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On the page about Mikao Usui, the creator of the practice, Reiki is described as a spiritual practice. However, here on this page it is discussed only as a pseudoscientific healing modality. Either the fact that the practice is also, or perhaps primarily, spiritual path should be acknowledged on the current page, or else a disambiguation landing page is needed. This would avoid confusion because spiritual and scientific practices have different purposes and are evaluated using different criteria and much of the current page is devoted to evaluating Reiki as science only. 2601:183:4601:990:4C8F:3A02:60C8:EBC5 (talk) 02:21, 15 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Most pastors/priests do not pretend to heal people. If they practice faith healing, we rightly lambast them as WP:LUNATICS.
So, yes, we do have respect for the religion of pastors/priests. But we have absolutely no respect for faith healing. tgeorgescu (talk) 02:33, 15 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The terms "scientific" and related forms, and "metaphysical" and related forms are used in ways that have little accuracy. This article should be rewritten to use such terms more carefully, or to avoid them altogether. As it stands this article is just twaddle. 100.4.205.238 (talk) 05:35, 26 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
ways that have little accuracy What ways are those?
use such terms more carefully How?
Your contribution is not helpful the way it is put. If you are that vague, we cannot tell what you want. --Hob Gadling (talk) 06:04, 26 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I have to agree with OP′s criticism. The first sentence in the article alone is showing bias by terming Reiki “pseudoscientific form of...”, which is not what Wikipedia is (or should be) about. It would already suffice to have “energy healing” link to the appropriate article where the efficacy of such healing methods are called into question.
In the first two paragraphs of the article, Reiki is again called a pseudoscience (though I am not aware of direct scientific claims made by Reiki practitioners), as well as “quackery”. This is, in my opinion, a serious breach of neutrality and objectivity, which is one of the fundamental principles guiding Wikipedia.
On a side note, the claim of clinical research not showing “reiki to be effective as a treatment for any medical condition” is, with the exception of Reference [6], seriously outdated, with support for the final conclusion that studies reporting positive effects having had methodological flaws being 15 years out of date, which is a very long time as seen from the lens of ever-evolving medical research. Indeed, there are a few results of clinical trials out there which suggest at least some benefit of reiki in managing pain and anxiety (e.g. doi:10.1093/eurjcn/zvae051, or doi:10.3389/fpysg.2022.897312), but I am not in the medical field and while I enjoy reading medical research, I cannot with certainty judge whether those trials/reviews have methodological flaws that would render the articles unreliable.
Going back to the topic at hand, the Wikipedia article goes on (Section: Conceptual Basis) to use loaded words such as “claim”, which the Manual of Style warns against, and reiterates the view of Reiki being “thus [a] pseudoscientific practice based on metaphysical concepts”. We again have a third (fourth?) mention of Reiki being a pseudoscientific practice, which is seriously and unduly influencing readers of this article by now, if it has not already happened in the first few paragraphs.
To be clear, I am not advocating for complete removal of all scepticism or reference to the questionability of Reiki from this article, but I am seriously calling out the assigned value, lacking impartiality and imbalance of its tone. --Konanen (talk) 08:39, 26 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
You need to read WP:YESBIAS and WP:FRINGE. No, we will not hide the fact that reiki is bullshit behind the energy medicine link. WP:CLAIM says To say that someone asserted or claimed something can call their statement's credibility into question. It does not say that this is always a bad thing. Here, it is not. --Hob Gadling (talk) 10:40, 26 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I am going to ask you to retract the “bullshit” wording, and I am going to ask it only once. If you do not, I consider you as not acting in good faith or with neutrality, and will escalate this issue. Thank you. Konanen (talk) 14:34, 26 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
"Bullshit" is just a short summary of what reliable sources say: magic handwaving is not effective against any afflictions. Pointing that out is not a violation of WP:NPOV and not a reason to violate WP:AGF. --Hob Gadling (talk) 18:11, 26 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
We try to avoid using terms like pseudoscientific unless they are used correctly. That is, we want to use this term when it's "strictly speaking, it's a type of pseudoscience" rather than "I like to call things pseudoscience when they don't work – let me tell you about the pile of pseudoscientific garbage I had to have hauled back to the car dealer's repair shop last week...".
If Reiki puts itself forward as a scientific practice, then it's pseudoscience. If it puts itself forward as a non-science (e.g., if Reiki were to claim to be a type of fine art, or a new religion), then it's not.
("Magic handwaving" can do wonders for people whose needs are primarily emotional. Human touch is important to human health.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:27, 26 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Human touch is important to human health Yep.
