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Many people are commenting that Reiki is like Meditation i.e. all mumbo jumbo placebo effect. This might persuade a lot of people to reject both without going t

Many people are commenting that Reiki is like Meditation i.e. all mumbo jumbo placebo effect. This might persuade a lot of people to reject both without going through the experience. I have been a very infrequent practitioner of meditation since 2009. I am now a very different person and there is no way for me to measure how or what has changed in me. I am way more focused, happier and might I conservatively add the word "successful" in my married life as well as financially. As most of us have a very scientific attitude towards life, we all can atleast experiment with it. If it works for us, then good. If it doesn't, just move ahead. I have no instrument which can measure my experience but I don't need to google it to know if it has worked for me or not. Again all I am saying is that please dont have the attitude "Whatever is not written in the books we studied or if there is something we can not explain with our logic, then it must be mumbo jumbo" is the ultimate ignorance. I am not saying that we stop doubting and accept Reiki at face value. I am just saying to keep a scientific attitude, experiment with it and see if it works

lilSebastian 7y ago
Genuinely interested, how did you get started with meditation?
- nindalf 7y ago
  Don’t know about that guy but I did it with Headspace. It’s guided meditation - he coaches you through it. I found it pretty helpful. Nowadays I do guided yoga with YouTube videos but I try to keep the lessons from Headspace in mind while doing them - clear my mind, focus on my breathing, if my mind wanders gently bring it back, think about how my body feels etc.
  - riffraff 7y ago
    another vote for headspace for a simple reason: it has very little (none?) metaphysical/new age/faux-buddhist BS. Things "feel the energy of the earth getting in through your soles" kind of things, which I find deeply annoying and distracting. I am sure such things _are_ useful for some people though, so YMMV.
    - h0h0h0h0111 7y ago
      Headspace and Youtube were also my experience. I think a large part of getting into meditation is finding a meditation guide(?) with a voice you enjoy listening to. It sounds really silly, but certain accents (particularly ones close to my own) were quite uncomfortable to listen to, and similarly certain scripts (like you, the "energy mumbo-jumbo") were really distracting. After trying out a bunch of youtubers I eventually found some with a voice and script that helped me feel at ease, but I'm sure it's a very personal endeavour
  - lilSebastian 7y ago
    Thanks, headspace looks like a decent starting point.
- mercer 7y ago
  Not OP, but for me what made it work, initially, was the Headspace app. Some people aren't a fan of the voice, but for me it was so much more pleasant than the usual breathy deep-oice I find in other apps/audio. I'd say more than anything what matters is that it's a kind of program or has some schedule or structure. Perhaps ideally with a shared commitment (so, planned sessions with a 'host' and other participants). Doing this physically is difficult right now, obviously, but I imagine there's tons of 'online meditation groups' these days...
- connectsnk 7y ago
  I did an Art of living course back in 2009. It was a 5 day session held in evenings with an Art of living teacher. I have been very infrequent in my practice and I might have become an absolutely fantastic human being if I was more regular in my practice. But I am easily satisfied and I am happy with where I am. There might be other avenues better than Art of living courses but I have not tried them.
  - loopz 7y ago
    I can vouch for Art of Living as well. There are many groups in most countries and is both rooted in tradition and seek scientific research/validation. It's about betterment of self and stress release.
logicchains 7y ago
There's a simple logical explanation why meditation works. A huge amount of suffering comes from people making value judgements about things they're thinking about: "X happened/is happening/will happen, X is bad, now I feel bad". Meditation has two effects on this: firstly, it encourages non-thinking (or focusing on some specific thing like breathing), which means less time for random thoughts, which means less time for feeling bad because of random thoughts. Secondly, it encourages people to reflect on the value judgements their thoughts are making, which makes them more likely to realise the subjectivity in their judgements (due to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regress_argument https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regress_argument), which makes them more likely to update their worldview into one in which fewer judgements are made. Fewer judgements means fewer thoughts cause unhappiness. This is expressed in a quote by Stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius: "If you are distressed by something external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment."; worldview has a huge effect on how much someone suffers, and meditation encourages reflection, and reflection encourages changes in worldview.
- danielbarla 7y ago
  I agree with most of what you said, except I think you miss a core mechanism. Specifically, it doesn't just encourage non-thinking (though this is certainly an aspect), but it also encourages you to take a step back, and explore around what you are feeling. This is profound, because it very quickly leads to you figuring out chains of causality in yourself. You gain a much deeper understanding of why you do things, what you are like as a person, and what you could change in order to stop these cause and effect relationships. So, in essence, you get a root cause analysis for free, which gets built in to your muscle memory.
- dmos62 7y ago
  There's a problem with taking something as subtle as the internal workings of a human and saying "aha! I now understand what the effect of this is or why that is happening". We seek simplicity and conformance to our mental models, but nature doesn't have those constraints. It's naive to think "I've figured it out". And, that's a good thing. Many times desire for explanations is just to make oneself feel in control. Just being intimately exposed to that is therapeutic on its own.
jariel 7y ago
"all mumbo jumbo placebo effect" Yeah but the placebo effect is not mumbo jumbo! That's the kicker ...
asjw 7y ago
> . I am way more focused, happier and might I conservatively add the word "successful" in my married life as well as financially. I never practiced meditation, I am more focused, happier etc. now than I was before. It's a collateral effect of aging well and seeing the results of the struggles of my younger self. And also some of the hormones reduce their effects when you age. Meditation can help because it can put you in the mindset of taking care of yourself But there are many things that actually work better if one understand that taking care of yourself is the most important path towards a better life
ilaksh 7y ago
What part of meditation is mumbo jumbo? It's not at all that unless people start thinking that they are having real out of body experiences or something (like, it's not just a perception, but some soul or something actually leaving their body).
balfirevic 7y ago
> attitude "Whatever is not written in the books we studied or if there is something we can not explain with our logic, then it must be mumbo jumbo" That's a straw man. Actual attitude is "Whatever is predicated upon breaking the known and well-established laws of physics must be mumbo jumbo". Reiki's purported mechanism of action fits that description, although it might have some effect through psychological mechanism, as does placebo. Also, many people are very different now than in 2009, meditation or no meditation. That alone doesn't say much about it's effects.
eeZah7Ux 7y ago
Claiming that meditation is just a placebo is absurd. There's tons of research on it.

