And the winner of the Most Clueless Fundy Award goes to scrappergirl for this comment on her friend who is into reiki:
funny story, though. one of my friends went to a Reiki thing and became a certified Reiki practitioner a couple of years ago, and shortly thereafter she came over and was gushing about this Reiki thing (i knew very little of it at the time) and it was shortly after I was in a car accident (that i still suffer from the effects of today) and was in pain. She tried SO hard to let me let her Reiki me. She was like "I don't even have to touch you" and i was like, "well then how will that help me?" and she was talking about the energy, etc, and i was like "well, where does that energy come from?" and she was like "from God". I go, "well how do YOu know that?". It was the craziest thing, bc she was so adamant about how it would make me feel better, etc, and i was not going to let her reiki me! It was practically like she was trying to pressure me into it...kept bringing it up.
Would that be in any way similar to the way evangelicals just won't let the whole Jesus thing go, scrappergirl? Just a teensy bit? Not even a little?
Wow, that's awesome. That poor girl really is clueless. I also love that she doesn't get that there is literally no difference between those preachers that "lay hands" on people to heal them, and Reiki.
ReplyDeleteRunner-up goes to Theresa, for this gem:
ReplyDelete"we both ended up silently praying while she gave my mom her massage. LOL Seriously, though, whenever someone says they can be a conduit for "power," I say stay far away.
aren't we all "conduits for power"? if you've ever accidently stuck your finger in a light socket, you know exactly what i'm talking about.
ReplyDeletePF? You win. That was too funny.
ReplyDeleteI still wanna learn Reiki. The belief in the invisible stuff is too deeply ingrained in me for me to be able to get it out. And I want to have some context through which to approach it that doesn't have all the old associations.
ReplyDeletejust my two cents here...
ReplyDeletei used to read tarot cards for people. i never charged (if someone wanted to tip, i didn't say no, but i didn't even have a tip jar. i just did it for fun, and to talk to people)
my ex-husband was the skeptic's skeptic. he couldn't understand why i "believed" in Tarot. i explained it thusly: tarot doesn't tell the future, it tells what you *think*. the cards, their meaning (overt and vague, both) present your mind with pretty pictures that speak directly to the subconcious, allowing it to react and respond a little more conciously. sort of sounds like circular logic, but it really acts the same way as lots of different phychological tricks - visualization is the closest one, but sound therapy/music therapy is also really close, at least in the reaction to the therapy.
i look at Reiki and "faith healing" in the same way - that person is almost definately *not* channeling "power". but that person, and you believing in that person, may allow *you* to do something subconciously.
pretty much like any placebo. :)