Is Reiki a form of Force power?

Fyxe wrote: Why isnt it Brick? I have been told that energy the same no matter what. so maybe you dont think Reike is real or that the force is not real? what is your reason?

Because I believe demonstrable facts with outcomes which can be repeated continuously by different people in different environments around the world.

There is ZERO tangible evidence to support the idea that we can 'heal' by manipulating energy around us.

I do believe in the Force, but not in the way you refer to it. I won't derail the thread by discussing it here, but you can you find my thoughts on it here

Brick wrote:

Kohadre wrote: It's deeply upsetting to see that this community will intentionally ignore any facts and evidence presented to it, relevant to the topics of "force powers" or other supernatural phenomenon.

Despite having evidence presented that these topics are founded within racketeering and other dishonest practices, members of this community choose to remain intentionally ignorant and dismissive of said evidence. Instead, they choose to continue promoting and focusing their efforts on practices and beliefs that have no legitimate basis or connection to reality.

I'm disappointed that this is the direction the community seems to be going.

Its interesting to me that you see this as the direction the community is headed. I actually think we're moving away from it.

These thread seem to come up significantly less than they did about 3-4 years ago, and its usually newer members who are bringing it up.

Nods - very true and it’s usually the practitioners that defend their practice rather than share often here these past few years as well. Maybe it’s time for a change? Defense vs share- how does one even begin that ? To make the differences ? Those two mainly ?

Athena_Undomiel wrote: What is the negativity against Reiki in particular? Are you also this opposed to medicinal meditation? Acupuncture? Tea? Dieting?

I have negativity against all of the above generally.
I'm sure they are good for curing stress (as anything that relaxes you generally is), but that's not the same as 'healing' an ailment or a bullet wound.

Dieting is an odd one to bring up in that list I think. I 'believe' in dieting, in the sense that it's proven, to have a physical impact upon the body. Though are probably healthier ways to achieve the same result.

Athena_Undomiel wrote: Who is to say that The Force could not be manipulated to heal through direct focus on pained areas?

Well, when you ask the question in a public forum, anyone who believes it can't be manipulated to heal. In this case, me :laugh:

Athena_Undomiel wrote: Can anyone prove otherwise that this "energy" does not exist?

Proving whether something does or doesn't exist, is a separate issue to proving whether that something can be manipulated to heal. Though first proving its existence would certainly help in the campaign to prove one's ability to manipulate it.

Oh, great another one. Alright, behold my power of non-triple-posting...

Fyxe wrote: Why isnt it Brick? I have been told that energy the same no matter what.

Sure, but something tells me you'd believe it even if you hadn't been. It's pretty much the answer you were waiting for so that's the thing you happen to remember. What else were you told?

Carlos.Martinez3 wrote:

Kohadre wrote: It's deeply upsetting to see that this community will intentionally ignore any facts and evidence presented to it, relevant to the topics of "force powers" or other supernatural phenomenon.

Despite having evidence presented that these topics are founded within racketeering and other dishonest practices, members of this community choose to remain intentionally ignorant and dismissive of said evidence.

Please present them here ?! [sic]

Gladly:

Here is a double-blinded study with control groups where first degree practitioners could not correctly recognize whether they had been properly initiated or not based on their Reiki sessions at a better rate than chance. Their respective patients also failed to correctly identify whether they were having sessions with true practitioners or sham ones. This indicates that there was not a difference of outcome or a feeling of any kind of real "energy" among either the practitioners - real or sham ones - or the patients.
https://doi.org/10.1089/10755530260511766

Here is a double-blinded study surveying as many as 21 touch therapy practitioners in a broader sense, testing and failing to confirm that any of them were able to feel any kind of human energy field in bodily proximity despite years of alleged experience in perceiving it.
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/187390

And that's just the first two randomly picked off of the citations on Wikipedia, the most superficial and lazy way of looking things up real quick. I could dig deeper and compile a longer list. This so far took zero effort and yet neither article was even mentioned here before. I can fully empathize with Kohadre's impression that many here (or too many for our liking, at any rate) either prefer ignorance over knowledge and don't care enough to look it up, or have read both of these and other references and found them unworthy of their consideration, let alone comment. Either the evidence was dismissed after review or the very idea of substantiating ideas through evidence is foreign enough to where none was reviewed in the first place.

Athena_Undomiel wrote: There are many alternative forms of medicine that many individuals and cultures prescribe to. What is the negativity against Reiki in particular? Are you also this opposed to medicinal meditation? Acupuncture? Tea? Dieting?

