Reiki
You wake up with a headache on a rainy day.
Did the rain cause your headache?
Or was it perhaps the late-night coffee?
You then take a homeopathic remedy, and an hour later the pain is gone.
Did the remedy cause this?
Or was it the shower you took, the placebo effect, or something else entirely?
Perhaps you don’t care? But, if we want to make progress, we ought to care and find the answers. Sorting out coincidence from actual cause is crucial for making progress. Causality is one of the most important concepts in research, because humans are naturally prone to seeing patterns where none exist. We are all easily fooled, and regularly even by ourselves. Mistaking a correlation (two things coicidentally happening in sequence) for a cause (one thing creating the other) can lead to wrong decisions, useless treatments, wasted resources, and often to significant harm. To prevent this, scientists have long relied on structured frameworks to prove when one event truly triggers another.
In the late 19th century, the German physician Robert Koch wanted a foolproof way to prove that a specific microbe caused a specific disease. He developed the “Koch’s Postulates”, a four-step checklist that transformed medicine:
- The microbe must be present in every case of the disease.
- The microbe must be isolated from the sick host and grown in a lab.
- The lab-grown microbe must cause the same disease when introduced to a healthy host.
- The microbe must be isolated again from the newly infected host.
While these rules worked beautifully for many infectious diseases, they have limits. Some viruses cannot be grown easily in a lab, and some people carry bacteria without ever getting sick. And, of course, there are many diseases that are not due to microbes.
As medicine evolved to tackle chronic, non-infectious conditions like heart disease or cancer, Koch’s checklist thus fell short. For instance, smoking causes lung cancer, but you cannot easily “isolate” smoking in a lab, nor does every smoker get cancer. To solve this riddle, the UK epidemiologist Austin Bradford Hill introduced a broader toolkit in 1965, today known as the “Bradford Hill Criteria”. Instead of a strict pass or fail test, it uses several simple viewpoints to weigh the evidence:
- Strength: Is the connection large or powerful?
- Consistency: Do different studies produce the same result?
- Temporality: Did the cause occur before the effect?
- Biological Gradient: Does more exposure lead to more severe outcomes?
- Biological plausibility: Does the connection make sense with what we already know?
Without the guardrails of causality, medicine would still be based mostly on guesswork. Koch’s postulates gave us the clarity to cure deadly infections, and the Bradford Hill criteria allowed us to take on different public health threats like tobacco. By forcing us to ask how and why things happen, these criteria allow us to ensure that medical science is built on truth rather than mere coincidence.
In the realm of so-called alternative medicine (SCAM), causality has a particularly improtant role. This is because proponents often claim causality, while science rejects it:
Homeopathy:
Proponent claim: The fact that many patients get better after taking a homeopathic remedy proves that homeopathy works.
Reality: There are many other, more convincing explanations for this outcome.
Applied Kinesiology
Proponent claim: Muscle response strength proves nutrient deficiencies, toxin exposure, or food allergies.
Reality: No consistent relationship between muscle testing results and actual health status. The practice fails basic reliability tests; different practitioners get different results from the same patient.
Reiki
Proponent claim: Practitioners channel “healing energy” from assumed sources that improves health and prompts recovery.
Reality: No such energy exists. Well-controlled studies show Reiki performs no better than placebo. The claimed energy has no basis in physics or biology.
Acupuncture
Proponent claim: Inserting needles at specific points along “meridians” releases blocked qi and cures various conditions.
Reality: Most ot the patient-blind acupuncture trials show no difference from placebo acupuncture (needles placed randomly or not penetrating skin). Cochrane Reviews find acupuncture does no better than placebo. The meridian system has no anatomical basis.
_________________
These 4 examples illustrate the fundamental problem: SCAM proponents routinely mistake correlation for causation, or propose causal mechanisms that have no basis in established physics, chemistry, or biology. Without satisfying the above-mentioned criteria, these claims remain unproven speculation rather than scientific fact.
To put it bluntly:
CAUSALITY MATTERS!
Breast cancer and its treatments affect patients’ physical, psychological, and emotional well-being. Practices such as Reiki are used to support symptom management, particularly during chemotherapy. This systematic review aims to evaluate the effects of Reiki practice on improving symptoms in breast cancer patients within the framework of Martha E. Rogers’ “Science of Unitary Human Beings.”
The research was conducted as a systematic review in accordance with the PRISMA 2020 guidelines. A comprehensive literature search was performed in the PubMed, Web of Science, CINAHL (EBSCOhost), Google Scholar, and DergiPark databases, with the search updated through May 2026 prior to the final analysis. Randomized controlled trials, experimental studies, and quasi-experimental studies investigating Reiki interventions in breast cancer patients were included. Methodological quality and risk of bias were independently assessed by two researchers using Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) critical appraisal tools and the Cochrane Risk of Bias Tool.
