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Sure, the attitude one holds is important. People can sense that at some level. Subtle energy is real though. Reiki is one of the modalities that does not requ

• dmos62 7y ago
  Addressing the quiet downvoters. It upsets me how dismissive our culture can be. What if there's something to it? There's a rich history of people thinking that there is. Do they really not deserve a second thought? I wish everyone were always a skeptic, but never off-hand dismissive. To those entrusting our mainstream with authority on what's bullshit and what's not, remember that psychedelics research is still illegal most places. I'd argue that history is random, and thus the mainstream. Further, variety is a good thing: the more of it we can sustain, the healthier our society is.
  • 411111111111111 7y ago
    Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. None was provided, so we will have to dismiss it until some proof is provided. Nobody is dismissing proof here. They're only dismissive of the extraordinary claims that an immeasurable energy somehow inherent to some things has any effect beyond essentially the placebo effect. After all, there hasn't been any evidence which showed differently. If you have some studies showing actual results beyond placebo's baseline, we'd all be ecstatic for the new knowledge
    • dmos62 7y ago
      It merits skepticism. But, is it a lack of the scientific method that's motivating the backlash? Or, is it that the claim falls within an unpopular marginality? The obvious rebut is that it's unpopular, because it lacks scientific method. In other words, mainstream is mainstream due to merit and can be used as source of truth. If anyone takes this view, I hope they're very conscious of it, because in my opinion this viewpoint can't last long.
      • hnhg 7y ago
        You seem to be ignoring this: 'Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.' If it helps consider it from a Bayesian pov - just give us some decent evidence and it will start to shift our prior belief, which is so far based on overwhelming evidence that this is quackery.
        • dmos62 7y ago
          You missed that I'm not interested in Reiki or whether it works. I'm interested in how we treat mainstream and marginality, and how we sometimes hide behind science to protect our metaphysical beliefs.
          • hnhg 7y ago
            Yeah, I did. In that case, I agree.
    • TheOtherHobbes 7y ago
      No, you wouldn't be ecstatic at all. Even if hard evidence existed for anomalous interpretations of reality - which it does, in forgotten corners of academia [1] - you'd be utterly dismissive of it. You'd spend the first part of your answer debunking it with some untested pseudo-explanations, and the rest of your answer complaining that it hadn't been replicated. And you wouldn't even notice the evidence linked to in an article like this one which suggests the effects can't simply be waved away as placebo. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31638407 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31638407 Then you'd end with a restatement of the "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" saw and would retreat happy and contented that you had once again vanquished the evil dragon of irrationality with your objectively informed skepticism. Unfortunately none of this is even remotely scientific, except in a bandwagon cargo cult sense. Science is not about protecting the tribe against unacceptably dissident world views, but about dealing calmly and objectively with things that actually happen - especially if you don't understand them. It's not about trying to persuade yourself that they don't happen, because they can't possibly, because you already know for sure what's possible and what isn't with unshakeable 100% confidence, and therefore there can't possibly be anything to explain. QED. [1] https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/02/there-is-a-paranormal-activity-lab-at-the-university-of-virginia/283584/ https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/02/there-is-...
      • hnhg 7y ago
        Please don't fall into ad hominem attacks. I don't think it helps the conversation here. I took a look at the study linked and I could see some problems in experiment design. There are so many confounding factors that aren't controlled for. [edit: An experiment like this would have to be pretty big in scope and try to randomise for control groups accordingly. I personally would like to see that to see what's genuinely resulting in these effects, no matter what it is. You might not believe that though, which is your own bias.]
    • dna_polymerase 7y ago
      > Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. No, they require the same evidence as any other claim, but none was provided.
    • gerbilly 7y ago
      And who's the authority on what's extraordinary then?
