Where Reiki is going from here Part 3

The monthly AARP magazine came out this past week, and on the cover was Dr Oz, and complementary medicine in general and Reiki in particular received yet another boost. Dr Oz' support of complementary methods such as Reiki is important not just because he appeared with Opra, nor simply because he has a successful TV show himself, nor that he is articulate and photogenic, but as well for 15 years he hs been considered, and still is viewed, as one of the top cardio-thoracic surgeons in the New York/New Jersey area and in fact in America.

Pamela Miles, the NYC Reiki Master who has worked with Dr Oz also has done studies with NIH and with Ivy League Medical Schools. Collectively, the scientific work done on Reiki has exceeded the point where one can refer to "evidence based medicine" and "complementary medicine" because many complementary methods such as Reiki now have signficant evidence based support.

The abundance of work that has built up facilitates physicians like myself, who are both "conventional" and "complementary" - to step up and discuss our own personal "integration" of techniques.

There are far more "conventional" physicians currently doing Reiki than anyone has any idea - this became obvious to me when my partner and I presented a session at Long Term Care Medicine 2010, and we received feedback from many people that we were "brave."

The article about Dr Oz was reflective for me though, because it discussed his background growing up in Delaware, and going to the Tower Hill School. My wife and I lived in Delaware for two years, 1972-1974 while I was in a training program at the Wilmington Medical Center, and Delaware at the time was a magical place.

I cannot remember having many deja vue phenomenon prior to living there, and cannot remember not having them since. It is interesting that in the private discussion area of students of Rick Rivard there has been a discussion on energy in places. Rick wrote an innocent email that he was going to "purge" email addresses from the list who were no longer contributing, and people started coming out of the woodwork (or internet) with stories that touched powerful connected chords for other people. And comments and sharing started flying literally around the world. Many of the comments focused on visits to special places that had significant energies, and to stories of people who had incureable illnesses and had recovered using self-Reiki. People were touching each other at a distance - people who in physical terms did not know what each other looked like, and who geographically were far away, but quite simply, people whose experiences touched chords.

There is a river flowing through the portion of Pennsylvania and Delaware called the Brandywine, it is hard to keep straight the geography of where Delaware and Pennsylvania begin and end, flowing water is not constrained by boundaries. My wife and I and friends would canoe this river, small and not famous for rapids or excitement, really tranquil and a spiritual place. I had grown up near the Niagara River and the sense of a river as always changing and always "the same" had left an impact on me, water is important.

At that time - when Dr Oz was growing up in Delaware, Longwood Gardens, one of the most elegant gardens in world had no entry charge and no entry building, it was simply free, unencombered and ordinarily free of a significant number of people. The Brandywine River museum, dedicated to the work of the Wyeth family had just recently been begun alongside the river. And parks were outside the growing urban sprawl that are now within them.

Our best friends were a core family at Tower Hill School, and even after we moved away, we visited for birthdays and family events - for years we believed we would all have more time to spend together, when only work slowed down (but it never did). Our friends were taken in a tragic accident, and for years after we donated to the Tower Hill School in their memory, and continue to receive mailings about the school. (this private school is so "American' with family names from the American Revolution, and names like Spruance, the family name of the Admiral who led the fleet at Midway - the turning point of WWII, and Dr Oz, a child of an immigrant family who had wonderful talent, and worked hard and enriched America)

One of the most important values in Reiki is that it complements conventional medicine. Skilled Reiki masters work with physicians - Reiki does not cannot and should not replace technical and scientific skill. At the same time, balancing subtle energy and giving people a sense of connectedness can help us come through difficult times, retain hope, and heal from surgery.

Dr Oz did not need to come forward, he was talented aand would be successful as one of most skilled thoracic surgeons in the country - but he did - and more "conventional" physicians will take an interest in Reiki as a result.

For someone who went to medical school when CT scans and MRI's did not exist, it is indeed a magical time, and reminiscent of quiet days along the Brandywine River.