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Reiki
is a Japanese form of energy healing, a type of alternative medicine. Reiki practitioners use a technique called ''palm healing'' or ''hands-on healing'' through which a " universal energy" is said to be transferred through the palms of the practitioner to the patient in order to encourage emotional or physical healing. Reiki is a pseudoscience, and is used as an illustrative example of pseudoscience in scholarly texts and academic journal articles. It is based on '' qi'' ("chi"), which practitioners say is a universal life force, although there is no empirical evidence that such a life force exists. Clinical research does not show reiki to be effective as a treatment for any medical condition, including cancer, diabetic neuropathy, anxiety or depression; therefore it should not replace conventional medical treatment. There is no proof of the effectiveness of reiki therapy compared to placebo. Studies reporting positive effects have had methodological flaws. Etymology ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mikao Usui
Mikao Usui (臼井甕男, 15 August 1865 – 9 March 1926, commonly ''Usui Mikao'' in Japanese) was the father of a form of spiritual practice known as Reiki, used as an alternative therapy for the treatment of physical, emotional, and mental diseases. According to the inscription on his memorial stone, Usui taught Reiki to over 2,000 people during his lifetime. Eleven of these students continued their training to reach the ''Shinpiden'' level, a level equivalent to the Western third degree, or Master level. Early life, family and education Usui was born on 15 August 1865 in the village of Taniai (now called Miyama cho) in the Yamagata district of the Gifu Prefecture, Japan, which is now located near present-day Nagoya. Usui's father's common name was Uzaemon, and his mother was from the Kawai family. His brothers, Sanya and Kuniji, became a doctor and a policeman, respectively. He also had an older sister called Tsuru. Usui's ancestors were the once influential Chiba clan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chujiro Hayashi
, a disciple of Mikao Usui, played a major role in the transmission of Reiki out of Japan. Hayashi was a naval physician and employed Reiki to treat his patients. He began studying with Usui in the early 1920s. He made his branch, Hayashi Reiki Kenkyu-kai in Tokyo, Shinano-machi while his master Usui was still alive, and has kept the way of Usui's teaching. Hayashi initiated and trained Hawayo Takata and helped her bring Reiki to Hawaii. He also trained Chiyoko Yamaguchi, the founder of Jikiden Reiki. In 1940, Hayashi committed ''seppuku'', a Japanese form of ritual suicide. Life Chujiro Hayashi was born in Tokyo on September 15, 1880. Having graduated from the 30th class at the Japan Naval Academy in 1902, he served in a port-patrolling division in the Russo-Japanese War from February 4 of that year until a peace treaty concluded the War on September 5, 1906. In 1918 he became a Director of Ominato Port Defence Station where Kanichi Taketomi (later to become the 3rd chai ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Energy Medicine
Energy medicine is a branch of alternative medicine based on a pseudo-scientific belief that healers can channel "healing energy" into a patient and effect positive results. Practitioners use a number of names including various synonyms for medicine (e.g., energy healing) and sometimes use the word vibrational instead of or in concert with energy. In most cases there is no empirically measurable energy involved: the term refers instead to so-called subtle energy. Practitioners may classify practice as hands-on, hands-off, and distant (or absent) where the patient and healer are in different locations. Many schools of energy healing exist using many names: for example, biofield energy healing, spiritual healing, contact healing, distant healing, therapeutic touch, Reiki or ''Qigong''. Reviews of the scientific literature on energy healing have concluded that there is no evidence supporting clinical efficacy. The theoretical basis of healing has been criticised as implausible; ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hawayo Takata
Hawayo Hiromi Takata (December 24, 1900 – December 11, 1980) was a Japanese-American woman born in Hanamaulu, Territory of Hawaii, who helped introduce the spiritual practice of Reiki to the Western World. Takata was trained in Reiki by Chujiro Hayashi in Tokyo, Japan and became a Master Practitioner by 1940. Hayashi had learned from Mikao Usui Mikao Usui (臼井甕男, 15 August 1865 – 9 March 1926, commonly ''Usui Mikao'' in Japanese) was the father of a form of spiritual practice known as Reiki, used as an alternative therapy for the treatment of physical, emotional, and mental d ..., the first teacher of Reiki, in the early 1900s. Identification of training lineage is common among Reiki practitioners. Within the tradition, Takata is sometimes known as Reiki Grand Master Teacher Hawayo Takata. Hawayo Takata, 79, of Keosauqua, died at 2.45 a.m. Thursday, Dec, 11, 1980, at Van Buren County Memorial Hospital, in Keosauqua, Iowa. Further reading * References {{DE ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alternative Medicine
Alternative medicine is any practice that aims to achieve the healing effects of medicine despite lacking biological plausibility, testability, repeatability, or evidence from clinical trials. Complementary medicine (CM), complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), integrated medicine or integrative medicine (IM), and holistic medicine attempt to combine alternative practices with those of mainstream medicine. Alternative therapies share in common that they reside outside of medical science and instead rely on pseudoscience. Traditional practices become "alternative" when used outside their original settings and without proper scientific explanation and evidence. Frequently used derogatory terms for relevant practices are ''new age'' or ''pseudo-'' medicine, with little distinction from quackery. Some alternative practices are based on theories that contradict the established science of how the human body works; others resort to the supernatural or superstitious to explain ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Energy (esotericism)
Proponents and practitioners of various esoteric forms of spirituality and alternative medicine refer to a variety of claimed experiences and phenomena as being due to "energy" or "force" that defy measurement and thus are distinguished from the scientific form of energy. Claims related to energy therapies are most often anecdotal, rather than being based on repeatable empirical evidence. There is no scientific evidence for the existence of such energy, and physics educators criticize the use of the term "energy" to describe the ideas as potentially confusing. History Concepts such as "life force", "'' qi''" and "''élan vital''" existed from antiquity. In the 18th century, Franz Mesmer ignited debate with his theory of animal magnetism. Attention to vitalism grew in the 18th and 19th centuries. Interest continued into the 20th century, largely fuelled by adherents of the New Age movement. As biologists studied embryology and developmental biology, particularly before the d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vitalism
