When a Sceptic Tries Reiki: An Honest FT Read

An FT Sceptic Tries Reiki: What the Column Reports, and What It Can't Tell Us

An FT wellness sceptic booked two Reiki sessions — here's what she felt, and what it can't prove.

The Financial Times' HTSI section runs a series called "Adventures in Woo-Woo," in which self-described wellness sceptic Jemima Kelly samples practices she is inclined to doubt. In the instalment published on 2 December 2025, she books two Reiki sessions with two different practitioners and reports back honestly on what she felt — and didn't. It is a first-person experience column, not a scientific study, though it does briefly reference one recent paper. For anyone curious about Reiki, it is a useful window into how the practice actually lands on a friendly-but-unconvinced visitor: relaxing, pleasant, and hard to distinguish from a very good massage.

---

Part 1: What the Source Says

Key Points

Part 2: What It Does — and Doesn't — Show

The first thing to be clear about is what kind of source this is. It is a personal-experience column written by a professed sceptic, not a research paper. That gives it a particular value and a particular limit. The value is candour: Kelly is not trying to sell anything, and she reports her sessions plainly, including the parts where she felt nothing dramatic. The limit is that a single writer's afternoon on a treatment table is a story, not a measurement. It cannot establish whether Reiki "works," only how it felt to one honest visitor.

Read that way, the piece separates cleanly into two kinds of statement. On one side are Kelly's own reactions — she relaxed, she dozed off, she left feeling calmer and lighter, and she found two visualisation exercises genuinely useful in daily life. These are real subjective experiences, and there is nothing woolly about feeling settled after an hour of quiet attention. On the other side are the interpretive claims offered around the sessions: that a practitioner is a "conduit," that hands are drawn to particular chakras (チャクラ, energy centres, in the traditional map used by many energy-work styles), that quantum theory allows energy to cross space and time, and that a former client's later pregnancy was a "Reiki baby." Those are beliefs and anecdotes, not demonstrated facts. A single striking anecdote — however moving — is a coincidence in time, not evidence of cause, and it is worth saying plainly that Reiki makes no medical claim over menstruation, fertility or any other condition.

The one piece of formal research the article mentions is handled with appropriate care by Kelly herself. She notes a 2025 paper in the Journal of Pain and Symptom Management in which participants receiving Reiki reported relaxation, reduced symptoms, gratitude and a desire for another session — and she immediately adds that the wider evidence is mixed and that researchers still want more robust, placebo-controlled studies. That caveat matters. Outcomes like "I felt relaxed" or "I felt grateful" are self-reported and highly sensitive to expectation and to simply being cared for. To separate the effect of Reiki from the effect of lying still while a kind person attends to you, a study needs a sham (placebo) control — a fake, indistinguishable version of the treatment — and ideally blinding, so neither participant nor assessor knows who received the real thing. Relaxation-based practices are notoriously hard to blind, which is exactly why the honest scientific summary is cautious.

So what can and cannot be concluded? What the source shows is modest and real: two practitioners offering warm, structured attention; a sceptic who left both sessions relaxed and unburdened; and a small research signal that people find Reiki pleasant and report symptom relief. What it does not show is that Reiki treats, cures or medically alters anything, that its proposed mechanisms are established, or that it does more than a good massage for relaxation — a comparison Kelly makes herself. This mirrors the careful language used by bodies like the US National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH), which describes the evidence for Reiki as limited and inconclusive. Encouraging in places, unproven in others, and best not oversold.

---

Part 3: A Grounded Practitioner's Take

I read a column like this with a lot of sympathy, because the writer is honest, and honesty is where I would want any newcomer to start. She fell asleep, she felt calm, and she wasn't sure the experience was categorically different from a good massage. I think that is a completely fair thing to notice, and I would never argue her out of it.

It also matches my own beginning. After my first attunement — the Level 1 reiju (霊授) — I kept a simple daily routine, about twenty minutes, for two full weeks without missing a day, and honestly I didn't feel much at first. I say that plainly because so many introductions promise instant heat or tingling, and for me nothing dramatic happened in those early weeks. What eventually turned my half-belief into something steadier was not a mystical jolt; it was the quiet, cumulative sense of being a little more settled, day after day. So when a sceptic reports "relaxed, calm, but no fireworks," my reaction is not to insist she missed something. My reaction is: yes, that sounds about right.

Where I would gently add nuance is around expectation. Much of the drama in the FT piece comes from the framing built up around the sessions — conduits, chakras, quantum theory, a "Reiki baby." In the traditional Japanese Usui line I was taught, the practice is far plainer than that. Its spine is the Five Precepts (五戒, Gokai): just for today, do not anger, do not worry, be grateful, work diligently, and be kind to others. There is nothing there to prove and nothing to oversell. Relaxation is the honest, repeatable thing on offer, and a person who leaves a session feeling lighter has received exactly what the practice can reasonably give. Treating that as enough — rather than as a disappointment because no vision appeared — is, to me, the grounded way to hold all of this.

---

FAQ

Q: Does Reiki treat, cure or diagnose medical conditions? A: No. Reiki is not medical care, and nothing in this article should be read as a health claim. What people commonly report — and what the FT writer reports — is relaxation and a feeling of being settled or lighter. Anyone with a health concern should see a qualified medical professional.

Q: Can Reiki really be done over Zoom or at a distance, as one practitioner in the piece does? A: Distant work is a traditional part of the practice and something practitioners genuinely offer; in the article one session is held over video call. That describes a practice, not a proven mechanism. It is best understood experientially, and it carries no promise of any physical or medical outcome.

Q: Is there strong scientific proof that Reiki works? A: Not currently. The article itself notes the evidence is mixed and that more robust, placebo-controlled studies are needed, and careful bodies such as the NCCIH describe the evidence as limited and inconclusive. The honest position is caution rather than either hype or dismissal.

Q: The writer said she mostly just felt relaxed, like a good massage. Is that a failure? A: Not at all. Feeling calm, unburdened and well looked after is a reasonable and common response, and it is roughly what the practice can be expected to offer. Many beginners feel little that is dramatic at first, and that is normal.

---

The Bottom Line

• The source is an honest first-person FT column (2 December 2025) in which a self-described sceptic tries two Reiki sessions and reports feeling relaxed, calm and unburdened — comparable, in her words, to a good massage.
• It briefly cites a 2025 study in which participants reported relaxation and symptom relief, while stressing that the evidence is mixed and that placebo-controlled research is still needed.
• What it genuinely shows is that warm, structured attention leaves people feeling settled; what it cannot show is that Reiki treats, cures or medically changes anything, or that its proposed mechanisms are established.
• A grounded practitioner reads it as fair and unsurprising: relaxation is the honest offering, the elaborate framing is optional, and "no fireworks" is a perfectly normal experience.

In short, the column is a level-headed look at a gentle practice — worth reading precisely because it neither sells nor scoffs.

---

Sources

• Financial Times — "Jemima Kelly tries reiki – the treatment with 'joyraising' powers" (2 December 2025)
• National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH) — "Reiki"