me to get an attorney. The senator's office aid was much more responsive, and said although they could not help me currently, that they could look into this in the next session. He wanted to know more about Reiki.

I am torn on this issue. I have not been able to locate a new location to practice from that is "clinical" as of yet. Many of my current clients do not feel comfortable coming to my second location (my cousin is a Massage Therapist and has one location from her home that she has aloud me to utilize if I need) they prefer the "clinical feel". I can understand that.

What do you think??

Laurél Kimpton

Thanks, Laurél, for sharing your story.

Paul Prakash Dennis writes:

A bit of a better story about the Catholic Church and Reiki.

Wanja Twan, one of Takata's 22 Masters, taught several Catholic nuns and priests in Poland in the early 1990s; some up to Master level. I met some of them in Canada at the Reiki Alliance conference in 1993.

They had all asked for the Polish Pope John Paul's blessing to learn and teach Reiki and had received it.

Wanja said that she saw a framed letter on the wall of one of the Priests' office from the Pope himself giving his blessing to the priests.

Now she wished she had had a camera or photocopier handy!

Later in his life, while suffereing from Parkinson's disease and other ailments of old age, the Pope received Reiki regularly; some say even daily.

When some of our Irish colleagues met opposition from Catholic diehards, they told them about the Pope's support for Reiki. The opponents of Reiki checked it out and shut up!

Sadly the new German Pope is not so broad minded and some French Reiki Masters have felt the effect of this new chiller square headed wind in the church.

Thought you and others would want to know this.

Love and all the best for the Reiki Digest,

Paul

Thanks, Paul!

Julie Romanko in Ohio writes:

Hi Janet,

The latest news about the Pope denouncing Reiki is not surprising. I was raised Catholic and had so many unanswered questions about their practices and beliefs. I actually challenged some of the priests and nuns to try to make sense of some of the things they believe to only receive an answer like, "it's wrong to question the church".

To me, spirituality is so much more expanded than religion. Who wants to be contracted, limited, small, or close minded? With Jesus himself being a Master Healer and many references to healing in the Bible, it really makes no sense to me. But the main reason I am writing is because of my own feelings about Reiki over the last few years. I have encountered much criticism from 'religious' individuals. The name Reiki is a Japanese name for what is generally considered "energy healing" or even "spiritual healing". If spiritual healing or energy healing is going on in the Catholic institutions, and forgo the Japanese reference of Reiki, would it still be denied?

My understanding is that every culture in the world has a form of energy healing but by different names. Even Reiki itself is a Japanese version of healing that has ancient Tibetan roots. The symbols are Japanese because they were taught to Japanese students. The concept is Universal though.

Maybe we would be more accepted if we just called it "Energy Healing". What do you think?

Sincerely,
Julie Romanko

Thanks, Julie. Actually, that bit about ancient Tibetan roots is one of the common myths about Reiki, but I know a lot of people were taught that. (Those myths are one reason for my Reiki Update Training on May 9.) 

Maria Doglio writes:

People usually ridicule what they don't understand and it is usually out of fear. As a former Catholic I know first hand that the Catholic leadership controls through fear tactics to keep you in the club and here is just another example. Today we have a Pope who preaches the misinformation that condoms spread aids. Have they proven what they are stating and with what scientific methods? (smile)We could all send the unenlightented Bishops Reiki to help them rise to a higher consciousness and retract their statement. If we all hold that intention, then change will occur. Maria

Thanks, Maria.

And finally, an anonymous reader writes:

This was my first experience with Reiki the other night. I had never heard of it before this lady came over while in the restaurant the other night and put her hands on my brother-in-law. He is very feeble because of lung cancer that left him without a voice box a few years back. His health is failing but my sister trys to take him out if he wants to go. The lady said she was a Reiki student and after she did that to him he seemed to liven up and smile. even though he is very fragile he did seem happy. We are Catholic and I didn't see anything different then the laying of hands they used to practice.

Thanks, Anonymous!

