on this week's podcast, I am with my friend and Reiki master William Rand, and we're talking about the development and also the evolvement of the Center for Reiki Research. Welcome, William. Thank
you. Thank you. Yeah. Good to be here.
I'm so glad you're here. Just wanted to let everybody listening know that I have some animal reiki classes coming up in September in Campobello and so that will involve getting out and going whale watching and there's usually a lot of whales around in September so if you'd like to join us we'd love to have you and in October I have a full lineup of classes here at the farm. William, do you have, what do you have coming up?
We've got the Reiki retreat coming up, also in New York, at the Omega Institute. I'll be teaching Karuna Reiki there, and also taking part in a Reiki conference, so that's coming up the 16th of July in Reinhardt, New York at Omega Institute. Fantastic. So I'm doing that. And then we've got the Reiki retreat coming up over Labor Day weekend. So that's happening. And then I'm going to be teaching in Korea and Taiwan after that, and then go back to Hawaii.
Yeah, those are some things that I'm doing. I love it,
William, Korea and Taiwan. And you usually have really large classes there too, don't you?
They have been we'll see. Yeah, we'll see what happens. Yep.
Okay. I'll be seeing you at the Reiki retreat. I'm sure we'll be doing a bit of hiking around Sedona together. And yeah, that'll be fun. It will be. And I know you're presenting at it. And so am I. And I just wanted to let the listeners know that if you were interested in joining us for the International Reiki Retreat Labor Day weekend And for those of you who might be considering applying to be a licensed Reiki master teacher, it is one of the requirements is to attend the retreat.
You can attend both in person and online. So just invite everybody to consider that. William. I wanted to talk with you today about the Center for Reiki Research because as a scientist, it's something that I've always been really proud of and interested in, and that I find that I found it so wonderful that you created this. Can you tell us a little bit about Your motivation behind establishing the Center for Reiki research and what the vision was that you had for it at that time.
Sure. Yeah, it started out it evolved out of the Reiki Hospitals website. So what was happening a long time ago. 97 or something like that, that Reiki was being practiced in a few hospitals around the country. That was a big plus for Reiki that it actually was being practiced in hospitals. So I began to keep track of the hospitals and who was in charge of the programs, and that list started to expand.
And then it got so big that after a while there was Reiki in The hospitals in every area around the country. Basically it was meant to be like a referral service. If someone wanted to go to the hospital, they wanted to go to a hospital that had Reiki, they could look it up on our website. But then eventually there were so many that I just started saying just call a few hospitals around where you live and you're going to find one that has Reiki.
That, yeah and also it was starting to become more cumbersome because we had to keep track of, is the, is that program still functioning and what has it changed or is it gone? And so we had to get some people, I had one and then two volunteers to be calling the hospitals to check up on the details. And so that got a little cumbersome at the same time that it was expanding to such a yeah.
Great extent that basically, if you wanted to find a Reiki Reiki hospital, you just call around and you you find one. So then what happened is around what we were doing too was validating the scientific nature of Reiki and if there were any studies and so forth that had been done. And so then we started I started working with a group of people. Who were scientists and like PhD qualified Reiki practitioners and having done scientific work and we started to assemble more of the studies.
So that happened around 2011 that the Center for Reiki Research came into being. And like I say, we had some very interested and motivated people. that were highly educated and scientists actually. And so then we started putting together the studies and we developed what's called the touchstone process. And so that was a process of evaluating and finding the studies that had been done and then also giving advice on how to conduct scientifically valid Reiki studies.
So there were a lot of people that got started and they do a study, but they were mis sometimes missing one or two important elements. And so we created guidelines for conducting quality research and then that helped get people not to waste their time cuz they put all that time and effort into a study and they're missing one or two pieces. Yeah. And it doesn't end up so we, it's not valid. Valid, yeah. Not so valid.
So yeah, we created a. An article Mary Kearns actually wrote it and about guidelines for conducting quality research. So that was very helpful. And then we began providing a service to help people set up the research projects. And we also set up our own and got donations like these studies actually are. They're expensive.
Yeah. And as opposed to say pharmaceutical research, they are backed by billion dollar industries that have tremendous amounts of funds and they put in millions of dollars into their studies. So we're, just not that big. And if we had the 000, that's a lot of money. The one study, I think, cost us around 87, 000. And we were able to get donations. And to do it. That was very successful. Very happy about it. And we have also a book, The Center for Reiki Research Booklet.
