From The Independent on Sunday (on-line edition)
13th March 2005
news.independent.co.uk/uk/health_medical/story.jsp?story=619552


London hospital appoints 'energy channelor' to help young leukaemia patients
with side-effects of chemotherapy

By Julia Stuart

13 March 2005

Graham King stood last week at a hospital bed and placed his hands gently on
the head of a 12-year-old boy suffering from leukemia. He slowly moved his
hands to the boy's chest. Using the power of cosmic energy, Mr. King was
helping to heal him.

In a ground-breaking move to complement conventional cancer treatments, Mr.
King, who has no medical qualifications, has been appointed the first paid
National Health Service healer to help Britain's sick children. With the
blessing of the hospital's senior consultants, Mr. King was laying his hands
on the body of Martin Johnson, who in 2003 was diagnosed with acute
lymphoblastic leukemia that can prove fatal.

He was being treated with Reiki, a type of healing which is believed to have
originated in Tibet thousands of years ago. Practitioners claim to channel
energy into recipients using their hands placed on particular areas of their
body.

Mr. King, 57, is now employed by the pediatric oncology ward, an acute
cancer unit at Middlesex Hospital in London. He treats around eight children
a week during 30-minute sessions, always with consent from parents. Patients
remain fully clothed.

Martin, whose condition has an 80 per cent cure rate, has been receiving
healing since August. An outpatient who is being treated with chemotherapy,
he comes to the hospital twice a month for the complementary therapy for
help with side-effects.

"My mum said it didn't have anything to do with needles, so I thought OK,"
says Martin, who lives in London. "I like it. It releases pain from the
joints and gives you energy throughout the day. It's made quite a big
difference. The side-effects aren't that bad any more. Sometimes you can
imagine colours, sometimes you can twitch a bit."

His mother, Elza Johnson, 52, didn't need to be asked twice when staff
suggested Martin try healing. I thought it was a good idea," says Mrs.
Johnson. "I was really pleased. The steroids have 22 side-effects including
insomnia, mood swings, joint pains and backache. He's having pain relief and
it helps him cope."

Does she think it will cure him? "As a mother I have to try everything. I
believe he will be cured both through Reiki and the medication. If a doctor
doesn't succeed with a certain patient it's not because they can't cure the
disease. They don't succeed because the body is weak and can't take any more
chemotherapy. Reiki is supposed to inject energy into the body."

Ellie Stone, 10, from St Albans, Hertfordshire, who was diagnosed with acute
lymphoblastic leukemia in December, has had three Reiki sessions. Her
father, Chris, 37, a hospital director, says: "It's clear that she finds the
experience relaxing and calming. The treatment lasts two years, and involves
intensive chemo- therapy. Anything that one can do to help the system
through that process we will do."

Staff on the ward requested that Mr. King work with them after seeing the
results he and his wife, Angie Buxton-King, a spiritual healer also funded
by the NHS, had had on adult patients in the hematology department of
University College Hospital.

One was advance nurse practitioner Krissy Nemeth. "The patients raved about
it in hematology, and we would refer some of our children for a session if
they had a needle phobia or were really scared about certain procedures.
Their parents firmly believed in complementary therapy. We then put in a bid
for Graham to work here for two days a week. We see him very much as part of
our team. I wouldn't believe some of the things that I've seen - children
who kick and scream about having a blood test just hold out their arm for a
doctor to take blood after having Reiki. These are children who you couldn't
even walk near. I'm sure there are a lot of doubters out there but there
will always be when it comes to complementary medicine."

Mr. King came across Reiki, which was rediscovered by Dr Mikado Usui in the
19th century, around 13 years ago. Following training, he became a Reiki
master nine years ago and now works full-time as a healer. "Reiki has a way
of relaxing people and helping their body and immune system to cope with the
various treatments," says Mr. King, of Pimlico, Hertfordshire. "We channel
energy. Some children think it's weird at first because they feel extreme
heat in their body. They might feel tingling, they might feel waves in their
body, and they might feel colours."

But does healing really work? Edward Ernst, professor of complementary
medicine at the Peninsula Medical School at Exeter and Plymouth universities
 believes it may well be all in the mind. "The evidence is extremely mixed
for any form of spiritual healing, including Reiki," he says.

HEALING HANDS

* Reiki can be traced back several thousand years - it was practiced in the
Tibetan mountains

* It was revived around 100 years ago by Japanese Christians who suggested
Jesus was a Reiki master

* Believers claim Reiki channels 'chi', the underlying force that guides the
universe, to heal individuals

* The chi is administered by practitioners who pass their hands over
afflicted parts of the body

* Reiki is said to be useful for dulling pain, healing wounds and broken
bones, calming stress and achieving a balanced state

* Animals, plants and 'life situations' can all be dealt with through the
healing hands or crystals used by Reiki masters

* More than 60 million people follow Reiki worldwide and at least a million
practice it. More than 2.6 million WebPages are dedicated to it

* One US group believes Reiki gives its members the power to talk to their
dogs

IJHC - WHR observations
Healers in the UK organized into healing organizations that lobbied the
government and obtained permission for healers to offer healing in hospitals
in the 1970s. This was a governmental (not a medical) authority decision.
Healing is much more accepted in the UK by the medical professions,
particularly at the level of primary care physicians ("General
Practitioners")

See descriptions and explanations of healers around the world, detailing how
they work and how healing works, in Healing Research, V1 - details below.

Daniel J. Benor, MD
Editor, IJHC - WHR
PO Box 502
Medford, NJ 08055
Tel. 877-HEAL-777   (877-432-5777)     609-714-1885
Fax 609-714-3553
DB@WholisticHealingResearch.com

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