Center for the Study of World Religions Research Associate Dr. Giovanna Parmigiani led a conversation with Dr. Natalie Dyer on April 5, 2023, titled "Reiki, Energy Medicine, and Post-Materialism." Dr. Dyer is a research scientist with Connor Whole Health at University Hospitals, the President of the Center for Reiki Research, and a practicing Reiki master. In this discussion they talked about the role of Reiki and energy healing in improving health and well-being, the possibility of a non-materialist scientific paradigm, and Dr. Dyer’s latest research on universal love.
Full transcript:
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SPEAKER 1: Harvard Divinity School.
SPEAKER 2: Reiki, Energy, Medicine, and Post-Materialism. April 5, 2023.
DR. GIOVANNA PARMIGIANI: My name is Giovanna Parmigiani. And I'm the host of this series organized within the Transcendence and Transformation Initiative at the CSWR here at Harvard Divinity School. This series focuses on ways of knowing that are often labeled as non-rational, traditionally referred to as gnosis in Western philosophical and religious traditions, and often understood in contraposition to science. These ways of knowing are becoming more and more influential in contemporary societies, popular culture, and academic research.
What is the place of spirit possession, divination, and experiences perceived as out of the ordinary in our lives? How can we study and approach this type of phenomena?
Going beyond dichotomies, such as body and mind, ordinary and extraordinary, reason and experience, and matter and spirit, this series hosts scholars of different disciplines and practitioners interested in exploring and expanding the boundaries of what counts as knowledge today.
So it is with great pleasure that I introduce today's guest, Dr. Natalie Dyer. Dr. Dyer is a research scientist with Connor Whole Health at University Hospitals, and the president of the Center for Reiki Research. Dr. Dyer studies the effects of Reiki biofield therapy on physical and psychological health, and lead efforts to educate Reiki practitioners and the public about Reiki research.
As shamanic Reiki master, Dr. Dyer's research is primarily focused on mind, body, and biofield therapies for improving psychological health and well-being. Dr. Dyer also conducts research on universal love and is the co-creator of the Universal Love Scale, a psychometrically validated measure of the embodiment experience of universal love.
So thank you, Natalie, for being with us today. And welcome virtually at HDS.
DR. NATALIE DYER: Thank you, Giovanna. I'm so happy to be here. Like we said earlier, I love the Harvard Divinity School. So beautiful.
DR. GIOVANNA PARMIGIANI: Wonderful. And you spent some time at Harvard in the past, right?
DR. NATALIE DYER: I did, yes, five years--
DR. GIOVANNA PARMIGIANI: Did you missed us?
DR. NATALIE DYER: --after my doctorate.
DR. GIOVANNA PARMIGIANI: Did you missed us? [LAUGHS]
DR. NATALIE DYER: I do, very much.
DR. GIOVANNA PARMIGIANI: Wonderful. So today, we'll talk about the role of Reiki, and energy healing, and improving health and well-being about the possibility of non-materialist scientific paradigm, and on talk about your latest research on universal love.
DR. NATALIE DYER: Sounds good.
DR. GIOVANNA PARMIGIANI: Wonderful. So Natalie, let's go-- let's get to the basics. So what is Reiki? How did you get interested in it? What's your relationship with it? And if you had any back-- have any back story to share with us, I always love to start our conversation with that.
DR. NATALIE DYER: [LAUGHS] I'll just define it first for those who don't know. So it's a Japanese word, which Reiki, so two words, rei, which means universal, and ki, which means life force energy. So it's translated to universal life force energy. Some people define it as universally guided life force energy. There's various ways of defining it. But basically, that's what it means. And it's a form of biofield healing.
So there's other forms from different traditions throughout the world. So this one originates in Japan, Qigong, for example, from China. And then there's ones that have developed within the Western medical system like therapeutic touch, which nurses developed for treating patients.
So biofield healing, basically, is a practitioner who is trained in some methodology. And I should-- caveat is that we don't actually need to be trained in this. I think it's a very natural form of healing. Where, life force energy, spirit, Qi, whatever you want to call it, is channeled within the healer and given to the hili or the client or the patient to balance their life force energy. So it affects the energy and the information within their body and around their body as well, if you want to-- their electromagnetic field or their aura, whatever you want to call it.
So how I got interested in it, it just came to me. So I was doing my PhD at the time. I've heard of Reiki before, but I didn't-- wasn't calling me. I wasn't interested in it. I didn't know anything about it. But I went to an event. It was a charity for-- I think it was an African orphanage. And it was like a psychic fair sort of thing that some of my friends were going to. And OK, I'll go.
And you pay $10 and you get some kind of reading from various psychics and healers. And I came a little late, so all of the good psychics were taken and there was a Reiki person. And I was like, OK, I'll just go to this Reiki person.
And at that time, I was doing a lot of meditation, more than I am now, unfortunately. I had more time during my PhD than I do now. I've been spending a lot of time in meditation, working on my energy field a lot, being very present, connected to nature. And I felt like in a really, really good space.
And so I went to the Reiki master, and he checked out my energy system. And he went through my chakras. And he said, wow, you've been doing a lot of meditation. Your energy is super clear and balanced. And I felt, OK, yeah. I definitely feel that way. So he's picking up on something.
And he said there's nothing for me to work on today. And so do you want to just talk? And so I was like, yeah, what's Reiki? And then I thought, wow, this sounds really, really interesting. I'll take the training.