I for one am not any more hostile towards Reiki than I am to all of the other woo. But this thread has been about Reiki, so was another recent one, and back a few months ago there was a discussion about whether or not to install an official Reiki office on TOTJO. I have dealth on these forums before with astrology, creationism and telekinesis and Reiki is no more entitled to a free pass than any of those other pseudoscientific claims or disciplines.

Where is the line? These practices have long existed in Eastern cultures throughout the world. There are tons of "obscure" medicinal practices and why would we as Jedi not try to understand them?

First of all, it's completely irrelevant how many woo practices are out there or how long they have been around and where. On that note, if I may briefly digress, I love the "Eastern cultures throughout the world" bit. I'm sure that's not how you meant it, but it is so easy to read this expression as this stereotypical late 20^th century western fascination with just what ever happens to feel foreign and exotic for that sole reason. It doesn't matter where those traditions come from or whether there is any demonstrable benefit to them, they are interesting simply because they are alien to us.
But to get to the point you make in the rhetorical question, I actually agree. It would do us well as people in general to be informed of the traditions, including mystical ones, of near and far cultures past and present, the worldviews and philosophies that inspired or influenced them. The only thing I'm objecting to is the insistence that the worldviews themselves are accurate descriptions of nature when what we know of nature leaves no room for them at all. I object to the insistence that there really exist these secret forces and magical powers despite every properly conducted test that would reveal any such thing consistently failing to do so. It's nonsense and we know that it is nonsense, and claiming on the internet that there is any more to it than nonsense can be done only by deliberately avoiding any research on the matter, rejecting it, or lying. I too don't get why we as Jedi wouldn't try to understand them, but apparently some Jedi are happy to go as far even as to try not to for some reason...

If Qi, Chi, Ki, is the energy that flows throughout the universe and through all living things what makes it different from "The Force"?

People who allege they can heal the sick through manipulations of "The Force" are taken far less seriously than people who say the same thing but replace "The Force" with "Chi". That's a very major difference. As an actual magical essence of the universe that can be manipulated to achieve any detectable results unaccounted for by chance, placebo, and the effects of relaxation, they are all equally non-existent. Point taken.

Who is to say that The Force could not be manipulated to heal through direct focus on pained areas?

The fact that such physically detectable effects would be much much stronger than what little uncertainty there is left where one could possibly cram any more forces into the equation.

Can anyone prove otherwise that this "energy" does not exist?

Setting aside in this instance where the burden of proof should be, actually, yes. To a legally acceptable standard, it has already been proven numerous times. It would be dishonest to keep insisting on the claim if all we had is a shrugging "we just don't know", but what we have is a resounding "we do know it's nonsense" making the insistence on the claim all the more outrageous.



Also, Brick, you are an absolute delight to read, if I may end on a warmer note than usual...

I'm not a huge reiki fan myself, and I try not to believe in magic (other than obviously true magic, like fairies, or luck), but whenever I see pro-skub and anti-skub riots of something that "unscientific" as it is, more or less causes no harm, if no measurable good other than whatever mental tricks you allow it to play on yourself, I remember that basically most things people do are asinine, but you don't go down the local pub screaming "you fools! It's poison! It's all poison!" and kick over the tables, for their own good*....

Every belief we hold influences how we act. Every cent wasted on an ineffective treatment is a cent that could have gone towards providing or researching for effective ones.
Every belief we hold influences how we go about believing things, too. Every belief we are happy to hold uncritically makes it just that little bit more acceptable for us to adopt more of its sort. Every superstitious attitude invites us to jump to yet more unwarranted conclusions that in their own right influence how we act in our personal lives, towards our loved ones, towards our neighbors, and towards our fellow citizen, directly, and through the ballot.
Particularly spiritual beliefs are often held very personally and invite us to spread them to others out of care, and the propagation success does not correlate with merit.
Every false belief we make no attempt or fail to correct in others - aside from leaving them with the false belief and all its harms besides this - may lead to them making or failing to avoid mistakes that can in turn influence our own actions and even well-being more directly.
And that's even ignoring the sort of environments where woo like that is promoted as a replacement rather than complement to actual treatment for serious conditions.