And this contains, this was done in 2012, so it's a, it's not complete as it, as our website is, but it's got a lot of the studies in here, and also in the back are the Center for Reiki Research, our Reiki and Hospital programs. So here's an example of one of the pages. If you can see it, it outlines the hospital program and how it works and everything and who the important people are and so forth. So it formed a guideline and there's 67 hospitals listed in this book.
If you want to start a hospital program, you can read through and see how these programs are set up, for their own. Program.
I always recommend that booklet. I have it, William. And I loved reading the peer reviewed research, the summaries of the peer reviewed research in it. And I recommend it because a lot of your, a lot of students say, Oh, wow, I wish there was Reiki in my hospital. And I say, get this booklet and check out because there's a lot of different hospital programs and the details of how they're set up.
Exactly.
I love it. William, as you were getting this started, because really and I do admit this is something that really drew me to the ICRT. I loved the fact that so much, everything that you do is all evidence based, but that you really put that effort into bringing the science and to the forefront to collating it to creating it.
And I know Dr. Lacey on our podcast quite some time ago, she was actually designing a cancer research study in her oncology unit and was speaking with the Center for Reiki Research to ensure that the research was set up in a way that was going to be the most helpful. And but did you have any obstacles as you were bringing this together? It couldn't have been easy.
The thing is that the purpose of it was to show people that it is scientific, there is science behind it. Yeah. So a lot of people at first would look at Ricky as this woo, whatever woo means, I never understood that, stuff that people who I don't, can't think clearly are doing and of course it's all placebo based and all that. So the initial impulse was to demonstrate.
Or, from a purely scientific standpoint to discover, is it just placebo based or is there something actually happening more than what would happen with placebo? So we did set up scientific research to test to test for that. And so as an example in a study, we had people who were trained on how to pretend to be Reiki people. So they would do exactly the same things, the same motions and everything, and positions, but they had no Reiki training.
And then we had the people that did have Reiki training, and then we had people that didn't get any either. And so it was placebo controlled and it definitely showed there was much more than the placebo effect. Now, the people that didn't have Reiki did get some results, but it wasn't anything like the results of people who actually had Reiki. So it indicated that it was much more than the placebo effect.
And William, looking at the studies, I remember being shocked when I found out that in medical research, that if you only get 5% more than the placebo, it's considered successful. And right? And so for, with the Reiki study, for you to have had such significant results is really yeah, it's really, it's remarkable.
Yeah, that goes against the woo people. But yeah, there are, there are the thing is, we had to realize that we're not going to convince everyone. Sure. And there are some people that absolutely, no matter what you present to them, will never be convinced. So we don't try and convince those people, but we convince the people that are on the fence. So they're not quite sure. And so we produce the research and then they're ready to go for it.
There's also a group of people that need the research so they can present it to the administrators of their program in the hospital and then get clearance to begin doing Reiki. And we passed that barrier a long time ago and especially with what we call the touchstone process. And the touchstone process is in fact, a very unique process to research. And in fact, this is the first time that this this sort of process has been applied to scientific research.
It we, it is applied to the entire group of research that's been done for Reiki, and there has been no research to the entire group. No overview or, systemized method of analyzing all the studies in one complete group of research. And we're very proud of our touchstone process. And
I didn't realize I've heard Dr. Baldwin talk about the touchstone process. I, for some reason, I didn't realize that it was you guys that created it. I thought it was something that already
existed. Oh, no, that's our project. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Very proud. The people in our program are all PhD qualified researchers or some of them are MDs and like that and nurses. So they're all educated and professional. And so they, we were able to come together and create the touchstone process, which, we're very happy about. Have
you found that things have evolved with either the center or with the science, since it was created in
2011? Yeah. Yeah. Oh, and by the way, the website, Rican Hospitals started in 2005, just as a giving that day too. Thank you. So Rican Hospitals was 2005, Rican Center for Rican Research, 2011. Yes. The the acceptance has been, the, our work has really helped to to drive acceptance for the practice of Reiki in hospitals, and it's really validated the nurses who want to bring it into a hospital, and then they're backed up by, The information on our website.
So it's just a matter of directing people to our website. And there are so many studies in there that it really provides more than enough research to validate the use of Reiki in hospitals.
I love that. That's fantastic. And have you, are there any significant milestones along the way that stand out to you that you could share with us?