So I just ended up taking the training. I didn't believe in it. I just-- it was just like serendipitous I just was led to. It's like, I'll take the training. And then I'm like, what I'm-- I don't really believe that this even works. I don't know what I'm doing. So he was like, why are you here? I don't know.
But once-- I'm an evidence-based person. I can't help it. So-- but I'm also drawn to these things, like these interesting practices and techniques, very open-minded, but also very skeptical. So I didn't believe it until I saw the effect of it.
So once I did the training, level one, I had some friends over at different times and practiced on them. And seeing the effect, feeling it too, because I wasn't sure what's this energy, what is energy going to feel like. And feels like you're energized, feels tingly, feels like you have energy, obviously, to do something, like you've had a lot of coffee or caffeine or something. So it feels like this flow going through.
And it's different for everyone but that's how it was for me. I was like, wow, I can actually feel energy. And then seeing the emotional response in people and the physical response. So reducing pain, crying. It's a big part of Reiki and energy medicine is this some emotional release.
So seeing my friends release old wounds and traumas on the Reiki table was quite powerful. And then feeling it myself, feeling that compassion empathy that went with it. And Reiki is really-- it's an interesting thing. So much came of it that I wasn't anticipating, like an increase in intuition, this connection with others. Yeah, just feeling their feelings. I mean, a lot more empathy and compassion.
So it was just like immediate valuable feedback. And wow, I'm really actually helping people this way, getting at some deep stuff. So then I continued in the training until the Reiki master. So Reiki has been incredible. I think it's absolutely changed my life. And I think that's true for a lot of people that have gone on that journey as well.
So yeah. And then it just naturally, because I was already doing my PhD, it changed a lot for me. My PhD was in a materialist paradigm, which we'll talk about later, and looking at a psychopharmacological approach to anxiety-- specifically, anxiety, but all mental illness, really, and looking at, OK, what's the neurochemical situation with anxiety and how can we fix that with drugs, for example.
And then when I got into the Reiki and more meditation, I was like, there's something deeper going on here. And so my whole interest changed. So I started getting into more research on mindfulness meditation and Reiki.
So that was early on in my PhD. And I had to be patient and wait to get through, and then start doing some of the research once I was into my postdoc. So yeah, that's my story of Reiki.
DR. GIOVANNA PARMIGIANI: Wonderful. Thank you for sharing that. And since I want us to be on the same page, sharing some personal aspects of our research. I was also trained in level 1 Reiki. And it happened to me on my fieldwork, during my fieldwork.
And I distinctly remember this feeling in my hands, once they were activated, of a kind of cold heart feeling. They were very hot but they cold, actually. My skin was cold, but I felt a very strong heat in the palms of my hand.
And that also was important for me. Although, I decided not to go through the whole-- all the levels of Reiki, energy healing remains an important aspect of my practice as well. So I'm very happy to talk also about this with you.
I have a number of questions that before-- maybe you mentioned that you are an evidence-based person. So what's your academic background more in detail? I think you mentioned slightly. But--
DR. NATALIE DYER: Yeah. Yeah. And there's different forms of evidence. So for me, obviously, just as a caveat, doing those Reiki sessions, that's anecdotal personal, wow, this is really helping, but then I get into the more empirical research as well.
So my academic background, I-- so I guess, going all the way back to high school, I was just very interested in truth. I mean, even before high school. Growing up in a family where there's a lot of pathologies and a lot of lack of emotional regulation, and just a lot of upheaval, and immaturity, and this isn't right. Just asking questions like, what's truth. What's-- there's more to life than this. And so my interest was in the mind and also, in the life sciences, so biology. So psychology and biology were my main interests.
So for my bachelors, I went to the University of Toronto. And I got a double major in biology and psychology. So studying the mind and the body. And yeah, like I said earlier, I was a materialist academically, but definitely a spiritual person. So I was living in these two minds, as I like to call it, like the split self, where I was having all these experiences of out-of-body experiences at night, for example, powerful ones, intuitions, mostly in dreams like psychic dreams, all kinds of experiences.
And then just like a deep connection with if you want to call God source, what felt like my real home, just this like, I know I'm here for a short period of time, and I know I'm really connected to this bigger consciousness, if you want to call it that.
And so what am I doing here. So a lot of questions that I was asking. So I'm doing all this work in biology and psychology. And I'm having all these other experiences that are not congruent with what I was learning. And I was disappointed that they were-- the academics, at least, at the University of Toronto were dismissing all of the things that I was experiencing.
And understandably because we're in this paradist materialist paradigm still. And so I was going back and forth a lot. And it wasn't until I started in the Eastern practices, like the meditation and the Reiki, like I mentioned earlier, that I really felt an embodiment of all of that. Whereas, before, it was knowledge seeking, I guess I could say.
But I carried on. And then I started-- I did my PhD at Queen's University, which is also in Canada and Kingston. And that was in neuroscience, so blending biology and psychology. And I studied the neuroregulation of anxiety. So looking at the neurocircuitry and chemistry of fear and fear-related behaviors, and anticipatory fear, and because I had a history of anxiety myself. So a lot of scientists, what they study is personally relevant as well. So there's often some kind of story there.
So I had anxiety and depression as a child, a lot of my family did. Mix of genes and environment, of course. And I thought, yeah, pharmaceuticals, that's the way to go. A little bit of therapy, yeah, but it's a brain thing. Let's fix it in the brain.
And then yeah, I started these practices, like I mentioned. Shifted my worldview in a more embodied deep way rather than a surface area. And then I decided, OK, I'm going to shift into this kind of research when I'm done my PhD. So I was lucky enough, super fortunate to get a position at Harvard University and the-- in Langer Mindfulness Lab.
