Reiki and Physics

Has Physics Caught Up With Reiki?

In October 1927, the world became a more magical place. The greatest living mathematicians and physicists had gathered in Belgium for the fifth Solvay Conference. It was here that Einstein, unimpressed with Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle, famously said: “God does not play dice.” The world was meant to adhere to rules and mechanisms. But it was at this conference, also, that after days of careful discussion, the preeminent minds in their respective fields announced that the universe is not a machine after all. Few saw it at the time, but a shift had occurred and the world now had room to better understand Reiki.

Is the Universe a Machine?

A machine has moving parts that occupy pockets of space at moments in time. The parts are solid and interlocking, so you can predict how a part will move by looking at how its neighbors are moving. In fact, if you know enough about their positions at a given moment in time, you can predict the position of every part in the machine, at every future moment. Whether your prediction will be true depends only on how much you are willing to explore, and whether you can see enough of the moving parts at once. This was the picture of the universe that emerged at the birth of western science. It was also the picture of the human body favored by western medicine. For centuries, scientists struggled to show that it was true.

Has Physics Caught Up With Reiki?

Or, a Ghostly Smear of Virtual Locations…

But in 1927, we learned that the universe isn’t like that. Its smallest parts and particles have no definite location. Instead, they exist in a ghostly smear of virtual locations, which are scattered across the universe. As they collide and interlock in larger and larger objects, they are forced to become less and less ghostly. But even still, it is possible for an object of any size to appear anywhere at any time. What’s more, when they collide, the position of one particle has only some influence on the position of another. No particle can cause another particle to go anywhere – in fact, nothing really causes anything. Particles can ultimately do as they please, and from instant to instant, they choose their next location at random. Despite how hard you look or how much you can see, there could never be an answer to the question “What will happen next?,” because the smallest physical events are fundamentally unconnected.

Magical, Mind-Bending Properties of the Quantum Universe

It gets stranger. In an important exception to the rule of randomness, the particles that make up everything can become “entangled.” They can make an agreement to mirror each others’ movements even after they have been separated by vast distances. It’s as if they can talk to each other with tiny cell phones – cell phones whose messages don’t really “travel,” since they reach their destinations in literally zero time. What word besides “magical” could describe the fact that these mind-bending properties are woven into the very fabric of reality? There is one other word: quantum. In a quantum world, there is nothing illogical about healing energy beamed across space and time, and entangled spirits moving in perfect unison toward balance and health.

Over the years, scientists have sometimes grumbled about the huge number of baffling and unconnected rules behind their symbols and equations. Some have worried that, far from being unexplainable, much of this magic might actually show the surface of an orderly machine-like contours on a sheet that shift and move without reason, until the sheet is pulled away to show the moving object beneath.

Scientists Catching Up With Reiki

But history has shown that perhaps some of these scientists have simply been reluctant to expand their horizons. By expecting an unavoidably illogical, magical, spiritual universe to conform to the rules of logic, they have been trying to squeeze a square peg into a round hole. Quantum equations are not just numbers on a chalkboard; they correspond to forces that interact with and influence every aspect of our lives. Scientists have been catching up to Reiki without even realizing it. What practitioners of Reiki have long known is now being borne out in the most groundbreaking scientific research occurring in labs and universities all across the planet.

Reiki and Physics: Expanding Horizons

In 1927, scientists conceded that there were, to paraphrase Hamlet, more things in heaven and earth than were dreamt of in their philosophy. We cannot always expect to find cause and effect. At the smallest levels of the universe, the deterministic gears of all existence turning according to the predictable procession of time, are phased out. And in their place — in the zone where the foundations of matter and energy behave irregularly, chaotically, and unpredictably — we are peering behind the curtain of a universe that rewards open-mindedness and curiosity, and embraces the spiritual, the unmeasurable, and the intuitive.

The arc of scientific progress is long, but it bends toward the truths that Reiki has been exploring for centuries. Don’t worry. They’ll get here eventually.

Reiki and Science: Pursuing Truth

Scientists and practitioners of Reiki are bound in their shared humility. It is essential to stand humble before the universe and allow your own ego to recede from the focus of your attention. We should put no wedge between science and Reiki and we must work together to remove whatever conflicts there may be between the two worlds, which are, in effect, one and the same world. In order to pursue truth, it is important to contemplate new potentials, open yourself to unconsidered possibilities, and learn to trust the power of your intuition. The International Association of Reiki Professionals has resources to help, testimonials to provide inspiration and tools to aid you on your journey.

Reiki is bound to draw skeptics from time to time, but it now has a powerful ally. So next time someone doubts that hands can heal, that the flow of Ki leads to health, and that the body can battle disease with a little energy help, you’ll know what to reply: “I’m not saying anything that physics hasn’t known since 1927.”

In a quantum universe, Ki could prove to be a force of nature.

**This article appeared in The Reiki Times, the official magazine of the International Association of Reiki Professionals.