tschuckman@aol.com
What is the Christian Prospective of Reiki ?
....and I do not celebrate Halloween, either.... sorry. But I do not wish to put down nor criticize others who do ! It's like this: After I got home from the war in Vietnam, I just had so many questions and was bone tired of being lied to..... by the Catholic church, priests, false religion, fakes, the U.S. Gov't and the stinking VAMC system, especially in Milwaukee, WI., that messed up my Right knee replacement surgery, and then the lame, ghetto workers on 3rd shift recovery abused me, big time, and I am not a cripple/ worse off, Disabled because of those butchers [about 6 years ago] !! Sorry, but I didn't expect to be turned into a worse cripple after all the terrific pain and suffering at that goofy, Milwaukee VA 'hospital,' house of horrors. I refuse to ever go back there again, even if it means my life ! ! May the Lord deal with them accordingly.
I am too old to hold back now, and let the truth be known. Yes, I have my own opinions --- but I like to cut and paste the Authorities of certain mind sets, but above all the Holy Scriptures... the KJV Bible.
My friend is a Christian who practices Reiki and thinks that it’s the Holy Spirit working through her. She has a heart for healing and I don’t want to discourage her from pursuing that or deny that the Spirit is at work in her. But I fear that these counterfeits are keeping her from realizing her true potential in Christ.
I guess I have two questions: how can I lovingly discuss with her what the Bible says about these practices, when she doesn’t fully accept it as God’s Word; and can you tell me more about Reiki from a Christian perspective?
Thanks for your questions. It’s terribly difficult to reason with someone from the Scriptures if they do not already accept their Divine authority. If she’s open to doing some reading in the area, you may want to encourage her to look into what conservative scholarship has said about the inspiration, authority, and inerrancy of Scripture. A General Introduction to the Bible, by Norman Geisler and William Nix is a fairly exhaustive treatment of the subject. Many books on Christian apologetics have chapters dealing with the trustworthiness of the Bible. One book you may want to recommend is I’m Glad You Asked, by Ken Boa and Larry Moody. It is an excellent, beginner’s level text in apologetics and has a chapter entitled, “How Accurate is the Bible?,” which might prove helpful. Suffice it to say, until a Christian accepts the Bible as the inspired word of God, it is difficult to use it as the final authority for proper Christian belief and practice. Such a person can always claim that the texts they don’t like are simply not inspired by God, etc. Thus, this is a critical issue to deal with.
Having said that, I think you are exactly right about your friend. There are very good grounds for rejecting Reiki if one is willing to listen to the Bible. In a book entitled Basic Questions on Alternative Medicine, a corporate project by members of the Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Kregel Publications, 1988), there is a short chapter on Reiki (pp. 61-63). I will draw some information from that chapter. Although Reiki claims to be an “ancient healing practice that Buddha (and Jesus) used,” all records of it were lost. It was allegedly rediscovered by Mikao Usui, a Zen Buddhist monk, in the mid-1800s “during a psychic experience.” Additionally, it is claimed that details about lost aspects of the practice have “been revealed through channeling.” Channeling is the New Age term for mediumship and involves contact with, and usually possession by, “spirit guides.” The authors of this chapter state that a second-degree Reiki practitioner “learns about spirit guides and how to contact and use them in healing sessions.” They further state that third degree Reiki masters give “complete control of healing sessions to their spirit guides.” Healing sessions appear to be based on the use of “life-energy” (i.e. ki, chi, or prana), which is sent from the practitioner into the patient’s body.
The greatest concern would seem to be the identity of the “spirit guides.” Since they are typically contacted in ways expressly forbidden in Scripture, and since they advocate unbiblical ideas and practices, it is honestly quite difficult to view them as anything other than the biblical demons. The authors of this chapter conclude by stating: “Reiki is antithetical to biblical Christianity. Channeling is a way of communicating with spirits to obtain information not otherwise accessible. It is denounced in the Bible as sorcery, mediumship, and spiritism (Lev. 19:26, 31; 20:6; Deut. 18:9-14…).”
It seems to me that Reiki has the potential to be spiritually harmful. I would pray for your friend and encourage her to give serious consideration to the biblical warnings mentioned above.
I wish you all the best with your friend.
Shalom,
Michael Gleghorn
Probe Ministries
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A former Reiki master who has become a Christian wrote this testimony to Sue Bohlin:
“Reiki is something that is very mis-stated, and misunderstood, by those outside of the Reiki circle. Having been in it, I can tell you everything you need to know. I will tell you right up front that it was a hard one to shake, that it was VERY real and beneficial, but that it is decidedly non-Christian.
“I highly recommend anyone looking into it to just stop. Prayer is very powerful, and is our direct link to God through Christ. If we petition directly for healing, it may come. If we have faith that it WILL come, our chances are far better. As with anything we are to test, does Reiki point either the practitioner or the client to Christ? No. Big no. It uses a Universal energy that is non-personal and can be manipulated. You can pray to God, to the Earth Mother, to Mother/Father God, etc. But it in fact leads you AWAY from Christ.
“It is all about what you FEEL in your hands, what you FEEL in your spirit, what the client FEELS in their body/emotions/spirit. In that regard it is very very real. My hands get hot, I hit a place of extreme peace and quiet, I heal people who feel a tingle or hot spot or whatever. Their headache, menstrual cramps, emotional distress, bruises, whatever, goes away. But is God glorified? No way. Is self glorified? Yes.
“If it is so good and right, why do practitioners go on to other things once they hit Master level? The teacher who taught me was going on to accupuncture and other new Reiki teachings. Always something else, something new, something you NEED to be a true master. Sound familiar? It is like everything else in this world, but Christ. There is no lasting peace, no connection with the universe, there is a big void in your soul that is not going away. WE ALL NEED CHRIST! I told my wife when she questioned my stopping in my search for peace once I found Christ (she had followed my years of searching through New Age theologies, etc) that Jesus Christ filled the hole. All the puzzle pieces fell into place and everything suddenly made sense. For a long time after that I tried to make Reiki fit into Christianity but it didn’t. I prayed a lot about it. God firmly and solidly showed me in Scripture how it couldn’t work. The two major things against it, regardless of how well it works, are 1) it does not point anyone to Christ and in facts points people away from a single triune God, and 2) it is no different than all the pagan rituals in the Old Testament that would have people pray to the rain god or fertility god, etc. They must have worked or people wouldn’t have kept praying to them, and God’s people wouldn’t have been attracted to them. But either way it isn’t what GOD has asked us to do. Everything we need is in Him. We can pray for any healing we need.”
Sue Bohlin
Sue Bohlin is an associate speaker/writer and webmistress for Probe Ministries. She attended the University of Illinois, and has been a Bible teacher and conference speaker for over 35 years. She is a frequent speaker for MOPS (Mothers of Pre-Schoolers) and Stonecroft Ministries (Christian Women's Connections), and serves on the board and as a small group leader of Living Hope Ministries, a Christ-centered outreach to those dealing with unwanted homosexuality. Sue is on the Bible.org Women's Leadership Team and is a regular contributor to Bible.org's Engage Blog. She is also a professional calligrapher; but most importantly, she is the wife of Probe's Dr. Ray Bohlin and the mother of their two grown sons. Her personal website is suebohlin.com.
What is Probe? Probe Ministries is a non-profit ministry whose mission is to assist the church in renewing the minds of believers with a Christian worldview and to equip the church to engage the world for Christ. Probe fulfills this mission through our Mind Games conferences for youth and adults, our 3-minute daily radio program, and our extensive Web site at www.probe.org.
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