So she studies mindfulness and the connection between mind and body, and putting your mind or your psychology in certain states and measuring the body. So playing with your perception of time and seeing how the body actually follows your perception of time rather than what we would consider objective time. And a lot of really cool interesting studies like that.
And then I did a second postdoc at Harvard Medical School. I couldn't leave Harvard on yoga research so that was looking at stress, anxiety, and in populations that are experienced a lot of burnout. So teachers in urban areas, nurses, veterans, firefighters, frontline professionals, essentially, is what they call them.
So giving them the tools that I found useful as well. I love yoga. I've been doing yoga for 12 or so years. And giving them those tools and then measuring their psychological states after they've engaged in that. So that's my background and how it transformed over time. And to this day, I'm still doing that kind of research, integrative medicine mostly for psychological health, but also for pain and different medical conditions as well.
DR. GIOVANNA PARMIGIANI: Wonderful. But can you tell us some of your findings? So what did you find? What does Reiki do?
DR. NATALIE DYER: Yeah. So I've done about four or five Reiki-- five Reiki studies now, I should know.
And the first one was a large scale study. It's still the largest Reiki study conducted. And it's what's called a pragmatic trial. So a lot of these studies, there aren't a control group. And that's OK. There's different kinds of research, it doesn't always have to have a control. Of course, certain aspects of studies need to have control. But this was called a pragmatic effectiveness trial.
So we took Reiki-- personal Reiki practice, so not in the hospital, private practice across the United States. And we-- every time they had a client come in, they did a pre and post assessment of various symptoms. So again, anxiety, stress, those are big ones. Pain, fatigue, nausea.
And then we saw dramatic improvements just from the one Reiki session. So that was published in 2019, I believe. And that's when I joined the Center for Reiki Research. They were looking for someone to help run that study while I was doing my post-doc.
And then we did another study. Actually, we got more details from that. We also did a qualitative assessment, which was published this year. Last year, actually. We're in 2023 now. Looking at what is the experience of receiving Reiki because I think that's a big part of its transformative power is what the client or the patient experiences during that session. So I mentioned earlier, the crying and the emotional release that happens. So we were interested in that subjective component. So we identified eight themes.
So relaxation, that's a really common one. People feel very relaxed. So it elicits what's called the relaxation response or putting people out of their fight and flight into their parasympathetic or rest and digest state. There's a physical sensations, body sensations, energetic-- what we call energetic sensations, so we're like waves of energy or like auditory.
So perception changes. So we see colors with eyes closed. We might see multiple colors. We might hear certain things. We might-- a few of the clients smelt different things. So that's really interesting.
But the visual aspect is a big part of it. And then the emotional component, for sure. So usually, crying or feeling like something was released. That was deeply held. Or just positive emotions, like feeling love, divine love, unconditional love. And also some people go on a spiritual journey, that's what we called it, where they feel like they travel somewhere or they meet a deceased relative, and they're given a message or some kind of what they would consider a spiritual being, whether it's an angel or some kind of religious figure.
So that's the map of the experience of Reiki. And so now our next paper is looking at what that kind of relationship between that experience and those changes in outcomes. So what we found-- and it's not published yet, but we're presenting it at a conference in two weeks is that emotional component. So having that emotional release, as you would expect, effects anxiety, depression, and well being, a lot of emotional aspect.
So having that release actually does reduce anxiety. It does reduce depression. Whereas, having these body sensations reduces pain. So it's interesting how different experiences during the session lead to different outcomes. So it'd be interesting to look at like chronic pain patients, is that-- does that hold true for them? Is it-- do they feel more of a physical sensation during the Reiki? And is that really related to them, reducing their pain? And people with major depressive disorder, for example, is there more of an emotional component there that they're experiencing?
So we did that. And that's being written up right now. And then another study that's in the process of being published is a Distance Reiki study, which I'm particularly interested in. Distance Reiki, I think that's really fascinating. And this was a program for frontline health care workers in the UK during COVID. So they were given four sessions of Reiki and we looked pre, post at anxiety, [LAUGHS] stress, pain, fatigue, sleep, and overall well-being.
And we see improvements in all of that. And we got qualitative feedback as well like, wow, this is amazing. And there's a lot of people that are skeptical, they don't believe it, but they're suffering, so they're like sure. Free Reiki, why not. I'll give it a try. I don't believe it, but-- like me, I didn't really believe it. And then they experience it. Wow, that's amazing.
So our-- I should say, a study I'm working on developing right now, which is important, I think, is what are those key ingredients in the ability of Reiki to be effective? So I think, if you speak to a lot of healers, love is a big component. Loving the other, loving who you're working on, feeling connected with them, compassion. But just like that straight unconditional love where there really is no distinction between you and the other. As well as the ability to just focus, and be present, be there.
And so I think attention focus and love are really key ingredients in the effectiveness of Reiki. So we're developing a study to look at that, which I think is really key and important.
DR. GIOVANNA PARMIGIANI: Wonderful. Just a clarification question for me, then I will ask some from the audience. You mentioned mostly psychological and emotional effects of Reiki, including some help with pain. What are-- according to you, the relationship between the biofield and the body? So like healing the body in your hands? Or is it part of your future research on Reiki at any point? I don't know.
DR. NATALIE DYER: What the-- sorry, I just want to clarify. What's the relationship between the biofield and pain?
DR. GIOVANNA PARMIGIANI: And the body. Actually, the body, like healing the body, the organs.
