Science & Reiki
One thing a lot of people - especially in the academic and professional community - want to know is, "What does the research say about the effectiveness of Reiki?" The answer to that question, at least right now, is "Not much."
Does this mean that modern scientific enquiry has proven, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Reiki is ineffective? Not at all. Issues have compromised the effectiveness of current research; sample sizes have been quite small, which means that it's rather difficult to generalize the results to the larger population; reporting methods have also been quite poor, as has the research design.
A larger issue - and the focus of this post - is that it often takes time for science to catch up, and even when it has caught up, there tends to be a significant disagreement between what the general population "knows" to be true and what scientific research has demonstrated to be true.
*It often takes time for science to catch up*
In psychology - and, I suspect, science in general - terrible fallacies perpetuated treatment of the mentally ill, at least until scientific enquiry proved them wrong. We, as a society, used to believe that mentally ill could not get better (asylums), that modern intelligence testing should be used to identify the mentally or racially inferior, and that they should be removed from society (Terman, founder of the Stanford-Binet IQ test ; Margaret Sanger, Planned Parenthood founder http://blackgenocide.org/sanger.html; John Harvey Kellogg - yes, the inventor of Corn Flakes), that lobotomies could be used to cure mental illness, that using a spinning chair treatment cured one of mental illness, or that forced electroshock therapy could cure mental illness. To this list, we could also add the ineffectiveness of antidepressants (http://healthland.time.com/2012/01/18/new-research-on-the-antidepressant-versus-placebo-debate/), but that's a whole new ball of wax.
One good example of science taking time to catch up to a beneficial practice that people already knew for years concerns the benefits of mindfulness meditation. Long before scientific enquiry looked at benefits of meditation - long regarded by many skeptics as New Age-y, fluffy, and worthless - people practiced it for the benefits. Now, research has documented the benefits of mindfulness meditation (see http://www-psych.stanford.edu/~pgoldin/Buddhism/MindfulnessMeditationSummary.doc.)
People vs. Science
Suppose a plethora of research studies came out today proving that Reiki is a viable, effective option. Would our favorite angry skeptics (http://scienceblogs.com/whitecoatunderground/2009/03/11/reiki-still-stupid-after-all-t/, http://mikesweeklyskepticrant.blogspot.com/2008/09/stupid-reiki-bullshit-among-other.html) become overnight fans? I'm inclined to doubt it.
Here's the thing: we, as ego-driven humans, love to know that we are right - even when, you know, we're not. We all know, for example, that our memories are completely accurate and objective, and that repressed memories can be recovered through therapy.
Eyewitness testimony: http://agora.stanford.edu/sjls/Issue%20One/fisher&tversky.htm
Objective accuracy of memory: http://www.unisci.com/stories/20012/0613011.htm
Repressed or recovered memory: http://harvardmagazine.com/2008/01/repressed-memory.html
That would be no, no, and hell no. Even when research has clearly established that something is effective or ineffective, popular perception will be the exact opposite.
So what's my point? Two things:
1: It's a logical mistake to believe everything you hear or read as the end-all truth - even if it's research or comes from an authority figure. If history has taught us anything, it's that scientific understanding is slow to catch up - even intelligence testing went through countless revisions before arrive at the acceptable institution it is today (http://www.indiana.edu/~intell/map.shtml). Science is done by humans, and humans, as much as we wish it weren't so, are fallible and prone to biases.
2: Even when scientific understanding is in place, there will be people who still disagree. This is likely compounded by how Reiki is communicated, whether you describe Reiki as a "technique for balancing chakras, chi, sealing damaged auras" or a "non-invase, simple and effective hands on method of bringing a person into balance, physically and emotionally". Effective communication of Reiki is something that Pamela Miles has spent a long time advocating for, and she is definitely worth checking out (http://www.reikiinmedicine.org) if you're interested in joining the conversation
Some additional resources:
www.reiki.org/reikinews/reiki_in_hospitals.html - a listing of hospitals and clinics that support Reiki for patients
www.centerforreikiresearch.org/ - A current list of evidence based research into Reiki
http://guides.library.uwm.edu/content.php?pid=35074&sid=259532 - UW Milwaukee guide to free databases for conducting your own research searches
http://www.reikiinmedicine.org