Four studies meeting the inclusion criteria included a total of 339 participants. The included studies suggested that Reiki practice may reduce fatigue and improve overall comfort and well-being. Some studies also reported improvements in quality of life, comfort, mental well-being, and mood.
The authors concluded that Reiki appeared to be a safe and well-tolerated complementary intervention in the included studies. Reiki practice may contribute to symptom management, improve quality of life, and support psychological well-being in breast cancer patients. However, due to the limited number of studies, small sample sizes, and methodological differences, larger, well-designed randomized controlled trials are needed.
This is a weird review, if there ever was one!
- It certainly did not follow the PRISMA guidelines.
- It evaluated the effects of Reiki practice on improving symptoms in breast cancer patients; much clearer can one not display a pro-Reiki bias!
- It included non-randomised trials.
- None of the included studies were of sufficiently good quality.
But the weirdest aspect must be the conclusion of the abstract: it aknowledges the fact that the primary studies were rubbish and nevertheless praises the multiple alleged benefits of Reiki. If the evidence is unconvincing due to many flaws of the primary data, the only adequate conclusion should read something like this:
Because of serious flaws of the included studies, the evidence that Reiki affects the symptoms of breast cancer patients fails to be positive.
This study was conducted to determine the effect of Reiki performed on children with leukemia between the ages of 5-7 years on pain, vital signs, oxygen saturation, and quality of life. It was a double-blind, pre-test-post-test randomized controlled experimental study. The research sample consisted of 66 children with leukemia aged 5-7 years who were hospitalized in pediatric oncology wards of a university hospital between December 2020 and November 2021. The balanced block randomization method was used for randomization. The data were collected using Information Form, Wong-Baker FACES Pain Scale (W-BPS), Vital Signs Follow-up Form, The Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory (PedsQL) 3.0 Cancer Module. Reiki was performed to the Reiki group for 20-30 min once per day, for 3 consecutive days and pseudo-Reiki was applied to the pseudo-Reiki group by an independent nurse during the same application period.
There was no statistically significant difference in vital signs (heart rate, respiratory rate, body temperature) and SpO2 values among the groups (p > 0.05). However, both children’s and mothers’ evaluations on days 1, 2, and 3 after the intervention showed that pain scores in the Reiki group were significantly lower than in the pseudo-Reiki and control groups (p < 0.001), and quality of life was significantly higher (child:p < 0.001; mother:p < 0.01) compared to the pseudo-Reiki and control groups.
The authors concluded that Reiki did not affect the vital signs of the children but was effective in reducing pain and increasing the quality of life compared with the pseudo Reiki and control groups. It is recommended that Reiki therapy be used in addition to medical treatment to reduce pain and improve quality of life in children with leukemia aged 5-7 years.
The whole point of having a control group receiving pseudo-Reiki is to control for placebo effects. For this purpose, it is necessary to fool the patients well and make sure that they are unable to tell Reiki from pseudo-Reiki. I would guess – I have no aceess to the full paper – that this was not the case in this study. If I am correct, the positive outcome is likely to be due to expectation of a positive healing effect and unrelated to any specific effect of Reiki.
In any case, it is irresponsible nonsense to recommend Reiki – or any therapy – on the basis of just one positive study. For that one would need several independent confirmations with high quality studies that firmly establish a cause effect relationship. The current study does not fall into that category, and I am not aware of a single trial that does.
This review was aimed at analyzing the scientific evidence on Reiki intervention as a nursing care strategy for people with cancer. For this purpose, the researchers searched six databases, including primary studies, in Portuguese, Spanish and/or English, about the evidence on the use of Reiki intervention as a care strategy for cancer patients, totaling five publications.
The included studies suggest potential benefits of Reiki intervention, such as pain relief, reduction of physical symptoms (fatigue and insomnia) and improvement in emotional aspects, such as anxiety and stress. However, the results are still limited in terms of methodological robustness and generalizability.
The Brazilian authors concluded that, although the findings indicate beneficial effects of Reiki in people with oncological diseases, there is a limited production of clinical trials aimed at the application of this therapy in clinical nursing practice. Reiki can be considered a complementary strategy in nursing care, as long as it is integrated into an individualized therapeutic plan. It is recommended that studies with greater methodological rigor be carried out to evaluate the effectiveness of Reiki applied by oncology nurses.
