In the second half of the twentieth century, Reiki went from an
obscure therapy practiced by a few thousand Japanese and Japanese
Americans to a global phenomenon. By the early twenty-first
century, ...people in nearly every corner of the world have undergone
the initiations that authorize them to channel a cosmic
energy-known as Reiki-to heal body, mind, and spirit. They lay
hands on themselves and others, use secret symbols and incantations
to send Reiki to distant recipients, and strive to follow five
precepts to cultivate their spiritual growth. Reiki's international
rise and development is due to the work of Hawayo Takata
(1900-1980), a Hawai'i-born Japanese American woman who brought
Reiki out of Japan and adapted it for thousands of students in
Hawai'i and North America, shaping interconnections across the
North Pacific region as well as cultural transformations over the
transwar period spanning World War II. Alternate Currents: Reiki's
Circulation in the Twentieth-Century North Pacific analyzes how,
from her training in Japan in the mid-1930s to her death in Iowa in
1980, Takata built a vast trans-Pacific network that connected
Japanese American laborers on plantations in Hawai'i to social
elites in Tokyo, Hollywood, and New York; middle-class housewives
in American suburbs; and off-the-grid tree planters in the
mountains of British Columbia. Using recently uncovered archival
materials and original oral histories, Justin B. Stein examines how
these relationships between healer and patient, master and
disciple, became deeply infused with values of their time and place
and how they interplayed with Reiki's circulation, performance, and
meanings along with broader cultural shifts in the
twentieth-century North Pacific. Highly readable and informative,
each chapter is structured around a period in the life of Takata,
the charismatic, rags-to-riches architect of the network in which
Reiki spread for decades. Alternate Currents explores Reiki as an
exemplary transnational spiritual therapy, demonstrating how lived
practices transcend artificial distinctions between religion and
medicine, and circulate in global systems while maintaining strong
connections with the practices' homeland.
Reiki healing has become increasingly popular in the UK since the 1980s. The 'community' of Reiki in London is unbounded, both geographically spread and demographically diverse. Some practitioners ...gather with others to perform Reiki in 'shares', but these shares are frequently attended by different people, who disperse afterwards and have little to no contact with each other. While Reiki healers might either place their hands on the client or keep them suspended just above the body, any intimacy is contained within the episode of healing. In the episodic engagement of self-practice, Reiki practitioners 'check-in' with themselves 'in the moment'. Focusing on practitioners, this anthropological study explores the commitment to Reiki practice given its non-native, unfixed and fragmented identity in London. Noting that the incentive for practitioners to self-practice links well-being with being good, the principle exploration in this thesis is of the meaningfulness of Reiki as a practice of experience. Analysing ethnographic data from two years of participant observation and semi-structured interviews amongst Reiki practitioners in London, this study presents vital materialism, in which there is a perceived kinship between human and non-human agent-objects. In Reiki distance healing, prophetic interpretation and regression healing, practitioners are presented as expanding the present-moment, in spatial and temporal play, to curate the 'self'. While there is an aesthetic preoccupation in 'cleansing', the practice is also ethical. Individually stylised rituals of Reiki identify paradoxically arbitrary actions as arbiters of meaningfulness, orienting 'authenticity' around the individual. Individualistic authenticity revolutionises the social imagination, as practitioners transform the legitimising terms of the city, science and bureaucracy. Privileging the senses as 'intuitive' knowledge internalises the judgment of truth, exemplified by conspiracy theories. In the perception of 'energy', they seek to transform contemporary metropolitan life into an ascent of the individual.
Reiki, Nursing, and Health Care Lipinski, Kathie; Van De Velde, Jane
The Nursing clinics of North America,
12/2020, Letnik:
55, Številka:
4
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Health care organizations are responding to consumer demand by offering more complementary and integrative health services in inpatient, outpatient, and clinic settings. Nursing has long embraced ...energy-based modalities such as Reiki and has been at the forefront of introducing body, mind, and spirit healing practices into health care settings. This article describes how nurses can integrate Reiki into both their personal lives for self-care as well as their professional patient care practices. An overview of Reiki's integration into hospital systems is presented as well as Reiki's use with various patient populations. The status of Reiki research is discussed.
Reiki is a technique for stress reduction, relaxation, and healing. Reiki is based on the idea that an unseen energy flows throughout all things including the body. When this energy is low one may be ...prone to sickness or stress. When this energy is high one is more capable of living a happy and healthy life. Reiki is administered by the light touch of a practitioner through a series of hand positions that directly affect this unseen energy or "ki." The nursing profession, especially during a pandemic, can experience a high level of burnout. Due to the nature of their work, oncology nurses can suffer an emotional toll and currently there is little in place to help staff cope. Reiki can support nursing staff with feelings of stress, burnout, and physical or emotional fatigue. The literature demonstrated that Reiki effectively decreases stress and anxiety with only a few sessions. A staff Reiki program was developed and implemented in a National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center to help staff relieve stress, increase morale, and decrease burnout. This innovative nursing initiative to improve the wellbeing of nurses and ancillary staff who were at risk of experiencing burnout was the first of its kind throughout the organization's 70+ outpatient cancer center sites. Time was designated for this Reiki certified practitioner to offer Reiki to nursing and ancillary staff. An informative email was sent providing directions for those interested. One hour time slots were offered bimonthly, and a quiet space was designated for the 20-minute sessions. Data was collected pre- and post- session. Pre-data showed that 85% of those who received Reiki did not understand the technique as compared to 100% of staff post session. 100% of staff reported experiencing stress at work and reported that a Reiki program could improve morale. Since the program began in September 2020, there has been an extremely positive response. Staff report pain relief and decreased stress levels following a session. As of now, 100% of the 127 participants have reported positive outcomes. Staff engagement continues to be extremely active with the Reiki program. Out of the 127 participants, 45 sought out sessions for pain and stress at times outside of the program. Overall moral improved. Future goals include training additional Reiki practitioners and expanding the program to other network sites.
The book provides an accurate description of Reiki, based on qualitative and quantitative scientific evidence, in terms of how it can be used in medical settings to benefit patients of all types, ...physiologically and psychologically. It achieves this by following the journey of the author (a scientist), starting from her unsolicited encounter with Reiki and personal observations to her continuing testing of its validity and her quest to determine its effectiveness through robust, scientific investigation.
Energy medicine (EM), is a type of complementary and alternative medicine, which encompasses a range of practices aimed at promoting holistic well-being through the manipulation of energy fields ...within the body. EM has immense potential in delivering valuable support in a wide range of health conditions. It is imperative for healthcare professionals to be aware of EM, its safety and efficacy in the management of various conditions. Despite its growing popularity, EM remains controversial and encounters several barriers to its recognition and acceptance by the medical fraternity. This paper provides a comprehensive overview of the concept and practice of EM including its history, various types, mechanism of action, applications, driving factors for its practice, current status and future prospects. Putative types of EM modalities are the focus of this paper. Additionally, we examine the challenges to its widespread recognition and acceptance and discuss the importance of further rigorous scientific research to establish its efficacy and safety and bridge the gap between conventional and energy medicine.
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