10 Most Mind Numbingly Stupid Alternative Medicines

Reiki is a traditional Japanese healing technique that is supposed to manipulate the chi or "life force energy" that flows through the human body. Apparently, this energy is the key to life and if it is particularly low it can lead to all sorts of mental and physical health problems.

Luckily, if you do ever experience a dip in your chi, there are plenty of people willing to let you pay them to fix it up all smart for you.

The usual technique involves "laying on hands" in order to sense and manipulate changes in your chi and channel "positive energy". This is usually accompanied by an "aura cleansing" during which your esteemed reiki practitioner will untangle all of those pesky knots in your aura.

One flaw you eagle-eyed readers may have already spotted, is that "chi" and "auras" aren't actually a thing, making them somewhat trickier to work with.

All of the effects of reiki have been generally accepted by the scientific community to be, a placebo effect. There is some evidence to suggest that the "energy" transfers experienced by reiki patients are simply the pleasurable tingles that many people get in response to light touching.