lilSebastian 7y ago

Genuinely interested, how did you get started with meditation?

nindalf 7y ago
Don’t know about that guy but I did it with Headspace. It’s guided meditation - he coaches you through it. I found it pretty helpful. Nowadays I do guided yoga with YouTube videos but I try to keep the lessons from Headspace in mind while doing them - clear my mind, focus on my breathing, if my mind wanders gently bring it back, think about how my body feels etc.
- riffraff 7y ago
  another vote for headspace for a simple reason: it has very little (none?) metaphysical/new age/faux-buddhist BS. Things "feel the energy of the earth getting in through your soles" kind of things, which I find deeply annoying and distracting. I am sure such things _are_ useful for some people though, so YMMV.
  - h0h0h0h0111 7y ago
    Headspace and Youtube were also my experience. I think a large part of getting into meditation is finding a meditation guide(?) with a voice you enjoy listening to. It sounds really silly, but certain accents (particularly ones close to my own) were quite uncomfortable to listen to, and similarly certain scripts (like you, the "energy mumbo-jumbo") were really distracting. After trying out a bunch of youtubers I eventually found some with a voice and script that helped me feel at ease, but I'm sure it's a very personal endeavour
- lilSebastian 7y ago
  Thanks, headspace looks like a decent starting point.
mercer 7y ago
Not OP, but for me what made it work, initially, was the Headspace app. Some people aren't a fan of the voice, but for me it was so much more pleasant than the usual breathy deep-oice I find in other apps/audio. I'd say more than anything what matters is that it's a kind of program or has some schedule or structure. Perhaps ideally with a shared commitment (so, planned sessions with a 'host' and other participants). Doing this physically is difficult right now, obviously, but I imagine there's tons of 'online meditation groups' these days...
connectsnk 7y ago
I did an Art of living course back in 2009. It was a 5 day session held in evenings with an Art of living teacher. I have been very infrequent in my practice and I might have become an absolutely fantastic human being if I was more regular in my practice. But I am easily satisfied and I am happy with where I am. There might be other avenues better than Art of living courses but I have not tried them.
- loopz 7y ago
  I can vouch for Art of Living as well. There are many groups in most countries and is both rooted in tradition and seek scientific research/validation. It's about betterment of self and stress release.

