Is Reiki a form of Force power?

Well, Fyxe, I happen to think that we should review all of the claims and all of the evidence, rather than filter only the evidence that "it works" for some unspecified purpose. And, as it stands, there is some evidence that Reiki works as a calming technique, and as a placebo, no evidence that it works as an actual cure of any serious bodily ailments beyond stress-related ones and strong evidence that it is not based on any sort of magical "energy" manipulations either the practitioners or their patients are able to sense.

You are of course free to pick and choose which evidence you like the sound of enough to acknowledge and to ignore all of the rest at your own discretion. What would confuse me about that approach though is why one would bother considering evidence to begin with, if the conclusion one wants to arrive at is already determined in advance and evidence is not a factor that could change the course of thought - if one dare even call it so - anyway...

Fyxe wrote: I determine that it is a force power because I believe in the evidence that it works and I call that power the force!

Often times it’s testimony vs research. Both just as valid as the other when it comes to personal choices.

Carlos.Martinez3 wrote: Often times it’s testimony vs research. Both just as valid as the other when it comes to personal choices.

False. Both are just as influential over personal choices as the other, but they are not equally valid at all.

One of them carries minimal information with maximal bias even assuming honest reporting (and what a generous grant that is!), while the other is some attempt at actually evaluating the options with as much fairness as can be mustered, with some effort at minimizing biases and seeking out as much information relevant to the decision at hand before making it.
One of them is an open invitation for and embrace of ignorance while the other is a search for and accumulation of knowledge.
One of them is an indulgence toward passion, while the other is an exercise in patience and reservedness.
One of them is in opposition to the Code by just about any reading of it that respects the wording at all, the other is in line with it...

Nuff said...

Gisteron wrote:

Carlos.Martinez3 wrote: Often times it’s testimony vs research. Both just as valid as the other when it comes to personal choices.

False. Both are just as influential over personal choices as the other, but they are not equally valid at all.

One of them carries minimal information with maximal bias even assuming honest reporting (and what a generous grant that is!), while the other is some attempt at actually evaluating the options with as much fairness as can be mustered, with some effort at minimizing biases and seeking out as much information relevant to the decision at hand before making it.
One of them is an open invitation for and embrace of ignorance while the other is a search for and accumulation of knowledge.
One of them is an indulgence toward passion, while the other is an exercise in patience and reservedness.
One of them is in opposition to the Code by just about any reading of it that respects the wording at all, the other is in line with it...

Nuff said...

To you ...that’s how you see it - and that’s ok too. I totally understand your side, I don’t share it but I don’t have to for you to be valid.

There's a difference in "valid" as a socially affirming statement and a scientific one. I agree with Gist on this one. You can't just "both sides" science like that.

Well I dont follow science and I dont think research means much when the researchers just decide whatever they want and then tell us what we should believe. I think experience is much stronger than those. I have been meditating in this a great deal and I have found a very personal and strong path the the power of the force with the help of many friends that have shown me those paths here. So for you to tell me this place does not believe in the force is just a lie. So why should I think about other things you say?

Fyxe wrote: Well I dont follow science and I dont think research means much when the researchers just decide whatever they want and then tell us what we should believe.

Uuuummm...wow, just... This statement and the attitude it represents kind of explains a lot about you. I'm a faithful sort, at this point I'm decidedly more of a Jediist than a Jedi Realist, but, I can't defend this, man.

The Jedi of fiction, whom you purport to aspire to directly, literally emulating? They didn't reject science, like, at all.

Also, science is how this conversation is even possible, right now.

Do you want to, maybe, reconsider your choice of words/attitude, here? Maybe think about them, and how well they actually align with your path??

Fyxe, science is not separate from experience. Science requires experimentation (the testing of an idea) and analysis of the results of experimentation. If you have an idea and you try to see if it works and compare it to other ideas that have similar results, that is science. Science is not just scientists making things up, it is the analysis of the phenomenal world -- something of vital importance to understanding the Force. The Force does not stand in opposition to science; it is inseparable from it.

Fyxe wrote: Well I dont follow science and I dont think research means much when the researchers just decide whatever they want and then tell us what we should believe.

That is literally the exact opposite of what science is. It is, however, exactly what you're doing. You're ignoring evidence to believe in whatever you want.

Fyxe wrote: So for you to tell me this place does not believe in the force is just a lie. So why should I think about other things you say?

