Durgadas explains how trends such as Reiki and Pranic Healing are nothing more than placebos, even within Yoga and Ayurveda.

Baseless Claims of Reiki and Pranic Healing

by Durgadas (Rodney) Lingham,
AYT, Ved Kovid, AMPKT, Ayu. Clin

(c) Durgadas (Rodney) Lingham.
All Rights Reserved.

No part of this article may be copied or reproduced, either physically or electronically except by direct permission from the author.

Have you ever thought about or have you ever experienced Reiki and similar methods such as chakra-balancing and Pranic Healing? Did you know that there is no traditional basis to such methods?

Today we embrace the period of Kali-Yuga, the age of decline in culture and civilisation. However in the modern world, we wish to take highly advanced and developed concepts from the ancient masters, within whose traditions such were tailored as per individuals and also took traditional teachers and spiritual aspirants (sadhakas) born in native soil and within native traditions, and make them our own - applying them often to "healing" and "mental health". Good examples here are meditation, Yoga and others such as the systems of Reiki and Pranic Healing, which have recently been developed.

Traditionally in India, Pranic Healing didn't involve the laying of hands, crystals and other such that the modern post-Christian world still with Christian subliminal samskaras embraces not in the traditional scientific and rational manner, but in the "magical" and "unexplained" manner such is adopted and epitomised by the naivety of the European mind and it's zeal to take such "half truths" and zealously proselytise them! Pranic Healing in India in Yoga groups went no further thanPranayama, the various breathing techniques in Yoga by which toxic air is thrown from the body and the biological humours or "faults" (doshas) were reduced or increased accordingly, as per the physical application of sch breathing practices and their biological effects,as also by oxygenating the blood.

Such of course is quite different to the modern methods of "laying hands" that appears to represent a more Pentecostal approach that has superimposed itself upon eastern healing modalities. While ancient Yogis in India, as in China could manipulate the Prana or Qi within a patient's body, such wasn't done by laying or hands, but by the influence of their minds or the effect of their own pure prana or life-force developed through severe austerities, disciplines and training; such traditional Vaidyas or Ayurvedic Physicians could heal a person by drishti (sight) or their presence alone - some did impart it by sparsha (touch), but such was not merely superficial and usually involved a mere short touch of a person - though such was not necessary and was more or less for the benefit of the receiver alone. And again, such is far different to the so-called methods of "energy transferal" imparted by people belonging to no actual tradition, having no Guru or lineage to connect to and devoid of any true spiritual practices, austerities or knowledge of greater systems of Yoga and Ayurveda that traditional healers knew intimately! 

For a start, let us look at what Prana is as per the healing texts of India. Prana itself is described as the combination of the three biological humours of agni (fire, pitta), soma (water, kapha), vayu (wind, vata) as well as the three mental traits of sattvas (purity), rajas (agitation) and tamas (ignorance), the five senses and the soul - Sushruta Samhita, Sharirasthana, IV.3. Thus, true 'pranic healing' involves (physical) methods of which pacify and heal these [note the final note relative to surgery].

The modern healer by contrast is an emotionalist that has 'picked up' such methods from a dubious Indian 'Guru' (usually influenced by western trends and superficiality and knowing little of real Yoga or Ayurveda outside these), at a weekend retreat, two week course etc. and feel they have picked up the powers to heal, apart from having no knowledge of Vedic sciences as Yoga, Ayurveda and others, of true healing therapies, herbs, diagnosis, treatment, examination etc. and also forget that such powers, even for the advanced spiritual aspirant within Vedic and Chinese traditions was itself a rarity over a common occurrence!

It is merely the western egotism that feels that it can pick up such modalities and powers that took decades and lifetimes of traditionalists to gain and simply validate themselves as if they are avatars born with such, but again unlike true avatars, are unable and unwilling to prove and substantiate their claims (apart from my attacking their questioning opposition bu shouting them down, again in Pentecostal manner like barking dogs!).