The authors explain that “Reiki is a practice that uses the laying on of hands and symbols to channel universal life energy to recharge, realign and rebalance the human energy field. Its objective is to undo energetic blockages that compromise the flow of vital energy, and maintain harmony between the body, mind and spirit.” With just 2 sentences, the authors inply that Reiki has a sound scientific basis which they do not question in their paper at all. Yet phenomena such as live energy, regarging, realigning and rebalancing human energy fields, energetic blockages in the human body, flow of vital energy could not be less scientific. In fact, they are pure fantasy and have no basis in reality.
The authors also explain that 20 % (n=1) of the included studies were qualitative, 20 % (n=1) were quasi-experimental, 20 % (n=1) were reports of professional experience, and 40 % (n=2) consisted of randomized clinical trials (RCTs). On closer scrutiny, none of the RCTs was sufficiently rigorous to allow firm, positive conclusions. In other words, there is no good evidence and the conclusion that Reiki is beneficial for cancer patients is nonsense.
The authors note that, in 2017, with the publication of Ordinance No. 849, of March 27, Reiki was officially included in the Brazilian public health network. In view of the above mentioned lack of plausibility combined with a lack of effectiveness, this inclusion seems wholly irresponsible.
I recently came across an aricle entitled “Reiki for Stress Relief” which I thought was excptional even for the often surprising literature on Reiki. Here is the abstract:
Reiki is Holistic. It isn’t just about the mental, or just about the physical, but both, and an overall restoration and improvement to you. And as we know, often the mental and physical are linked.
While the scientific understanding of Reiki’s effects on emotional blocks is still evolving, many individuals report subjective benefits, such as emotional release, relaxation, and a greater sense of inner peace, following Reiki sessions.
As the philosophy of Reiki is grounded in holistic medicine and thought, it is imperative to continue that tradition and also integrate other scientific -backed therapies such as the ones your doctor may suggest if you have a serious medical or mental condition. A balanced approach is key, and Reiki is possibly a powerful tool and philosophy that can be the missing key or complement to your current care regimen.
This is impressive! Don’t you just love how it’s ‘grounded in holistic thought’ while the scientific understanding is ‘still evolving’ ? That’s a very elegant way of admitting ‘we’re still waiting for the first piece of evidence’. And we all appreciate the disclaimer to actually see a real doctor as soon as we are truly ill.
The Canadian comedian Mayce Galoni had perhaps the best measure of Reiki when he did his stand-up bit about his nephew “becoming a Reiki master” at the age of 21: “My 21-year-old nephew is now a Reiki master. I didn’t even know you could be a master of anything at 21… Reiki is the only career where you can get paid for doing exactly what I do when I can’t find the TV remote.”
- Reiki,
- sham Reiki (i.e., Feiki),
- mindfulness meditation,
- waitlist control.
Treatments were delivered in four weekly 30-minute sessions.
- Reiki was superior to doing nothing (waiting list) which can be expected due to a placebo effect.
- Mindfulness was superior to doing nothing (waiting list) which can be expected not least due to a placebo effect.
- Mindfulness was superior to Feiki which can be expected as mindfulness might work.
- Reiki demonstrated effects comparable to mindfulness which is due to an inadequate sample size; for comparing two allegedly effective treatments, one would need a proper equivalence study with much larger sample sizes.
- The above argument also applies to the fact that “reductions in symptoms (>30 %) were reported by 55 % of participants in the Reiki and mindfulness groups, compared to 20 % in the Feiki group”.
The most interesting result is not mentioned in the abstract: there was no difference between Reiki and Feiki interventions. Thus, if this trial shows anything meaningful at all, it must be this:
THE CLINICAL EFFECTS OF REIKI RELY ON PLACEBO.
Or to put it differently:
REIKI HAS NO SPECIFIC EFFECTS.
Or to put it bluntly:
REIKI IS BOGUS!
The aim of this study was to determine the effects of Reiki applied to women in the postmenopausal period on menopausal symptoms and depression levels.
This randomized trial was conducted with postmenopausal women registered in a family health center. The sample of the study consisted of 82 women (Reiki=41, control=41). While four sessions of Reiki were applied to the women in the Reiki group, once a week for 4 weeks. All participants in the control group received routine care provided by health professionals at the family health center. The Menopause Rating Scale and Beck Depression Inventory were used to collect data. The data were analyzed using SPSS 25.0, with independent and dependent t-tests, and effect sizes were calculated using Cohen’s d. The analysis was conducted using the per-protocol approach, where only participants who fully completed the intervention and adhered to the protocol were included in the analysis.