      • conjectures 7y ago
        It's extraordinary in the sense that there is no known mechanism for it to work. E.g. soap kills viruses by dissolving them, some painkillers work by blocking transmission of signals along nerves, radiotherapy kills cells in the blast zone. Other than through establishing a psychological effect around 'someone cares', there's simply no known way of positive thoughts in one person's head being transmitted down through the hands and directly doing some work on an illness. If there were, what is it: What kind of 'energy' do hands emit? How does the difference between Reiki hands and non-Reiki hands manifest? How does that 'energy' selectively effect diseases? How does thought modulate the diseases the 'energy' effects. E.g. how is the Reiki hand energy signature a function of the targeted disease? What's the molecular pathway by which the 'energy' improves the target ailment? If it's just regular 'energy' why can't we copy it with a machine and play it back en masse?
        • crankylinuxuser 7y ago
          Well... That sounds testable. Use 10 people who have chronic pain who report pain relief with hands-on reiki. As for the test: Hands-off reiki vs hands-off no reiki (person who isn't trained in reiki present) vs nothing We should see significant reporting of gains with the hands-off reiki, and should see no gains with #2 or #3... Just because we can't see this assumed energy doesn't mean we can't measure it somehow.
          • tonyarkles 7y ago
            There’s the rub though: what you’re proposing isn’t measuring “subtle energy” at all. It’s measuring whether or not there’s some phenomenon (possibly psychological) that brings pain relief. Your proposed test is only measuring the effect (which is a valuable test!), but not providing any insight into the mechanism of action.
    • cat199 7y ago
      > None was provided, so we will have to dismiss it until some proof is provided. this itself is an affirmative negation with no supporting evidence. at best we should be ambivalent from an empirical standpoint. side note: why do strict rationalists love using the 'royal we'
  • deleted 7y ago
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  • wpietri 7y ago
    I think there are two components here. One is people reporting their experience. We should definitely honor that. But the other is people making claims of fact based on their experience. That's something people need to be responsible about, because it imposes a burden on the rest of us, and can be actively harmful. So if somebody sees funny lights in the skies, great! I would like to hear about their experience. But suppose somebody uses that to claim that aliens are real and are coming to probe people's anuses and the government is covering that all up. That's not a neutral act! As we can see with the recent rise in conspiracism and a lot of specific wacko beliefs like Flat Earth theories, bad thinking is contagious. And when we look at antivax hysteria, it becomes obviously dangerous. A comment like "subtle energy is real" is for me in the realm of irresponsible behavior. It's an unevidenced assertion of fact about the nature of the universe. And here, it's placed in contradiction to somebody being open-minded about the experience and trying to find a way to fit it into more useful frameworks of fact. So the "subtle energy is real" person is actually the one being dismissive here. I'd say the downvotes are reasonable.
    • hosh 7y ago
      What if there are some things where scientific objectivity and scientific method breaks down, and is incapable of exploring? It's ok if you feel that what I said was irresponsible. I know that is the mainstream view of things, and I expected a lot of backlash for posting a comment on this. I usually hang out with the crowd where the experience and reality of subtle energy is not in doubt. Among them are the people for whom ... let's just say, something in then turns on (or something), and they are experiencing a number of phenomenas which includes subtle energy. Some of it are triggered by psychedelics, and some of it is not. For them, they experience what you feel: cognitive dissonance, anxiety, fear, anger. They freak out. Among them are both people who actively sought it out ... and people who are open-minded skeptics. At that point, they are lost. The responsible thing at that point is to provide a framework to help them make sense of it. The ones who are skeptical appreciate it. They have the opportunity to explore and test out the claims for themselves.
      • zarmin 7y ago
        >"The day science begins to study non-physical phenomena, it will make more progress in one decade than in all the previous centuries of its existence." - Nikola Tesla Material reductionism has really done a number on Western civilization. The notion that existence is limited to what can be measured, and all claims to the contrary get painted with the brush of pseudoscience, to me, embodies the hubris that is holding science back. Not to diminish the achievements of science and academia – they just have one eye covered. See the work of Dean Radin for a series of studies on nonmaterial phenomena, that I hope are the start of a wave of discovery.
