I thought reiki was nonsense. Then this happened.

‘Just Let Go,’ she said. But could I?

#11. Reiki Massage

Reiki: Meaning ‘spiritually guided life force energy’; the mysterious Japanese art of massage without touch, manipulating qi, aura, esoteric forces to promote feelings of inner harmony and peace.

BZZZT!

‘Come up to the third floor.’

I was at a business centre in Kent. It was like every industrial estate ever built, squat red-brick buildings storing bare white walls and cheap plastic chairs. It had taken me two hours of crushing M25 traffic to get there. I headed upstairs and pushed past an MDF door into a small, dimly lit room. I could still hear business calls being hustled in the hallway.

I blinked in the sanctuary of the office space, cluttered with crystals and dreamcatchers like a student dorm. A diminutive, rabbity woman with startled eyes and a snuffling nature – Claire – beckoned me to her computer. She probed me about my life and happiness, like a therapist. We shared feelings about a mutual friend who had recommended the session to me; then I remembered the friend had once mentioned something about a therapist pushing her towards tantric massage, and I wished I’d remembered that earlier.

‘You have to park your logic,’ Claire explained, ‘and surrender.’

I lay on the massage table as she put some music on. It was a genre my wife calls breathy white-girl music – all slow ukeleles and lamenting, usually reserved for cover songs on adverts.

The massage had a little bit of everything – crystals, shamanism, aromatherapy. I could feel a comforting heat where her hands were gliding over my body. Under the blanketing warmth and the tinkle of wind chimes, I drifted into a state of semi-consciousness. I travelled back to when I was young and carefree, to one of my first parties, at Jenny Knight’s house, with Usher’s album on repeat, kissing my first girlfriend, when things where new and exciting. If felt a freedom and an optimism that I hadn’t for a long time.

And there was kindness in that room. One of the songs warbled, ‘I’ll hold you in my arms, hold you ‘til you’re…’, and I’d wondered what the next word would be. Gone? Being some kind of song about death or loneliness?

It was calm.

This was a safe, gentle space.

I was catatonic; it passed in a blur. I have to say it was probably one of the most relaxing massages I’ve ever had – except for one minor point WHICH PAID SUBSCRIBERS CAN FIND OUT ABOUT BELOW.

Afterwards, Claire debriefed me. She’d noticed I hadn’t quite let go and surrendered.

I needed to do something, she explained, to be more grounded, less stuck in my head, to let go of whatever it is sitting inside me that I ruminate on, keeping it there. I could play a musical instrument, or walk barefoot outside. This seemed like pretty sound advice, though she also told me she got joyful visions of Fantastic Mr Fox by my feet, so, you know.

She told me about an experiment by some Japanese bloke, who said either nice or harsh words to water then froze it and looked at it under a microscope; the insulted water was shattered, apparently. The researcher was probably sensitive himself to harsh words from others, having spouted such absolute fucking bollocks his entire life. But the lesson stuck with me; my words, kind or harsh, surely have an effect on those I love. I changed a bit that day.

After another two and a half hours on the M25, I took my shoes and socks off and walked barefoot on the farmland outside my house. It really did help.

What about you - would you let go of your reason and give reiki a chance?

Paid subscribers get all the juicy tea. Including a bonus detail about this story below. What made this reiki massage less enjoyable than it could have been?