Reiki is an ancient and profoundly simple system of 'laying on of hands' healing derived from tibetan Buddhism. In the West, Reiki has been kept highly secret for many years. Essential Reiki presents full information on all three degrees of this healing system, most of it inprint for thef irst time. By demystifying this ancient healing system, Essential Reiki is certain to be controversial book.

Taught from the perspective that Reiki healing belongs to all people, this book differs form anything else available on the subject. While no book can replace the directly received Reiki 'attunements,' Essental Reiki provides everything else that the healer, practitioner and teacher of this system needs.

Diane Stein has been a Reiki practitioner since 1988 and a Reiki Master/Teacher since 1990. She is dedicated to returning this profoundly beautiful healing sysem to all people. Though primarily a healer, she has worked politically in the areas of AIDS, incest recovery and disability rights. For almost thirty years, Stein has written about the issues of Women's Spirituality, making her a powerful voice in the movement. For the last ten years she has taught women's spirituality and healing skills in workshops across the country. Stein is also the author of thirteen other books on women's spirituality, feminist metaphysics and natural healing, including All Women Are Healers and The Natural Remedy Book for Women. Diane is dedicated to teaching women to heal themselves, others and the earth.

Contents

Foreword: Important
Introducion
Reiki I The first degree
Chapter I The reiki story
Chapter II What is reiki?
Chapter III The reiki healing session
Self-healing
Healing others
Group healing
Reiki II The second degree
Chapter IV The reiki symbols
Chapter V Distance healing and more
Chapter VI Opening the kundalini
Reiki III The third degree
Cahpter VII Third degree symbols
chapter VIII Passing attunements
Cahpter IX Teaching reiki
Chapter X Reiki and the path to enlightenment
Afterword the future of reiki in our time of planetary crisis
Appendix Worksheets for teaching reiki
Bibliography

Classic book on Reiki that was controversial in it's day and is now considered standard reading on the subject of Reiki. I read it years ago and I remember being very unsettled with its content and I should read it again before assigning stars to it. ( )

I read Essential Reiki, A Complete Guide to an Ancient Healing Art by Diane Stein. The author made a distinction between Jesus as a historical figure and Jesus as portrayed by the churches. She mentioned that the historical Jesus might have been a bodhisattva. She brought up a book Jesus Lived in India by Holger Kersten as her source. This was very fascinating! She included a lot of Buddhist information throughout her book and explained how Reiki was the reverse of the Enlightenment path in Buddhism. She mentioned how the Reiki symbols are Sanskrit--derived Japanese forms that are at least 2500 years old. She also distinguishes between traditional Reiki and her modern version of Reiki. For example, she included both traditional Reiki symbols and alternative modern-day symbols. Furthermore, she included non-Reiki symbols and the Antahkarana design, sometimes found on dinner plates in the Midwest. Her modern version of Reiki included stuff I've never read about before, including the Hara Line, Kundalini channels, Microcosmic orbit within the body, and the StillPoint in the neck. Her chapter on passing attunements is what convinced me that an attunement is a DNA trigger for a change within the body. Modern science has discovered switches for sequences of DNA within the genes that may activate with some type of environmental trigger. I suspect that the triggers are neuro-electrical in nature, just like an attunement. In addition, the author introduced the Stupa and the five elements and forms in Chapter Ten, "Reiki and the Path to Enlightenment." She explains that the Vajra scepter figure and/or the Vajra bell-shaped figure is an adamantine (e.g. diamond) and says that the Raku (e.g. lightning bolt) is the Vajra of Vajrayana Buddhism. She defines Vajra as the non-duality of mind and object, which reminded me of the Tree of Life and the Magician in the Tarot cards with respect to manifestation. I was fascinated once again by the importance of the Raku symbol as discussed by the author because it reminded me of the Lightning Techno-Shaman in M Terry Green's books. Moreover, the author hinted at ancient alien theories and only someone familiar with those theories would understand the implications that she was putting forth. Diane Stein's book helped me to make many connections between certain concepts that I thought were unrelated. I'm happy to have read her book even though there were parts I didn't like. Her book deserves a rating of at least four stars out of five. ( )

when Diane Stein published this book in 1995, she thought she was being radical by publishing the reiki symbols and a method of initiation, previously thought to be unpublished. Her book is consciously feminist and avoids male pronouns. Her approach to Reiki notes that indeed, she hadn't had formal 'official' training at a senior level, but offers that training nonetheless to any and all. Ultimately her 'thumbing her nose' at the system was an approach that turned many off - in addition, the symbols she 'revealed' are somewhat aberrant as far as traditional symbols go... ( )

Why is this book so popular? Possibly one of the very worst books on Reiki ever written. Fabricated, channelled and invented history. Totally innacurate information on the Reiki symbols. Made up symbols that have no use whatsoever in the Reiki system and are based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the energetics of symbols. Not recommended in the slightest. ( )