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Why are so many Christians skeptical of the healing modality known as reiki?

Many Christians I meet seem to shy away from reiki, claiming that reiki energy is mysterious, the source of which is likely the devil disguising the energy as a healing energy. Any thoughts?

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People in general fear what they do not know and cannot see. If you look back through the history of the Christian church, there were many concepts that were condemned by the church that we accept as truth today without a fuss - the shape of the world, the center of the universe, the causes of diseases. There will always be something to object to, and right now the presence of an energetic body and any ability to act on it seems to be one of those things. Right now, there is not enough mainstream information out there coming from sources they would view as "normal" and "credible".

People really need to educate themselves on a subject before deciding they are against it, because half the time they are against it for a reason that is completely untrue. Reiki is not based in any religion at all, and therefore it does not interfere with the teachings of any religion. It is also not "magic"; it's simple energy work. Anyone can work with reiki, not just "special people"; they simply have to be attuned to it by a master. Reiki energy can be detected; it has been photographed with Kirlian cameras. And have we really digressed so far into the artificial that we can't bring ourselves to believe anything that's not thoroughly investigated and proved for us by science anymore? Why do we need science to confirm or deny what we can experience for ourselves?

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Other Answers (7)

• Everybody should be skeptical of reiki. Any alleged health treatment that is based in magic should set of alarm bells. No one has ever been able to demonstrate under proper clinical trial that reiki performs better than placebo.
  
  Furthermore, the alleged reiki healing "energy" that can only be manipulated by special people, is completely implausible and undetectable by any scientific apparatus - and science has extremely accurate equipment for this. We can detect a 20 watt signal (less than a light bulb) from the voyager space probe which is out past pluto now, but we can't detect "reiki energy".
  
  In fact the reiki proponents are misusing the word energy, which by is by definition, a measurement of something's capacity to do work - it's an attribute, and does not exist in some pure form.
  
  "Christians" as you put it, are probably worried that you must invoke the supernatural to explain reiki. I often ask proponents how do they know that this reiki energy does not do any harm to the body - I have never had a decent answer.
• I am echoing cdr_cmt's comment because she is spot on:
  People really need to educate themselves on a subject before deciding they are against it, because half the time they are against it for a reason that is completely untrue. Reiki is not based in any religion at all, and therefore it does not interfere with the teachings of any religion. It is also not "magic"; it's simple energy work. Anyone can work with reiki, not just "special people"; they simply have to be attuned to it by a master. Reiki energy can be detected; it has been photographed with Kirlian cameras. And have we really digressed so far into the artificial that we can't bring ourselves to believe anything that's not thoroughly investigated and proved for us by science anymore? Why do we need science to confirm or deny what we can experience for ourselves?
  
  Would also like to add: the word "Reiki" translated from Japanese - "Rei" means "God" or "Universe", "Ki" means energy, so literally "Reiki" means "God Energy" or "Universal Energy".

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• Christians are like that with nearly everything alternative like that. Crystal healing is the devil, new age and reiki. They are skeptical because only God has the healing power but it's really that they don't want their members to stray. Everything is the devil and witch craft!!!!
• Everyone should be skeptical of reiki, it's a scam. It's silly to object to it because you think it's witchcraft, but at least they won't waste money on it.
• Reiki is a ridiculous scam, but no more so than Christianity.
  
  Perhaps Christians view reiki as competition - after all, there are only so many gullible people to scam in the world.
• i think cuz reliki is based on another relegioin....but i think that chrisiatns should embrace alternative medicine cuz its using what god created to heal the body(which he also created makes sense huh )
• I am not Christian but have Christian friends. According to them reiki like yoga is considered a form of witch craft .