Caution Reiki: Handle With Care

What happens when alternative therapies fail to cure, or even seem to cause an exacerbation of a condition? We all know about the "healing crisis" which is the usual alternative therapists catch-all phrase to explain the failure. Of course, a more straightforward answer is to employ Occam's Razor and realise that

Entities should not be multiplied unnecessarily.

hence the alternative therapy, in fact, has no affect whatsoever, rather than different affects at different times. Try explaining that to an alternatista though.

EoR recently came across this amusing discussion thread, wherein it is revealed that Reiki is not always safe:

Many ancient symbols, when inscribed over someone in a healing session or invoked for that person as happens in a Reiki healing, can be experienced as psychic intrusion to someone's energy field. So your energy field can react negatively when these symbols are inscribed over you. I, for instance, am "allergic" to Reiki. If someone comes at me with those symbols, my system perceives it as psychic attack. I know many others who have the same reaction. I'm trained in some healing techniques that allow you to measure the expansion of the auric field and the size of the chakras, and what I perceive through this measuring system is that many "patients" go through a hyper-expansion of their auric field and their individual chakras when given Reiki energy.

This particular poster gives a telling example:

Man Gets Sicker After Reiki Treatments
I used to know a lovely man who suffered from severe chronic fatigue, Lyme, and rheumatoid arthritis, and he kept thinking that getting Reiki was the answer, and he went in for treatment after treatment. I'd pick up the pieces afterwards and try to remove the effects of those "healing" sessions. His system was hyper-energized, which is the LAST thing you want when treating those particular conditions, because the energy system of a rheumatoid arthritis sufferer is already heavily congested. He needed a clearing out of energy, not an adding in. So the Reiki healer would blast him with energy, and believe me, she was the sweetest and most intuitive lady on the planet, but she didn't understand what was going on.

While EoR is amused by this man getting imaginary Bad Healing Energy, and then having to get imaginary Good Healing Energy to balance it out, repeatedly, it is clear that neither understood what was going on. That is, a condition that resolves and reoccurs without any correlation whatsoever to Magic Healing Woo. Nonetheless, these alternatistas go to great length to rationalise their failures. The entities multiply almost without end. Another poster relates

I was not even doing Reiki, just my own healing, and had prayed before doing it, and a client went ballistic on me, because he could feel his skin heating up and softening, and because I could "see" how he injured himself when I put my hands on the painful area. He accused me of being possessed, called me a charlatan, etc...and then stiffed me out of $50! I got rid of his pain problem, and he was able to walk without limping when I was done with him, but he was yelling at me all the way down the hallway.

EoR must remember that. It might be a good way to make money, going from alternative therapist to alternative therapist and complaining of Energy Overload Injury and demanding compensation.

Others on the thread argue that the problem is not Energy Overload, or Wrong Energy, but the fact that these practitioners are "telling" people to heal, rather than "asking". Or the fact that we vibrate on different levels, so different healings work for different vibrations. Or the person is focused on the process rather than the healing. Or it was not the "right time to heal". Or the patients "love their pain" and refuse to give it up (this one seems particularly offensive to EoR - here are these supposed enlightened healers wandering about with wavering hands blaming the sick for their failures). Or the practitioner hasn't recently been attuned (apparently like topping up the oil in your car). Or the practitioner hasn't been drinking enough water. Or the "Divine" somehow failed. And, while all healing energies are equal, some are more equal than others:

I once had a channeling client who was having some healing work done on her by a Barbara Brennan Hands of Light practitioner. She was told by this healer that it was a good thing she had not had any reiki done on her, otherwise the session would have been twice as long, because first she would have to undo the damage the reiki session had caused.

One poster puts EoR's opinion succintly (though the fact that they are a 'natural healer' probably means they haven't quite got EoR's views about the rest of newage mysticism:

The New Age isn't about the age of enlightenment. It's about confusing and throwing in a bunch of disinfo into what SHOULD HAVE BEEN yet another natural evolution of the human species. Sad, very sad.