To join in this ongoing discussion or tell us how the bishops' statement is affecting your Reiki practice, add a comment to this post on our web site or email editor@thereikidigest.com.

Reiki Digest Radio transcript: 'I should write them a thank-you letter'

Editor's note: Last week we introduced Reiki Digest Radio, yet another service of The Reiki Digest. Our first guest was Reiki Master Teacher Debbie Griseuk, whose Reiki clinics at Catholic medical facilities in New Hampshire were discontinued after the US Conference of Catholic Bishops denounced Reiki on March 25. You can download the audio here and listen to it on your computer or iPod, or if you prefer, you can read the transcript below. We can't promise to transcribe every Reiki Digest Radio podcast, but we thought it was important for this interview to be accessible to as many people as possible. 

Notice: The audio and transcript of this interview are published under a Creative Commons noncommercial no-derivatives attribution license: it may be distributed and reproduced at no charge only with these conditions.

Here's the transcript:

RD: Hi, this is Janet Dagley Dagley, editor of The Reiki Digest. And I have on the line Debbie Griseuk of the New England Reiki Center. Hi Debbie!

DG: Hello!

RD: How are you?

DG: I’m very good, thank you.

RD: And the reason we’re talking to you today is you have been personally affected by the guidelines that were issued by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops on March 25 concerning Reiki. Could you tell us a little bit about your situation and about what happened?

DG: Sure. For the last, I don’t know, maybe, 7 or so years, I have been running a clinic over at Millett Manor, which is St. Joe’s Hospital Wellness Center, and it’s in Nashua, New Hampshire, and I also recently, within the last two years, was asked to take on yet another clinic on behalf of St. Joe’s, and it was an affiliated agency situation where the Greater Agency of Nashua, Home Health & Hospice….and Southern New Hampshire Hospital and St. Joe’s did a collaborative. So on their behalf they asked me to run the Reiki clinic over there at so-called Mission Point in Hudson, NH. So when the bishops’ statement came out, I was asked to leave both clinics. Actually, they did not say it was because of the bishops’ statement. They said it was because of a change in programming. And they have every right to do a change in programming. And I also want to state, too, for the record that St. Joe’s Hospital really has been very good to me for many years, and I have a lot of friends over there, you know, people that I really care about, and I think they felt actually worse than I did for this thing coming up, this situation. So that’s kind of what happened. So I was asked to leave both clinics.

RD: And you had your office in one of these places and you’ve now had to find a new home for your office, is that right?

DG: Not really. That was a little bit misquoted from the paper. I was not really operating a private business on their facility. I honestly was doing the clinic and doing keep-in-touch classes and those kinds of things. So I’ve always had a private office.

RD: I see. OK. Thanks for clearing that up.

DG: Sure. They also didn’t charge me for the space – it was community service. In an exchange, we have a small fee for the clinic, $20 for a half hour, and if somebody just couldn’t afford to pay, or if it was kind of a medical, or a favor or a friend of a friend or whatever, there was no question. It was just, OK, come on in.

RD: So do you still have the clinic, but have it elsewhere?

DG: I do. I just recently had my first clinic, another clinic that we started, in Nashua again, at a friend’s office, so I did that the first of June, and the next, this Friday, the senior center, the Nashua Senior Center, the executive director called me and asked me to come in and talk to her because they would love to host us, they felt that it’s a really good activity for baby boomers and, to start incorporating more mind, body, and spirit techniques and programs into what they call the senior center but it’s for people over 50. So, unfortunately I do qualify.

RD: And so do I.

DG: So they’ve been fabulous. Not only did they invite me over, but they have a newsletter that they print out and they have something like 2,000 members or something, they put a full-page flyer in there announcing the Reiki clinic would be there, at no cost to me, just to be supportive of the program. And that’s how much the executive director believes in it.

RD: Was the executive director familiar with the work that you were doing at the Catholic facilities? Or how did they find out about you?