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
DR. NATALIE DYER: Yeah, so--
DR. GIOVANNA PARMIGIANI: --as a disease aspect.
DR. NATALIE DYER: So the theory would be that the energy creates the body, essentially. That it's putting it together. It's mapping out where everything goes, the functioning of it. That the energy is primary and the matter comes from that. So if we get at the energy, the biofield, we're actually getting more of the root of issues.
So yeah, the theory is that any disruption in that energy is going to eventually become physical. So we can use it as a preventative measure as well. So energy healers might pick up on something that's like, oh, there's an imbalance here. There might not be any symptoms yet. It could be related to some emotion, some past experience that eventually might become physical if it's not taken care of.
So I hope that answered your question.
DR. GIOVANNA PARMIGIANI: No, absolutely. Absolutely. I'm familiar with that. I was wondering whether you would like to include this dimension in-- more explicitly in your future studies or not.
Let's move to some questions from the audience. So Molly, your first question will be addressed in a minute. Larry asks if you can talk about the relationships between Reiki and healing touch.
DR. NATALIE DYER: That's a good question. I'm not trained in healing touch. And it was developed by, I think, a German. Well, healing touch, then there's therapeutic touch. So those are actually different.
I am not sure. I just know that it comes from a Western world, not the Japanese origin. And it's more recent. So I'm not sure if it's influenced-- where its influence came from. But I'm pretty sure it's working with the same concept where light touch with intention modifies the biofield in a healing way.
So sorry, I can't give more details there.
DR. GIOVANNA PARMIGIANI: No, I think it's great. Thank you so much. Yana asks, can we access your published Reiki studies? Where we can find them?
DR. NATALIE DYER: Yeah. So you can find-- you can search for my name in Google Scholar. But some of them are not open access. So you can send me an email and I can send you a copy. I don't think you can find the full paper unless you have journal access. If you have journal access through your institution or you want to pay for the PDF, you can do that, or can email me and I'll send you a copy.
DR. GIOVANNA PARMIGIANI: Wonderful. Thanks a lot for being so kind. Kristin asks, great talk, first of all. Thank you, Kristin. I've been practicing Reiki for 20 plus years. And I'm a Reiki master teacher. Are there opportunities to get involved with Reiki Research if one does not have a research or science background?
DR. NATALIE DYER: Yeah, absolutely. We're always looking for practitioners. I mean, we need the practitioners to run the study. So that's a huge component. So you can email me your information. And we can add you to a list of practitioners. Because like I said, we will be running another study on that component of love and attention and healing. So we're definitely always looking for very experienced-- we want very experienced healers.
DR. GIOVANNA PARMIGIANI: Wonderful. I'm so happy when these links happen. [LAUGHS] Anyway, so Ann asks, I teach an undergraduate course on alternative medicine and religion. And I'm looking for a good Intro text for Reiki. i have been looking for some time. Any suggestions? Thank you.
DR. NATALIE DYER: Dr. Ann Baldwin just published a book a couple of years ago now. Reiki in Clinical Practice, I believe, it's called. Sorry if I'm not getting that right. I'm going to do a quick-- [LAUGHS] oh, you can look up and-- yeah, Reiki in Clinical Practice: A Science-based Guide. So I think that's a really good academic or medical option because I think all the other books are probably just for the practitioner, not for the-- not for the student. So that's a good place to start.
DR. GIOVANNA PARMIGIANI: Wonderful. And if you are interested in being in contact with Dr. Dyer, you can email to me if you want. And the email is already in the chats. And I will forward your email to Dr. Dyer, if you don't find Dr. Dyer's email address easily.
So let's move on. And then thank you for the question. There are many. And we'll get back to them. But I would like to ask you, how do you navigate the status of scholar practitioner within academia or within your space of your scientific research? Did you find any pushback from academic institutions? Or as Molly was asking, how is this research received among various religious communities, particularly, Christianity?
DR. NATALIE DYER: Yeah, very good questions. I navigate it. So on the personal level, it's not very easy because I'm interested in both. And I'm often pulled between them. Even though I researched Reiki, but I find myself swinging from one to the other. I might spend a lot of time doing Reiki, making a YouTube channel, put some Reiki videos up.
And I get really into that. And I think it's super valuable. And I love helping people in that way. And then the scientist side of me just wants to demonstrate that it works. And so then I'll maybe get more into the research. And so I swing back and forth, always looking for that happy medium and balance.
So I can't say it's easy because I always feel like I should be focusing more on one or the other. But I'm both of those things. So I'm always going back and forth.
I feel like doing the Reiki makes me-- because it's such a loving present thing, it feels-- it makes me happy. It feels me-- makes me feel like I'm doing exactly what I'm supposed to be doing. But I can't help wanting to learn and sharing knowledge.
So there's a part of me that needs that mental stimulation of doing the research and discovery. I love the discovery of looking at the data and seeing the results. And I am open to it not working. If it doesn't work, I'm going to publish it. And so my primary interest is truth, not proving something that I already believe.
So in terms of navigating it in the institutions I found, so when I was doing my PhD, there was some pushback, and not with the institution as a whole, but individuals. So people I was doing my PhD with.
So like I said in the beginning, I was more materialistic. So I transformed. And they were like, what's going on with you? What happened to you? And I even had a friend say, oh, should just be a yoga teacher, not a scientist.
And so yeah, thanks. [LAUGHS]
DR. GIOVANNA PARMIGIANI: How rude.
