There have been many times in history that people have been guided by the misguided, and fear and control have been the motivating and underlying factors in such activity. In the 1500s, the church was adamant that the sun revolved around Earth because God made it that way. Church and political leaders would not accept the scientific theory to the contrary that Earth orbited around the sun. That fact, if true, would have negated some of the religious beliefs at that time. It must have been too difficult to explain, accept, or update the dogma, so instead they fought hard to hold onto their position.
Copernicus was at odds with the Church because of the development of his heliocentric theory, a hypothesis that disputed the widely accepted belief that Earth was the center of the universe. Galileo was deemed a heretic and was imprisoned and tried by the Inquisition after his book was published hypothesizing that Earth and the other planets revolved around the sun and not the other way around. Galileo put his life at risk to convince the religious establishment that the Copernican model of the solar system, in which Earth and other planets revolved around the sun represented reality.
That was not the first nor the last time the Church almost or actually sacrificed a human life because an individual would not agree to uphold the dogma of the day and compromise their integrity by lying about what they knew to be true. There were many times in history when death was the ramification for being a new voice of truth or the face of differing paradigms.
The Catholic Church Officially Labels Reiki A Superstition In 2009
On March 25, 2009, a document called “Guidelines for Evaluating Reiki as an Alternative Therapy” was released by a Committee on Doctrine from the United Stated Conference of Catholic Bishops. It was fully executed by eight bishops from various communities around the country. In summary, they cited that Reiki therapy is not compatible with either Christian teaching or scientific evidence, and they advised it would be inappropriate for any Catholic institution such as healthcare facilities, retreat centers, and so on to promote or provide Reiki therapy.
The document begins with, “The Church recognizes healing by divine grace and healing that utilizes the power of nature; however Reiki is not included in such definitions.” It goes on to state that “universal life energy” is unknown to natural science, and “as the presence of such energy has not been observed by means of natural science, the justification for these therapies necessarily must come from something other than science.” In their conclusion, the bishops state, “Reiki therapy finds no support either in the findings of natural science or in Christian belief. For a Catholic to believe in Reiki therapy presents insoluble problems. A Catholic who puts his or her trust in Reiki would be operating in the realm of superstition, the no-man’s-land that is neither faith nor science.”
Reiki is one of the most beautiful, spiritual, and sacred energy practices that exists. It helps millions of people cope with a variety of issues each year. While Reiki has elements specific to the healing art that was created by Mikao Usui in the late 1800s, Dr. Usui did not make up the concept of balancing the universal life force that is available to everyone to utilize in the healing of themselves.
A Reiki practitioner is merely a conduit for such energy balancing, which can occur without formal Reiki training when someone understands the chakra and meridian systems of the human body. Vibrational or energy healing is taught and practiced by many utilizing the human energy field.
First Documentation Of The Human Energy Field In 1924
The first human energy field to be well documented was the “field of the heart.” In 1924, Willem Einthoven received the Nobel Prize for his accomplishments in energy research that lead to the electrocardiogram. Examples of medical technologies that utilize energy as healing or diagnostic modalities include but are not limited to medical imaging such as X-rays, MRIs, CT and PET scans; electrocardiograms, electroencephalograms, and electroretinograms; radiation therapy, CyberKnife, and proton beams; transcutaneous nerve stimulators; cardiac pacemakers and defibrillators; and lasers and electrocautery. Each modality uses energy to work, yet that energy is not visible to the naked eye.
The research of Einthoven and Hans Berger (Berger studied electric fields of the brain resulting in the medical field of electroencephalography) established that organs such as the heart and brain produce bioelectric fields that travel through the tissues of the body, and can be recorded with electrodes on the body surface, or even at distances that extend outside the body. Ampère’s Law is a fundamental law in physics that says when currents flow through conductors such as wires or living tissues, magnetic fields must be produced in the surrounding space, providing a fundamental parameter for energy healing.
For proof of our electromagnetic fields, experiment with energy balls. These ping pong-sized balls have a small metal strip on each side. The ball lights up and makes a buzzing noise when both strips are touched simultaneously, completing the circuit. You can demonstrate the conductivity of our electromagnetic fields with a group of people in a circle. Have one hold onto the ball touching one of the metal strips, then allow each person to touch another person to complete the circuit, until finally touching the other metal strip to wake up the ball. When one person breaks the circuit, the ball no longer lights up and the buzzing stops. It is a fun and fascinating way to truly understand that we are beings with electric currents flowing through our bodies.