DG: Well, actually, yes. One of her staff members is a friend of a friend, one of the clients that come constantly, and I guess she’s been hearing about it for years, and when they saw the situation in the paper, which was a giant photograph on the front page of the paper, it was almost embarrassing. It was great, it was so big! I guess it was a slow news day or something in New Hampshire. So when they did see the article on the front, they recognized my name as a friend of a friend and she went to the executive director and said, you want to talk to her and give her a call. So she did, and she was wonderful, and I think she’s going to be a long-term friend.

RD: Wow, that’s great! So you’ve gone through shifts, but the community has recognized that there is a need for what you do and they’ve come up with a way to let you keep doing it?

DG: Right. Not only that, Janet, but I literally have so many other opportunities that have come across from that situation, that people wanted to help me find a space, they’ve invited me to come over and submit a proposal, and it got to the point where, I mean, two clinics is all I can possibly handle. Cause I still have to staff them with practitioners and so on.

RD: You’re a full-time Reiki practitioner, right?

DG: Right.

RD: And this is, you don’t have a day job, this is your day job.

DG: This is my day job.

RD: And you practice Reiki and you teach. Is that right?

DG: Correct.

RD: So, overall, has your practice been helped or harmed by the bishops’ decision?

DG: Well, I’m sorry to say this, but some of my friends are telling me I should write them a thank-you letter. My practice has increased tremendously from their decision to get everybody talking about Reiki. And making it so well-known. Just as a small example, I was moving the tables, the massage tables, into the senior center and a lady came over and started talking to us as we were kind of moving them in, and she said, “You’re the one in the paper. I sent a copy of that to my friend in Canada and we’re never going to church again. That was the last straw – we’ve had it with that. So I tried to tell her that, you know, don’t let it take away from what you feel or believe in. It was only a small group of eight bishops and I don’t think they really understood Reiki, and, quite honestly I mean, they have nothing to fear from us. I kind of tried to defuse the situation, but she was so angry at the Catholic church, it was like her last straw.

RD: There are a lot of really, really strong emotions involved with this.

DG: Right. I have, honestly, believe it or not, it has been very beneficial to me. And the fact that so many people have been talking about it and offering different things that will be helpful to the community to continue Reiki.

RD: So has anyone suffered because of it? Are there people who used to have Reiki available to them that don’t now?

DG: I’m sure there are some, Janet. I’m definitely sure there are some. In the building that’s called Millett Manor, or the parish nursing center, that’s where the clinic was, there were people that came in often, actually, just about every clinic, that, they live upstairs in the building and they probably couldn’t get out very much. So they would come and receive Reiki. So I’m sure those kinds of people are not able to travel, so they don’t have the Reiki available to them directly. It is still, I still offer it to them, as with my original deal, that anybody with St. Joe’s, if they need Reiki, regardless of their situation they’re welcome to come to my clinic at any time. But I can’t provide transportation. And the people over at Mission Point, some of those people could just walk over and get their Reiki, and now it’s a whole different thing, they have to get in the car, and go 5 or 6 miles.

RD: So it’s not nearly as convenient as it was before.

DG: Correct.

RD: So this has actually brought more attention to Reiki in general, and to your practice – it’s been good for business.

DG: Honestly, it has. I’ve heard from clients that I saw years ago who sent letters to the bishops and called me and said, you know what, this is the one thing that helped me when I was going through my surgery or whatever, and this is crazy that they’re doing that. So how about if I make an appointment at the new clinic. So people that I haven’t heard from in years have kind of called in. So I do have to say that it really has been honestly very helpful that so many people are now talking about Reiki.

RD: Yeah, a lot of people say that. And there’s the old line of, you know, it doesn’t matter what you say about me as long as you spell my name right, any publicity is good publicity….

DG: I think they’re right. My 15 minutes of fame. This has been a good situation.

RD: And now you have 15 minutes more, maybe more than that, to share your story with other Reiki practitioners. Because most of the people who read The Reiki Digest or will be listening to this are also Reiki practitioners. Was it a shock to you when you were told you program was being discontinued?