--Dustfreeworld (talk) has hugged you! Hugs promote WikiLove and hopefully this one has made your day better (and hopefully wasn't meant as an invasion of personal space). Spread the WikiLove by hugging at someone else, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past or a good friend. Happy editing! This hug is not quackery, not pseudoscience. Hug others by adding {{subst:Hug}} to their talk page with a friendly message.
You state that "I am not aware of direct scientific claims made by Reiki practitioners" but the fundamental claim of Reiki is that it can "heal" people. It is often called the "Reiki system of natural healing." This is the scientific claim that Reiki is a form of medical treatment, which is defined as "the management and care of a patient to combat disease or disorder."
At its core, what makes Reiki a pseudoscience is that it relies on faith, not the scientific method. This is due to its claim that its healing powers come from the practitioner's control of a "life-force energy" when there is no empirical evidence that such an energy exists or can be controlled even if it does exist. Presently, any belief in a "life-force energy" is based on faith which is the opposite of belief based on science. MoralMoney (talk) 13:50, 4 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think that's correct. I don't think that Reiki relies on faith, and even if it did, faith isn't pseudoscience.
Religion/faith is a Non-science. There's a popular slogan that "non-science is nonsense", but like most slogans, it will lead you astray. Being non-science doesn't mean "wrong" or "pseudoscience". History, languages, and fine art are all non-science, but they're not nonsense and they're not pseudoscience. Non-sciene doesn't even mean unimportant; human values are non-science, and they're important.
I think the argument for Reiki being a pseudoscience is that it claims that a thing (qi) exists in the material world. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:31, 4 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Let's lay it out. The wiki article states that "Pseudoscience consists of statements, beliefs, or practices that claim to be both scientific and factual but are incompatible with the scientific method." The scientific method requires two main things: 1) a testable hypotheses, and 2) empirical data to test the hypothesis.
Reiki makes the claim that practitioners can use qi to "heal" people. This is not a testable hypothesis because we can't get data to support it. The reason is because this "life-force energy," or "qi" is not observable and cannot be shown to exist. Because Reiki formulates a hypothesis that is neither testable nor measurable or observable, it is the prototypical example of a pseudoscience.
To wit, if practitioners claimed that waving their hands around, concentrating and relaxing helps treat anxiety and perceptions of pain, then okay. We're being scientific. We can measure the gestures, we can measure perceptions of pain and anxiety and see if they relate. But as soon as you attribute the effects to "life force energy," something that cannot be observed, then it's a pseudoscience. It claims to be scientific and factual (with a cause and effect) but is incompatible with the scientific method because "qi" is unobservable an immeasurable. MoralMoney (talk) 15:50, 6 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
MoralMoney, you said above that what makes Reiki a pseudoscience is that it relies on faith. I disagree with this statement. Your analysis here disagrees with that statement. The definition of pseudoscience disagrees with this statement. Reiki is IMO pseudoscientific, but not because it relies on faith. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:15, 6 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Konanen, ...pseudoscience ... “quackery” ... in my opinion, a serious breach of neutrality and objectivity...
Reference ... seriously outdated ... 15 years out of date, which is a very long time as seen from the lens of ever-evolving medical research.
15 years is nothing, since if one proves that Reiki works as intended they get a Nobel Prize in Medicine, and a Nobel Prize in Physics. WP:ECREE. tgeorgescu (talk) 19:27, 5 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
While I agree that the intro does lean heavily into the "quackery" side of the facts which revolve around reiki, the use of the term "scientific" and "pseudoscience" is accurate. In referring to science, we are referencing the scientific method, which at its base involves making testable statements (hypotheses) and testing the validity of the statement with evidence. What is unscientific about reiki is it's claim that the healing effects are due to qi, or some universal energy. On its face this may sound like a testable hypothesis, but in practice it relies solely on faith. Faith and science are logical opposites, in that faith relies on belief without evidence while science requires evidence for the belief. While faith, in any form, may be beneficial to a healing process, it should not be confused with actual scientific-based medicine which can cure disease and treat injury.
The other problems with reiki come from the evidence used to support the more peripheral testable assertions. For example, if we set aside the faith-based aspects of reiki (i.e. the belief in qi) and focus on the claims of "healing," there is little support. I think what can be said is that reiki may relieve some specific subjective symptoms, such as perceptions of pain and levels of stress or anxiety, the claims that reiki can "heal" in any conventional sense of the term, are shown to be unsupported by evidence. So the claims that reiki can "heal" along with the lack of evidence for the claim, make reiki a pseudoscience.
