what is reiki?

Such is my question this morning shortly after discovering that I have unknowingly spent several hours in a spiritual zone. I wonder how after consuming so many alcoholic beverages - which had significantly lowered my life force energy, of course - I am still able to find my shoes, put them on, and lace them up with a double loop, all without vomiting on myself in the process. As I wonder around the house I am taken aback by the prolific amount of paintings and miniature rock shrines. And there are flowers - real flowers. Surely the residents are just artsy people, maybe organic hippies at worst. I enter a part of the house that has a strangely business-like feel, like the waiting room of a aging therapist, who, through post-modern furniture arrangement, wants it to be known that aging does not necessarily constitute losing edge.

"So, um, what goes on in here?"
"In here? Oh nothing really: Mayan calendar, Reiki."
"Oh, yeah, of course."
"My roommates are real maestros. I am just a level one."

I still don't know what Reiki is, but I already feel like it is in a large way responsible for the rock shrines and original art. I wonder how many years it will be before I can google shit like this on my cell phone while she is in the bathroom. I decide that it is surely already possible but I just don't have access to the technology. I still can't explain the painting of the green, 50's retro looking housewife with a large, red crustacean in the background The Reiki poster with FAQ that was obviously made for the public is a little easier.

"So, um, do people come here to do/make Reiki?"

I question with hacer instead of practicar or jugar to avoid any presuppositions that whatever goes on in the place is a practice or a game, like the 36 chambers of the Shaolin or Dungeons and Dragons. Although surely if she knew I was thinking "Master Killer" there is no way she could possibly be insulted - repeatedly ringing a bell with a 20 foot, flexible pole is no easy task, after all. A door is opened and inside is seen a padded doctor's (healer's?) table, a closed set of cabinets, undoubtedly filled with Reiki tools and potions, whatever those might be, and some blatantly spiritual paintings on the wall. Whatever goes on in this room is probably pretty low key, so I might as well not get any crazy ideas. I walk out the front door of the building and step into the cab that I have called. The cab driver immediately wants to know what goes on in the only bright orange building in Godoy Cruz, mumbling something about chinos, the Argentine term that means "Chinese" but is used to describe anything (or anyone) from Asia.

"In there? Oh nothing really: Mayan calendar, Reiki."

I can feel my life force energy plummeting as the cab drives further and further away from the spiritual center of the province. I decide that ibuprofen will be my healer.

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The International Center for Reiki Training has a very informative webpage as to the nature of Reiki.

• Reiki is a Japanese technique for stress reduction and relaxation that also promotes healing. It is administered by "laying on hands" and is based on the idea that an unseen "life force energy" flows through us and is what causes us to be alive. If one's "life force energy" is low, then we are more likely to get sick or feel stress, and if it is high, we are more capable of being happy and healthy.

Fair enough. I am left wondering as to the nature of the seemingly excessive and unnecessary quotations (words in quotations = Reiki glossary terms, maybe?), and furthermore unable to treat the phrase "laying on hands" in an non-sexual manner, but other than that everything seems alright. I would probably call "life force energy" "pulse", and "healing" "modern medicine", but I'll roll with it for now.

• A treatment feels like a wonderful glowing radiance that flows through and around you.

Awesome. Sounds like an orgasm. Laying on hands>orgasm>radiance. Sign me up.

• While Reiki is spiritual in nature, it is not a religion. It has no dogma, and there is nothing you must believe in order to learn and use Reiki. In fact, Reiki is not dependent on belief at all and will work whether you believe in it or not. Because Reiki comes from God, many people find that using Reiki puts them more in touch with the experience of their religion rather than having only an intellectual concept of it.

Sometimes people ask, "Are you religious?" The proper response is always, "I'm not religious, I'm spiritual". Basically, when you employ this technique you are giving a big fuck you to organized religion for trying to make you feel guilty about the fact that your idea of spirituality consists of sleeping off a hangover instead of going to church. Spirituality is as personal as you God Damn want it to be, so you don't even have to believe in God to make it work, right? Here is the problem with Reiki, however,i from what I read in the above paragraph: although there is "nothing you must believe in", can you ignore the fact that "Reiki comes from God?". Interesting, no? If I believe that Reiki comes from the collective powers of my now deceased pets from my childhood and completely deny not only God's influence over Reiki but his existence as well, will Reiki still work for me?