Below is a clip from an interview we recently conducted with Dr. Natalie Leigh Trent, a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Harvard Medical School and Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health, where she investigates the mind-body practices of yoga and mindfulness for health and wellbeing. She obtained her Bachelor of Science from the University of Toronto in 2006 and her Doctorate in neuroscience from Queen’s University in 2012.

In this part of the interview, we discuss the ancient healing art of Reiki, a healing modality that has been practiced and taught around the world for thousands of years. As Dr. Trent shares in the interview, it’s a relatively new field of science and medicine that’s continually growing, with approximately 80 studies that’ve been published so far.

With scientific research now emerging attesting to the ability of human thoughts, emotions, and intentions to affect the physical material world, an increasing number of scientists, and quantum physicists in particular, are stressing the importance of studying factors associated with consciousness and its relation to our physical world. One of these factors is human intention.

Reiki essentially uses human intention to heal another person’s ailments. Practitioners usually place their hands on the patient in order to channel energy into them by means of touch. It can be roughly defined as using compassionate mental action and physical touch, energy healing, shamanic healing, nonlocal healing, or quantum touch.

The popularity of this practice is exemplified by the fact that, as of 2000, there were more ‘distant healers’ in the United Kingdom than therapists practicing any other form of complementary or alternative medicine, and the same goes for the United States. (Barnes PM, Powell-Griner E, McFann K, Nahin RL. Complementary and alternative medicine use among adults: United States, 2002. Adv Data. 2004. May 27;(343):1–19. [PubMed])

We published an article going into more detail on this, linked below:

How Reiki Actually Works (The Science Part) 

Dr. Trent points out how further scientific study in this field has been hindered by a lack of funding. This isn’t really surprising, since the medical industry, as Arnold Seymour Relman once said, has been “bought by the pharmaceutical industry.” Dr. Trent also discusses the science behind this practice. She is one of the leading academics bringing more credibility to this treatment.

If you want to catch the full CE News interview with Natalie Trent, and many more,  click here.