The 'Reiki' Factor in The Radiance Technique

The 'Reiki' Factor in The Radiance Technique is a book by psychic, astrologer, and Latin teacher Barbara Weber Ray describing her version of Reiki, The Radiance Technique® (or TRT&reg;, for short). Quotes by Carl Sagan, Albert Einstein, Arthur C. Clarke, and Marilyn Ferguson are sprinkled liberally throughout the book.

About the author
Barbara Weber Ray, Ph.D, (b. 1941 in Houston, Texas) is a psychic, "professional, licensed astrologer", Reiki practitioner, and Latin teacher. She obtained a BA and MA in the Classics, Ancient Languages and Civilizations, and a Ph.D in Humanities from Florida State University, and is a member of Mensa. In 1973 she started practicing clairvoyancy. She used to have an astrology radio show in Atlanta called "Star-Talk".

Contents
The book has three parts divided into 18 chapters: a history and description of Reiki; how to use TRT (but only if you've been attuned to the cosmic energy, of course), anecdotes and testimonials (these comprise over half of the book), and some appendices containing quotes relevant to the cause, frequently asked questions, a chapter about the author, and a preface (which is at the end). (One of the quotes is the "Truth goes through three phases" formulation of the Galileo gambit, and it is erroneously attributed to Schopenhauer.)

There's light. And then there's Light.
Ray tells of John Ott's experiments on the effects of different kinds of light on health and his theory that sunlight is necessary for human health, and quotes him saying that, just as we have food diets now, humans will go on light diets. She compares this to the Light diet supposedly provided by Reiki ("Light" is Ray's way of saying "subtle energy".) People are apparently made both of Light and matter (this will be relevant later on).

History of Reiki
In chapter 8, Ray says, more or less, that the method now known as TRT was transmitted by word of mouth for centuries, that it came to Asia from some other, unknown, place, and that she was the only scholar who could recognize ancient descriptions of the method for what they really were (that is, TRT).

Spurious Einstein quote
In this context, she says:

Ray doesn't provide a reference for the quote, which seems to have first appeared in the 1971 spirituality book Be Here Now by Hindu spiritual teacher Ram Dass. It may be useful to note that all other references to the quote, mostly in New Age- and business-related publications, occur in works published after 1971.

Reiki discovered by extraterrestrial aliens?
The knowledge of TRT goes back many centuries:

But here's the interesting part:

Ray doesn't elaborate further, and leaves the reader to interpret this vague paragraph. She refers to The Sirius Mystery, but absent from her summary is the fact that Temple's argument in his book is that the Dogon people obtained their information from technologically advanced aliens thousands of years ago (though the erroneous description of Temple as being an astronomer provides a hint). Then she asks whether Reiki was "transmitted" by beings "of a higher intelligence and consciousness".

This juxtaposition suggests that the beings are, in fact, aliens, and, indeed, "intelligence" doesn't sound like something that would apply to a spirit; however, the phrase "higher consciousness" is so vague that it could be a reference to a supernatural quality.

On the other hand, Ray uses the phrase "on this planet". There are countless things she could have written instead: "on this plane", "on this level of existence", "in this world" (as opposed to the afterlife or spirit world) — but she chose "on this planet", with all its connotations of outer space and the material universe (and note the phrasing: "on this planet" — meaning on Earth, as opposed to, say, Mars or Mercury.)

The entire last sentence is a response to the question of whether Reiki was transmitted by these beings, so it appears she is saying that there is evidence for contact with the specific individuals that brought Reiki to Earth. On the other hand, Ray says there is strong evidence for "some sort of contact", which could mean that the evidence is only for contact with some aliens, not necessarily the ones that supposedly enlightened humanity by bringing this "circuit-activating" technique.

In any case, though we may never know what Ray meant by this mysterious passage, it may be worth noting that Usui himself said:

Usui, Einstein, and Reiki
Ray goes on to tell what she admits is the legend of Usui's discovery of Reiki. While in India, he supposedly found Sanskrit inscriptions that had a "formula" with symbols for activating cosmic energy. She then speculates that perhaps future civilizations will rediscover Einstein's E = MC2 and "the instructions on how to use it", just as Usui rediscovered Reiki. Also, E = MC2 is a tool for activating energy, just like Reiki is.

Then Ray claims Reiki can't be self-taught (i.e. that one can only be attuned by another person), just one page after writing about Usui's "discovery" of Reiki. This is strange, given that the story she just told was about Usui teaching himself Reiki.

A New Age Dawns
Now follows a description of Hawayo Takata's role in disseminating Reiki, and Ray's background in ancient civilizations. A "new age" is dawning, of which TRT is implied to be a very important part. There are no words to describe the wonderful benefits TRT can bring to its users. Like, nothing.

Yup, that'll do nicely.

Anecdotes
Before discussing some of the anecdotes in the book, it is first worth noting that the placebo effect is known to be very strong and can produce very substantial changes in subjective symptoms such as pain and fatigue by making the body release endorphins and other analgesic substances, for reasons unrelated to supernatural powers. This is a mechanism which has been extensively studied and is very well known.

Yet, despite this, there are quite a number of stories in this book describing how subjective symptoms such as pain and fatigue improved after laying on of hands. But the placebo effect by definition makes people feel better — even dramatically so. There is no way to tell, using only anecdotes, whether the improvement was due to the placebo effect or to the specific effects of the treatment.