DR. NATALIE DYER: [INAUDIBLE]. I know. I know. I know. And another student who said, oh, don't get into pseudoscience because I said, I wanted to study mindfulness. It's like, how is that-- so ignorance because using the scientific method for human experience is science. For a practice, that's been thousands and thousands of years. It is science. So just silliness like that. So not really logical. So it doesn't really bother me but it does maybe inspires me a little more because like, oh, they want to dispel that ignorance.
But since my PhD, since-- so at Harvard, it was incredibly accepted. You think arguably, the top university in the world, maybe the bias is that they're going to be super materialist and traditional. But definitely not, super open-minded. A lot of my colleagues were like, oh, I love Reiki. And so that was really, really nice.
And support from my-- I should say, back few years, support from my PhD advisor as well. As soon as I told her I was doing Reiki, she was like, [GASPS] oh, you're such a healer. I was like, oh, OK. So-- and she was a yoga practitioner.
So just-- and I felt like that was meant to be being with her and having that support and helped me get my position at Harvard and all of that. So I've been lucky. I think it's also-- I'm a bit younger than some of the trailblazers like Rupert Sheldrake, and people that have received a lot of harsh backlash and violence, even.
So I think I'm grateful for them for paving the way that I think, there's a lot more open mindedness now. And integrative medicine, alternative medicine, whatever term you want to call, is on the rise. There's millions of people getting treatments and just a disenchantment with the medical system. So-- and a lot of integrative medicine being integrated into conventional health care. So there's a culture shift happening. So it is a lot. It's getting easier, I think.
I don't know if there was another question there, but--
DR. GIOVANNA PARMIGIANI: I'm so happy to hear that.
DR. NATALIE DYER: [LAUGHS]
DR. GIOVANNA PARMIGIANI: And this is a little bit of shout out to my students here among the audience who are very interested in the figure of the scholar practitioner because I'm in a different field, but because I'm an anthropologist. So in anthropology, I live the same space, the academic one, with the same attitude, similar attitude to yours, because what I experimented on the field became part of my-- at least, partially, of my way to inhabit the world.
So if there's no the old stigma around going Native, which is a bad expression in inverted commas, it's easier than, let's say, 50 years ago. There's still some pushback here and skepticism around the type of research that a scholar practitioners, especially if it's not Christian. And this is to answer Molly-- Molly's question, to inhabit the academic space. Yeah. [INAUDIBLE]--
DR. NATALIE DYER: Yes, I forgot the religious question. So it depends on the Christianity, for sure, because you have laying on of the hands and some Christian traditions. Some religious people have an issue that Reiki is not from Jesus, for example.
So in that tradition, it's Jesus working through the individuals, whereas some people say, oh, it's a Japanese man or something. I've heard some really silly things like, energy doesn't come from a Japanese man. It's like, that's not what we're saying. He's just the one who discovered this working with it.
So you get-- there's a lot of-- so when we ran this big Reiki study, for example, there were a lot of Christians getting Reiki. I think a third of the sample were Christians. So some of them are open to it.
Now the Catholic faith believed-- released an article, I'm not sure where it was published, against Reiki. So saying that do not do Reiki as it's against the religion. And so of all the religions, Catholic is the only one that has explicitly said no to Reiki, essentially. So--
DR. GIOVANNA PARMIGIANI: My interlocutors are all Catholic, and they all practice Reiki. So--
DR. NATALIE DYER: Well, there you go. Yeah. So it was someone in the church. You can't speak for all.
DR. GIOVANNA PARMIGIANI: No, I think the official--
DR. NATALIE DYER: Can't speak for all Catholics.
DR. GIOVANNA PARMIGIANI: --the official doctrine.
DR. NATALIE DYER: Because I was raised Catholic. And I wouldn't-- I'm not anti-Catholic, I'm not. So I think it's one person, one article doesn't speak for the whole religion and all its people. So--
DR. GIOVANNA PARMIGIANI: Well, the lived religion aspect is always very interesting beyond formal--
DR. NATALIE DYER: Even-- yeah, and I think there was-- I'm not good with Bible quotes, but I was reading the New Testament a while-- a year ago, just like, OK, I'm going to read this. I'm interested. I read it before when I was in school. And there is one part about your thoughts can heal. And to me, that's distance Reiki. So-- and use your thoughts to heal.
I don't the quote, forgive me, but it basically said in there that your thoughts can heal others. So it's not saying, don't practice this. So--
DR. GIOVANNA PARMIGIANI: Wonderful. Thanks a lot. So another couple of questions from the audience. So Sam asks, can you-- can I ask, of course, how you conceptualize the energy body within the context of Western anatomy medicine. There seemed to be some researcher who basically reduced the energy body to either a psychological phenomenon or as an epi phenomenon of the body in some other way. Whereas, other adhere to other non-Western theoretical systems. What is the current scientific perspective on this in theoretical terms?
DR. NATALIE DYER: Wow. [LAUGHS] Yeah, so a lot of people have different perspectives of it. So-- and we like to be able to speak to anyone about it. So you can speak to the materialist and say it's our electromagnetic field. Your heart has a field, and that can be influenced. It can be influenced by our thoughts, our perceptions, and other people. So of course, like being loved, being touched, being hugged is going to be healthy for the heart and for its electromagnetic field. And in this case, it's coming from the matter. It's emanating from the matter.
And then we have the more non-materialist approach, where the primary aspect of reality is consciousness, and love, and that generates energy, it generates the field. And then the body is built around that.
So we know that there is energetic and fields that guide the development of neurons, for example. So we can speak in that sense as well. But it comes down to, well, what's the origin of that? Where is that really coming from? So everyone has different perspectives on that.