The one was the touchstone process and And then getting the website, getting the Reiki, Center for Reiki Research going in 2011, and then let's see. And then getting funding for our study and completing that study as well. That was really something. Your
study was our study, I should say, not your, it's our study. It was a big study, William, wasn't it? It
was significant. There, there's actually a couple of them. One of them was a very big study and let's see, I forget, there were involving it. Yeah. Thousands of yes, I
recall that one that there were thousands. Yeah,
one. Yeah. Yeah, that's on our website. And that really has gone a long way. I had intended
to participate in that study and actually started to, but I didn't fill the data in wrong. So it wasn't accepted. Oh, no, I didn't fill
it in.
Yeah,
so it was really it was really an an interesting and a neat study. I. I love and Dr Baldwin talks about I love her book Reiki and clinical practice, which I know that you sell. You have it right there.
Yeah, this is a fantastic book. I agree. And this is, it's just filled with important information about Reiki and the science of Reiki. Yeah, so just a beautiful book with lots of diagrams and. Studies and so forth for all many different problems that Reiki is good for. Yeah,
I love Dr. Baldwin's explanation, she's been, she was involved for years with pure science, but of course that involved the use of animals and she didn't feel comfortable with that. And yeah she moved away from it, but she, in the meantime, though, she was able to give the animals Reiki and assist them. And so I think she's such a fantastic she's, what is her title with the Center for Reiki Research? I know
she she's Editor in Chief of the Summarization Team. And that's what she does.
Yeah. And she often presents on findings and things like that.
Oh, yeah. She's one of the presenters at our retreat. I think she's going to present again this year too. Oh, fantastic. Yep. I
look forward to that. I always look forward to that. Are there anything, is there anything what are the current goals and initiatives for the center? And are they, have they evolved or are they any different from that initial vision? Or is it pretty much along the same line? What are you guys working on
now? We've accomplished some milestones, like I was saying. And, we've got a couple of things going on. It's pretty much. We're going along the same in the same direction. We've been going in and just, helping people put together research projects if they have them and then letting people know about the research that has been done. Yeah,
I wanted to mention too that the that there's a Reiki in hospitals workshop. that the Center for Reiki Research put out, isn't there? You talked about that in your article, that there's currently over a thousand Reiki programs in U. S. hospitals. That's significant. And
yeah, it just went right off the charts. Yeah, to the point where we, it's beyond what we can accurately keep track of. Yeah.
Yeah, it's just fantastic. And you talked in your article about Reiki and pain and that's often a focus for some of the research because it is such a serious
problem. Yeah, the problem around Reiki and pain isn't just the pain itself, but the remedies that they have for it, which is opiate drugs. Which are addictive and the dose has to be raised for people with chronic pain. And so then they get addicted to those drugs and then they have a secondary problem. And but with Reiki, it reduces or in some cases eliminates the need for the drugs. But what it does do mainly is greatly reduce the need for opiate drugs.
So people can quit them before they get addicted. And then just use Reiki. It doesn't always take the place of medication, but it does reduce the dosage level. And then people can learn Reiki and family members can learn it for people who are sick or, in pain, and it can greatly reduce the amount of pain. So that's the most wonderful thing pain management, because as I was saying that's where, that the pain management is in trouble.
Because of the opioid epidemic, so people get addicted to opioids because they're being treated for a medical condition, it's painful, and then they're addicted, and the doctor stops their prescription, but they're still addicted, so then they turn to street drugs, which can be laced with all sorts of things. And people get are overdosing and so the overdose, the death from overdose medications is, has gone way up. That's where Reiki can come in and really help solve that problem.
And what's needed is just more communication about it and the possibility of using Reiki. As a cure for opioid addiction or to actually stop it from happening. Yeah.
And William, I never, we never mentioned the website, but I will be putting a link to the website. It's the center for Reiki research. org is the website. You must be so proud of having established that, like knowing that there's Reiki in over a thousand hospitals in the U S and that this was a significant contributor. To that. I don't know. You must be
so pleased. Oh, I'm, yeah, I'm really pleased with it. I got it started and now it's taken off under its own momentum. And it's staffed by PhD qualified researchers. They're all very competent, highly educated. And it's just going on really well. And I've gone in more into the background of that. Because when I attend all the meetings and so forth, and I also make recommendations about Reiki itself and what it can and can't be used for and other things around, potentially setting up studies.
I do play a role in it, but they see they're the ones that know how to set the studies up properly and then also right. The reports instead, so that they get in Europe. Yeah, we've done it. Our organization is doing a really good job. Like I say, this is dated 2012 so that's what's that's 1112 years. It's a few years ago now, 11 years ago. Yeah, but it's
still relevant. And,
oh yeah, all the research is relevant. And, we probably at some point will update this. Yeah. But if you go to our website, that lists everything that's up to date.
