> Reiki Research

Research Project Finished - results available below

Updated 20th April 2006

In association with Dr Peter Ostojic we are conducting a scientific study of Reiki II (distant Reiki). Dr Ostojic is carrying this out as a research thesis for his Masters Degree in Psychology under Professor David Harvey at Monash University in Victoria, Australia.

A number of people will have various psychological tests performed both before and after receiving Reiki. We are hoping that this study will lend scientific credence to the idea of sending (Reiki) energy to people at a distance. The results of the study will be made public after it is finished, and assuming it is accepted it is our intention to have it published in at least one medical journal.

As such we were asking for volunteers who have been attuned with at least Reiki II - the request for volunteers has now closed.

Those who have chosen to help us will receive in the mail a request for a small amount of non-identifying information and a group of pictures of several people - we would like you to send these people Reiki energy for a period of one-two months (details will be in the mail), whenever you have the time. That's all you need to do!

This was originally scheduled to take place sometime between September and November 2004. It's amazing how what we thought would be a relatively simple study to set up has become delayed so many times by administrative et. al. issues, but it now looks like we should be able to start the study in early September, 2005. UPDATE - unfortunately due to yet another large dose of bureaucracy we have had further delays with the project. Hopefully we will be able to start it in October, because if not due to the 2 month timeframe and Christmas it will need to be delayed until next year...

Further Update - Research may never occur I have been informed that unfortunately due to several issues the Research project that I and a few others have invested a large amount of time in may no longer go ahead. Without going into details I'll just say that a body has been placing continual hurdles in the way of this project going ahead, many of which were never mentioned when the project was first proposed, and these have delayed the start of the project by so much that it may not be possible to commence until next year. Seeing as this project is meant to be part of a University course being carried out by Dr. Ostojic, delaying it yet another year leads to the very real possibility of his forgoing the project in order to get his degree finished. This would result in the project never commencing. As such I would appreciate it if any channels out there who have a bit of free time could channel some energy into the situation surrounding the project, hopefully with the result being that the research still goes ahead in some form...

Yet Another Update - Research going ahead! Thanks to everyone who has sent energy to getting a result here; the research project will be going ahead, although with a reduced time window (6 weeks vs. 8 weeks). We will be sending out details and photos by mail in early November. We will be asking people to send Reiki at different times; some as early as 7th November & some as late as mid-December. Unfortunately this means that some of you may receive the pack after the time you are due to start; if so and you can spare some extra time at the beginning to send more Reiki to "catch up" that would be much appreciated, thank you. Our apologies for this. Reiki on!

Results are in. The project has now finished, and the University has given their official stamp of approval to the Thesis that Dr Peter Ostojic wrote, so we are now free to publish the results. To cut a long story short, the basic conclusion of the thesis was that there was no statistically significant evidence to support that Reiki had any effect. However, this result could be due to several problems that beset the project, regardless of the efficacy of Reiki. As mentioned above due to time constraints the study had to be shortened considerably. Due to problems with posting many of the volunteers did not receive details until after the study was over. Another major problem was that over the course of the study the organisation from which the people receiving Reiki were drawn became subject to a "re-structure" that led to a sizeable reduction in employment, which would obviously lead to a substantial amount of stress in the subjects, especially as several eventually found out that they would not have employment anymore. As such any improvement in outlook due to Reiki could well have been swamped by the negative outlook caused by this "re-structure". Hence I hope that the results of this study do not stop someone else from performing a similar research project, preferably one where the project is not delayed by over a year and where the participants involved have a relatively stable life over the course of the study. For those of you who are interested in more details of the project, please [WWW]download the zipped thesis (MS Word format). Thank you to everyone who participated.

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As stated above, only those people who sent me their mailing address will be participating. Your mailing address will only be used to send you information regarding this project, neither it nor your email address will be passed on to any third-parties outside this project. In fact, I (Peter K. Campbell) will be the only one who knows of your mailing (and email) address, except in the unlikely event that I become incapacitated in which case I will arrange for another trustworthy person to take over my role, with the same proviso for them re your privacy.

Similarly the identities of the Reiki channels participating shall only be known by myself, with the proviso above. The identities and personal details of the Reiki recipients will not be known by either myself or Dr Ostojic in order to preserve the double-blind nature of the study. These people have been previously selected; we do not need any volunteers.

I shall be receiving sealed envelopes containing photos of the recipients and instructions on when to send them Reiki, that I shall then be forwarding onto the Reiki channels involved, so I will not know when anyone is receiving the Reiki either. The recipients will be identified by a number, so if a Reiki channel feels the need to pass back information anonymously to the recipient they can do so (although not all of the recipients have agreed to receive this information, even if it is sent to them). The numbers shall be assigned to the recipients by a third party so Dr Ostojic will not know which person filled in which series of tests. As such we are ensuring that this will be a true double-blind experiment - this is the category of experiment most respected by the scientific and medical community.

If you have any questions or comments please email p.campbell@bigfoot.com. Note that we opened up the pool of volunteers to anyone who is at least a Reiki II channel, not just members of AURA, in order to get more people involved - hopefully the more people we can get to send energy, the greater the effects should be, and hence the more credible Reiki should become to the medical and scientific community at large!

General Research Information

Although you do not hear much about it in the news, quite a bit of research has been performed in determining whether or not Reiki has a positive effect on people - so far there is a great deal of evidence, both statistical and anecdotal, that it does.

We shall be putting more information here in the future. In the meantime you may wish to read a very interesting book by Lynne Mc Taggart called The Field (ISBN 0 00 714510 1) which collates research across a wide range of areas in numerous areas including Reiki, and shows that there is quite a bit of scientific evidence to support the existence of the sort of energy field which is espoused in Reiki and other philosophies.

William Lee Rand has collated several articles on Reiki by trained Doctors and Nurses, which you can find at http://www.reiki.org/reikinews/research.html.

Reiki is actually being practised openly in many hospitals, especially in the USA. Here's an article on what they're finding out about Reiki at Portsmouth in New Hampshire Reiki - Hype or Help?.