Maintaining the statements regarding science are important to this article and to the people who inform themselves with the article. For example, if a parent believes that reiki has proven healing powers they may forgo conventional medical treatment for their child when the child faces a real illness which requires actual medical treatment. MoralMoney (talk) 13:38, 4 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It seems to be a pattern that you are tag-bombing alt-med articles. Even assuming that you're basically right: why so many tags? tgeorgescu (talk) 01:47, 5 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
”…assuming that you're basically right” Thanks. Perhaps the more appropriate question that we should ask would be: why our article has so many problems that need tagging/fixing? May be because those who would have fixed the problem were scared away already? --Dustfreeworld (talk) 03:13, 5 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Sure. And we probably don’t need uppercase-bombing to know that. --Dustfreeworld (talk) 05:02, 5 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Going back to my initial point, saying that Reiki is a pseudoscientific form of energy healing implies that there is an actual scientific form of energy healing. I propose to strike that word without replacement from the sentence, since reference to pseudoscience is made elsewhere in the lead, so that the first sentence of the lede reads as follows:
Furthermore, I propose to remove the subclause referring to quackery from the first sentence of the second paragraph in the lead, for running afoul of WP:SOAPBOX, and because WP:YESBIAS does not allow editorial bias, which the inclusion of this word clearly is, since it serves no other purpose than to push a specific WP:POV unwarrantedly. In fact, the first reference [4] does not even use the word in question at all. All that the referred-to page 20 of the book has to say about reiki is:
These pseudoscientific theories may be based upon authority rather than empirical observation (e.g. old-school psychoanalysis, New Age psychotherapies, Thought Field Therapy), concern the unobservable (e.g. orgone energy, chi), confuse metaphysical with empirical claims (e.g. acupuncture, cellular memory, reiki (emphasis added), therapeutic touch, Ayurvedic medicine), or even maintain views that contradict known scientific laws (e.g. homeopathy).
— David Semple & Roger Smyth, “Psychomythology”, Oxford Handbook of Psychiatry (2013)
The other reference tagged to the word quackery, however, does attribute said word to Reiki. Yet that source amounts to nothing more than a WP:QUESTIONABLErant opinion piece whose inclusion in the lead definitely skews the balance of the article unduly. Thus, I propose the first sentence of the second paragraph to be modified as follows:
I welcome suggestions for additional changes or modifications of that last proposal, and I will be adding the {{POV}} template to the page immediately. Thank you for your consideration! –Konanen (talk) 16:42, 29 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Hob Gadling @WhatamIdoing Pinging to point out that I forgot to mention here that I have brought the issues to the WP:NPOV/N. Your input and acknowledgement is appreciated. –Konanen (talk) 08:59, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that the word “quackery” is inappropriate. It strikes a slangy, unencyclopedic tone, and carries connotations of fraud that would need much stronger sourcing. For the practice to be genuinely fraudulent, practitioners would have to know that it’s nonsense, rather than merely having religious or spiritual beliefs about it. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 09:01, 2 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
...the word “quackery” is inappropriate. It strikes a slangy, unencyclopedic tone, and carries connotations of fraud that would need much stronger sourcing.
"Quackery" is the standard terminology for medical pseudoscience, harsh though it may be on the ears. Definitions of "quackery" (such as those cited in our article on the term) do not require that quacks be frauds - sometimes they are just ignorant of proper medicine. MrOllie (talk) 19:42, 5 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure that it's standard (the article is linked in 2,000 articles; we have more articles about medical pseudoscience than that), and I'm not sure that it's necessary. The implications of the word are different from "just wrong" (like a doctor recommending ineffective, though mainstream, cough syrup to someone with the common cold) or "pseudoscience" (like someone claiming that Haloperidol prevents psychotic breaks through quantum effects in the neural network).
I don't think we should use quackery unless we were equally willing to use charlatanry or snake oil (words given in Quackery as part of the definition). WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:55, 5 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There is no proof of the effectiveness of reiki therapy compared to placebo changed to Studies have shown that Reiki therapy is more effective than a placebo[1]
There's no source given for the claim that there is no proof of Reiki's effectiveness compared to placebo, and there are studies that show its effectiveness beyond placebo (see source).
In addition, the sentence In 2011, William T. Jarvis of The National Council Against Health Fraud stated that there "is no evidence that clinical reiki's effects are due to anything other than suggestion" or the placebo effect. should be struck for accuracy
That study has been presented here twice already (here and here) and was rejected each time. --McSly (talk) 00:02, 27 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I see I'm treading well-worn ground Aie-118 (talk) 02:27, 27 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
^McManus DE. Reiki Is Better Than Placebo and Has Broad Potential as a Complementary Health Therapy. J Evid Based Complementary Altern Med. 2017 Oct;22(4):1051-1057. doi: 10.1177/2156587217728644. Epub 2017 Sep 5. PMID: 28874060; PMCID: PMC5871310.
