The Result of Our Story

and yet something that exists within each and every one of us as the spark of our own divinity.

What truly matters when it comes to illness is that the interplay of this primal energy combined with science-based practices has shown to produce incredible results. After my long years of working with surgeons, my practice has come to be known as Medical Reiki (M.R.). My job is to use my hands as the delivery system of the life force energy depleted by illness that a doctor’s patient requires for their complete healing. It is an honor to bring this primal spirit of love and compassion into medicine as an aid to medical patients as they receive the treatments administered by their doctors.

The book you are reading right now is my personal call to action. It is presenting a new integrative protocol for patient care in modern medicine, and like Dr. Bernie Siegel before me had to defend his work described in Love, Medicine & Miracles, I too will be called upon to defend my words and work. However, in my case, it is made even more difficult because there is no MD at the end of my name; yet I am seriously committed to my cause.

What I offer in my practice is not a cure; it is the gentle transference of the loving energy of the Universe through my hands into doctors’ patients—energy that brings them calm, hope, confidence, self-love, and many other positive physical reactions that will be explained more fully in the upcoming chapters. Medical Reiki is an energy that has shown to help those enduring illness in extraordinary ways when combined with conventional medicine. What we have found through joining the two is that illness can be a turning point of remarkable transformation, and transformation is what combining Reiki and science is really all about.

Who this Book Is For

This book is written for those seeking assistance and support as they go through medical procedures, for doctors, for medical professionals, and for Reiki practitioners. Dis-ease takes place on so many different levels—it is not always a scientifically provable event. In the exploration of illness, its treatment throughout the ages and where we are right now, my book is written for patients and their families, doctors, surgeons, medical students, nurses, Reiki practitioners, health care providers, and anyone with an interest in finding out how Medical Reiki can bring solace and aid into modern medicine. I’m building a case so patients can receive the help they need in the face of illness, accident, and catastrophic disease—an aid that is not currently readily available to them. Everything presented herein is to support the dream of this spiritual energy medicine being made available to anyone enduring the often-daunting allopathic medical interventions necessary in today’s world.

Why Medical Reiki?

Albert Einstein’s famous Theory of Special Relativity states that energy and matter are interchangeable and are forever in play with one another. Medical Reiki is the energy in the Universe underlying all of life that positively affects matter (the human body) with the inherent power of its love. When I share my practice with a person who is ill, the infusion of primal universal energy is restorative.

Medical Reiki activates the parasympathetic nervous system, which induces calm, creating balance and priming the body to receive the medical treatments administered by doctors at the highest level necessary to combat disease. What this means is that

an autonomic response is triggered in the body that activates the hormones of “rest and restore.” The medical treatments the doctors are administering are then empowered because the body is reminded how to actively heal itself, creating better results.

Patients deserve every possible chance to regain their health, and starting in the year 2000, I, along with renowned surgeons and doctors, have witnessed what my practice in combination with allopathic medicine can do in the harsh reality of operating rooms. For me, seeing the results of Medical Reiki during surgery is the foundation of my devotion to the mission of improving patient care for those who require medical interventions.

Illness is complicated in both causes and treatment plans. Yet dis-ease, with the proper support, can become the discovery point of one’s internal home, a place that exists beyond sickness, and outside the demands that daily life places upon us. To bring understanding to this point of discovery, in contrast to books you may have read by doctors and researchers who share the science in spirituality, my book works to present the spirituality in science. Personal observations have shown that by marrying spirituality and science, a person who is ill is given the opportunity to move forward with grace toward true health—and can even discover a destiny to fulfill once the medical treatments are over. I point this out because in my career of bringing Medical Reiki to allopathic medicine, I’ve witnessed the miracle of patients journeying deep within and uncovering their soul’s longing to contribute to the world at large in a meaningful way.

I believe with my whole heart that everyone going through illness must be afforded the opportunity to not just survive their treatments, but to thrive in a new way after the treatments are

over. Thus, by explaining what spiritual energy medicine is, and what it has shown to do, we can hopefully all join hands and become willing partners in an evolution in patient care.

At the center of this forever-unfolding story is Fern, the sister of internationally celebrated breast cancer surgeon Dr. Sheldon Marc Feldman. During her illness, Fern exampled with her own life the deep significance of adding complementary practices to conventional care when facing disease. She opened doors in Dr. Feldman’s heart that led across a threshold into integrative medicine.

So how and why did I become part of their story?

My Path to Medical Reiki

In the year 2000, I took one step into a hospital that launched an unintentional career as a Reiki master working alongside worldrenowned surgeons in New York City hospitals. Although I never wanted to bring what I do into medicine, because of my love for one client who needed open-heart surgery, I ended up in the operating room. In spite of my own personal challenges and serious dislike of the hospital environment, this one surgical event led to an invitation to join a research team at NewYork-Presbyterian/ Columbia University Irving Medical Center and to more trips into operating rooms.

