The room is an oasis of calm in a bustling church. Just outside the door you can hear children in a day care; inside, only soothing classical music. On three cream-coloured walls, a mural traces a single drop of water to a still pool. It is this serenity, and the healing energy that flows through it, that the people here have come to seek.
At Toronto's St. James United, healing is such a central part of faith that the congregation spent $106,000 two years ago to create a permanent home for a healing ministry.
The Well-Being Place offers a wide range of healing options: Christian meditation, a prayer group, Feldenkrais (a system of movements designed to improve a person's range of motion and decrease stress), and foot-care clinics. But the most popular is Reiki. Appointment times are often filled weeks in advance.
Reiki comes from the Japanese words "rei," which means "universal" and "ki," which means "life energy." Those performing the service place their hands on or above the major energy centres of the recipient's body -- also commonly known by the Sanskrit term chakras, which means "spinning wheel" -- and channel energy through them.
"Think of a funnel with water spinning down it," explains Rev. Coral Prebble. "The recipient is actually in charge. Their body knows how much and where they need this healing energy... and they draw it through us. God is doing the healing in the person; we're simply the vessel through whom God's energy flows."
Prebble is a Reiki master, trained to teach as well as practise it. Fees from beginner classes, along with donations from those who receive free treatment have made the Well-Being Place self-sustaining. In fact, the healing ministry actually raised $10,000 for the church in 2004.
Several who have taken her courses now volunteer their services. Polli Mabel, who co-ordinates the program, says the Reiki team "is a quality of community I've never experienced before," with a "spiritual level to it."
Mabel says that when she does Reiki, she is praying. "I always feel energized." It's one reason Reiki is so appealing. "The energy is drawn into the healer and then overflows out of the heart and down the hands. It's sort of like love -- the more you love, the more loving you become."
Congregational member Betty Thompson, whose "miraculous" experience with Reiki inspired her to get training, now provides Reiki under the mentorship of more experienced practitioners. "When it's all over you just feel really good about what you've been able to do; then you realize you're not the one doing it."
Prebble stresses that Reiki is a complimentary treatment, not a replacement for conventional medicine. "Its goal is to activate the nature of our own healing. It's not always the same as a cure." Still, recipients regularly say they experience less pain and easier sleep. Cancer patients have reported increased blood count levels.
Naturally, there are skeptics in the congregation. But St. James is a church that's "very open to new ideas," says Mabel. "They're comfortable asking questions, and they're comfortable disagreeing, but they're always supportive." And some have even come around after experiencing Reiki for themselves. "We're able to experience the power of God's love flowing through us; and I think they can feel the presence of God."
A recent Observer intern, Sarah McQuillen studies journalism at Carleton University in Ottawa.
