The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) at the National Institute of Health (NIH) classifies Reiki as a "Biofield Medicine, which involves systems that use subtle energy fields in and around the body for medical purposes". In recent years the burgeoning number of Reiki practitioners and patients using Reiki in conjunction with conventional medical treatment, and the growing reports of Reiki's effectiveness in a wide range of medical problems has attracted the interest of doctors and scientists wishing to assess the accuracy of claims made for Reiki healing and to understand the scientific basis for its effects.

As a result serious research into Reiki is beginning, including such studies as the NCCAM funded project at the University of Michigan on the effects of Reiki on painful neuropathy and cardiovascular risk factors, and another on the application of Reiki to rehabilitation from stroke, spinal cord injury, and traumatic brain injury conducted by the Kessler Institute for Rehabilitation. In addition, a number of publications on Reiki have appeared in peer-reviewed journals such as Cancer Prevention and Control, Journal of Nursing Care Quality, Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, and the Journal of Alternative Therapies. Still these are meager beginnings, with adequate scientific research into Reiki healing far in the future.

We at The Traditional Reiki Institute, Inc. believe scientific research into all aspects of Reiki is absolutely essential if the promise of Reiki healing is ever to be integrated into the healing options available within western society and western medicine. It is our mission to support dialogue and cooperative research between qualified physicians, scientists, energy healers, and Traditional Reiki practitioners into the nature and use of Traditional Reiki as a healing modality. Our commitment to offer Reiki treatments to the seriously ill supports our research goals by providing a client base from which research subjects can be solicited for future projects. Our educational and scientific functions are interwoven in our commitment to teach a reliable, consistent form of the energy for use in research as well as healing, and to provide a public forum for the exploration of Reiki and healing energies.

We are at the very beginning of our journey to knowledge of subtle energy healing. It is important to begin as we mean to go on.