A Look at Northfield Medicine: Is Reiki Right for You?

There’s a quiet revolution going on in medicine, and southeast Minnesota is at its epicenter. While a national debate rages over health care options and costs, many here are quietly turning to what is often called alternative medicine to supplement, if not supplant, more conventional therapies.          

Partially driven by consumer demand, such venerable medical establishments as the Mayo Clinic have begun incorporating aspects of integrative medicine in their treatments, and spreading the word via their websites and newsletters. Last year the second, updated edition of The Mayo Clinic Book of Alternative Medicine was published. Dr. Mehmet Oz, a cardiothoracic surgeon at New York-Presbyterian Hospital, regularly spreads the gospel to his and Oprah Winfrey’s viewers.

What is complementary and alternative, or integrative, medicine?  It includes such modalities as homeopathy, naturopathy, traditional Chinese medicine, herbalism and nutritional-based therapies such as Ayurveda, according to the American National Center for Complimentary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM). It differs from mainstream, American Medical Association-dictated medical practice in that:

• Based on quantum, versus Newtonian physics, it views the body as a dynamic energy system, not as a bio-machine.

• It believes that emotion and spirit can influence illness or health via energetic and neuro-hormonal connections among body, mind and spirit.

• It seeks to re-balance the body to maximize wellness, rather than “fix” illness.

Though it is said that integrative medicine has had only limited clinical study, scientific investigation is beginning to address this gap, and the boundaries between it and more traditional practices is beginning to blur. Seventy-five percent of Americans older than 18 have used some form of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM).  Medical schools are breaking free of the AMA mold: 60 percent of the nation’s medical schools now include CAM courses in their curriculum.

Northfield is noted as a progressive community, and nowhere is this more noticeable than in the number of holistic practitioners; a local publisher puts out an annual guide to help keep track of the myriad masseurs, chiropractors, Reiki masters and acupuncturists in and around our city limits.

Northfield Patch will present a series of profiles of local integrative health practitioners, explaining what they do and exploring the ways in which Northfield is weaving a new web of holistic health care that is more inclusive, less intrusive—and abundantly available in our backyard.

Is Reiki Right for You?

Finding the right Reiki master in Northfield is a little like hunting the elusive morel mushroom in the woods: there are plenty of them, but they can only be spotted on faith, by those who know exactly what they are seeking. 

Though you would be more likely to find one by checking the bulletin board at than in the Yellow Pages, that may actually make it easier to find a practitioner with whom you can feel comfortable.

Reiki (pronounced ray kee) is a form of healing centered on manipulating one’s innate healing energy. Reiki practitioners place their hands on or just above the person receiving treatment for a physical or emotional ailment; more than 1.2 million Americans used the therapy last year to treat everything from anxiety to AIDS, according to the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine.                                                                                      

Reiki has its roots in the spiritual teachings of Buddhist mystic Mikao Usui in early 20th Century Japan, and while scientific research is under way to learn more about how Reiki works, its ability to reduce pain,  promote sleep, enhance immune function and reduce the side-effect on drugs are well-documented empirically.

The word Reiki is made of two Japanese words—rei means “God’s wisdom” and ki means “life force energy.” So Reiki is defined as “spiritually guided life force energy” that promotes overall health and well-being, and to provide relief from disease-related symptoms and the side effects of conventional medical treatments.

As an example of energy medicine, Reiki works on the principle that the human body is not so much a fallible machine as an energy field in which consciousness place a causative role in sustaining wellness.

“Reiki is first and foremost a relaxation technique,” says Igal Vainshtein, a second-degree master and owner of Reiki Spice in Northfield. “It relaxes your physical body, as well as your mental and emotional bodies. This is important because what ails many of us these days—whether physical, mental, or emotional—is either caused or greatly aggravated by stress."

Spirited energy

But that is only half of the picture, say Reiki advocates.

“It’s also about a spiritual connection to the universe—it’s about helping a person connect with something greater than themselves, to the people around them, to life, to their own inner being and to their bodies,” says Vainshtein.

While Reiki is not a religion, it promotes simple ethical ideals and practices—universal across all cultures—that encourage harmony within and with others.     

Treatments are often described in terms of feeling an infusion of relaxation, peace and well-being.