I have no medical training of any kind. I’ve never liked hospitals, especially because many of my loved ones have died in them. I hate the sight of blood and am squeamish to a fault. So why did I bother to challenge myself to face what was so difficult for me?

Disease strips away barriers and plummets a person into their own raw truth. Whenever I looked into the eyes of a human being who was terrified by what was before them in terms of surgeries

and medical treatments, my heart told me I had to test my own mettle. It was already obvious to me from all the work I had done in my private practice that Reiki could make a world of difference to those who suffered. And I suppose on some level I might have suspected these invitations were somehow connected to my life’s purpose. If I was to fulfill this destiny that seemed to be forming itself before my feet, I had to surrender to my fate and take the challenging path into the unknown. I never realized at the time that I was being guided to build the groundwork for something important that needed to happen in the future.

Although from the beginning it took every bit of courage and all my devotion to walk forward into providing Reiki in the hardcore reality of an operating room, I just couldn’t turn away from it. I knew I was being given the opportunity to assist those facing their darkest hours. So I pulled up my bootstraps, stood up to my fears and trepidations, and entered a world that was foreign, upsetting, and at times even terrifying to me.

After witnessing what happens to a human being during surgery, I couldn’t help but wonder how anyone could possibly get through it all and still remain whole. No matter how brilliant a surgeon and surgical team may be, we are each one of us more than just bits and pieces to be removed, rearranged, and medicated. There are deeper parts of us that are affected by surgery and medical treatments, like our emotions, mind, and spirit. We need and deserve proper support when we endure what can be harsh in the treatment of traumatic injury or disease, whether we are awake or under anesthesia.

Things took another unexpected turn when Dr. Sheldon Marc Feldman invited me to bring Reiki to aid and comfort his breast

cancer patients, and that’s where I entered the integrative medicine dream Dr. Feldman had inherited from his sister Fern. My work with him has become the central theme of my life for more than ten years at this writing.

Because Dr. Feldman is a breast cancer surgeon, my “specialty” has become one of bringing Reiki to those who suffer with that disease. It is always an honor to be there with the loving power of Medical Reiki for a woman going into a mastectomy surgery one way and coming out another. How can she find her way through such a radical change to her physical body without powerful support? The surgical team removes parts of her connected to what it means to be a woman, a mother, a sexual being: a whole person. Without strong assistance, breast cancer surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation can be traumatic and leave long-lasting post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), with its negative emotional and mental effects. What we have seen is that Medical Reiki before, during, and after surgery creates a very different experience for a woman, easing her toward acceptance with hope and vision for her own future—because Reiki reminds us of the deeper truth and majesty of life.

It’s true that I didn’t have any training to bring Reiki into an operating room. I believe it was a destiny assigned to me. Someone else might have felt exalted when asked to work with surgeons in this way. I, on the other hand, had moments of sheer terror. It was overwhelming for me to be in operating rooms to begin with, and standing next to revered, medical icons was beyond intimidating!

I believe I was given this assignment because my apprehension made it possible for me to bring my attention into a quiet space deep within while absorbing as much information as I possibly

could from what was going on around me. And because I was invited into this world by rock-star surgeons with an interest in finding out how energy medicine could help their patients, as long as I paid attention and didn’t do anything wrong, I would never be thrown out. As time went by and knowledge of my presence in operating rooms became more well-known, kind individuals on surgical teams even began to share information that informed my understanding of how I could best serve them as a member of their team.

The work Dr. Feldman and I have been doing has brought science and the mystical underlying essence of life we call spiritual together in the creation of a different kind of experience for medical patients. I couldn’t have imagined as we started working together that a day would come when I would be given a challenge I thought was beyond my capabilities. Yet Dr. Feldman was there to lend me his support when I was asked to translate everything I had learned about working in the operating theater into a teaching program that would launch a worldwide movement for better patient care.

What You’ll Find Here

I present herein what I have observed with my own eyes, along with existing science that supports these observations. My spiritual workings, meditations, and prayers have brought forth deeper insights into just how powerful the intervention of M.R. is for living beings on the spiritual, emotional, and mental levels of life as they go through medical treatments. I’ve watched it induce calm, relieve symptoms, ignite hope, inspire new ways to live, and bring a higher quality of life to patients, all of which lead to better out-

comes. It has positive effects not just on the patient, but also supports everyone on a surgical team, or in any medical venue where it is being administered. It is gentle, full of love, brings comfort, and has no negative side effects.