Another baseless accusation. I don't believe anyone has told you that 'the force is just a lie'. What we've told you is that we don't agree with you're understanding of the force because it is a carbon copy of the one from the movies and has no bearing in reality or rationality.

I honestly can't tell if you're deliberately oblivious to the evidence presented to you, if the discourse here is too nuanced for you to comprehend, or if you're just a troll.

Either way, 4-5 people here have repeatedly and patiently answered your question over several days and across several threads, often providing sources or objective reasoning to assist your understanding. You have pretty much disregarded everything they have said, often accusing of them of saying things they never said, telling them they are 'not real jedi' and suggesting that they shouldn't be here.

Engaging in this conversation any further is beyond pointless. I'm out.

Peace and love people x

Carlos.Martinez3 wrote: I totally understand your side, I don’t share it but I don’t have to for you to be valid.

You are right, we don't have to be anything alike. I can carry on respecting the Code, you can carry on rejecting it. I have no investment in your attitude towards it, it is not any of my business.

Fyxe wrote: Well I dont follow science and I dont think research means much when the researchers just decide whatever they want and then tell us what we should believe.

Politicians tell you what you should believe. Preachers tell you what you should believe. Researchers have more pressing things to worry about than what you happen to believe. But, yes, they are people, and they do make decisions just like the rest of us mortals do. Research, however, is not decision making, it is investigating.
Now I can't speak about liberal arts, gender studies, or English literature, where "true from a certain point of view" is so much of a normal and routine approach to making assertions that randomly generated articles can make it past peer review, but as a physicist I can tell you it takes unspeakable amounts of effort to get anything published. Your article has to be well cited, your claim has to be original and profound, your theoretical derivations sound yet comprehensibly simple, your experimental data positively indicative of your claim to a statistical significance economists wouldn't dare dream about and if you want it to be a journal that academic libraries broadly subscribe to you had better present some impactful technological implications even if all you do is fundamental science...

So no... It's not just the researchers "deciding what ever they want". Were I more of a man of passion the sheer arrogance of that portrayal would surely infuriate me. Nor is it about what you should believe. Do feel free to blabber on using your microprocessor computer to speak to people on the other side of the globe about how garbage the very thing is that has gifted you such marvels of technology.

So for you to tell me this place does not believe in the force is just a lie. So why should I think about other things you say?

Technically it is not a lie. Places do not believe things, people do. And as many said before and as I summarized recently myself, different people believe different things. Nobody made a claim about what everybody here does or does not believe, because nobody here was elected to speak on behalf of the rest. The only one lying, frankly, is you, as you say what people told you when they didn't. Now, why should you think about anything anybody says? Well, nothing can oblige you. Feel free to not think, if that is how you'd rather carry on. At the risk of sounding rude or mean, I'm at this point not entirely certain as to how grave a loss that would really be for anyone...

Gisteron wrote: At the risk of sounding rude or mean, I'm at this point not entirely certain as to how grave a loss that would really be for anyone...

Yea, okay, that was a bit too much. I apologize...

Gisteron wrote:

Carlos.Martinez3 wrote: I totally understand your side, I don’t share it but I don’t have to for you to be valid.

You are right, we don't have to be anything alike. I can carry on respecting the Code, you can carry on rejecting it. I have no investment in your attitude towards it, it is not any of my business.

Fyxe wrote: Well I dont follow science and I dont think research means much when the researchers just decide whatever they want and then tell us what we should believe.

Politicians tell you what you should believe. Preachers tell you what you should believe. Researchers have more pressing things to worry about than what you happen to believe. But, yes, they are people, and they do make decisions just like the rest of us mortals do. Research, however, is not decision making, it is investigating.
Now I can't speak about liberal arts, gender studies, or English literature, where "true from a certain point of view" is so much of a normal and routine approach to making assertions that randomly generated articles can make it past peer review, but as a physicist I can tell you it takes unspeakable amounts of effort to get anything published. Your article has to be well cited, your claim has to be original and profound, your theoretical derivations sound yet comprehensibly simple, your experimental data positively indicative of your claim to a statistical significance economists wouldn't dare dream about and if you want it to be a journal that academic libraries broadly subscribe to you had better present some impactful technological implications even if all you do is fundamental science...

