Written by Michael DeMarco
Armed with his bare hands and a mobile massage table, 32-year-old Reiki practitioner Nicholas Ryerson brings the art of holistic energy healing to Long Island homes.
Based in Ryerson’s hometown of Rockville Center, Nassau Reiki aims to continue to meet consumers’ burgeoning enthusiasm for personal health with Vital Touch.
Grand View Research predicts that the U.S. complementary and alternative medicine market will grow 23% from 2024 to 2030 to $22 billion in 2022. But Ryerson’s approach to business leans more towards divinity than money, offering his own at-home Reiki sessions for individuals. To restore the client’s inner energy.
“Reiki is based on the idea that energy imbalance is the root cause of most illnesses, and it addresses it at its root,” Ryerson said.
Reiki practitioners balance the energies of others through light hand-to-body touch or by holding their hands close to their bodies. Touch is made to areas of the body where the client is experiencing pain, illness, or discomfort, providing supplemental relief to aid the healing process. However, issuing Reiki is only half the work. The rest of the work is done from within the receiver.
“Reiki practitioners don’t heal,” Ryerson added. “They channel universal energy so the patient can restore balance to his own energy. The work being done is the patient himself.”
Long Island is a growing center for alternative health and medicine, with more than 20 different companies offering Reiki sessions. Ryerson believes the growing desire for alternative medicine is due to persistent dissatisfaction with the traditional medical system.
“Modern medicine too often provides treatments that are ineffective, leaving patients to look elsewhere for help,” Ryerson says. “Reiki can treat things where modern medicine fails or has difficulty.”
The 2023 Edelman Trust Barometer report found that 65% of Americans trust “the entire health care sector.” This fringe sector is accelerating the alternative medicine business and encouraging individuals to seek holistic forms of complementary treatments such as Reiki.
But for Ryerson, practice means more than a changing market and brings him peace of mind.
“The Reiki experience is an experience of love as a state of being,” he said. “By channeling cosmic energy and alleviating the suffering of others, I approach the divine state of love.”
Though he now focuses on helping others, Ryerson describes himself as a “wounded healer.” His mission path began with a personal journey to overcome his own health, addiction, and mental health setbacks that paralyzed his youth.
“That’s why I do Reiki in the first place,” Ryerson said. “Because I went through a period of intense suffering, I can understand and treat the suffering of others.”
Ryerson received his second degree Reiki certification from Reiki Healing Brooklyn, based on the “Usui Tibetan” Reiki lineage founded by Senior Reiki Master William Lee Rand.
Michael DeMarco is a reporter with the SBU Media Group, part of the Stony Brook University School of Communication and Journalism’s Working Newsroom Program for students and local media.