Vitalism is a belief that starts from the premise that "living organisms are fundamentally different from non-living entities because they contain some non-physical element or are governed by different principles than are inanimate things." Where vitalism explicitly invokes a vital principle, that element is often referred to as the "vital spark," "energy," or "''élan vital''," which some equate with the soul. In the 18th and 19th centuries vitalism was discussed among biologists, between those who felt that the known mechanics of physics would eventually explain the difference between life and non-life and vitalists who argued that the processes of life could not be reduced to a mechanistic process. Vitalist biologists such as Johannes Reinke proposed testable hypotheses meant to show inadequacies with mechanistic explanations, but their experiments failed to provide support for vitalism. Biologists now consider vitalism in this sense to have been refuted by empirical evidence ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
National Council Against Health Fraud
The National Council Against Health Fraud (NCAHF) was a not-for-profit, US-based organization, that described itself as a "private nonprofit, voluntary health agency that focuses upon health misinformation, fraud, and quackery as public health problems." History According to archived website, the NCAHF evolved from three separate organizations. The Lehigh Valley Committee Against Health Fraud, Inc. (LVCAHF, now called Quackwatch) was founded in 1969 by Stephen Barrett and H. William Gross, D.D.S. in Allentown, Pennsylvania. The Southern California Council Against Health Fraud (SCCAHF) had its origin in 1976 at Loma Linda University with academic colleagues William T. Jarvis and Gordon Rick as co-founders. Thomas H. Jukes of University of California, Berkeley founded the third organization, an unnamed group in northern California. For a time between 1998 and 2000, the NCAHF operated under the name National Council for Reliable Health Information (NCRHI). The organization beca ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Placebo Effect
A placebo ( ) is a substance or treatment which is designed to have no therapeutic value. Common placebos include inert tablets (like sugar pills), inert injections (like Saline (medicine), saline), sham surgery, and other procedures. In general, placebos can affect how patients perceive their condition and encourage the body's chemical processes for relieving pain and a few other symptoms, but have no impact on the disease itself. Improvements that patients experience after being treated with a placebo can also be due to unrelated factors, such as regression to the mean (a statistical effect where an unusually high or low measurement is likely to be followed by a less extreme one). The use of placebos in clinical medicine raises ethical concerns, especially if they are disguised as an active treatment, as this introduces dishonesty into the doctor–patient relationship and bypasses informed consent. While it was once assumed that this deception was necessary for placebos to have ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The National Council Against Health Fraud
The National Council Against Health Fraud (NCAHF) was a not-for-profit, US-based organization, that described itself as a "private nonprofit, voluntary health agency that focuses upon health misinformation, fraud, and quackery as public health problems." History According to archived website, the NCAHF evolved from three separate organizations. The Lehigh Valley Committee Against Health Fraud, Inc. (LVCAHF, now called Quackwatch) was founded in 1969 by Stephen Barrett and H. William Gross, D.D.S. in Allentown, Pennsylvania. The Southern California Council Against Health Fraud (SCCAHF) had its origin in 1976 at Loma Linda University with academic colleagues William T. Jarvis and Gordon Rick as co-founders. Thomas H. Jukes of University of California, Berkeley founded the third organization, an unnamed group in northern California. For a time between 1998 and 2000, the NCAHF operated under the name National Council for Reliable Health Information (NCRHI). The organization b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Well-being
Well-being, or wellbeing, also known as wellness, prudential value or quality of life, refers to what is intrinsically valuable relative ''to'' someone. So the well-being of a person is what is ultimately good ''for'' this person, what is in the self-interest of this person. Well-being can refer to both positive and negative well-being. In its positive sense, it is sometimes contrasted with ill-being as its opposite. The term "subjective well-being" denotes how people experience and evaluate their lives, usually measured in relation to self-reported well-being obtained through questionnaires. Overview Sometimes different types of well-being are distinguished, such as mental well-being, physical well-being, economic well-being or emotional well-being. The different forms of well-being are often closely interlinked. For example, improved physical well-being (e.g., by reducing or ceasing an addiction) is associated with improved emotional well-being. As for another example, better ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
American Cancer Society
The American Cancer Society (ACS) is a nationwide voluntary health organization dedicated to eliminating cancer. Established in 1913, the society is organized into six geographical regions of both medical and lay volunteers operating in more than 250 Regional offices throughout the United States. Its global headquarters is located in the American Cancer Society Center in Atlanta, Georgia. The ACS publishes the journals ''Cancer'', '' CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians'' and ''Cancer Cytopathology''. History The society was founded on May 22, 1913, by ten physicians and five businessmen in New York City under the name "American Society for the Control of Cancer" (ASCC). The current name was adopted in 1944. At the time of founding, it was not considered appropriate to mention the word "cancer" in public. Information concerning this illness was cloaked in a climate of fear and denial. Over 75,000 people died each year of cancer in just the United States. The top item on the foun ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