Yeah. That's what I am. And I love I love being able to refer my science minded students like as a Reiki practitioner to be able to refer them to the center for Reiki research. org. Absolutely. if they are curious about the science as I was. And there's not a lot of time to go into the science in class because we cover so much in our courses, but it's just wonderful that resource is there so that
they can. Absolutely. And it solves that problem of people who are against Reiki. We can say, we can point to their scientific research that's been done. That overcomes any resistance in that department. Yeah, we provide a very useful research for the Reiki community, especially when it's in professional settings. Yeah,
I think so. Also I really appreciate that. And do you see, and you can see these contributions to the broader community in this way. Is there any, do you have any particular stories or, anything that you've noticed that impacted you or the Reiki community profoundly? Anything that you can think of there?
One thing, yeah yeah, so Ann Baldwin and I wanted to, there was some idea or a need for understanding about what is Reiki energy? How does it work? And so there was some comment that it may be electromagnetic because we have nerves going through our hands. And there could be an electromagnetic field there that's pulsing at the right frequency to create the healing process. And there was some research that was done about that sort of thing.
And there are scientific instruments that create electromagnetic fields for bone healing. So we were wondering, can we measure Reiki? So out at Stanford University they have a a lab superconducting quantum interference device. And so that's, that sounds pretty technical, it is. But basically what it is that It's a way of measuring very small electromagnetic fields.
And it's based on the idea that a magnetometer is basically just a coil of wire hooked up to an instrument, but there can be resistance in that coil that limits the sensitivity. So what they do is they take the magnetometer and put it into a very cold medium such as liquid hydrogen. It's way down like at 12 degrees just almost at absolute zero, right? And that creates no it has zero resistance in the coil that eliminates all the resistance. So it's, becomes a superconductor. That's what yeah.
So re reducing the temperature to near absolute zero causes a conductor to become a superconductor where there's virtually no resistance. And so that can measure extremely small electromagnetic fields. And so we went to the Scripps Institute at Stan. Yeah, it's Stanford.
And we had access to, we had, it costs a certain amount of money, we had access to this room that was isolated from the Earth's magnetic field, so it was a magnetically insulated room, so that no outside magnetic fields could affect us, and then it had a highly sensitive magnetometer in there. And so we went in and we did a couple of different things.
So we went in and just to measure our energy with us being in their room and the researcher that was, at the control panel said I can see your heartbeat. The heart has, it puts out to these spurts of electrical activity as it causes the heart muscle to pump. And that creates an electromagnetic field and she said she could see the magnetic field from the heart, the heartbeat, and so that was pretty good. But then so then we tried so that was the, the baseline.
Then what I did was I I sent Reiki to to Anne put my hands on her to do Reiki on her to see if they could measure that. And then also we did some distant Reiki. And also I can, I know I can just sit there and turn my Reiki on and turn it off. We tried that and they couldn't find any, anything. They couldn't measure it. Yeah, to my dismay. So I thought, oh, we're going to measure Reiki and all that, but they couldn't measure it.
And so a conclusion I drew from that is that Reiki is not electromagnetic and that in fact, it's made of an energy that science has not yet detected. That is a pretty profound idea. But then Anne had the other idea. Oh, but there could be some interference and things like that. So she was trying to figure out how can we do this, make a better experiment. Because she felt she didn't want to believe or didn't accept that there could be an energy beyond what science is aware of.
And also, I think she felt that would be a hard sell because that would open up a whole new era. In science, if there was something that science couldn't measure and then figuring out how to measure it. In other words, life energy, there's life energy that science is not able to measure. That's really profound in terms of what it implies.
And we'll just have to wait and see if they come up with any sort of way to measure life energy, because we weren't able to do it in their highly sensitive With our highly sensitive equipment.
Yeah I love that the. Maybe there's something beyond what we're aware of and can measure because I, we can measure the results. So we know that the energy is flowing. We know that something's happening. We've got all kinds of science that backs that up. So that's
real. That's right. Yeah, we measure the results and we factor out the placebo effect. And yeah, it definitely shows that something's going on, but we haven't been able to measure Reiki itself. Which is a kind of disappointment to me because I thought, oh then we can go in and we can do different kinds of attunements. And what did that do? Oh, it went up, two points or something. Or if you're meditating in a certain way, does that affect it?