Sadly however, since the majority of Hindus since the 10th Century listened to the naive uneducated masses of merchants (vaishyas) and others who became teachers and Gurus and developed their own naive and blind faith-based traditions over Brahmanical logic and rationalism or sciences (i.e outside the sphere of traditional teachings, commentaries and integral sciences as atomism, cosmology, astronomy, mathematics and schools of debate, logic and reason), the scores of Indians have today embraced such nonsense when re-imported back into their own culture and are often unwilling to give these 'foreign' trends up and ironically, embrace them as tradition, ignoring history and their own classical references that speak otherwise (much how Indian Law and Hindu dogmatism today is based upon the draconian Victorian British system that has been replaced in Britain and other colonies); they ignore their own traditions and traditional authorities and instead, by "conservative and traditional", the modernist Hindu often refers to the prudish Victorian psyche or the reimported Americanised and New-Age traditions that has come to shape what to them is "tradition"!

Other trends such as Chakra-Balancing can be seen in the same light; as reconstituted and re-imported versions of indigenous Indian ideals that then become the mainstream in India. Such insidious traditions remind one of the "Dark Ages" in Europe that stiffed logic, reason, rationalism and science in Europe due to the power of the Church and its threats!

The chakras themselves on a physical level refer to no more than the geographic regions of the body that correspond to physical organs that are to be treated in a physical manner (via herbs, dietary regimes, detoxification by way of Ayurvedic clinical methods, herbal formulas or even surgical); internally they refer to the inner worlds or lokas, realms and spheres of consciousness which are accessed only by the 'A-Grade' and highest-level rare Yogi with his mind. Thus, the idea of balancing the chakras and other such is nonsense in the Yoga sphere; such also refer to the mahabhutas or cosmic elements, which cannot be manipulated by external application of hands, gems etc. as eople may think! Mantras were themselves were a more mental or placebo-manner employed, hence the term mantra itself derives from manas (the mind) - we shall discuss the psycho-somatic approach further down.

The average person clings to these naive beliefs as they have not and are unwilling to study the classical texts and historical traditions and instead try and validate their diminutive learning and defend it, as an aggressive Christian preacher does their precious Biblical verses (according to them to justify their lifestyles personally), the difference being the New-Agers wish to defend their invalid and useless Certifications and what it has cost them - often being their only examples of "validation" of their lifetime! Thus, like dear life, they cling onto it like glue!

A true reading of the classical Vedic texts untainted by naive Vaishnava dualism, western Christian influences or New Age hyperbole and according to traditional commentaries and etymologies reveal them to be rational and methodical in approach.

Indeed, while many 'testify' to the benefits of Reiki, Pranic Healing and such, the classical shastras of India see such as having mere placebo effects and hence the effects are purely psycho-somatic and not actually a reality.  Understanding the mind, Charaka Samhita (Sutrasthana, XI.46, 54) states  many ritualistic or "spiritual" therapies and rituals in the Vedic era were merely to keep the mind freed of unwholesome objects for the mind and hence their employment in treatment (mano-nigraha - attempts to subdue the mind). Charaka thus states that opposite therapies (rituals and specific meditations) according to the disorders of the psyche. 

Unlike the delusional (mudha) and distracted (vikshepa) nature of the modern minds in New-Age circles that are (a) ignorant of and (b) reject the ancient and vast traditions of Yogic and Ayurvedic psychology and their in-depth views upon the mind, the ancient traditions understood the mind and its delusions well, including the effects of placebos!

My question to all such people practising Ayurveda, Yoga, Reiki, Pranic or Faith / Energy Healing etc. is, "Do you understand Yogic and Ayurvedic Psychology, the levels of the mind and have you studied these to know the difference?". The answer is always something along the likes of emotions, feelings and personal self-hypnotised views that might as well be 'As Jesus came and told me so' or as 'The Holy Spirit advised me'.

One of the very reasons I started writing when I was 15 years old onwards, was to educate people in the true and proper Yogic traditions I have studied through various works, traditional textsand my own lineage that included several Scientist-Yogis and advanced Yogis and to also reveal to the world their teachings in a more simplistic form and explain the traditional explanations and vastness of the Vedic teachings, not merely their pasteurised and superstitious forms! This also includes the psychology of Yoga of which I have studied for years.

Patanjali in his Yoga Sutras notes of the strength of the mind by the maxim "as one thinks - one becomes" on this note:
 

"By  performing samyama (yogic concentration) on the power of elephants, one derives that strength." (3.25)


Thus, even in an unconscious state, one can, if the desire is strong enough, believe in something and thus feel as if one is gaining the desired effects. Even though a pseudo-science, hypnosis itself proves this, by the power of suggestion!

