Touch, pain reduction was reported after an average of 6.4 sessions.

How is energy healing believed to work?

I like to use the metaphor of a ladder, with each step providing a higher and eider view. On one step are electromagnetic fields generated by an energy healer's hands - fields that research shows cam resonate with and change plant, animal and human cells. The energy of the healer's hands interacts with the energy of the patient and they respond to each other - something akin to two tuning forks resonating with each other.

          Is there any scientific proof that energy healing is effective?

As a trained scientist, I started out as a skeptic, but after conducting research in energy healing for 10 years, I am certain that energy plays a role in health and healing.

          One remarkable experiment that helped convince me that energy healing is real was conducted here at the University of Arizona and published in the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine.

          In the experiment, rats were subjected to daily stress from noise. One group of rats was treated with Reiki. Another group of rats was ''treated'' by fake energy healers who stood in front of the animals' cages moving their arms in a way that mimicked the outward actions of the Reiki practitioners but with no intention to heal the rats.

          At the end of the study, the rats treated with Reiki had significantly less stress-caused damage to small blood vessels. This study showed quote convincingly that energy healing is real - because with rats, there is no placebo effect.

          Dozens of studies on humans have shown that energy healing, in the form of Reiki and Healing Touch, has improved such medical conditions as pain, wound healing and high blood pressure.

          If the evidence is strong, why is there such widespread skepticism about energy healing?

          There are several reasons. Many people tend to think of the world in material terms, as opposed to invisible, energetic terms. These individuals may not have grown up with cell phones and satellite TV or with the reality that there are unseen energies all around is that convey information. Also, the first energy healers tended to be ''New Agers''. Some were frauds and made outlandish claims - and people threw out the baby with the bathwater.

          There are also powerful economic forces, such as those wielded by the pharmaceutical industry, that have a vested interest in not accepting a non drug methodology that can reduce and, in some cases, eliminate the need for drugs.

          New scientific ideas are always met with resistance, but I believe there will be a paradigm shift in  which energy healing is accepted and becomes widely practiced by health professionals.

          Why do critics of energy