Talk:Reiki

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Wonder how fellow Philosophy Workgroup authors feel about this being in our purview?

Perhaps it's the materialist/positivist inside me speaking, but I feel slightly uncomfortable having this in the Philosophy Workgroup. Anyone got any strong opinions on it being here or not? I'd probably go with removing philosophy from the list of article categories. --Tom Morris 12:46, 28 June 2008 (CDT)

Skepticism and FIXME"?

I'm not sure what the FIXMEs are supposed to be.

"The ritual of a reiki healing, as well as the sympathetic ear of the reiki practitioner, are the cause of the benefit rather than the reiki energy.<ref>Skeptic's Dictionary, [http://www.skepdic.com/reiki.html reiki]</ref>" Sorry, the Skeptic's Dictionary is not authoritative about the mechanism, or lack of mechanism, of reiki. It should be reasonably practical to do sham ritual and do randomized controlled trials.

No, this should not be Philosophy, but Health Sciences.

Howard C. Berkowitz 04:03, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Health vs. non-health

In the interest of being clear about demonstrated efficacy in healing context, let's not go overboard to put "purported" on spiritual, enlightenment, etc., unless we are prepared to put "purported" on anything spiritual/religious, where clearly we cannot demonstrate the forces involved.

This is a tough area. While I don't find conventional prayer terribly relevant to my life, I also am not willing to call it of "purported" benefit, because I simply don't know. A given act may have benefits, but not for the claimed reasons. I don't know if we discuss, for example, the Catholic Sacrament for the Sick and call its benefits "purported". Now, I take no position if there is divine interaction, but I have watched the physiological monitors on a patient in an ICU, and watched at least a temporary improvement in their status. Might it just be relaxation and decrease in anxiety? Sure. Howard C. Berkowitz 05:05, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Anyone who says that sniffing flowers or whatever this particular article is about will cure you has a deep row to hoe in my opinion in trying to show that there is any actual benefit to it. I would say, therefore, that until Nature has an article saying that it works, that we retain the word "purported". And for all other similar articles about junk stuff. Personally, I would apply it to *all* articles about Prayer, Miracles, and similar baloney, without regard to race, creed, color, religion, etc. -- I think it's all nonsense. But I'm willing to examine it on an article by article basis. In this case I don't think there's any doubt. Hayford Peirce 16:44, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't have a problem with this article; as far as I can see it describes a belief system that I find rather peculiar, but it makes no claims of efficacy. In its present form it seems innocuous to me. We can't confuse "describing" something with "promoting" something. Gareth Leng 15:57, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

By "sniffing flowers", is the concern with the current article or with Bach flower therapy? Howard C. Berkowitz 17:32, 25 January 2011 (UTC)