TruthBook Religious News Blog

Some Catholics say the treatment is helpful and positive

By Mary Garrigan, Journal staff | Sunday, April 05, 2009

Defenders of Reiki expressed dismay and disappointment over criticism of the alternative health therapy by U.S. Catholic bishops, who recently called it "unscientific and inappropriate for Catholic institutions."

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops issued guidelines March 24 that said Reiki's medical benefits are unproven by science and inappropriate for Christians because of the spiritual dangers posed. Rapid City Reiki teacher Cynthia Dumdey said she was surprised by those comments, which she called uninformed and unfortunate.

Reiki is usually described as a holistic healing technique, a form of therapeutic touch or a type of "energy medicine" in which a practitioner places hands on the body in certain positions in order to facilitate and manipulate the flow of energy. Reiki teaches that illness is caused by imbalances or disruptions of energy in a person's body.

But in its "Guidelines for Evaluating Reiki as an Alternative Therapy," the USCCB argued that "To use Reiki one would have to accept ... elements that belong neither to Christian faith nor to natural science. Without justification either from Christian faith or natural science, however, 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."

Teresa Withee, a Reiki practitioner and baptized Catholic, said she "very much respects the religion" but disagrees with the bishops' characterization of Reiki as anti-religious or superstitious.

Dumdey is a Reiki master and clinical psychologist who has trained at least 100 people in the three levels of Reiki in the past 19 years. She also routinely gets patient referrals from medical doctors, including Mayo Clinic physicians.

"So they think it's got some medical benefits," she said. "Reiki is an option in many hospitals and hospices around the country. There's a whole field of healing called energy medicine, and a lot of doctors know that if they don't start acknowledging it, they are doing a huge disservice to their patients," she said.

The USCCB said Reiki lacks scientific credibility.

"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," they state.

Dumdey and Sister Susan Pohl, a Benedictine nun and longtime hospital chaplain, both say the field of quantum physics suggests that Reiki may be much more scientific than anyone knows right now.

"I've been at conferences with quantum physicists who are on the same page as Reiki when it comes to new theories about energy and matter," Dumdey said.

"I think we have to continue exploring quantum physics regarding how the divine can be viewed as an essential part of the mind-body-spirit connection," Pohl said. "Reiki therapy may be one of many avenues to travel in this regard."

Those connections were highlighted by last month's announcement that French physicist Bernard d'Espagnat was awarded the 2009 Templeton Prize, a coveted religion award honoring someone who has made exceptional contributions to affirming life's spiritual dimension through insight, discovery or practical works. D'Espagnat has theorized that quantum physics could provide insights into alternate spiritual realities and has been quoted as saying that recent discoveries may be "signs providing us with some perhaps not entirely misleading glimpses of a higher reality and, therefore, that higher forms of spirituality are fully compatible with what seems to emerge from contemporary physics."

Reiki is frequently described as a form of spiritual healing, and American bishops assert there is a radical difference between Reiki therapy and the healing by divine power in which Christians believe.

Withee, owner of Divine Kneads in Rapid City, said the patient, not the practitioner, is the "healer" in Reiki. "We're just providing the space for that energy work," she said.

For Chantelle Emond, a Reiki practitioner at Integrity Massage in Rapid City, the universal energy of Reiki and the divine energy of God are the same.

"For me, Reiki is just another part of God. My experience of Reiki only amplified my experience of God," she said.

Emond considers Reiki healing and the power of prayer closely related phenomena and believes both can be sent long distances. She was amused by criticism of it as unscientific.

"Can the power of prayer be proven? Please scientifically prove God to me," she said.

Pohl has no formal training in Reiki, but she respects the therapy as a form of stress reduction and a means to enhance overall health and well-being. She's seen it offer relief from the unpleasant side effects of medical treatments. "One Catholic sister I worked with was assigned a special room in her Motherhouse to provide this type of therapy to any who wished to seek some alternative pain remedy. I think Reiki, along with yoga, tai chi, meditation and other energy therapies, have a definite place in the continuing research into the mind-body-spirit connection," Pohl said.

Reiki therapists say the best way to learn about Reiki is to experience it.

"In my experience and in my life, I have received positive benefits from Reiki," said Emond. "But just like any medical therapy, some things work for some people and not for others."