The mean scores of menopausal complaints (17.31 vs. 21.73; p<0.01), somato-vegetative complaints (2.70 vs. 3.85; p<0.01), and psychological complaints (10.07 vs. 12.60; p<0.05) were significantly reduced in the Reiki group compared to the control group. Similarly, the mean score of depression (9.63 vs. 15.90; p<0.001) was significantly decreased in the Reiki group compared to the control group.
The authors concluded that Reiki practice significantly reduced menopausal symptoms and depression levels in postmenopausal women. These findings suggest that Reiki may be an effective complementary treatment option for women going through menopause.
The study was designed to compare Reiki plus standard care with standard care alone. Thus it followed the infamous A+B versus B design about which I have written repeatedly. It is popular amongst researchers of so-called alternative medicine (SCAM) because it invariably produces positive results, even if the tested therapy is a mere placebo.
How come?
Simple, because the placebo effect of most SCAMs can be expected to be sizable and is not controlled by this design. If Reiki itself is ineffective, i.e. not effective beyond placebo [which is true], it would in such a study still produce a positive outcome that makes it look like an effective therapy. In other words, the A+B versus B design is guaranteed to generate a positive result regardless of the uselessness of the tested treatment.
And now, I hope, you understand why so many SCAM researchers choose to adopt the A+B versus B design. Sadly, this will not stop SCAM researchers to continue using it with a view of misleading the public.
Reiki is a form of so-called alternative medicine (SCAM) that never ceases to surprise me. Recently I came across a truly weird study. Here is its abstract:
Reiki is a biofield therapy currently used in hospitals worldwide. Scientific evidence supports its effectiveness in addressing many physical and emotional conditions in human patients. However, few studies currently exist demonstrating the effects of Reiki on animal health. The present study aimed to evaluate the impact of distant Reiki on owner assessment of the health and wellbeing of adult dogs by measuring frequent complaints in veterinary practice. The research was conducted as a blinded, placebo-controlled, randomized clinical trial. Eleven variables were examined, analyzing changes after 3 and 6 weeks of distant Reiki treatment. The statistical analysis was performed using the Mann-Whitney U test to compare changes between the groups. The study demonstrated that dogs receiving distant Reiki showed significant pain reduction compared with the control group. After the third (P = .05) and sixth sessions (P = .02), all dogs in the Reiki group showed some pain reduction. No significant difference was observed in the other variables analyzed. Study results suggest that Reiki may have beneficial effects, particularly for pain relief in dogs. These preliminary results warrant further research to more accurately assess the effectiveness of Reiki in veterinary medicine.
Already the very first sentence of the abstract does not inspire me with confidence. Only a deeply biased person would state such an exaggeration. This seems to not be science but pure wishful thinking.
Studying the full paper, we find that it elaborates on Reiki a lot but does not tell us what happened in the control group. As the author calls this a placebo-controlled trial, we must assume that the dogs in that group received a placebo. But what sort of placebo exactly? There is no generally accepted placebo-Reiki!
Does the author not know that the whole point of publishing a study is that others can repeat the experiment? Is she aware of the fact that, if you don’t disclose crucial methodological details, a study is irreproducible? Does she know that irreproducible science is no science?
Perhaps more relevantly, we do not even know whether the dog owners were blinded and how successful that blinding was. My guess is that they were unblinded or could bedlind during the trial. If I am correct, the positive result is not due to Reiki but to a placebo effect by proxy.
In any case – deblinding or not – it seems blindingly obvious that the study is false positive and that Reiki is a SCAM that amounts to a scam.
In the realm of so-called alternative medicine, one often comes across weird articles. Some are clearly weirder than others. This paper belongs into the former category. Here is its abstract:
The belief in non- physical beings playing crucial roles in illness and healing is widespread across diverse cultures. Our previous study found reports of alleged non- physical beings during energy medicine sessions. To evaluate the perceived presence and characteristics of non- physical beings mentioned during Reiki sessions. Six seers observed 40 Reiki sessions, and quantitative and qualitative data were collected from the seers, participants, and Reiki practitioners. The presence and function of the non-physical beings during the sessions and the correspondence between quantitative and qualitative data types were evaluated. All sessions had reports of alleged non- physical beings, with angelic beings, spirit guides, and possession/spirit attachments most commonly noted. The reported entities mainly aided the healing process, but some were also linked to pathology. While this study did not explore the effectiveness of treatment, the findings do highlight the potential importance of ostensible non- physical entities in Reiki, warranting further investigation.