So no... It's not just the researchers "deciding what ever they want". Were I more of a man of passion the sheer arrogance of that portrayal would surely infuriate me. Nor is it about what you should believe. Do feel free to blabber on using your microprocessor computer to speak to people on the other side of the globe about how garbage the very thing is that has gifted you such marvels of technology.

So for you to tell me this place does not believe in the force is just a lie. So why should I think about other things you say?

Technically it is not a lie. Places do not believe things, people do. And as many said before and as I summarized recently myself, different people believe different things. Nobody made a claim about what everybody here does or does not believe, because nobody here was elected to speak on behalf of the rest. The only one lying, frankly, is you, as you say what people told you when they didn't. Now, why should you think about anything anybody says? Well, nothing can oblige you. Feel free to not think, if that is how you'd rather carry on. At the risk of sounding rude or mean, I'm at this point not entirely certain as to how grave a loss that would really be for anyone...

Different interpretation of the codes doesnt make it rejecting or wrong only a different approach to what is present. Sorry you think that.

Making practices that others dont choose or understand does not make them wrong or invalid. Some day, I hope all Jeddsit can come to terms with this.
The fight is never us vs 7.7 billion. It may seem that way but most time the battles are 1 on 1 most time. Us vs us. Happy seeking as always and may the Force be with y'all.

Thank you carlos.

https://www.templeofthejediorder.org/forum/Clergy/115769-the-block?start=360#344402

And Fyxe , you are welcome. I may not be like you but as a Jeddist - we are the same. We have the same faith, it’s our practices and ways that are different , that’s all. Too easy. Hope this can help.
Force keep ya !

If we’re breaking into camps, im firmly in the one that prioritizes research over anecdote. To be blunt, i see people as being foolish who hold opinions on topics without consulting what scientific inquiry has produced on said topic. People who claim to be interested in truth are deluding themselves if they claim this while disregarding science. This being said, research doesn't yet have all the answers to all the questions and limiting your opinion so that you merely echo the conclusions of the current literature on a topic is almost as fallacious as ignoring the research altogether.

I deal with a lot of research papers in the realms of exercise/fitness and various social sciences. In both realms there is a constant issue of the disconnect between the researchers and the real world applications and implications of the topic. Using exercise science as my example, meatheads usually don't have the academic backgrounds to hold their own in a university level research paper but generations of participation and coaching in all kinds of youth, amateur and professional athletics and in (olympic) weight-lifting, body-building, strong-man, and power lifting competitions have produced an incredible amount of anecdotal evidence from personal, practical experience and observation that often utterly eclipses the understanding of the eggheads in the lab. Smart as the researchers are, they have missed the boat by a wide margin many of times because their purely academic perceptions of the topics are not up to par with the realities of what happens on the field or in the gym and over years of exposure to many types of progressive overload.

We’ve entered era of the evidence-based-practice and this is definitely a good thing. The part of the fitness world that i pay attention to is heavily influenced by guys like Brad Schoenfeld, Eric Helms, Mike Israetel, Bret Contreras, Greg Nukols, and others who are both eggheads (with very respectable academic backgrounds) AND meatheads (with impressive lifts and/or competitive records). The “bro-science” of the past generations is being tested constantly. Some ideas have been exposed as myth or misunderstanding. Other things are holding up pretty well. I want to emphasize that this post isnt in any way meant as an indictment or negation of the importance of research.

So what is the point i want to make here? Well, two of the most important rules in lifting are to always be aware of the risks inherent in what youre doing and to jump in and do things until you find out what works for you. At the end of the day it’s your personal experience that proves or disproves the efficacy of a protocol. Research should absolutely help inform us but its not supposed to be a substitute to personal and practical experience and judgment, especially in areas and topics (such as Reiki) where there still isn't much research thats even been conducted.

“ Its your personal experience that proves or disproves the efficacy of a protocol. Research should absolutely help inform us but its not supposed to be a substitute to personal and practical experience and judgment, especially in areas where there still isn't very much research thats even been conducted to begin with.”

Thank you for this.

Carlos.Martinez3 wrote: Different interpretation of the codes doesnt make it rejecting or wrong only a different approach to what is present. Sorry you think that.