So I-- my perspective is that consciousness is fundamental, and that energy comes from that, and then the matter develops around that. Of course, there's all interaction within that as well.
DR. GIOVANNA PARMIGIANI: Wonderful. I think it's maybe the right time to ask you a question on non-materialist science as a key to this question. So why are you advocating for it? What is the place today of non-materialist science within the sciences? If you want to talk more about that.
DR. NATALIE DYER: Yeah, sure. Yeah. So we define it as post materialist rather than non-materialist because we're including matter. And we're not saying there is no matter. We're not dismissing all of the amazing achievements within that the materialist paradigm. But we're saying there's more going on. We need to expand our view of reality. And we need to account for a lot of the phenomenon that materialism is just saying, basically, doesn't exist.
So PSI phenomenon, for example, mental influence on physical matter. So all the achievements from quantum physics, for example. So we're about 100 years behind on updating our science-based on those findings, where we see that the mind and the observer plays a key role in what manifests physically.
So it's really-- it's like, let's expand. It's not really like, let's get rid of all the materialism. So post-materialist science is really about addressing scientific materialism, which largely states that the mind is nothing but the physical activity of the brain.
And so that it's-- so consciousness is an emergent property of the neurochemical firing of the brain. And there's a lot of evidence that suggests that's not true, such as people that are clinically, well, brain dead, essentially, and they're revived, and they've had incredibly vivid experiences that more-- that were more real than when their brain was functioning, for example, like colors that they've never seen before, and verifiable experiences like visitations from deceased loved ones that they didn't know were dead yet, for example.
So there are some verified accounts with these, the PSI phenomenon. A lot of verified accounts of children remembering past lives, mediumship that's been validated. Of course, you get muddy waters in this area. There are a lot of charlatans. There's been a lot of bad research. But there is some good quality blinded research on mediumship.
And so the idea is that maybe the brain-- and this isn't a new idea at all, this is probably more of the original idea, the brain acts more like a transceiver or a transmitter receiver of consciousness rather than a producer. So more like a radio.
And a lot of the arguments of materialists is that, well, if you injure the brain, you injure the mind. Well, that's true of a radio too or a television. You mess with the function-- you mess with the physical aspect of it, you're going to change the reception, for example.
So the idea with post-materialism is that the nature of reality may not be fundamentally material based on these lines of evidence, and that we need to be at least open to studying that rather than just rejecting it all. Because why not be open to it. If it's not true, we'll figure it out. We'll find that out. And then that's OK. But science needs to be an open method of inquiry. So that's really the idea behind that.
And so there's a lot of science. I think, 450 scientists that have signed this declaration for it's post-materialist science. So we're coming together and saying, yeah, things need to change. There's a group of health care providers as well that say in medicine, we need to adopt a more post-materialist perspective because there's a lot of energy in medicine, for example, helps people.
And if we stay in this materialist view, we're not going to allow for things like Reiki and hospitals, which greatly reduce pain and anxiety and stress. And so we need to be at least open to including these things. And if they don't work, then fine, get rid of them. It's not a problem.
So I'm advocating for it because I think there's been a lot of suffering and damage from materialism. So this-- it's taking all these resources and the survival of the fittest mentality, and not understanding our interconnection and our oneness. And so taking this post-materialist or more spiritual perspective should theoretically lead to taking care of each other more and not being as selfish. And so I think it would-- it greatly will transform the culture and the global culture. And to me, that's a really important aspect of it.
DR. GIOVANNA PARMIGIANI: That's amazing. I mean, from an anthropological perspective, I always teach my students in religion healing that biomedicine, of course, has developed within mainstream Western modern ideas about the individual, like the individual and the subject and the person are completely overlapping, while-- since I teach in a Divinity School and we read lots about anthropology of religion, we learn that for many, individual, subject, and person are not fully overlapping, open, like porous, let's say.
And to me, your post-materialist science manifesto is an opening up to the possibilities of how to think about a medicine that includes and copes with others' ideas about the individual. And so I saluted with great excitement. So thank you for being-- willing to do that within your field. Thanks a lot.
Before moving to the question, because there are very many, and very interesting, I would like to touch on the wonderful universal love scale. Because I think it's very important when I heard a talk from you on YouTube. And I was really, really-- very moved, I would say, from it. Can you tell us more about it?
DR. NATALIE DYER: Yeah, sure. So the universal love scale is what it sounds like. It's a scale to measure universal love. And it's a self-administered scale. We're not measuring something physical. It's a self-report scale.
So if you study anything in science, you need to have a way of measuring it. So when we study compassion or we study empathy, or depression or anxiety, we all have these self-report questionnaires because how are you going to know if something changes if you don't have some way of measuring it.
So you can't measure anxiety. You can look at stress responses physically, but with anxiety, it's really like an internal, I'm worried about this or that. So it's a largely psychological thing.
And so to define universal love, it's-- we define it as unconditional love for all of existence that is beyond the subjective self. So-- whereas in comparison, a lot of people think of love in general is like for a certain person or there's-- obviously, the Greeks had so many different versions of love. There's platonic love and there's romantic love. And a lot of them involve the ego.
So romantic love can be very painful, for example. And there's a lot of attachment and dramas. And universal love is the root of all love. It is pure love. So it's love without attachment, love without desire. It's just love for love's sake. So unconditional love in its purest sense.