logicchains 7y ago

There's a simple logical explanation why meditation works. A huge amount of suffering comes from people making value judgements about things they're thinking about: "X happened/is happening/will happen, X is bad, now I feel bad". Meditation has two effects on this: firstly, it encourages non-thinking (or focusing on some specific thing like breathing), which means less time for random thoughts, which means less time for feeling bad because of random thoughts. Secondly, it encourages people to reflect on the value judgements their thoughts are making, which makes them more likely to realise the subjectivity in their judgements (due to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regress_argument https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regress_argument), which makes them more likely to update their worldview into one in which fewer judgements are made. Fewer judgements means fewer thoughts cause unhappiness. This is expressed in a quote by Stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius: "If you are distressed by something external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment."; worldview has a huge effect on how much someone suffers, and meditation encourages reflection, and reflection encourages changes in worldview.

danielbarla 7y ago
I agree with most of what you said, except I think you miss a core mechanism. Specifically, it doesn't just encourage non-thinking (though this is certainly an aspect), but it also encourages you to take a step back, and explore around what you are feeling. This is profound, because it very quickly leads to you figuring out chains of causality in yourself. You gain a much deeper understanding of why you do things, what you are like as a person, and what you could change in order to stop these cause and effect relationships. So, in essence, you get a root cause analysis for free, which gets built in to your muscle memory.
dmos62 7y ago
There's a problem with taking something as subtle as the internal workings of a human and saying "aha! I now understand what the effect of this is or why that is happening". We seek simplicity and conformance to our mental models, but nature doesn't have those constraints. It's naive to think "I've figured it out". And, that's a good thing. Many times desire for explanations is just to make oneself feel in control. Just being intimately exposed to that is therapeutic on its own.

jariel 7y ago

"all mumbo jumbo placebo effect" Yeah but the placebo effect is not mumbo jumbo! That's the kicker ...

asjw 7y ago

> . I am way more focused, happier and might I conservatively add the word "successful" in my married life as well as financially. I never practiced meditation, I am more focused, happier etc. now than I was before. It's a collateral effect of aging well and seeing the results of the struggles of my younger self. And also some of the hormones reduce their effects when you age. Meditation can help because it can put you in the mindset of taking care of yourself But there are many things that actually work better if one understand that taking care of yourself is the most important path towards a better life

ilaksh 7y ago

What part of meditation is mumbo jumbo? It's not at all that unless people start thinking that they are having real out of body experiences or something (like, it's not just a perception, but some soul or something actually leaving their body).

balfirevic 7y ago

> attitude "Whatever is not written in the books we studied or if there is something we can not explain with our logic, then it must be mumbo jumbo" That's a straw man. Actual attitude is "Whatever is predicated upon breaking the known and well-established laws of physics must be mumbo jumbo". Reiki's purported mechanism of action fits that description, although it might have some effect through psychological mechanism, as does placebo. Also, many people are very different now than in 2009, meditation or no meditation. That alone doesn't say much about it's effects.

eeZah7Ux 7y ago

Claiming that meditation is just a placebo is absurd. There's tons of research on it.