How does Reiki work?

I was talking about this with my friend Jules,(a mechanical engineer, logical mind, or so it's rumoured) a couple of months ago, after I'd done a ten-minute Reiki session on her.

She was in pain and anxious after a paper cut to her eye, but the pain subsided and she felt serene after the session. Her comment was that it was very different from Pilates, which has scientific basis; in fact it was so far over the Rainbow of New Age therapies, it was positively wacky. And yet she agreed, thankfully, that it worked.

Well I can't pull out any empirical evidence for Reiki and healing: all I can talk about is my subjective experience. With gentle touch alone, I have helped heal sprained ankles, back muscle strain, sore necks and shoulders. I've prevented migraines. I've released tight hamstrings, and relieved a stiff and aching 65 year ankle. I have weekly sessions with an 86 year old arthritic hip, whose owner wants to avoid a hip replacement. Once a fortnight I treat a client with a spinal trauma which has affected her in many ways: the healing is helping with too many visits to the loo at night! She has regained the use of her toes through our Reiki sessions. I've been the reason for a lock-in in a pub in County Mayo which went on till 3 in the morning (four bad backs, one arthritic hand, one fatigued kidney complaint sufferer - all thankful and buying me brandies!). A friend, dying with liver cancer had frequent sessions, which she found helpful : they gave her some peaceful space.