Labels: Catholicism, Mary Garrigan, quantum physics, Reiki

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Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Study Entices Thoughts Of Hands-On Healing

By HILARY WALDMAN | Courant Staff Writer
July 28, 2008

Steeped in white-coat science since she earned her Ph.D. in cell biology at Columbia University 20 years ago, Gloria Gronowicz is about the last person you'd expect to put stock in the touchy-feely discipline of energy medicine.But then the University of Connecticut researcher saw it with her own eyes, under a high-power microscope in her own laboratory, where, once, only well-accepted biological building blocks — proteins, mitochondria, DNA and the like — got respect.

Therapeutic Touch performed by trained energy healers significantly stimulated the growth of bone and tendon cells in lab dishes.

Her results, recently published in two scientific journals, provide novel evidence that there may be a powerful energy field that, when channeled through human hands, can influence the course of events at a cellular level.

Gronowicz and others said more studies are needed to figure out how and why Therapeutic Touch seems to stimulate cell growth — and if the findings can be applied to patient care.

Through history and across cultures, spiritual healers have long believed that the laying on of hands could cure disease and relieve pain. In the last 30 years or so, many forms of energy healing — sometimes called Reiki, Qigong, Therapeutic Touch, or Healing Touch — have found their way into hospitals and other clinical settings.

Still, it is often derided as hocus-pocus, although some medical practitioners have come to accept it as a harmless diversion that, if nothing else, might relieve stress.

Even when early studies showed some evidence of healing in patients treated with energy therapies, it was impossible to say whether the improvement was a result of the touch. More likely, critics suggested, the nurturing therapy simply improved the patient's frame of mind, promoting a healing response.

Gronowicz was in the doubting camp. She had spent her career studying the biology of bone cells. Her work with hormones, growth factors and tissue engineering has shed light on the very elements of bone — a slow, sometimes tedious effort she hopes might someday help doctors find treatments for crippling diseases.

But when a colleague asked her to collaborate on an experiment looking into the power of Therapeutic Touch, she was curious. As a full professor in the department of surgery, with tenure and respect, Gronowicz had the stature to dabble in an endeavor that some of her scientific colleagues might criticize as a fool's errand.

She applied for a National Institutes of Health grant to fund an experiment designed to isolate the mind/body conundrum from the question of energy healing by applying Therapeutic Touch techniques to presumably inanimate bone cells cultured in an incubator.

At first, even the NIH's branch that funds research in alternative and complementary medicine turned her down. Eventually, she received $250,000 for her study.

To put Therapeutic Touch to the test, cell cultures were divided into three groups.

One dish of cells was treated by a trained healer. A second set of cells was treated by untrained students who were instructed to hold their hands over a petri dish for 10 minutes twice a week. A third dish of cells stood ignored in its metal stand.

After the treatment, the dishes were returned to an incubator. Scientists who later examined the cells under the microscope didn't know which group each dish had been in.

To Gronowicz's astonishment, the cells treated by trained Therapeutic Touch practitioners grew faster and stronger than those that received the sham treatment, or none at all.

"Therapeutic Touch stimulated growth in bone, tendon and skin cells at statistically significant rates," Gronowicz said.

She tested the cells using several different biological markers for growth, and each test confirmed her finding. In one test, Gronowicz found that cells treated with Therapeutic Touch grew at double the rate of untreated cells.

In addition to seeing increased cell division under the microscope, the bone cell cultures treated with Therapeutic Touch also absorbed more calcium, the essential mineral for growing strong bones. Her findings were published in the Journal of Orthopaedic Research and The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine.

Gronowicz also looked at bone cancer cells. Cancer occurs when cells grow out of control, so a treatment that stimulates growth could be detrimental to people with cancer. But unlike healthy cells, bone cancer cells did not appear to be stimulated by the touch therapy — an interesting, though not fully explained, finding, Gronowicz said.

Beyond growing bones, the findings may begin to explain why people with strong social support systems appear to be healthier and recover from disease better than those who are isolated. Maybe it's not all in their heads.

"In this case, the bones didn't know, that's why what she did is so intriguing," Chesney said. "To our knowledge, those cells didn't know who was a healer and who wasn't."

Labels: energy medicine, Gloria Gronowicz, healing, Hilary Waldman, laying-on-of-hands, Reiki, science, Therapeutic Touch