DG: Totally. I was so caught off guard. I remember, actually, reading it in The Reiki Digest, if I’m not mistaken, at the end of March, and I just thought to myself, wow, I’m a recovering Catholic, and these people are off the wall. I don’t know where they’re coming from. But I just didn’t kind of pay it any mind, Janet. I just thought, whatever. And it wasn’t until it directly affected me – I was like, aah! Oh, I see now. So I really was quite surprised. I really didn’t know it was coming. I didn’t think the hospital – I don’t know, the hospital’s supposed to be a little bit of every flavor, not just Catholic.

RD: So how long had you been working with these Catholic facilities? It had been some years, right?

DG: Sure. About 7 or 8 years. I actually started the St. Joe’s Hospital in-room service program, where they could receive Reiki in their room or pre-op or post-op surgery. So I started that as a way to get more practice.

RD: And have you been back to these facilities since that happened?

DG: Actually, that’s a good question. You know, I can go in and out of there anytime, people hire me personally or privately. My first call back to the hospital since my departure was from a chaplain, who had a surgery. My second call back to the hospital was from a pharmacist who also had to have a surgery. So that was kind of, more than ironic.

RD: It’s good to know that you do still go there and you do still provide your services, just not under more of the auspices of the facility – you’re just going in and seeing individual patients, some of whom happen to work there. Individual clients, I should say. They are patients of the hospital but to you they’re clients.

DG: Correct.

RD: Well, having been through this yourself, what advice would you have for other Reiki practitioners who may be in similar circumstances, maybe getting kicked out of facilities that they’ve worked in or have clients that have decided not to come to them anymore because of this. You’re the voice of experience, so let’s benefit from it.

DG: Sure. What would I say? Well, I hate to be corny, but I’m thinking that with every door or window that closes, there will be a new one that’s opening up. And it’s kind of fascinating that we’re in the same company as Galileo or Dr. Lister, you know? Dr. Lister tried for 50 years to tell the medical community that there was a germ theory, and it took them 50 years to accept that. I think that you have to be true to your beliefs and whoever you are supposed to work with, you will work with. You can lose somebody maybe because of a belief system, then that’s not Reiki. Reiki is about honoring everybody’s beliefs, and not being judgmental, so I think you have to be true to Reiki and the fact that it’s about honoring any and all belief systems and, I would not want to impose my beliefs on someone else. Just because I’m a recovering Catholic doesn’t mean that I would put down somebody that’s a devout Catholic or whatever. It’s not about my opinion. It’s about, be quiet and deliver the Reiki. And I would say to expand their horizons. Find a different rock and turn it over. And ask the community for some help.

RD: Have you been tempted yourself to try to get in touch with the bishops to offer any rebuttal to their guidelines or anything like that?

DG: I’m going to send them a thank-you note!

RD: You actually are going to do that, or

DG: No. But my friends were kidding me about it. No, I don’t see why I would rebut ignorance. To me it’s just ignorance. They don’t tell me what to do. I don’t need a religion between me and the source or my creator. I don’t need a middleman, basically. I know a lot about the Catholics just from being brought up a Catholic, and I just don’t agree with a lot of their philosophies, but I certainly don’t want to interfere with whatever they believe. So I have no intention, actually, of sharing an ounce of my time with them.

RD: They certainly haven’t asked for you to, so I guess that makes perfect sense.

DG: I guess it’s a slow day in the Vatican when they have to worry about Reiki.

RD: I guess so. It seems to me from what you’re saying that your personal Reiki practice has helped you deal with this, too. Following the precepts, remembering to stay in the moment, not indulging in fear or anger. Am I guessing right?

DG: Very much. And not only that, Janet, but I seem to be drawn very very much to doing animal Reiki, and people that work with animals. I just recently had a class up the road at my groomer’s facility, so people could bring their dogs in with us. I also teach regularly at Canine Country, a big training facility in Amherst, New Hampshire, and we have fabulous classes, and it’s all about having the animals in the class with us, so I think that’s very important to me, to go to those with a nonjudgmental situation, and not to align ourselves too much with any kind of institution, I guess.

