Why Must Read Essential Reiki: A Complete Guide to an Ancient Healing Art?

My reiki teacher had me read this book because, as she put it, "If someone who knows very little about reiki thinks you haven't read it, they'll consider your training to be flawed because this is the only book people with casual knowledge of reiki are aware of." Time has proven her right. This is an interesting read if you've already had reiki training, but it's been the introduction to reiki for thousands of people, which is problematic. It's worth keeping in mind that you'll see a lot of One True Wayism about the meanings and purposes of the symbols out there ("The class *I* paid a grand for is the Only True Reiki!"), but what can't be denied is that there is an enormous amount of material in this book that has absolutely nothing to do with reiki, and someone who comes into reading it not knowing how to filter those things will come away with a severely distorted view of the practice and the philosophy behind it. I'm not a "purist" by any means, just to clarify the point. I've used reiki in conjunction with shamanism and fofo for many years. But when I set out to teach someone reiki, that's all I teach them -- no personal additions or other methods or philosophies unless a student wants to learn that and has finished the study in reiki first. I wish Stein had written with that goal in mind, but the book isn't entirely valueless as long as you go into it aware of what you're getting into.