Healing Hands Hocus Pocus

Q: Why do otherwise intelligent people fall for scams?

A: Because they believe they are intelligent and therefore do not think they are stupid enough to be tricked.

Reiki rears its ugly head again in Hong Kong. Pic from here.

Apparently, reiki practitioners use their hands "to transfer qi, or life-force energy. It is based on the principle that we all have qi running through us - the more we have the happier and healthier we feel. If our qi is low, we fall ill or feel stressed."

What a load of mumbo jumbo ... we may as well substitute "qi" for "midichlorians" and it will make just as much sense (i.e. nonsense). Here's the verbal diarrhoea quote from the news story):

"Reiki doesn't require anything special. Just place your hands on anyone you want to heal. You can use it on your family members or yourself."

Oh OK then. If a person is feeling unhealthy, they should just lay their own hands upon themselves ... free of charge ... and they will miraculously heal themselves. If reiki is so wonderful, why hasn't it shaken up the public health system in Japan (its place of origin) and other countries?

It is unfortunate that the Fifth Evolution Asia Yoga Conference will be held at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre on June 9 to 12. Charlatans, crackpots, charmers and seductresses with sexy bodies will promote reiki, yoga, pilates, astrology, nia technique, ayurveda, qi gong and meditation to gullible, witless attendees who have lots of cash to splash and few brain cells to use.


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Healing hands (The Standard)

Ivy Ong-Wood
Tuesday, May 31, 2011

As a physiotherapist, Ivy Mok Ka-pik is in the business of healing. The 31-year- old has a bachelor's degree in physiotherapy from the Hong Kong Polytechnic University but she was eager to add to her knowledge.

"Some of my friends took a reiki course and told me how good it was. As I was interested in alternative therapy, I thought reiki would be helpful in hands- on treatment," she said.

After returning from a two-day "attunement" course, Mok tested to see if the technique worked. "I had a client with chronic back pain. She had tried physiotherapy and acupuncture for a year but with no significant improvement. So I gave her two sessions of nothing but reiki.

"After the second session she called me up and asked me: 'What did you do? All I saw was you putting your hand on my back. But today I woke up and the pain had disappeared.' So I knew it was working."

So what is reiki? According to the International Center for Reiki Training, it is a Japanese technique developed by Mikao Usui in 1922 for stress reduction and also healing.

Practitioners lay on hands to transfer qi, or life-force energy. It is based on the principle that we all have qi running through us - the more we have the happier and healthier we feel. If our qi is low, we fall ill or feel stressed.

Mok has been a physiotherapist for nine years and has been practicing reiki for two. But you don't have to be a professional healer to benefit from the technique, she said. "Many of the friends who took the course aren't therapists. Reiki doesn't require anything special. Just place your hands on anyone you want to heal. You can use it on your family members or yourself. I don't feel tired so easily now that I practice it."

She has met her share of skeptics, of course. "I tell them be open and pay attention to how they feel, not what they think. Most patients don't get any special feeling during a session but find they have recovered after that."

Mok mostly uses the technique in addition to her other therapies. "I don't think you can be a therapist using only reiki."

During the session, she lays her hands on the patient and taps into both their qis. "Sometimes, I feel abnormal pain and discomfort on body parts other than what a patient has told me and I will ask. I've had patients asking me in surprise: 'How did you know I have a migraine?'"

Usually, Mok uses reiki for chronic cases - such as when a patient has tried different treatments without results. "It's like a last resort."

You can learn more about reiki, yoga, pilates, astrology, nia technique, ayurveda, qi gong and meditation at the Fifth Evolution Asia Yoga Conference, to be held at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre on June 9 to 12. The conference, which is sponsored by Pure Yoga, offers almost 200 classes for all levels, with over 60 different styles of yoga presented by more than 50 world-renowned faculty members.

Shopaholics are also catered for - a more than 20,000-square-foot Yoga Bazaar selling yoga products, books, DVDs and CDs. Open to the public, it will also hold yoga demonstrations and events.