No, of course not. I mean, who is to say what "There is no passion, there is serenity" really means? Maybe it is instructing us to abandon any notion of considering the situation and just act out of passion instead. Who is to say that that is not what it means, right? Or when the Code says "Ignorance, yet knowledge" maybe what it really instructs us to do is ignore any and all knowledge that has been gathered on a subject, even what one was informed about, go with poorly informed gut feeling instead and never ever seize any opportunity to learn. Who really knows. Woe is narrow-minded, nay, close-minded me, who thinks that maybe, just maybe, not every interpretation is equally compatible with the text being interpreted. Take pity on me, o wise master, for I know not of what I speak... Who is to say that anything is correct or not, mayhaps all things are after all just "their own individual kind of correct", and nothing need be taught but all can be made up. Nothing is true, everything is permitted. To hell with harmony, let chaos commence! For that too is just another perspective, is it not? Just another perfectly "valid", perfectly Code-friendly way of doing the "Jeddism" thing, is it not?


Nobody, I hope, walks away with the impression that I was advocating a kind of zealous True Jediism^TM here. In this very thread I've said and would gladly repeat that there may not be, really, even isn't a single way we all believe or a single perspective we all hold.
To me this means that we might challenge each other, learn from each other, grow individually and collectively enabled and enriched by the differences between us. If we thought like this, though, that would actually make the terms we apply to ourselves meaningless. Fyxe would have a point, if this thoroughly anarchic lack of principles was what we broadly went by - if one could even call it a going as opposed to a directionless wandering.

Carlos.Martinez3 wrote: “ Its your personal experience that proves or disproves the efficacy of a protocol. Research should absolutely help inform us but its not supposed to be a substitute to personal and practical experience and judgment, especially in areas where there still isn't very much research thats even been conducted to begin with.”

Thank you for this.

Keep in mind though that (as Gisteron has mentioned numerous times) people are notoriously bad at accurately evaluating personal experiences. We tend to determine based on how we feel, rather than on tangible, objective measurements and this compromises the accuracy of our judgments in all kinds of ways. Its a conundrum, lol. Remember that im drawing on exercise (particularly lifting) as my basic frame of reference in this discussion. In lifting we use objective measurements such the amount of weight on the bar, the amount of reps performed, the speed with which we move the weight or the amount of time we support the weight, etc. We have concrete numbers that we use in order to justify our conclusions; its not just our feels about the experience.

Lots of we s - some day the we may become the me. “We” can give answers defiantly for us but... for only us. I see where you say it’s not just “our feelings”that experience things. Uncultivated character can yield fruit just as sure as planted and tended but there’s a difference. Not wrong ever. The two fruits or the differences are never wrong, just not for some. That’s all - no beef. There are more options. Many if you like.. or don’t like, up to you.

OB1Shinobi wrote: If we’re breaking into camps, im firmly in the one that prioritizes research over anecdote. To be blunt, i see people as being foolish who hold opinions on topics without consulting what scientific inquiry has produced on said topic ... This being said, research doesn't yet have all the answers to all the questions and limiting your opinion so that you merely echo the conclusions of the current literature on a topic is almost as fallacious as ignoring the research altogether.

... At the end of the day it’s your personal experience that proves or disproves the efficacy of a protocol. Research should absolutely help inform us but its not supposed to be a substitute to personal and practical experience and judgment, especially in areas and topics (such as Reiki) where there still isn't much research thats even been conducted.

Thank you for that, OB1Shinobi. I'd abandoned this thread for a bit, as the posts were getting too numerous and long for me to keep up. But yours is a point I was trying but apparently failing to make. Perhaps my phrasing just wasn't accurately conveying what I was thinking.

As an aside, I gleaned something else from your post. One of these years pretty soon, I will likely be retiring from my current career. I've had a lifelong interest in fitness, and as a post-retirement activity I'm at least lightly kicking around the idea of becoming a trainer, with a focus on assisting people 50 years and up. I am totally unfamiliar with those experts you mentioned, so am going to write down their names and do some research!

Edit: after going back a couple of pages in this thread - and despite that in my earlier posts I was trying to assert the value of personal experience relative to, but not in place of, science - I am kind of alarmed to see implied claims that science is of little value and inherently reflects the biases of researchers. Individual studies can reflect such a bias, but that is why scientists demand replication; the motives of one fraud are not the same as those of a dozen other sincere researchers.

I know a segment of our society views scientific inquiry as lacking value, and we suffer for that. Arguably, the fate of our planet depends heavily upon displacing that point of view.