I believe wholeheartedly in integrative medicine—I work with surgeons and medical professionals, but many doctors throughout the world either don’t know about Medical Reiki, or don’t realize how much this practice can help their patients in support of their important work. For that reason, I am here to share all I know about how to prevent the shattering that extreme medical treatments can have upon a patient’s mind and emotions. The practice of Medical Reiki helps to prevent that shattering and works to restore the human spirit. It is a practice made of love—not as an emotion, but as the underlying power that exists in all of life.

The most important thing in my heart is to let medical patients know they don’t have to go through everything alone. M.R. during surgery and in other procedures has shown to provide patients benefits not just on the physical plane, but ignites peace, courage, hope, self-love, elevated spirit, and much more. I can never give up on the quest to have this glorious aid available for everyone suffering through illness, when facing her or his darkest hours. Medical Reiki is a light in the darkness for someone who suffers.

If you or someone you love has been diagnosed with a serious condition, I know how you are feeling right now. I myself was extremely ill for years, resulting in a complicated robotic surgery with the assistance of Medical Reiki. In addition, I have held in my arms many others who have been in your shoes. I fully understand that to be ill is a place like no other. Your whole world is turned

upside down and your heart longs only for whatever will make you better.

In the throes of illness, it is possible with the proper support to calmly re-evaluate your life and make changes to create a future that has real meaning for you. Medical Reiki holds you up as you step into the revolutionary experience that illness can bring. It is a stepping-stone to something better and stronger than you might be able to imagine in the face of a serious diagnosis.

At this moment in time as we await more rigorous research results, only certain doctors are aware of Medical Reiki. Because you may have to help your doctor understand why you want to have this practice added to your treatment protocol, I am going to provide you with information on the history of medicine, background about how Reiki came into existence, science that supports it, and cases that show how it has helped others.

Dr. Feldman and I are working together on rigorous scientific study with the goal of establishing evidence-based proof of Medical Reiki’s efficacy in use with conventional medicine. However, the broader knowledge about the beauty and power of this practice will not spread throughout the world because of published research in medical journals alone. I am sharing what I know in order to educate patients and doctors. My hope for this book is to inspire human beings to demand the care they deserve, and for medical professionals to allow patients to have it.

Ultimately, we are all in this together—patients, family members, doctors, and practitioners alike—and in unity we have the power to create better patient care by envisioning a different future. Doorways open in our imaginings when we consider how

treatment went for us when we were ill, or how things could have been better when a loved one was facing a health dilemma.

Even though in this moment we may not be able to see the totality of what the future of better patient care will eventually look like as M.R. extrapolates into the medical world in the coming years, our deep consideration of possibilities and ways we can envision working together can make the dream for a better way forward a reality. It will take all of us working together to make this happen, but I can attest to the fact that it will be well worth our efforts if we can ease human suffering.

In his 1939 address at Princeton’s Theological Seminary, Albert Einstein said, “The ancients knew something that we seem to have forgotten: that all means are but a blunt instrument if they do not have a living spirit behind them.”2 By supplying information about Medical Reiki, I hope to show the living spirit we can ignite in modern medicine for the sake of those who suffer from disease or injury. I likewise hope to inspire thoughts and dreams of a better way forward in all those who care for anyone who needs medical attention.

How to Use this Book

Before we dive into what you’ll find throughout these pages, allow me to clarify some basic definitions of terminology you’ll come across throughout the book:

2. Albert Einstein, “Special Collections,” Princeton University Library, https:// library.princeton.edu/special-collections/topics/einstein-albert.

• Patient or Patients throughout this book means the patient or patients of a medical doctor or doctors. I do not have patients; those in my care are my clients. • Medical Reiki (M.R.) as used throughout this book refers to the specific protocol and practice I created from my decades of experience working in operating rooms and in other medical settings as a Usui Reiki Master. • RKMRI ™ is the trademark abbreviation of Raven Keyes

Medical Reiki InternationalTM, the company created at the request of a surgeon to formally protect the purity of the

Gold Standards and Best Practices I developed to safely bring Reiki into the medical setting. The protection of its purity is paramount for Medical Reiki to become part of standard medical care.

• RMT is a Reiki Master Teacher and practitioner. They have been attuned and certified to the third/master level of Reiki.

• CMRM™ is the trademark abbreviation of Certified Medical Reiki MasterTM, one who is trained in the RKMRI protocol and upholds its Gold Standards and Best Practices in medical settings. All Certified Medical Reiki Masters have their own liability insurance, know how to adhere to hospital protocol, and are HIPAA compliant. • Medical Reiki Master in this book is a shortened version of Certified Medical Reiki MasterTM and falls under its protected status.

• CMRMT ™ is the trademark abbreviation of Certified Medical Reiki Master Teacher, one who is trained and certi-