I don't understand what about this "What's the harm?" is so appealing even to those who get a response about all the harm there is every time they ask it, to keep asking it over and over again. Yes, unjustified beliefs are harmful, and very rarely is the harm "only" an intellectual one. Asking that question also kind of requires a very lax attitude about matters of accuracy/truth. Someone who cares about being well informed and correct, and about others being well informed and correct about things in general really doesn't need a second justifier to oppose bad or dishonest reasoning or unsubstantiated beliefs, or outright inaccurate/false ones, in my opinion. A question like "What's the harm in believing this particular false thing anyway?" I can only see coming from a place of apathy towards that. Which is not necessarily a substantive criticism. If that's how some feel, I for one find it regrettable and disturbing and have severe difficulty empathizing with them, but I don't think there is much we can or should do about it other than what little attempts at appealing to them these are...


Oh, and also, yea, I think there is a difference between a "mostly harmless" can of coke that's said to possibly quench some thirst and is also not recommended to the feeble-hearted or diabetic, and a "mostly harmless" magic spell casting said to cure cancer better than anything the they would administer instead.

Oh, and also, yea, I think there is a difference between a "mostly harmless" can of coke that's said to possibly quench some thirst and is also not recommended to the feeble-hearted or diabetic, and a "mostly harmless" magic spell casting said to cure cancer better than anything the they would administer instead.

Is it mostly harmless? how much money, time, resources, and belief (that it will somehow make you more interesting, better looking, and more fun, according to the ads) is wasted on coke? money, time and resources that could be spent on myriad other things that have a much better chance of improving your prospects?

BS is BS, and people believe whatever they need to believe to get through the day.

You might be enlightened (or not) but you can't make the rest of the world think the way you need to think to survive.



For example, I work with 30 odd people, in an organisation of around 2000.

I have a piece of paper that says I am the best of 30 (according to whatever standards they've come up with), I don't exactly know where I am in the 2000, but I'm sure I rate somewhere- for somewhat practical reasons, all the trash beneath me is not required to run their every thought and decision by me each day, even though it would seem the whole organisation would be better off for it if they did things my way instead of whatever imbecile way they do things.


So you may be right, and many other people may be wrong, and you might be so confident in your rightness and it's purity that you want to share it with the world, for their own good

but here's the thing - You can't.


And you're right, I have an incredibly lax attitude towards accuracy and truth - because I am reasonably confident I can be the smartest most correct man alive, and I'll still fill a hole in the ground one day.


The only resource we have that matters is time, someone wants to spend that earning money to spend on woo - fine.
Apparently you and I want to spend it arguing on the internet - not really sure who the real stupid is here?

Reiki is as harmless as the intentions of the practitioner. If it's promoted for what it is, it does no harm to anyone except their wallets. If not, then it's problematic at best.

All this "deeply disappointed in the direction of the community" nonsense is garbage and hogwash. The entire purpose of this Temple is to explore the "real world" sources for the Jedi mythos, and energetic healing modalities have been around as long as any of the religions or philosophies we teach here. Probably longer. Reiki is just the poorly-thought-out, generic younger cousin to actual healing arts, and is not meant to be taken as the sole mode of health retention.

Gisteron wrote: Also, Brick, you are an absolute delight to read, if I may end on a warmer note than usual...

Stop, you're making me blush! :laugh:

Steamboat28 wrote: All this "deeply disappointed in the direction of the community" nonsense is garbage and hogwash. The entire purpose of this Temple is to explore the "real world" sources for the Jedi mythos, and energetic healing modalities have been around as long as any of the religions or philosophies we teach here. Probably longer. Reiki is just the poorly-thought-out, generic younger cousin to actual healing arts, and is not meant to be taken as the sole mode of health retention.

I agree and disagree here (surprise! I'm on the fence again ).

I agree with the sentiment that people shouldn't be surprised or disappointed by this topic coming up. As you say, the energy healing concept has been around since time immemorial. And it's present amongst the Jedi community since our very inception.

However I disagree with the 'real world' comment, as I don't buy into the idea that energy healing is 'real' anymore than I believe the tooth fairy is real.

That said, I respect your beliefs in it Steam and I accept that you actually have a fair amount of knowledge on this topic. Whilst we don't see eye to eye, your comments do carry weight with me, and actually contribute to the debate.

Brick wrote: However I disagree with the 'real world' comment, as I don't buy into the idea that energy healing is 'real' anymore than I believe the tooth fairy is real.

Regardless of whether or not you believe in its efficacy, you cannot deny that the concept itself, and the practices from those concepts, exist. Even if energy healing is bunk, the concept and practices of energy healing are real so long as people do them.