One reader asked, “Is Reiki (energy healing) against God and the teachings of the Bible?”

True confession, I definitely had to look reiki up on google to even understand the question, and it took some research on my part to get a feeling for exactly what the teaching is and the philosophy behind the practice.

First off, what is reiki? Here is an abbreviated explanation direct from the reiki website:

“Reiki is a Japanese technique for stress reduction and relaxation that also promotes healing. It is administered by ‘laying on hands’ and is based on the idea that an unseen ‘life force energy’ flows through us and is what causes us to be alive. If one's "life force energy" is low, then we are more likely to get sick or feel stress, and if it is high, we are more capable of being happy and healthy...

Continued, “An amazingly simple technique to learn, the ability to use Reiki is not taught in the usual sense, but is transferred to the student during a Reiki class. This ability is passed on during an ‘attunement’ given by a Reiki master and allows the student to tap into an unlimited supply of ‘life force energy’...”

“Reiki is not dependent on belief at all and will work whether you believe in it or not. Because Reiki comes from God, many people find that using Reiki puts them more in touch with the experience of their religion rather than having only an intellectual concept of it.”

So, what’s the deal?

We live in a world where people are desperate to find meaning, spirituality and purpose. The concept of energy healing is added to the growing trend of New Age beliefs that are becoming all the more common. New Age has the guise of spirituality, and many people even think that it can go hand in hand with Christianity, but the reality is that it stands in stark contrast to a biblical understanding of God, sin, Jesus Christ, judgment, redemption and on and on.

The reality is that looking within for anything won’t get us anywhere. The malfunction with self-help methodologies is that you got yourself into your mess in the first place (normally, at least). What makes you think that you can get yourself out? You need an external savior.

Reiki and other New Age philosophies present the idea that you can achieve a deeper level of humanity. The spiritual self is the next evolution of mankind, so to speak. This isn’t a new idea. As a matter of fact, having been born with a sinful nature and separated from our Creator, we all come into the world with a very strong belief that we are center of the world, the ‘belly button of the world’ we used to say in Spain. We would love to think that we are in control of our own health, bodies and destinies, but when push comes to shove the only thing that you’re the admiral of is your own bathtub. Searching within for higher power, flowing from a life force, is sinful nature at its finest. There’s nothing new under the sun

Reiki encourages us to put our full trust in our own being, our own force, our own bodies and to meld it and sync it with the universe. As one commentator I read pointed out, this is absolutely a form of worship, but it isn’t worship of the one true God as defined by the Holy Scriptures.

Yes, a “god” is mentioned in the teachings of Reiki, but it is an unnamed higher power that embraces universalism and feel goodism. It is no different from the “choose your own higher power” perspective found in AA or NA.

To truly embrace reiki, or other methods and concepts like it, is to direct your worship within, believing that you can achieve a higher level of self. This is just a further propagation of the lie of Genesis 3 which got us in this mess in the first place. Having desired to be independent from God, the first humans bought into the lie that they could take matters into their own hands and be God if they just ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. That way they wouldn’t have to submit to him anymore. That didn’t work out too well for them, nor for us.

I don’t know everything there is to know about reiki or anything, really, but I think the scriptures make it clear that this sort of thing is spiritually dangerous, at a minimum, and possibly outright blasphemous and heretical.

Jesus is the One who came to heal. He said, 'Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest'” (Matthew 11:28). You can’t help yourself. He is your hope, your help, your rest, your refuge, your healer. Go to him instead of turning to lesser things.