I was hoping other people would answer your question- as I'm not that knowledgeable about what paths are the best for healing. I can only tell you what I know and believe, and at least it will be a start to an answer to your question.
I agree about what you say that we are not gods and that prayer/meditation/energy work-- people working together psychically to bring about change- has been proven to be effective. How it's done and what god-heads we speak to or don't speak to is beside the point, in my opinion. It must be personally meaningful to the practicioner, involve a different state of consciousness (and I include traditional prayer in that rule), and, I believe, that although one person can be very powerful, a sense of community at the very least and actually doing energy work with a group (whether in physical proximity or not) enhances and increases the power of the energy working. And, this group must have 'perfect love and trust,' or a person can't get into the right mindset or the feeling of community.
I also believe that involving other spiritual entities, to help in the energy work also helps power up what you're doing. Whether a person believes that these spiritual beings are part of a mental construct, are manifestations of their own abilities, or actual "living" entities is something I'm wondering about how much that influences a working. I am forming the opinion that the more we truly believe that these entities have 'minds' of their own and are separate from ourselves(as in faith in a higher power or power outside ourselves) powers up the energy working even more, and loses power the less we believe in these entities and intellectualize them.
Those are just my own thoughts and opinions.
As for paths, I've heard of Reiki, working with chi like in Tai Chi, chakras, healing stones, and other Eastern practices which may be a starting point in your search- but not sure that they are 'paths' per se.
I hope people with more experience add their own thoughts to this discussion.
