As a Reconnective Healing practitoner, one of the questions I get asked frequently is: “oh, Reconnective Healing? Is that like Reiki?” The answer is a resounding “not really”.
Qigong, Reiki, Pranic Healing and others share many similarities – usually to do with a practitioner activating their own energetic system and then transmitting the energy to a client, either through touch or purely through intention. Each modality varies in its approach, but the basic concept and the effectiveness of each is roughly the same.
Reconnective Healing may look superficially similar, but the differences are immense. The biggest difference is that in RH, the energy does not go through the healer before it reaches the client. The Reiki practitioner uses his body like an energetic cauldron, cultivating and strengthening the energy and then transmitting it to the client. The RH practitioner simply steps out of the way and connects the client directly to the energy field. The healer is merely a catalyst, not a conduit.
The first reason that makes such a big difference is obvious – the energy is not filtered through the healer’s energetic system, which means it’s immensely more powerful. In fact the difference in the strength of the energy is palpable to the client as well as measurable by science. See, for example, Dr. William Tiller’s experiments measuring the amount of thermodynamic energy in the room at a Reconnective Healing seminar.
The other important advantage of receiving the energy directly from the field is that the client cannot pick up anything negative from the healer’s energy field. Such an occurrence is rare because the healer will typically cleanse the energy before performing a healing; however this introduces additional complications that further reduce the effectiveness of the energy.
Early in the development of Reconnective Healing, the founder Dr. Eric Pearl consulted with some well known healers in his area. He was advised by the healers that he needed to use a cleansing ritual when dealing with this strange new energy – which was reasonable advice from people who had only ever dealt with more traditional healing methods. As Dr. Pearl had not yet discovered the true infinite nature of the RH energy, he followed their advice and began to include elaborate cleansing procedures in his healings. He has some amusing stories about the absurd rituals he was expected to perform. But however absurd, he tried them all – and the effectiveness of the healings decreased.
The conclusion is obvious – when you’re dealing with the infinite energy and intelligence of the universe, there is nothing that can be added to it. Dr. Pearl likens it to a jug that’s full to the brim with water – there is absolutely nothing more that can be added to it – and attempting to do so can only mean that there’s less room for the water. So adding cleansing rituals, intercessors, crystals, or specific intentions to our healings simply means there’s less room for the intelligence to do its perfect work. Nevertheless, the Reiki practitioner is forced into performing these rituals because of the possibility of transmitting negative energy to the client. The Reconnective Healing practitioner is not.
While all of this sounds nice in theory, it’s meaningless unless there’s solid evidence to support the increased effectiveness of RH over other modalities. In addition to Dr. Tiller’s research mentioned above, controlled studies on patients with frozen shoulder, and a study of severed leaves kept alive in a lab compared RH to other modalities. Reconnective Healing was the most effective modality by a considerable margin.
Dr. Pearl likes to say that if Reiki is R, Qigong is Q and Pranic Healing is P, Reconnective Healing is the alphabet.