The authors concluded that “this report presents exploratory data analyses from a parent study in which six seers observed 40 Reiki sessions. The analysis shows that seers reported perceptions of non- physical beings, such as RM’s and Participant’s Guides, Unspecified Spiritual Beings/Helpers, Angelic Presences, Unhelpful Beings (e.g.,
spirit attachments), ETI, and Animal Spirits during all of the sessions. However, other than for ETI and Unhelpful Beings, agreement between raters regarding the type of non- physical beings reported was low, suggesting that caution should be exercised when reviewing these reports. Most of these beings were perceived as aiding the Reiki session by grounding, supporting, and healing. On the other hand, Unhelpful Beings were mentioned as contributing to pathology by blocking or attaching. Although many sessions showed alignment between the coded
data and textual data, the correlations were not significant when individual seer scores were retained; multiple comparison corrections were applied. This study is unique and significant in its systematic approach to quantifying and analyzing the correspondence of observers’ perceptions of non- physical beings in healing sessions, especially given the limited research this topic has received. However, this study also highlights the need for future research into the role of non- physical beings in energy medicine healing, including control conditions, to ensure that the reported perceptions are specific to the healing process and not to other factors. Future research prompted by these results includes exploring the potential differences in healing outcomes for individuals who report encounters with various non- physical beings during Reiki energy medicine sessions. Investigating this could provide support for the argument that, as physical and mental health practitioners increasingly recognize the impact of spiritual connections on disease and pathology, it becomes crucial to reframe traditional understandings of conditions like psychosis to include the influence of non- physical beings (Pederzoli et al. 2021)”.
The authors discuss that energy healing practitioners often assert that they must connect with a source of healing, such as God, spirit, or the Earth’s energy, and then channel or facilitate that energy to the client. Others describe a more direct intervention of God, spirits, or other external agents. This connection with non- physical sources is believed to be crucial for effective healing.
Wow!
Who can publish such weird stuff pretending this is science?
And to what institution does the author of this paper belong?
I am tempted to start a competition for ‘THE MOST IMPRESSIVE BULLSHIT OF THE YEAR’.
The article originates from the “Research Department, Institute of Noetic Sciences, Novato, California, USA“. This seems to be a well-funded institute with ~ 20 staff. They state: “At the Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS), we are inspired by the power of science to explain phenomena not previously understood, harnessing the best of the rational mind to make advances that further our knowledge and enhance our human experience.”
They have an impressively long list of publications. The very first in the list rang a bell; they cite it as follows:
Astin et al (2000). The efficacy of “distant healing”: A systematic review of randomized trials. Annals of Internal Medicine. pdf
It rang a bell because I and a co-worker of mine are 2 of its 3 authors:
The efficacy of “distant healing”: a systematic review of randomized trials.
The 1st author, John Astin worked at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, USA.
As far as I can make out, none of us had or have any connection to the Institute of Noetic Sciences!
How come then that they list our paper as one of their own?
Fraud?
No, I imagine that an angelic being or perhaps a spirit guide must have mis-filed it … got to prove that “non-physical beings”can make mistakes too! To err is not just human; it’s also super-human.
The aim of this study was to determine the effects of Reiki applied to women in the postmenopausal period on menopausal symptoms and depression levels.
This randomized controlled study was conducted with postmenopausal women registered in a family health center. The sample of the study consisted of 82 women (Reiki=41, control=41). While four sessions of Reiki were applied to the women in the Reiki group, once a week for 4 weeks, all participants in the control group received routine care provided by health professionals at the family health center. The Menopause Rating Scale and Beck Depression Inventory were used to collect data. The data were analyzed using SPSS 25.0, with independent and dependent t-tests, and effect sizes were calculated using Cohen’s d. The analysis was conducted using the per-protocol approach, where only participants who fully completed the intervention and adhered to the protocol were included in the analysis.
The mean scores of menopausal complaints (17.31 vs. 21.73; p<0.01), somato-vegetative complaints (2.70 vs. 3.85; p<0.01), and psychological complaints (10.07 vs. 12.60; p<0.05) were significantly reduced in the Reiki group compared to the control group. Similarly, the mean score of depression (9.63 vs. 15.90; p<0.001) was significantly decreased in the Reiki group compared to the control group.
The authors concluded that Reiki practice significantly reduced menopausal symptoms and depression levels in postmenopausal women. These findings suggest that Reiki may be an effective complementary treatment option for women going through menopause.
I beg to differ!
The study was designed along the A+B versus B design which we have discussed ad nauseam on this blog. It does not control for placebo effects which means it generates positive results without fail, even for the most ineffective therapies.
In view of this, I should re-write the conclusions as follows:
Placebo effects significantly reduce menopausal symptoms and depression levels in postmenopausal women. These findings do not suggest that Reiki may be an effective complementary treatment option for women going through menopause.
