I do book reviews sometimes on my personal website, but this review more appropriately belongs here on my reiki website!
I’d certainly recommend it to anyone who practices reiki, though I think it’s too comprehensive for people who are reiki clients or who have just a passing interest in reiki.
I really loved it!
*****
Alternate Currents: Reiki’s Circulation in the Twentieth-Century North Pacific by Justin B Stein
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I’ve practised reiki for probably over two decades, and have been giving treatments for over a decade. I didn’t expect to be so engaged by what looks like a fairly academic book about reiki. Stein tells the story of reiki’s development with a focus on Hawayo Takata, who really was the person who brought reiki from Japan and then seeded it through the North Pacific, from which it has now gone worldwide. And he tells it so well that it is accessible and engaging, and felt to me at times like a good novel!
I was actually quite challenged by the book, in a good way, to realise that the way I have been explaining reiki to my clients has particular historical roots and that the notion of a ‘traditional’ or ‘Japanese’ reiki is too simplistic. Reiki developed in many locations and many ways, so I think we really can’t say that there is one form that is more pure than others. I also realise that some of the way that I explain reiki seemed to historically come from a desire to promote reiki and get its acceptance. I think I’m going to embrace more and accept the mystery of reiki henceforth.
Congratulations to Justin Stein for such a fascinating, engaging and useful book. I definitely recommend it to any reiki practitioner to have a better understanding and context for their own practice.