Client experiences of virtual energy healing.

The short version

This descriptive study with 14 participants explored what people experience during virtual energy healing — sessions held over Zoom, where the practitioner works with a client's biofield (the field of energy and information proposed to surround and permeate the body) while narrating aloud where their hands are working. The practice drew on Therapeutic Touch, Reiki, and Healing Touch, three energy healing methods that share grounding, clearing, and intention-setting for the client's highest good. Participants were members of a spiritually engaged community (average age 66) who each received one structured Zoom session from practitioners with decades of experience. Before and after, they rated their relaxation, well-being, and pain on a 1–10 scale, then answered open-ended questions about what they felt physically, emotionally, and spiritually. All three measures improved significantly. Relaxation rose from 5.0 to 7.9 (p = .0017 — unlikely due to chance), well-being from 5.9 to 8.0 (p = .0001), and pain dropped from 4.0 to 2.3 (p = .004). Just as telling were the six themes in participants' descriptions: embodied sensations such as tingling, warmth, and perceived colors; deep relaxation; release of worries; peace and calm; connection to themselves, others, and something larger; and outright surprise that it worked — several reported feeling the practitioner's hands on their body from miles away. Thirteen of fourteen said they would do it again. The honest caveats matter: there was no control group, the sample was small and spiritually inclined (likely to report favorably), and the design cannot show that energy healing caused the changes rather than relaxation, expectation, or attention. What the study does establish is that virtual delivery is experienced as real and satisfying, including by older adults — a useful foundation for controlled efficacy research on remote energy healing.

Key findings

• Virtual energy healing means live video sessions where the practitioner narrates hand positions while working with the client's biofield (the proposed energy field around the body) — distinct from classical distant healing done without any live connection.
• After one Zoom session, relaxation ratings rose from 5.0 to 7.9 and pain fell from 4.0 to 2.3 on a 10-point scale, both statistically significant.
• Participants described tingling, warmth, perceived colors, and even feeling the practitioner's hands on their body despite being miles apart.
• All participants were members of one spiritually oriented community and there was no control group, so the results describe experiences rather than prove effectiveness.
• Older adults (average age 66) used the video technology comfortably, suggesting remote delivery can widen access to energy healing.

Common questions