Each of the teachers stood and positioned themselves next to a student, then gently placed their hands on the students’ heads. In the dimly lit room, music played as lightly as mist, almost too soft to mask the delicate breathing of the nearly 30 people gathered there.

Observing the meeting for a minute or two, it would have been difficult to tell if anyone moved. It looked as though some modern-day Merlin had frozen the group in time, creating a tableau of the laying on of hands.

This was the scene at a recent “Reiki share,” a seminar at Equilibrium Energy + Education, 47 S. Polk, in Printers Row.

Bernadette Doran, a reiki master and the owner of Equilibrium, said reiki is a simple hands-on therapy that gives the body the energy it needs to heal. She promotes the therapy as part of general wellness but also works with cancer patients to help alleviate the side effects of chemotherapy.

Doran describes a therapy session: “The Reiki practitioner places his or her hands at certain points along [the] body that align with [the] endocrine system. A full Reiki treatment balances the endocrine system, which is the master hormonal regulator of the body.”

Reiki is a form of energy medicine promoters say can be used to boost health and alleviate symptoms of disease or the side effects of traditional medications and treatments. More than 1.2 million people used some form of energy medicine in 2007, the latest year for which statistics are available, according to the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine’s Web site.

“It’s being used in hospitals nursing homes hospices and spas — all kinds of places,” Doran said.

With that popularity also comes fakes and charlatans. Doran and others in the field are discussing creating a credentialing organization but for now, there are no certifying bodies for energy medicine.

Those who participate in reiki attested to its power.

“I’m a spiritual nerd,” said Rhonda Wheatley, a business writer and painter who attended a recent reiki share at Doran’s studio. She has been studying spirituality in various forms for 20 years.

“The very first time it [reiki] made me feel extremely relaxed. I went outside and felt like I was moving very very slow and the world around me was moving very fast,” she said. “The second time I actually felt energy moving in different energy centers. It was very powerful.”

“There are no words in western culture to describe the feelings and the sensations and everything that energy work does for you,” the Doran said. “You have to experience it to understand it all.”

Carol Balabanow, a coordinator for the laboratories of the American Dental Association, was introduced to reiki after her parents died. She had been their primary caregiver and at the time her whole body ached. The healing impact of reiki, she said, began immediately.