RD: Yeah. Reiki, as a practice, and as an industry, if you call it that, doesn’t really have much in the way of comprehensive institutions.

DG: Right.

RD: There are a lot of individual lineages and individual practitioners and schools doing their kind of thing but there’s no real overall Reiki institutions.

DG: Right. No standards. So when I’m working with the animals, I’m not feeling any kind of religious tension from it whatsoever.

RD: And they’re probably not subject to the placebo effect, either.

DG: Not even a little. Not even a little. I recently, just two weeks ago, had a fabulous class with two people that came in from Colorado. And they were horse people. And they just felt very strongly that they needed to receive their second-degree training from somebody who has experience with animals. They also came in for a wedding: they didn’t just fly in for me. But it was fascinating because they’re from such a different world in Colorado, that bringing Reiki to them and the animals is something that isn’t done out there, for whatever reason. So, having five cats and a crazy toy poodle, it gives me daily experience. One of the reasons I got into Reiki, actually, was, one of my cats, my 15-year-old cat, has a hole in her heart, and she was never supposed to live. So here she is 15 years later, receiving daily Reiki that she actually demands. It’s not a question: she demands it. And for whatever reason – I’m not saying this is the only thing she ever needed in life, but for whatever reason she’s still alive and happy and healthy.

RD: That’s great. 15 years!

DG: 15 years. And I love her as a case study because she has documentation. She has a cardiologist from Tufts University. She has ultrasound. All the things, the backup medical documentation, and all she receives now is just Reiki and she’s fine.

RD: Of course, she still has the hole in her heart: that’s something she was born with.

DG: Correct. But shows no signs of fading. Which is bizarre. I don’t even care why. She’s one of the reasons I kept going at Reiki, because it was too good to be true.

RD: Yeah. I wanted to ask you how you got into Reiki, and when. Tell me a little about your own Reiki story.

DG: OK, I’ll try to keep it short. My mother was dying of a brain tumor, an inoperable brain tumor, and I felt absolutely helpless. Then she made me go get a present for myself, for a birthday, and as much as I didn’t want to do that, I thought, oh, what is that over there, and I saw my little cat Patina Serina, as a symbol of new life. And she was a present to myself, from my mom, who ended up with a hole in her heart, again, not expected to live, so again I felt helpless. And then I just screamed to the universe and I vowed I would find a way to never feel helpless again. I would find a way. And a friend suggested that I go and listen to a Reiki talk, and when I did, it was like a lightning bolt. It was like, oh my God, this is why I’m on the planet. I’m going to find a way to never feel helpless again. I could share that with other people. So that’s when I started Reiki, and that’s when I started trying to prove it wrong, because I was such a skeptic.

RD: Yeah, it does seem too good to be true at first, doesn’t it?

DG: It does! It does. And the more I tried to prove it wrong, the more people I needed to work on that weren’t family and friends, because I thought they were being too kind. That’s when I started, in 2003, the St. Joseph’s Hospital Reiki program. I started it because I wanted more subjects to work on and try this out.

RD: And 2003, that’s six years ago. You must have quite a few case studies by now.

DG: Oh, I have so many. I was very fortunate to be the first one in the hospital to do it. So I was able to write the “what not to” manual, and work very closely with the management. And understand what’s the best thing to do in a hospital and how to do what I now call clinical Reiki. So they actually taught me as much as I taught them. I learned what not to do.

RD: That would probably be helpful, not that you could do it in a quick interview, but give us a tip or two of what not to do.

DG: What not to do, in any kind of a public setting, is waving your hands in any way. You know when you do sweeping at the end of a private Reiki treatment? You don’t want to do sweeping in the hospital. Another thing not to do is you don’t want to ever start doing symbols in a hospital. Because once again that includes waving your hands. Also, you don’t want to really be talking in the hospital. There are a lot of people, you know, a lot of medical professionals around, and you want to respect the person’s rights, and with the HIPAA laws and so on, you really don’t want any information from the client.

