‘Fantasy’: the indie song that captures the strange age of Reiki
Contemporary rot and the desperate yearn for meaning will push people to all manner of kooky things to at least indulge in the pretence of cosmic realignment or the spiritual pangs of higher connectivity. As the neoliberal hamster wheel spins ever faster, ripping up all joy and stake from community with each other, the beckoning pull of life-maxxing gurus, TradWest Christianity, or Tarot dabbling may fill a gap now that good old fashioned social cohesion and communal obligation that came with the post-war big state seems long a distant relic buried in Margaret Thatcher‘s ruins.
While it may seem harmless enough, the pseudoscientific Reiki con has grown in popularity over the years, exploiting an abandonment of “experts” and scientific consensus for placebo quackery that also costs a fortune. Supposedly, Reiki offers a form of energy healing originating from Japan that triggers “universal energy” from the hands or something. Keen to protect their lucrative scam, many Reiki cowboys will cite articles published in journals of seriously low regard in the scientific community that are so poorly rated no serious library will stock them.
“When it comes to therapies that claim to alleviate your pain or elevate your mood, never underestimate the power of your own expectations,” Gary L Wenk PhD told Psychology Today in 2020. “Your mind plays a major role in how Reiki treatments affect you. We all want to believe that there is an amazing treatment out there that will help us feel and function better; fortunately, thanks to the poorly understood phenomenon of the placebo effect, we do sometimes, but only for a while, benefit even from the most bogus intervention.”
He added: “Essentially, we fool ourselves into thinking that Reiki works. After all, you’ve just spent a lot of money on this treatment. Patients also often wish to please their therapist by claiming immediate relief – that is the most obvious evidence for the placebo effect.”
Each to their own, though, no real harm’s being done aside from the ailments and afflictions not being seriously treated. However, instead of paying through the nose to have a stranger hover their hands over your face, head over to Bandcamp instead and buy New York psychedelic pop duo Prince Rama’s Xtreme Now for a reasonable $10, or at least snap up its radiant NRG groover ‘Fantasy’.
Comprised of Taraka Larson and Nimai Larson in 2008 before disbanding in 2019, Prince Rama conjured electrifying blasts of ‘now age’ thunder pop charged with spiritual pull with an unmistakable tang of ambrosia and Monster energy drink. ‘Fantasy’ does one better than dull Reiki massages, but positively thrusts the senses to a new realm of high-stakes, neon medieval Larp, like Aphrodite’s Child’s ‘The Four Horsemen’ donned in cybergoth JNCO jeans and blue flame shirts.
Does ‘Fantasy’ capture the Reiki age? No, it does one better, offering the spiritually wayward and ailing a potent blast of evocative drama and Viking synth-magic that keeps one foot in the world of inner healing while also declaring war on the banal void it comes from. Best experienced with its following album track, ‘Sochi’, ‘Fantasy’ has enough power to cure all ills a thousand times over—cancel your Reiki retreat now and let Xtreme Now change your life.
