A definitive answer to this question is still hotly debated within the integrative-medicine community. Dr. Larry Dossey, author of Prayer is Good Medicine, believes that healing is due to the effects of consciousness. Through some resonance effect between the bioenergy fields of the healer and patient, the healer may transfer healing bioinformational patterns directly into the patient’s field. Once the patient’s bioenergy field has been “restructured” into a healthier pattern, changes in the cellular pattern of the physical body follow.
Barbara Ann Brennan, former NASA physicist and founder of an international school which teaches energy healing, writes in her book Hands of Light that the healer really induces the patient to heal himself through natural processes, even though they are beyond what is considered to be natural for those who are not familiar with healing. The healer has access to an enormous amount of information through an expanded state of consciousness and is able to access the expression of imbalance in the patient’s energy system, correct it and repair appropriate layers of the energy field. She believes that our bodies and our energy systems move naturally toward health.
According to Dr. Richard Gerber, MD, author of Vibrational Medicine for the 21st Century, Reiki healers employ the use of sacred symbols that are said to tap into “healing thoughtforms” and healing energies that have been built up on the “higher planes” through many years of Reiki healing. The stages of Reiki training progress gradually through three degrees representing increasingly higher levels of complexity and inner attunement.
Dr. Gerber believes that Reiki work can be an extremely powerful form of healing when performed by a highly trained Reiki practitioner. It rapidly relieves aches and pains and many acute symptoms of illness. Reiki can also recharge and rebalance the body’s subtle energies while relieving the effects of stress. And perhaps, ultimately, the most interesting to Dr. Gerber is that Reiki is said to have a positive influence on spiritual growth in both the healer and healee.
"You are not the body, not the ego, not nature, not thoughts, not this, not that
- you are a vast Emptiness, Freedom, Release and Liberation."
Ken Wilber