Washington D.C., Mar 29, 2009 / 17:11 pm
The U.S. bishops have published a new evaluation of the Reiki therapy. Calling the Japanese form of alternative medicine comparable to “superstition,” the evaluation describes its practice as being without support in Christian belief, unscientific and inappropriate for Catholic institutions.
The document “Guidelines for Evaluating Reiki as an Alternative Therapy” contains guidelines developed by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB) Committee on Doctrine, which is chaired by Bishop William Lori of Bridgeport, Connecticut.
According to a USCCB press release, the guidelines describe Reiki as a healing technique “invented in Japan in the late 1800s by Mikao Usui, who was studying Buddhist texts.”
It characterizes Reiki therapy as teaching that illness is caused by “some kind of disruption or imbalance in one’s ‘life energy.’”