And the idea is that this form of love is the ultimate healer. This might even be the foundation of reality. So a lot of people, when they have these transcendent experiences, like near-death experiences or even plant medicine experiences, any kind of mystical experience, a common theme is this universal love, like, wow, it is like all of reality is built on this love. And I see it as the merging of consciousness into one. It's the unification of our consciousness reconnecting, whereas, some will say like fear or hate, it's a separation and heavily involves the ego.
So this is an egoless state of love for just love's sake, just full embodiment of love. So we wanted to study this and still are studying this. So when I mentioned the Reiki study and looking at the component of love, we'll be looking at Universal love as a factor in the healing effects of Reiki.
So we realized to measure it. It's embodied. So universal love is embodied. And when it's embodied, there are certain emotions, behaviors, thoughts, and transcendent components. So these are the factors of the universal love scale. So the feeling of love is an important part of it. But also the desire to help others, or to reduce suffering, or to be a humanitarian, for example, is a behavioral aspect of universal love.
So we laid out all these different aspects of embodied universal love to measure it in this way. And so we correlated it to different aspects. So empathy is highly related to empathy, as you would expect, compassion, positive emotions. It's negatively associated with narcissism, of course, like ego states, aggression, anger.
So this is all part of validating it as a construct. So our paper essentially validates universal love as a construct, like, OK, it exists as something. And here's how we can measure it. So--
DR. GIOVANNA PARMIGIANI: It's a big thing. I mean, huge.
[LAUGHTER]
DR. NATALIE DYER: Yeah, you've got to play the game. Yes, OK. I ran the study. So now universal love is a thing.
So then it's available. And it's currently being translated in Turkish. Turkey has just recently-- I'm pretty excited, transformed their hospitals and their education system to integrate alternative and complementary medicine. They've made a huge shift.
So all of a sudden, I was noticing all these Reiki papers coming out of Turkey. What is going on in Turkey? And so they've made a huge culture shift over there. And so they're now going to be studying universal love as well. So-- and I just think it's what everything comes down to. And it's super important. And I hope to do a lot more research on that as well, and hope other people do too.
DR. GIOVANNA PARMIGIANI: Wonderful. That's great. Thank you so much.
There are a couple of questions from the audience that would like for you to better explain the connection between Reiki and spirituality. So I read one from these. From my understanding, Master Usui originally taught Reiki to his students as a modality for spiritual enlightenment and notice the side effects of physical healing. It's a question. I am curious to hear your insight on how this nature of Reiki might relate to post-materialism.
DR. NATALIE DYER: Yeah, that's great. Yeah, that's a really good point. And it's like what's happened with yoga a little bit. So yoga was to prepare the body for meditation to achieve my mentor's, somebody, or spiritual insight. And with Reiki now it's becoming-- some people don't like the term "Energy Medicine" because it's becoming medicalized, and it should be more of a spiritual thing. But that's just a side note.
Yeah, I think Reiki is a spiritual practice. And to connect it with post-materialism, it's one of what I consider to be the key lines of evidence in favor of post-materialism, especially when you look at Distance Reiki. So when you're able to positively affect people at a distance miles and miles and miles away, where their physiology even changes, not to mention their psychology and their emotions, then there's something going on a lot deeper.
And I do believe that it is the consciousness, this non-local effect of consciousness, where we are all connected in some non-local way, maybe through a fundamental entanglement, for example. So even if you want to take like the Big Bang approach to reality, everything was connected at some point and expanded outward.
So with entanglement, any two aspects that were connected at one point are always connected. So we are all connected. And so the ability to influence someone through being in this very focused, loving-- so like I said, loving is that unification. So using the love and the focus, you can connect in this way.
I think to properly explain the truth about what is really going on with Reiki requires a post-materialist perspective. I can talk to materialists about it and say it's relaxing. [LAUGHS] And it lesses the relaxation response, and that's healing. So-- but I think to really get at the truth of it, post-materialist perspective is required.
DR. GIOVANNA PARMIGIANI: Wonderful. Thanks a lot. So did you-- Mandy asks, did you notice similarities in having patient sessions not working, such as they were on anti-depressant or a completely disconnected suicide attempt?
DR. NATALIE DYER: So I'm assuming, I mean, the Reiki not working if they're on anti-depressants or something? Yeah. Yeah, that's really interesting. I find that there-- you can tell when someone's on an antidepressant. Maybe not always. But I find there is like unmuting of their energy. So-- and that's what, at least, anti-anxiety is what's-- medication is doing in the brain is just lowering the energy, it's lowering everything, it's inhibiting activity in the brain.
So I have found this dulling effect, which makes sense. I've been on antidepressants. Not that's anyone's business. Not on them now, but I was on them. And it does-- it numbs a lot of aspects of the richness of the human experience, which includes the negative, but also the positive.
So look how much poetry and music has come out of deep sadness and pain and suffering. So there's-- it's a richness. And I think the medications can not only reduce the sadness or the apathy, but also the pleasures and the connection with spirit as well.
And in some side notes, some psychedelic research with treatment resistant depression, a lot of those depressed people say, well, the medication was just numbing me and just reducing the symptoms, whereas, this therapy with psilocybin, for example, is showing me-- is taking me out of my ego and showing me all these patterns that have contributed to the way I've felt, and gives me-- gives me a new perspective where they can essentially reprogram themselves.
But getting back to the question. It's not that the Reiki wouldn't work. I think it always does something as long as the person is open and willing. But I have found that it's-- it's just tuning it down. It's just lowering the energy.