As is thus warned in the shastras, "as one thinks - that one becomes" according to the inherit nature of his actions (Bhagavad Gita, 17.3-6). The entire 17th Chapter of the Gita is also with respect to the gunas  through karmas (actions) and their impact upon shaping our samskaras (karmic impressions) and vasanas (mental impressions).

Likewise, the great monist Shankaracharya in his Vivekachudamani (113) states that avriti or the veiling power of the mind linked to the vitiation of the mind or tamas (darkness and ignorance of the mental channels) causes a failure to recognise the truth. This same fault of the mind he links to the soul's reincarnation due to vikshepashakti or the power of projection.

While these may be damning to the minds of those who both practice and take up such non-traditional "healing arts" that even within native traditions are considered "pseudo-sciences" practiced by the lesser classes as in India (as with the Romani or Gypsy that came from India into Europe and gave their corrupted Vedic traditions, influencing New-Age hysteria and trends) or other cultures outside the more educated classes as the Brahmins or Priests and Acharyas and Shastris - the true teachers and academics who see such as superstitious and illogical and not to mention, are also byproducts of the modern (European) mind that seeks to create some kind of 'spiritual renaissance' by adopting these foreign native traditions, despite that for example, even in the earlier Tretayuga of the Hindus (traditionally said to be millions of years ago), a more spiritual age than now that surgery and physical methods of healing came to replace herbal and spiritual cures alone as they, even long ago, became invalid!

While various spiritual therapies were employed in ancient times, these did not include anything like so-called pranic healing nor Reiki, but of ritualistic disciplines etc. that were viewed in a more rational manner as explained in the healing texts of Ayurveda, which remains a complete medical system, not simply an irrational spiritual healing system as many Americans believe today!

Charaka (Charaka Samhita, Sutrasthana, XI.46, 54) states even of these so-called "spiritual" therapies however, that such were used simply employed and developed as psychological tools to keep the mind freed of unwholesome objects or thoughts (such as from performing further negative actions, further complicating the disease or treatment) and hence their usage was purely placebo-based alone (mano-nigraha - that which subdues or restrains the mind), which constitutes the employment of the threefold Ayurvedic approach to healing:

-Sattvavajaya (methods by which sattvas or purity is increased in the mind) or psychological therapies - of which the next compliments...

-Daivavyapashraya, the "illuminating therapies" or psycho-somatic / placebo therapies hence form an integral part of and are done along with the next or

- Yuktivyapashraya, that is, rational therapies as diet, herbs and formulas for the mind. 

Thus, treatment of both physical and psychological disorders in the texts are said to be by way of purification (shodhana), palliative measures (shamana) and dietary regimes and regulation (aharachara) - Sushruta Samhita, Sutrasthana, I.26-27, thus more physical, rational and practical treatments including clinical methods such as Panchakarma for detoxification, even in ancient times that were considered to be more spiritual ages by the Hindus.

Modern people in America that defend the 'New Age' Ayurveda that is commonly marketed and branded as traditional and authenic however ignore the traditional views and texts or references and have thus developed their own anti-surgical, anti-physical and quasi-spiritual system of healing that traditional Ayurveda in its complexity actually criticises. 

Likewise, on Shalyatantra (surgery), it is said to be the primal and most important branch of Ayurveda through which even in ancient times was used for organ-transplants (Sushruta Samhita, Sutrasthana I.16-18) of which  the first teacher of Ayurveda (adideva), Dhanvantari reincarnated to teach to humanity (ibid, 21). It is also this very text that gave us our modern science of plastic surgery that the British discovered in India in the 18th Century in Mysore in Southern India!

This was as in such times even in the Treta-Yuga of yore, that subtle or spiritual methods and herbs alone were not enough to heal the body and it came from an ancient lineage of primal surgeons (Ashwins) from the lineage of human progenitors (Prajapati) from the Supreme (Brahma). From the original surgeons, it is said that Indra learnt it and from him the original Dhanvantari who later took incarnation as the Dhanvantari or Kashi or Varanasi (Divodasa) - much as Sri Krishna in the Mahabharata is said to be the reincarnation of Rishi Narayana of Badrinath.

This leaves the question of spiritual and subtle modalities of healing on lesser yugas or epochs as our own today, in question and also questions their very so-called 'ancient origin'!

References:

-Sushruta Samhita

-Charaka Samhita

-Yoga Sutras

-Bhagavad Gita