REIKI How Essential Is Touch To Human Health? 
Margo Ross, Reiki Master Teacher   

Just how essential is touch to human health? “Hundreds of studies show that with moderate touch, you get all kinds of health benefits,” said Tiffany Field, director of the Touch Research Institute at the University of Miami Medical School. “Without taction, babies fail to thrive, as studies of orphans show. Lower-touch cultures, such as the United States and Great Britain, also have more aggression than higher-touch ones like France,” Ms. Field said in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in November 2009. The key word in therapeutic touching is moderate, she explained. “If you’re lightly stroking someone, it’s going to arouse, elevate blood pressure and heart rate. If you use moderate pressure,”, such as a back rub, “it puts you in a truly relaxed state.” In fact, mainstream research finds that sustained touch can lower blood pressure, relieve stress, reduce aggression, boost immunity, and foster peaceful coexistence. 

The rules of social touching vary inside many complementary alternative medicine (CAM) communities, and are especially prominent in a Reiki Circle. Reiki culture is a culture of touch. When among Reiki-trained folk, one quickly finds that hugging and other “touch” gestures are commonplace. On the other hand, as essential as human touch and contact is for good health, some people have aversions to touching. Fortunately, there is non-contact Reiki to serve these people. In a formal Reiki treatment, the practitioner rests his or her hands lightly on the client’s fully-clothed body in a sustained hand position sequence for about one hour, or for a shorter amount of time in a casual or impromptu treatment. Most Reiki practitioners place their hands along the chakra system or at an injured area such as the head for headaches, or the center chest for emotional distress. The most common results reported are long-lasting sensations of warmth, mental and emotional calmness, higher sense of wellbeing, peace, and various levels of pain relief. Subsequent reports name epiphanies and accelerated healing. 

Reiki may be rendered with or without touch because it is an energy-based technique. All living things emit a bio-magnetic energy field, as substantiated by Drs. F. A. Mesmer, Robert Becker, Wilhelm Reich, Owen Waters, Barry Sterman and several other eminent scientists. This human energy field – also known as an aura– can radiate a few inches to a few feet from the body surface. The most common non-contact Reiki technique works by holding one’s hands very near the client’s body. Another technique, called absentee or long-distance healing, is performed under the premise of a holographic universe – all things are intrinsically encoded in all other things, therefore everything automatically affects everything else. Reports of the efficacy of non-contact Reiki are very often the same as contact Reiki; thus, those with thixophobia (fear of being touched) may be successfully treated by Reiki.

There is also group Reiki treatment, or Reiki Circle, where the social rules of engagement around the treatment table differ significantly from social gatherings in general. During a treatment, multiple practitioners (strangers or friends) surround and touch a single client at the same time with little or no discussion. Often the practitioners move their hands at-will around the body in standardized Reiki hand positions, sometimes stacking one’s own hand directly on top of a neighbor’s hand to treat the same area without requesting permission. No participants expect verbalizing, eye contact, or body language to justify this otherwise invasive gesture. While this may feel odd to a newcomer, it is also normal to remove one’s hand from under stacked hands without apology or acknowledgement. In regular society, such a move is a blatant social rejection and universally defensive. Furthermore, practitioners may lay one hand on the client and wordlessly place the other on the torso, arm or head of a neighbor. These postures are regarded as appropriate and inclusive, rather than invasive. Likewise in more intense circles, one may witness closer contact such as resting a head on another shoulder, partial leaning on a neighbor, beaming of energy from face to face, or other connecting creativity. Within a Reiki Circle, participants assume that all moves and behaviors are for the client’s benefit and not interpersonal overtures. 

Yet, as a broader use of intimate gestures expands from exclusivity of sex to the realm of the platonic, one may find that a hug accompanied by a light kiss on the cheek, is becoming vogue. The vibration with this particular gesture tends to feel maternal, protective and endearing. Additionally, pats and casual grooming often become second nature to many CAM practitioners. For example, if stray lint was on the breast of a ladies shirt or her necklace twisted, then in the past only a sister or close girlfriend would reach to fix it. Now, various friends groom away such things without comment. One may also notice a trend toward unusually long eye contact while greeting or smiling. This may be unnerving for some novices because they know it to be a domination or hostility gesture elsewhere. But observation reveals that inside this touch culture, it is more often a gesture of goodwill, engagement and an invitation for further communication.

This new intimacy forces a refreshing redefinition of one’s vulnerability, of personal boundaries and of assumptions on others. A more substantial sensation of connectedness grows here. Touching acquires both a lighter and deeper meaning. Platonic affection is not socially offensive. A soulful hug is a celebration of being holistically and profoundly connected to each other. People begin to view each other holographically. The Reiki culture of touch naturally flows into our globally rising tide of higher awareness and higher connectedness.