  • chao- 7y ago
    EDIT: This comment ended up way longer than I set out for it to be. The TL;DR is "I used to not get it. Now I get it, but I will still discourage it." >Do they really not deserve a second thought? People do deserve a second thought, as do enduring ideas, but not always a third. For some of us, on some matters, this is our third thought, or thirtieth thought, or more. I am happy to put a name to my downvote, and to explain. After many grumpy years becoming increasingly more despondent about people (friends, even partners) who would carry on about this "energy" nonsense, I became equally intolerable myself. The topic would elicit angry, knee-jerk reactions and loud denouncements, if only because I was so sick and tired of it. At some point, seven years ago, give or take, I had a revelation vis-à-vis the linguistics of it all. I would let hosh speak for themselves, but for many people I have known the "energy" isn't real (or fake!) in any physical sense. They are not trying to express a strong ontological opinion about a human's ability to control a specific-yet-ill-defined force of nature. They are using the word as an all-encompassing metaphor for a large, flexible, ever-changing collection of experiences, both sensory and internal: sometimes your subtle body language, or emotional cues (intentional or unintentional), or their own projections of your mental state. There's probably a more precise vocabulary for any specific instance or combination of sensations, but many people are satisfied by sorting their experiences into just "feels good" and "feels bad", or the slightly-better-sounding "positive energy" and "negative energy". I still remember someone who befriended me recounting the why. They had taken the initiative to walk through a large gathering, and seek me out because they "felt the energy I was sending them". I definitely was not in control of any energy, never mind sending it. It took time to pry out the specifics, but ultimately what they meant was that I looked friendly and seemed engaged in the conversation I was having. I don't doubt that most people making statements about energy that they feel (or are "sending"), are genuinely having some internal experience and are describing it. But they aren't producing vibrations from their energy gland and evoking energy particles towards my energy gland. At least thus far that is not a thing we know humans to have and do. Even after realizing this, and becoming more contained in my reactions, I still find the term imprecise at best, and an enabler of harm at worst. I will continue to discourage it whenever I can. To directly address hosh's phrasing, the closest I could come to agreeing-to-disagree on "Subtle energy is real though", would be to phrase it as "The idea of a 'subtle energy' is a useful metaphor that sometimes helps some people reason about their experiences". Saying it "is real" in a definitive physical manner is ridiculous, by the precise dictionary definition: "deserving or inviting derision or mockery; absurd".
• driverdan 7y ago
  > Subtle energy is real though. Do you actually understand what the word "energy" means? What form of energy is it? Can you demonstrate with a controlled scientific test this energy?
  • hosh 7y ago
    "Subtle energy" is a specific term that is not the same as the description of a physical energy. I understand what the word "energy" means in the scientific sense, but do _you_ understand what the term "subtle energy" means? Subtle energy is something that can be experienced. Among those who do experience it, if it is a hallucination, it's a shared hallucination. It has something to do with consciousness. I have severe doubts it can ever be describable or disprovable with a controlled scientific test. That is, I thiknk there are limits to what the scientific method can determine. I don't think it is measurable, at least not with the technology we can construct. It is not electromagnetic, though some forms may be experienced as having electric or magnetic properties. But one property that is not described by physical description is that it carries information: emotion, awareness, sentience, in varying degrees. However, I know of people who have tried, though I haven't seen what they published about it. It is replicable: do the correct set of practices long enough, and you can experience it. (And this is why people freak out when those practices actually works). However, I don't think it can ever be objectively measured. Psychedelics can sometimes trigger the experience of it. With the use of microdosing and clinical applications of psychedelics becoming mainstream, I expect more people will start encountering this.
  • jmcmichael 7y ago
    It's qualitative energy, not quantitative energy. The same energy one feels when one experiences love, feels lifted up by a favorite song, or feels exuberance when one's team wins the superbowl.
    • hosh 7y ago
      I don't mean it as "qualitative energy" in the sense you are using, though there are qualities to it. It affects conciousness, and is in turn affected by consciousness. The consciousness can be trained to influence, even direct or focus the it. So yes, people experience love, fill inspired, or feel exuberance, and those are subtle energy in different forms. But it also has substance. Someone skilled in its use can intensify it, purify it, project it, and influence someone else's mood with it.