2008 Woodie Awards
Renki energy treatments use soft touch
Julie Deardorff ; Chicago Tribune (KRT)
Issue date: 1/25/06 Section: Life
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CHICAGO-When Katerina Siciliano hosted a spa party for five friends in her cozy Mt. Prospect, Ill., home, she enlivened the event with some unusual guests: a trio of reiki body workers.
To the partygoers, who drank mimosas, nibbled on salmon and received pink goodie bags, the unfamiliar practice of reiki energy work sounded like a mystical form of massage therapy.
Dubious Zaneta Balut, 26, became the first enthusiastic convert when she emerged from one of the bedrooms looking astonished.
"She barely touched me, but it was like I was holding a weight or someone on my shoulders," Balut told the others, who were gathered around the food in the kitchen. "At the end, I felt like it was all new inside. Everything bad was flowing down through my feet and out my fingertips."
Or, as Chicago's Grace Gianakopoulos, 35, put it after her treatment, "Wow. I'm so ready for a nap."
Wild and crazy, it wasn't. But like most spa parties, the theme was one of relaxation and self-care. And stress relief is exactly what the Japanese healing technique of reiki is designed to promote. Reiki, meaning "universal life energy," is a form of energy transfer from the practitioner to the client. Designed to stimulate the body's own healing ability, its gentle treatments are said to enhance physical, mental and spiritual health and take place with the recipient lying fully clothed on a padded table.
Using the same meridians, or energy channels, as acupuncture, the reiki practitioner somehow harnesses energy from the universe, places her hands on the client's body _ or slightly above it _ and then channels positive and negative energy to or from the client. Some people feel a warm, tingling sensation. Others feel nothing.
Although the Glen-Ellyn, Ill.-based Reiki Council says millions of people in the United States have been exposed to reiki, scientific studies are lacking and the modern medical establishment still scoffs at the notion that energy work can treat disease or even promote relaxation. Reiki's healing effect, many doctors believe, is nothing beyond what is expected from a placebo. Quackwatchers complain that the existence of "universal life energy" has not been demonstrated.
To the partygoers, who drank mimosas, nibbled on salmon and received pink goodie bags, the unfamiliar practice of reiki energy work sounded like a mystical form of massage therapy.
Dubious Zaneta Balut, 26, became the first enthusiastic convert when she emerged from one of the bedrooms looking astonished.
"She barely touched me, but it was like I was holding a weight or someone on my shoulders," Balut told the others, who were gathered around the food in the kitchen. "At the end, I felt like it was all new inside. Everything bad was flowing down through my feet and out my fingertips."
Or, as Chicago's Grace Gianakopoulos, 35, put it after her treatment, "Wow. I'm so ready for a nap."
Wild and crazy, it wasn't. But like most spa parties, the theme was one of relaxation and self-care. And stress relief is exactly what the Japanese healing technique of reiki is designed to promote. Reiki, meaning "universal life energy," is a form of energy transfer from the practitioner to the client. Designed to stimulate the body's own healing ability, its gentle treatments are said to enhance physical, mental and spiritual health and take place with the recipient lying fully clothed on a padded table.
Using the same meridians, or energy channels, as acupuncture, the reiki practitioner somehow harnesses energy from the universe, places her hands on the client's body _ or slightly above it _ and then channels positive and negative energy to or from the client. Some people feel a warm, tingling sensation. Others feel nothing.
Although the Glen-Ellyn, Ill.-based Reiki Council says millions of people in the United States have been exposed to reiki, scientific studies are lacking and the modern medical establishment still scoffs at the notion that energy work can treat disease or even promote relaxation. Reiki's healing effect, many doctors believe, is nothing beyond what is expected from a placebo. Quackwatchers complain that the existence of "universal life energy" has not been demonstrated.