And a lot of people have a lot of mental activity. And you can pick that up when you're working around the head region. The energy is flowing there. Oh, OK, they're thinking too much or this is just like, oh, it's like dark. It's just tuned down a bit. So yeah.
DR. GIOVANNA PARMIGIANI: Excellent. There's so many questions. I'm scrolling through them. So there are a couple that asks maybe the connection between your opinion between Reiki healing and either mediumship or shamanism.
DR. NATALIE DYER: Yeah, that's a good question. So you mentioned, shamanic Reiki, I often do. And that's because when I started doing Reiki, there was all this extra things going on that I'm like, what's happening here? Like an animal energy would show up, for example.
Just doing a session, and then there's this lion. And I'm like, what is this? What's going on? Or we're seeing traumas and feeling like different aspects of the person return all these different things and saying, I think this is a little bit more than Reiki. And some people would agree, and some people would say, no, that's Reiki.
But I started to study some shamanic practices with different teachers because I thought, oh, this is like shamanism, I think. And so I think they naturally go together really well. We create all these labels. We create these terms for what we're doing. But it's all healing. I think it's all healing within consciousness and within this realm of consciousness and love and activating and connecting with the realm of the unconscious.
So to heal some people's ailments, we need to go deep into their subconscious and see what's driving some of these beliefs and some of these behaviors that are not normally available to our conscious mind. So-- and Reiki is a path to that.
So shamanism and Reiki work really, really well together. And they don't even need to be called different things, really.
And what was the other question? Shamanism and--
DR. GIOVANNA PARMIGIANI: Mediumship.
DR. NATALIE DYER: Mediumship, yes. Yeah, that was a-- that was something that was unexpected when I started doing Reiki is connecting with deceased loved ones. And this happens a lot more with Distance Reiki. And I think for me, personally, in-person Reiki, it's more physical. You see their body there. You're moving around.
For Distance Reiki, it's a lot more inward. And you're just holding them. So I get a lot more messages. And with Distance Reiki, I've had deceased loved ones come through, four people. And it can be really, really powerful.
And I think it works the same way of connecting with love, being focused, allows you to connect with the bigger consciousness, with the consciousness of others, and any similar resonant frequencies of the individual. So our family and our friends, the closer we are, the closer our frequencies, our consciousnesses are. They're hard to explain, but we're all really super connected. And the more emotionally connected we are, the more we can tap into our energy fields of the other.
So very often, there would be a deceased loved one come through with some kind of message. And that can be really, really powerful. It's different than just working with the energy. It's a psycho spiritual healing aspect of it.
And I think they all work together with the same principles of, like I said, the non-local connection of our consciousness and love, allowing us to have access to this information, which is great because it's like a safe mechanism where you have to be benevolent to gain all this-- you've got to be in this state of love. You've got to be focused and conscious, rather than in your ego and materialist framework, you wouldn't get access to this information.
DR. GIOVANNA PARMIGIANI: Thanks a lot. A footnote from the religious studies scholar here, shamanism is a very contested category within religious studies. So I think that for my students, we're talking about neoshamanism and practices. But this was just a footnote. [LAUGHS]
DR. NATALIE DYER: Yeah, Shamanism is controversial. There's a lot of-- yeah. [LAUGHS]
DR. GIOVANNA PARMIGIANI: Anyways, I think it was a clarification due. But I think you want to-- what you wanted to say came through very brilliantly. Yes, so a number of other questions. We're at 2 o'clock now, but I think we can spend another couple of minutes.
So Katrina asks, would you have any recommendations for the process of finding a Reiki practitioner that really clicks with me as someone who wants to try Reiki for my anxiety? Is it important therapy to find one who you truly feel comfortable with?
DR. NATALIE DYER: Oh, yeah, definitely. That relationship is super important because you need to let down your guard a bit. You need to be open. And the more you are and the more you're connected, like I mentioned with the love, that love connection is going to be really powerful component. If you don't trust the person or you don't feel comfortable, you're going to close off a bit as a protective mechanism. And I think that's really important.
So yeah. And it depends if you want distance or in-person. In-person, you'd have to obviously find someone local, unless you're willing to travel. And in that case, you would just Google people in your area, get a feel for them. If you can have just a chat with them, see if you want to proceed. If they're not open to that, then that's your answer there, that's not worth your time. So they should understand that you want to feel comfortable with them. So have a quick meeting and ask them some questions.
For distance, that's very open. You can look at different organizations websites too. If you want someone certified through somebody, so there's the International Center for Reiki Training. Reiki.org, I think you can look and find Reiki practitioners in your area that way, or distance as well.
So yeah. And definitely go with how you feel about the person. If you don't like them and you don't resonate with them, and you don't feel comfortable telling them your deepest problems, definitely, don't go with them.
DR. GIOVANNA PARMIGIANI: That's-- that's so many questions. And I encourage people from the audience to send them over to me so I can forward them to you. There are some asking where to study this kind of things. Where are the PhD programs? And I might give my two cents on this as well.
But please, we are wonderful-- you, Natalie, are wonderful, and the audience as well is wonderful with all these questions. But I think it's time to wrap up.
Thank you, Dr. Dyer, for your participation. A wonderful conversation. And thank you, all, for having been with us. Please stay tuned on the activities of the CSWR, the Transcendence and Transformation Initiative of Gnoseologies.
You can find all this information on the CSWR website that you can find in the chat box, including the registration link for our next Gnoseology event that will be on April 26th. I will have a conversation with Professor Fadeke Castor on multiple subjectivities and the ethnographic study of lived religion.
Thank you all for being with us. And have a great rest of your day.
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