I usually don’t worry about people who don’t believe in reiki or think it’s all a hoax. Nearly all of my clients either believe in reiki, or are open to how it might work. So, it doesn’t seem a good use of energy to worry about those who are cynical.
But at the same time, I think it is useful for me to be able to explain to clients the ways that reiki might work, even though I’m not 100% sure. And what I especially like about this article, ‘Reiki Can’t Possibly Work. So Why Does it?’ from The Atlantic is how balanced, thorough and personal it is.
The author, Jordan Kisner, who writes beautifully, points out:
For decades, experts weren’t precisely sure how acetaminophen (Tylenol) eases pain, but Americans still took billions of doses every year. Many medical treatments are adopted for their efficacy long before their mechanisms are known or understood. Why should this be different?
But while she argues that we don’t need to know precisely how reiki works, there are a lot of reasons why and how it might work. Her approach is very close to mine: the truth is that I’m not exactly sure how reiki works, and I recognise to outsiders there are aspects of reiki that could seem quite unbelievable. But I feel it works and my clients report that it works in different ways. If what I am offering is simply my time, attention and “an act of caring” and that works for my clients, I’m happy to go with that.