Reiki and Pranic Healing treatment impressions...

I recently went to a Holistic Healing and New Age show, and had the opportunity to receive Reiki and Pranic Healing sessions.

The first session was Reiki.  I liked the sign they had on display defining Reiki as "a Japanese technique for stress reduction and relaxation that also promotes healing."  Accurate, no outrageous claims, and humble.  Overall, it induced the relaxation effect very well.  I think there were three key aspects to this.  First, you sit down and essentially give yourself permission to relax, plus you're stuck there with no choice but to relax once you've begun.  Second, having another person touching you has a relaxing effect.  Finally, as the hands change positions, it's like a subtle cue to relax that area of the body, so a progressive relaxation happens.

I found the experience very relaxing and reached a deep meditative state quite easily (not a trance-like or hypnotic state, a meditative state where you're still fully aware but very relaxed and with a clear mind).  So I'd say that especially for people who don't meditate on their own, Reiki would be much recommended.  As for healing, we know that stress is very harmful to our bodies, so a practice like Reiki that offers stress release will be helpful whether you believe in energy healing or not.  As for the energy healing aspect, we can't really know for sure if it works, but it certainly doesn't hurt.

So, on to the Pranic healing session.  This one was hands-off, with the practitioner going through a variety of visualizations of manipulating the energy in my aura to cleanse it of impurities.  To watch it, at first glance it looks like the person is just goofily waving their hands around in front of someone.  However, if you watch the animated video on the pranic healing site, it portrays through special effects the energy; this puts the hand movements in context and it no longer looks nearly so weird because you can follow what they're visualizing doing.  Now, I was already nicely relaxed from the Reiki session, so I quickly returned to a meditative state while the pranic healing session was going on.

Being hands-off, I think perhaps I should have kept my eyes open, as seeing what technique the fellow was using at any particular time might have connected me to the process better.  Of course, with eyes open I would have been more engaged mentally and been thinking way too much.  Without the hands touching or being in close proximity, and without hands changing position, I'm inclined to think that Reiki would be better for most people until they've had experience with receiving energy healing.

Overall, it was a very interesting experience.  I'm currently on a research binge... I've read The Reiki Sourcebook, Reiki for Dummies, and tons on the net.  I've also got The Japanese Art of Reiki and Your Hands Can Heal You (the Pranic Healing book) to still read, and I'm working my way through Robert Bourne's New Awakening Reiki books/CDs/videos.