Why does energy healing work?

I personally believe that life and the world as we perceive it are myth and metaphor, and that all techniques by which we who believe ourselves to be individuals attempt to influence that which we believe to be "other than ourselves" have validity to the extent we intend them to.

Science has proven beyond contradiction that the world which we perceive through our senses is not the ultimate reality. What we see as solid objects are mostly space; what we suppose to be matter and energy are simply two different ways of looking at the same phenomena; and so on. As illustrated in the popular indie film "What the Bleep do we Know Anyway", there is a startling convergence underway between the cutting edges of physics and spirituality, both of which now accept at least the hypothesis that the Universe is a single unified field of energy.

Our bodies are designed to perceive this energy field in certain ways, and the collective consciousness of all beings on Earth over its history has interpreted and organized those perceptions into the material objects, sounds, and other sensations that we agree that we perceive all around us. This consensus interpretation -- by which we assign attributes such as solidity, color, etc. to the collections of energy that we call objects -- is what I refer to as metaphor. I would use the term myth to describe the various interpretations that we adopt to explain how the Universe functions and how it came to be the way that it is. Each of us has our personal mythology which determines the methods by which we seek to implement our intention to make changes in the Universe around us -- to redefine the metaphors, if you will.

I should also explain my reference to intention. Intention is the tool by which our individual consciousnesses transfer to the universal consciousness the changes that we wish to perceive in the Universe. Pranic Healing and reiki "work" because the practitioner intends them to and is able, through innate ability or through practice, to focus that intention sufficiently that the Universe understands and translates the intention into action.

I have likened individual consciousness to an eddy in the universal energy field. Because the field is universal, what happens anwhere in it affects what happens anywhere else. Gravity is a physical example; the movement of a pebble on Earth has a mathematically describable effect on the motions of distant galaxies. Drop that pebble into the ocean in California, and the ripples will reach Japan. Intention extends the effects of individual consciousness beyond the individual into the surrounding energy field. This happens constantly, but the ability to produce focused results usually requires practice and training.