Entrainment: Vibrating In Harmony
Perhaps you recall as a child learning how clock makers realized that given a short amount of time, the pendulums of all the clocks in a room started to move back and forth at the same rate and direction as each other. This is attributable to the scientific principle of entrainment, which is defined as the tendency for two oscillating bodies to lock into phase so they move in harmony. It’s the same explanation for why women who live together often have their periods at the same time.
The history of entrainment is linked to a Dutch scientist named Christian Huygens. In 1665, while working on the design of the pendulum clock, Huygens found that when he placed two of them on a wall near each other and swung the pendulums at different rates, they would eventually end up swinging at the same rate, due to their mutual influence on one another.
Like the phenomenon called resonance in physics, the principle of entrainment is universal, appearing in chemistry, pharmacology, biology, medicine, psychology, sociology, astronomy, architecture, and more. A classic example from medicine is individual pulsing heart muscle cells. When they are brought close together, they begin pulsing in synchrony. In the realm of sound therapy, many people purchase music that aids in relaxation or sleep by entraining brain waves to healing frequencies. Music can alter a mood, elicit a memory, and prompt emotional and mental changes.
Measuring The Human Biofield
In energy work, a practitioner learns how to open or balance a client’s energy centers called chakras. In doing this, their energy fields, through entrainment, develop similar frequencies that oscillate in harmony. These harmonic frequencies that are developed within the bioelectric fields are measurable.
In studies conducted by enzymologist Dr. Justa Smith, Chairman of Biology and Biochemistry at Rosary Hill College in Buffalo, NY, laboratory-induced, high-intensity magnetic fields were proven to accelerate human enzyme reaction rates. Dr. Smith used spectrophotometric methods to measure changes in enzyme activity, while demonstrating that energy healers can accelerate the kinetic activity of enzymes in a fashion similar to the effects of high-intensity magnetic fields. The experimental evidence suggests that energies of healers appear to be magnetic in nature, however, the biomagnetic fields of healers demonstrated properties that are entirely different from what is known about conventional magnetic fields.
In the early 60s, Bernard Grad experimented with the effects of laying-on-of-hands healing on living systems, and discovered that the growth rate of plants could be accelerated by magnet-treated water as well as healer-treated water. He published his results as “A Telekinetic Effect on Plant Growth” in the International Journal of Parapsychology.
Dr. John Zimmerman from the University of Colorado School of Medicine has added further evidence using SQUID (superconducting quantum interference device) to define the magnetic nature of healing energy. While he measured significant increases in the intensity of the magnetic fields emitted by healer’s hands — several hundred times larger than background noise — these measurements were far weaker than the known levels required to produce enzyme effects in the lab. A quote by Dr. Richard Gerber, author of the best-selling book Vibrational Medicine, provides a nice conclusion: “The magnetic fields associated with healers are exceedingly weak, yet they have powerful biological and chemical effects.”
The brain and all the organs of the body each have their own biomagnetic fields surrounding them. The fields pulsate at various frequencies, interacting with each other. The heart has the strongest biomagnetic field in the body and has been measured to a distance of up to 10 feet, although 3 feet is most common. An organ will have a specific frequency when it’s healthy and will move away from this frequency when it’s not. The sum of all these magnetic fields form a large aggregate biomagnetic field that surrounds the body — similar to what is called the aura, and this field also interacts with other fields near the body, including the fields of other people.
We’ve all experienced how the biomagnetic field of one person influences the biomagnetic field of another. Have you ever looked at a person and felt their bad mood, or felt a person enter a room before you’ve seen them? Maybe you’ve been in a room where you thought, “My, you can cut the tension in this room with a knife.” Now you can scientifically explain how you know these things. As science progresses and human minds reach outside their comfort zones, we see science explaining the unexplainable more and more every day.
Reprinted with permission from Transitions of Hope: Using the Power of the Mind to Replace Fear With Love To Navigate Life’s Challenges by Maryann Roefaro (2025, Waterside Publishing)
A healthcare CEO with over 35 years of executive leadership experience, Maryann Roefaro is a highly intuitive spiritual mentor and leader. In addition, she is a certified Reiki Master Teacher and Heart Centered Hypnotherapist with over 20 years of private practice helping others heal themselves.
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