That was a disappointment because we could have used that in. Becoming more aware of what Reiki is doing. So now we still have to depend on our intuition and our inner awareness. Of course, the other thing is people feel Reiki. Yes. So we are apparently more sensitive instruments than any scientific device that we can feel the Reiki. And we often notice that Reiki is a little different between practitioners and things like that. Oh, wow. William.
That is such a great story. Thank you. Do you feel that the Center for Reiki Research plays a role in bridging the gap between Western medicine and Reiki healing?
Absolutely. And we're very happy about that too. Like I was saying, if a person is a skeptic. And they're into science that I always say, Oh, you're into science. So then you want it, you'd be interested in all the scientific research that validates Reiki. And some of them are interested and some of them don't want to know about it because they have a rigid idea around Reiki. One of the problems with it is that they're atheists, and they think that if Reiki is validated, it means God must exist.
They don't want Reiki to be real, because it adds, because they're worried that then people would say, See, there's research that shows God exists, so they're worried about that. But which of course we don't say that. But they're worried that it would be some sort of test for God if Reiki worked. But then, like I say, I never thought
of it that way, William. I just
never thought of it. Yeah, I know. I didn't either until I've talked to some of the skeptics. And they're not always entirely scientific. In there, science basically accepts the results of research, regardless of what the results are, regardless of whether they show that what your current relief was isn't true, you're supposed to accept the scientific results, but some people are not willing to do that. That's interesting, too.
But then on the other hand, there are quite a group of people that are willing and they're very curious about it because of the scientific results that we have now.
I love it. I love that. I love that you did this and that you did this so early on, with that original website, the hospital website, and then the evolvement into the Center for Reiki Research. Thank it's, I think it's really important and, William, the last question I had is, do you have any idea of what the future looks like for the Center for Reiki Research and what your plans are and hopes for moving forward
with it? I would say larger scale studies would be one thing, and the studies are relatively expensive, so it'd be Developing our fundraising to get the money necessary for large scale studies. So that, that's the only drawback in science. You really need large scale studies that are replicated. In other words, we'll do a study and some other independent researcher would do, replicate that study a number of times. And that would satisfy the needs of science because That's what they call for.
It's replication and large scale. Of course, that requires money. And like I say, in the past, we did get a large donation. It allowed our one city To be completed, but that's basically what we need is money for the research to do more research.
Oh, good point. Now, William, I hadn't mentioned this to you, but we often end with meditation or experience. And is that something you would like to lead us in today? And if not, that's okay. We don't have to in this podcast.
Sure. I can do that. So I think if everyone listening, if you have some gentle music you'd like to play in the background, what I like is Julie True Music to Journal by Volume 1, Healing Presence, which I think that's really nice. Or you could get any sort of like flute music or something without words. It's just very gentle, soothing music to play in the background. And give you a moment to get that set up. Maybe just have it on your phone or something.
And then you could be seated if you want to, or laying down. And so just make yourself really comfortable, and take a couple of deep breaths, and close your eyes. And as the process unfolds, we call on the power of the Holy Fire Reiki energy now to be with us. We call on the brothers and sisters of the light to be with us also. We ask that the Holy Fire energy flow through each person now in a way that's exactly right for that person.
Allowing you to relax more deeply now and just pay attention to your breathing and allow yourself to go a little deeper into relaxation, peacefulness. As the Holy Fire now begins to flow through you and around you, very soothing, healing, and relaxing.
And if there is a condition that you have that might benefit from healing, a medical condition, or even just a headache or stomachache or an ache or pain or something, Just focus on that and allow the Reiki energy, the holy fire, to flow through that area of your body now. And as it does it just helps you to release completely the cause. of the problem, very soothing and healing and relaxing.
And I'm going to stop talking for a moment and just be aware now of your own inner state, and focus on any peaceful feelings you can feel or detect within yourself now. And we ask also that even after you've returned, the Holy Fire will be there for you, helping you to remain relaxed and peaceful, and guiding you in ways that are exactly right for you, beneficial for you, and continue to heal you. Great balance and peace.
And so whenever you're ready, take a couple of deep breaths and bring your awareness to your eye. And when you're ready, slowly open your eyes and come back. William, thank
you so much for being here with us today. And thank you for all of the work that you do with the ICRT and with the Center for Reiki Research. And I know you're involved in working with legislation around Reiki. I just hope you know how much we appreciate you. Thank you.
Thank you. Yes, I enjoy doing my work and I really appreciate what you said. Gratitude. Thank you.
Namaste and thank you all for being here with us today. Namaste.