RD: Right.

DG: So those are a few up front things that you want to not do.

RD: And that is the voice of years of experience, I can tell.

DG: Correct.

RD: Are there other hospitals that you go into now, other than the Catholic ones?

DG: The Catholic ones! We actually have two or three other hospitals in the area. One of them is Southern New Hampshire hospital, it used to be called Memorial Hospital, but it’s Southern New Hampshire Medical Center. I go there when a client goes into the hospital for something, and they hire me to go in and do Reiki, either in the room or pre-op or post-op surgery. They also have a Catholic, actually I think we’re surrounded with Catholics, a Catholic medical center in Manchester. I never thought of that. And again, people hire me to go to their hospital rooms or pre-op and post-op. So I guess we’re mostly surrounded with Catholics in this area.

RD: Well, the Catholic health-care system is huge, and

DG: I didn’t know that!

RD: In a lot of communities it’s the only thing available.

DG: I didn’t know that!

RD: If the institution isn’t really putting that out there so much, you know, they’re not leading with their beliefs, if they’re just, we’re here to provide medical services or nursing homes or hospice care, or whatever, then you don’t really think necessarily about what’s behind it. Most people don’t look to see, is this a nonprofit, is it a for-profit, is it part of a chain, is it run by a religious institution, you know, it’s just their local hospital.

DG: Well, you know the other thing we have here locally, Janet, that I go to quite often, is the Merrimack Hospice House. It is a fabulous, fabulous, unbelievably wonderful situation for anybody to be in. They’re so open about everything. And I’ve had so many families hire me to go in and work with their loved ones. And it’s such a wonderful experience. There’s no judgmental anything over there. You know, I think I want to back up for one second, if I may. I just remembered something. One of the things in a hospital or any kind of facility that you don’t want to do is get too exhausting describing Reiki. You want to keep your explanation very, very simple, to, it’s a stress-reduction technique, and it stimulates the body’s own self-healing. You want to keep it very simple. You don’t want to go into any universal life force energy, you don’t even want to use those words. So I just wanted to kind of get that out there.

RD: That is an important thing to bring up, that I wish people wouldn’t say publicly, like – there’s a book that says, if you’ve reached Reiki level 2 and you haven’t found your spirit guides yet – and it’s, you know, if you have a belief in that kind of thing, that’s fine, I respect everybody’s religious beliefs. And that is a religious belief. But that’s not part of the system of Reiki.

DG: Correct. And it puts people off. And I have to tell you, once again, with experience, I have to tell you, in the beginning, I scared so many people by my enthusiasm. I think back now and I have to laugh and I hope they’ll try it again, because I tried to overexplain things, and I remember even in the talks from Pam Miles, she said you can really scare people with your enthusiasm, you’ve got to keep it down. So I really did do that in the beginning and I wrote an internship program, for people working in institutional type settings, of all the things not to do based on my own experience of what I wish had been done better.

RD: You should put that in a book or something.

DG: You know, I really should. I actually, I have it all written down, and I have it in a notebook and it’s really what you want from people working in an institution. The internship was, well, St. Joe’s was good enough to give me 100 percent unprecedented access, so I would just say, oh, today I think I’ll go into ICU, today I think I’ll go into room 324, so with that I learned all the things that needed to be done, and I also had to explain Reiki for the first time 20 times a day. So that was interesting.

RD: I imagine you got that down after awhile.

DG: I really did, yeah. Keep it simple. And just, less is better. And again, working with risk management, and never having been in a hospital myself overnight, I didn’t even know how to use a hospital bed. I was uninstitutionalized. So I had to kind of train myself on those things.

RD: So, before March, when the guidelines were issued, did you ever get anyone who said, no, I don’t want that, no, that’s in conflict with my belief system – did you ever get any resistance, and if so, how did you deal with it?