Probably the strangest (and weakest) anecdote is one in which Ray describes how she picked up an injured seagull, which she says she "never would have had the courage to do had it not been for Reiki". But is cosmic energy really the only possible explanation for someone gaining confidence?

A businesswoman attended a Reiki session. She was tired and nauseated and originally thought Reiki was just a "metaphysical placebo" that couldn't possibly be of any use to her, but after one hour of Reiki, she felt better, and concluded that Reiki "works". However, it seems she was unaware of what a placebo actually is, since the placebo effect is perfectly capable of relieving nausea. In one classic study, nauseous subjects were given a powerful nausea-inducing substance, which they were told would relieve their symptoms. The placebo effect was so strong that instead of feeling worse, the patients felt relief. In other words, the placebo effect overpowered the physical effects of the medicine! Had the businesswoman known this, she probably would have come to a different conclusion. It may be objected that since she didn't originally believe in Reiki, the placebo effect couldn't possibly have worked. But if the businesswoman had really been convinced that Reiki did not work, she wouldn't have gone to the Reiki session in the first place. That she went at all is evidence that she may have had some belief in it, or that she was sufficiently curious to be susceptible to the placebo effect. And, of course, there's always the possibility that her nausea would have gotten better anyway; it is not unreasonable to think that a person's nausea could improve in one hour.

The implicit assumption of these anecdotes is that the improvements must have been due to some supernatural power entering the person's body, and that they cannot have been coincidences or the result of the placebo effect (many of these Reiki "conversions" involve people who are probably unaware of the extent to which the mind can affect the body). A passage from chapter four of Mark Twain's 1907 book Christian Science could be illustrative (emphasis added):

Is it more likely that the symptomatic changes in TRFiTRT are the result of the well known and scientifically proven "power of the mind", or that they are the result of some vaguely defined, supernatural "force"? Occam's razor would suggest the former.

In Ray's book, there are a number of anecdotes with objective improvements, but, as with all anecdotes, it is impossible to tell whether the improvements were really due to Reiki or just coincidences.

Someone had a kidney stone which, Ray says, wouldn't dissolve with medication. Some acquaintances of the person used Reiki on her, and advised her to get an X-ray (a second one) to see if the kidney stone changed, which she did, the next day. The kidney stone was smaller. The problem with this anecdote is that there is very little information about the case. How long did she have the stone? How much time elapsed between the patient's first X-ray and the Reiki treatment? It's possible that a few weeks had passed between the first X-ray and the Reiki treatment, in which case there could have been plenty of time for the kidney stone to dissolve.

Ray says she was contacted by the family of a person whose cancer allegedly disappeared because of Reiki. Besides the fact that this is a second-hand story, and that cases of cancers "disappearing" are often either due to misdiagnosis or spontaneous improvement, this anecdote is rather disappointing given that it's not even a first-hand story and that the pool of people who have at some point experienced TRT is quite large. It's relatively easy to get many cases of spontaneous remission or misdiagnosis. (Think about it: out of 100 people diagnosed with cancer, how many will be misdiagnosed? Or 1,000? Or 10,000?)

Near the end of the book, there is a foreword to the first edition of The Reiki Factor written by a psychotherapist and Reiki user. Among other things, she describes how her knee became very swollen after a fall, and how, throughout the day, the swelling diminished significantly, supposedly due to Reiki (in the evening, she was treated by four other practitioners simultaneously). But it cannot be definitively said that Reiki, rather than natural recovery, made the swelling go away. (A doctor who saw the injury right after the fall said she would be on crutches for weeks. But since when are doctors infallible?) It is also described how the person's mother underwent chemotherapy for colon cancer without experiencing baldness, and the lack of hair loss is likewise attributed to Reiki. What medicines were used isn't specified, but some colon cancer drugs (such as oxaliplatin) do not cause alopecia.

Ray has attuned many people (possibly hundreds or thousands) to Reiki, and the book includes second- or third-hand testimonials sent to her by TRT users she (presumably) doesn't know. The total number of cases worldwide involving TRT users likely numbers in the hundreds of thousands, or even millions. Improbable things happen, and with this enormous pool of anecdotes involving TRT to choose from, it would be practically impossible for there not to be "miraculous" statistical flukes occurring sometime after the use of Reiki. ("Sometime" being arbitrary and possibly extending to months, maximizing the possibility of natural improvement.) Yet even the most mundane events are attributed to Reiki. There are so many things besides Reiki which could be responsible: Regression to the mean, spontaneous improvement, the placebo effect, misdiagnosis, or factors not mentioned in the anecdote (such as therapies undertaken alongside Reiki), among others.

All anecdotes and testimonials are necessarily self-selected, subject to cognitive biases, and ultimately not useful. Mary Baker Eddy's Health and Science, the founding text of Christian Science, also contains many testimonials describing "miraculous" recoveries, and some of its "cured" diseases include cancer, tuberculosis, heart disease, and various others. Christian Science, the many different varieties of Reiki (including supposedly "inauthentic" ones), therapeutic touch, quantum touch (which, unlike Reiki, is claimed to consist of techniques that can be self-taught), and the irreligious laying on of hands of Mark Twain's "faith-doctor" are based on "miraculous" anecdotes, yet many of these systems contradict each other. They can't all be simultaneously right.