“I would say the feeling is like a tingling or a relaxing or a release of pain. It’s like you’re in a magnetic field and you are magnetic in some way. As these feelings deepen, it’s like an honoring of sensations that you may have always had, but didn’t recognize as significant or health-producing,” says Todd Thompson, a teacher at and a second-degree Reiki master.

Training in traditional Reiki has three degrees, each focusing on a different aspect of practice. 

Thompson is describing an “attunement”—an initiation included at each level, which activates the ability to access Reiki energy. In first-degree training, students learn to perform Reiki on themselves and others. In second-degree training, students learn to perform Reiki on others from a distance. Training to become a third-degree master, which qualifies to teach and initiate students, can take years.

While most students use the practice to encourage healing rather than to cure disease, remarkable cures are not unknown. 

Both Vainshtein and Rebecca Conroy, a registered nurse and Reiki master with Soul Elements in Northfield, took up the practice professionally after their own dramatic healings.

“Late in my teens I was diagnosed with cervical dystonia,” says Vainshtein. (Cervical dystonia is an incurable neurological disease that causes the head and neck to jerk and twist in repetitive, abnormal, painful postures). “I tried everything short of surgery to fix it, to no avail.” 

But after learning of Reiki and being told he had a “gift” for it, and learning to practice regularly on himself, his family and friends, he began to improve. By the time he had completed his formal training, he says, “it was almost completely gone.”

Conroy concurs that Reiki doesn’t always cure, but it always heals—contingent on the patient’s patience and perseverance at self-practice.

“While I was in nursing school, I fell very ill, and a classmate did Reiki on me. My recovery was actually relatively fast, considering that I had strep throat, pneumonia and a double ear infection,” she says. “In my work I have seen miraculous things that happened very rapidly, but more often the illnesses heal over time. Each instance is very individual, depending on the reasons for a person’s illness that they are being called upon to learn.”

Many practitioners like Conroy, who is also a personal trainer, combine Reiki with other medical specialties, both traditional and alternative. 

“I am huge on referring people to a doctor or other traditional therapist,” she says. “I refer to MDs, chiropractors, homeopaths, massage therapists, physical therapists and psychologists—Eastern and Western medicine can complement each other.”

For example, says Vainshtein, “If a person is about to undergo surgery, the relaxation they can get from Reiki before and after, to prepare the body first, and then to help it heal faster from the surgery.”

All this may sound a bit vague, or “touchy-feely” to anyone more accustomed to the more easily quantifiable symptomatic relief available with, say, drugs or surgery. That’s OK Reiki masters say—Reiki works whether you understand or believe in it or not.

“I think there is a fine line between belief and being open,” says Vainshtein. “You don’t necessarily have to believe in how Reiki works, but if you are just open to it you will get some benefit, so it’s worth a try—your life is worth it.”

Caring is curing

Those who have some familiarity with other forms of energetic medicine may grasp Reiki’s benefits more readily. One Northfield woman found that while it did not meet her expectations, it did meet her needs.

“I’ve just begun Reiki treatments, and was disappointed not to feel that tingly rush of well-being I’d hear about so much. Nor did I get any immediate relief from the arthritis pain in my knees and my shoulders, which is why I came for help,” she says.

But that doesn’t mean that nothing happened, she continued.

“The master was so caring and calming, I could feel a lot of sadness and anxiety melt away. I suffer from PTSD, and had been getting rapid-eye movement treatments from a psychologist, trying to trick my amygdala into releasing those flashbacks and whatnot. Nothing was happening, and I realized those treatments could go on for years.  But after my first Reiki attunement, something shifted—that underlying tension had dissolved. I am now free to do the yoga, physical therapy exercises and other stuff that I know is good for the arthritis that I was too uptight to do regularly and consistently. It was good drain off some of that angst without having to relive past traumas over and over again.”

It is by this kind of word-of-mouth testimony that Reiki is shared.

“We’re not big on marketing ourselves,” says Vainshtein. “We prefer to put all our energy into doing the healing—we hardly ever advertise, preferring attraction to promotion. We concentrate on reducing ego and bringing in spirit.”

Caveat: Reiki is not a replacement for proven conventional care, and should not be used to postpone seeing a doctor for a medical problem. Before selecting a practitioner, it would also be wise to investigate practitioners’ backgrounds, as there are no licensing standards for Reiki, and training and experience vary widely.