DG: I think I had a few of those, and they might have been in more of a public setting. They might have been at a health fair – I do a lot of health fairs, some of them for corporations and some of them for medical people, hospitals, different things. So some people have said, you know, that conflicts with my belief system. And I would say, you know, I’m so sorry, that is never my intention, and I hope sometime you’ll consider trying it. So I basically just honor whatever they say, never force my beliefs on them. And in the back of my mind, I already know people in pain get very open-minded.

RD: Right. Especially if the medical system has given you everything it has to offer and you still have the problem. Then I think it’s a natural human inclination to start looking elsewhere.

DG: Correct. And if it isn’t you it might be a relative that calls me. You know, Reiki is also good old-fashioned first aid. And I wish more people would understand that. It’s part of our original equipment. I don’t know if I told you this but I teach Reiki at night right up the road at the Merrimack High School, the adult education program. I have had such unbelievable people come in in the middle of the winter after working all day feeding the kids or doing whatever they do to learn Reiki. The groups that have come in have either been administrators from the school, guidance teachers, special-needs teachers – I had a whole group of scientists one time, government investigators, computer people, different, engineers, I mean, the quality of people at night that are there to learn something is outstanding. And some of these groups have stayed together 4, 5, 6 years. They stay together as a group and we do keep-in-touch classes every month and they decide if they want to stay together and if they want to pursue their Reiki.

RD: And usually they do?

DG: I would say, I don’t have exact numbers, but I would say between a third and a half of them will pursue their Reiki.

RD: That’s pretty good results anywhere. A lot of people will take a class and then never do anything with it after that.

DG: Well, once they learn, it’s so basic and it’s something they can do that you never feel helpless again, back to my original reason for getting into Reiki. That is one thing Reiki offers all of us, Janet, is the ability to not feel helpless again.

RD: Oh, absolutely.

DG: There’s something we can always do with Reiki no matter what.

RD: Right. Even if – and most importantly – we just do it for ourselves.

DG: Correct.

RD: Well, I really appreciate your taking the time to talk to us about this and about your experience with it. I’m glad that your practice has not suffered as a result of the bishops’ decision. And I hope that things continue to prosper for you and that you are able to bring Reiki to even more people.

DG: Thank you, I do appreciate that. And there’s one other thing that I wanted to bring to light if I may – do you have another moment?

RD: Yeah, sure.

DG: OK. I was trying to figure out why the Catholics, I would love to have the answer, if somebody could tell me, why did this even come up as an issue? I’d be very curious about that. But the other thing that occurred to me is, if you remember back in your history, Rene Descartes? The father of modern medicine? He was the one who went and made a deal with the Pope back in the 1500s, so he could cut open cadavers. And the Pope said to him, you can cut open cadavers but under one condition, because he wanted to study what was under the skin, and he said well, with one condition: you can only work with the body. The mind and the spirit belong to the church. So back then is when we had our separation of mind, body, and spirit. So it just seems to me the church is still pursuing the separation of mind, body, and spirit.

RD: I really enjoyed talking to you, I appreciate what you’ve done for the greater Reiki community by talking about your own experience with this. I think it’s going to be helpful to other people who are facing similar situations.

DG: Thank you. Thank you. And anyone is free to call me or contact me in any way, and anything that comes out of your thing I’ll forward it to you, so that you’ll at least get to see whatever feedback there is or isn’t.

RD: Thank you!

DG: Well, because it’s only fair. I imagine you’d like to know.

RD: Yes, I definitely would. And this would be a good time to tell us about your web site. Where can we find out more about you?

DG: Actually, you can find my whole biography and my whole how I got into Reiki story on ReikiOnCall.com.

RD: All right: ReikiOnCall.com. Debbie, thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us, and I’m going to post this audio on The Reiki Digest web site as soon as I can.

DG: OK, and if I can be of any help to anybody out there, I’d be very happy to share any information that would be helpful to them.

RD: Thank you, Debbie!

DG: OK, and feel free to call me anytime, Janet. Thank you so much!