I am pleased to be asked to write this essay to accompany the first-ever authorized reprint of the “Grey Book” on its 40th anniversary. It was compiled and published in 1982 by Alice Takata Furumoto (1925–2013) after the passing of her mother, Hawayo Hiromi Kawamura Takata (1900–1980). The original 100 copies of this book were intended as gifts to the Reiki Masters trained by Takata and those who would be trained by Takata’s successor (and Alice’s daughter) Phyllis Lei Furumoto (1948–2019).
The Grey Book contains a collection of historical materials that Alice wanted to share with the burgeoning Reiki community, through the instructors she considered authorized. For the 1980s and 1990s, the materials included in this book supplemented oral tradition as the basis for historical knowledge about the practice of Reiki in Japan and its transmission to North America. Moreover, this book’s publication was part of a project to validate Phyllis as the rightful heir to Takata’s legacy at a time when a succession dispute with Barbara Weber (Ray) was taking shape.
In this foreword, I offer historical context for the materials contained in the Grey Book in hopes that it provides some perspective on why Alice chose this collection of documents to bring to Hawaii Reprographics, a Honolulu-based printer, and produce a slim volume titled only in Japanese characters. I will move through the book’s eight sections in order: the cover / title page, Takata’s diary, Hayashi’s Therapy Guide, Takata’s “Art of Healing” essay, the photos, Takata’s Master Certificate, the list of Master students, and the dedication.
The cover is quite simple, bearing handwritten calligraphy for the two Japanese characters for reiki; the title page reproduces these characters, followed by the Romanized text: “‘LEIKI’ / REIKI”. Yet this simplicity belies some depth. First, the unknown author of the calligraphy made a strange choice to write the traditional character for rei (靈, as opposed to the simplified character 霊, how it has officially been written since 1946), while writing ki in the simplified form 気 (as opposed to the traditional 氣). This “mixing and matching” of traditional and postwar styles was almost certainly unintentional (and Alice wrote the kanji in the simplified style on the Hawaii Reprographics order form), but this accident reflects how Reiki therapy was adapted from prewar Japan to a new, postwar world. Similarly, the inclusion of “Leiki”—a now-obsolete way the term was sometimes Romanized in the 1930s and 1940s—seems another, more conscious, recognition of Takata’s work as a translator who brought this foreign practice to a new context where even the linguistic phonemes differed.
The book’s opening pages reproduce four pages from Takata’s personal notes and diary from her 1935–1936 trip to Japan, when she underwent her initial five months of training in Usui Reiki Ryōhō under her master, Hayashi Chūjirō (1880–1940), one of the top shihan (instructors) trained by the therapy’s founder, Usui Mikao (1865–1926). The first excerpt, dated December 10, 1935, reproduces her class notes from her first day of class at the Tokyo headquarters of the Hayashi Reiki Kenkyūkai (Hayashi Reiki Research Association). Interestingly, the practice Takata describes here seems rather different from what she taught herself later in life. For example, she describes the need to concentrate, purify one’s thoughts, and meditate “to let the ‘energy’ come out from within,” whereas she would emphasize to later students that concentration was not necessary, but reiki flows naturally, without effort. The teaching that “the ‘energy’ … lies in the bottom of your stomach about 2 in. below the navel” closely resembles many Japanese teachings about the hara or tanden, but is another aspect she omitted from most of her classes later in life.
Regardless of what these details tell us about Reiki’s historical development, reading these journal entries from the beginning of Takata’s career is enlightening as they humanize this great teacher, providing a window into her as a student. In the second entry (dated April May 1936), when she writes with excitement about how Hayashi-sensei has agreed to “bestow upon (her) the secrets of Shinpi Den [i.e., Master Level], Kokiyu-Ho [i.e., the breathing technique], and Leiji-Ho, the utmost secret in the Energy Science,” we as readers grow excited for her as well. Incidentally, this “ultimate secret” probably refers to reiju-hō (that is, how to perform the ceremony commonly called “initiations” or “attunements”) rather than reiji-hō 霊示法; the latter is a kind of meditation that Takata described in the first entry, where the practitioner sits in gasshō (palms together) and awaits “the sign” to start practicing.
After the diary entries, the following section (which makes up the majority of the Grey Book) reproduces the Therapy Guide (Ryōhō shishin) that Hayashi Chūjirō gave to his students. Written in Japanese, this booklet describes sets of hand positions that can be used to treat various maladies. It includes a bilingual anatomical chart to help its readers locate the organs for the hand positions. It is largely identical to the booklet that Takata received during her training course in Tokyo, but the cover indicates it is a special edition created for Japanese American students. This edition includes a phonetic guide (furigana) alongside the main text, as the working-class immigrants and second-generation Nisei who made up the majority of early Reiki students in Hawaii were generally less skilled at reading Japanese characters than Hayashi’s largely middle- to upper-class students in Japan.
The text demonstrates one form of knowledge that Reiki practitioners in the 1930s used to determine hand positions for treatment. It describes a series of medical conditions, each with recommended hand positions for treatment. It is unlikely that early practitioners received training in recognizing the technical medical conditions described in the Guide; it may have been common for patients to receive a medical diagnosis from a physician before coming to a Reiki practitioner for treatment. In addition to these recommended hand positions, we also know that early practitioners also used a scanning technique (called byōsen or byōkan) to find areas in need of treatment.
Takata herself describes this technique in the next section: a 1948 essay “on the Art of Healing.” This five-page typewritten essay is one of the clearest descriptions of Reiki therapy that Takata ever produced. It contains a detailed description of the nature of reiki as a “universal life force”, as well as details regarding Reiki training and practice, including an early version of the comprehensive “foundation treatment” as well as a list of specific hand positions to treat particular conditions. These procedures are to be supplemented by the sensations in the practitioner’s hands. “During the treatment,” she writes, “trust your hands. Listen to the vibrations or reaction.” These will help the practitioner locate the “cause” (of disease); daily treatment of this “cause” will dissipate the “effect.” This emphasis on finding and treating the “cause” of disease is consistent with accounts of Reiki in prewar Japan and contrasts with the teaching that “reiki will go where it’s needed” that she would impart to students in the late 1970s.
The treatment guidelines in Takata’s essay have many overlaps with the class notes in her diary and the treatments in Hayashi’s Therapy Guide, but Takata already made some changes based on her decade-plus of experience treating and teaching Reiki. In addition to practical changes of hand positions (for example, adding treatment of a pregnant woman’s gall bladder and pituitary gland), she also added language derived from American religious and medical practices that demonstrates her early attempts to make Reiki understandable to non-Japanese audiences. For example, she experimented with using the language of the King James Bible to translate Usui’s “five precepts” (gokai), starting with “Just for today—Thou Shalt not Anger.” Her repeated use of “the Great Spirit,” a common concept among Native American cultures, is explained by the fact that she wrote this essay as part of the requirements for her receipt of a “Doctor of Naturopathy” certificate from the Indian Association of America, a Native American-themed fraternal order. As I describe in my dissertation (and forthcoming book), when traveling to teach and treat in North America, Takata carried copies of this certificate and another naming her as “an ordained Licentiate Minister of the American Indian Mayan Church and Indian Missions” to confer an air of authority to her and her unorthodox healing practice.
After the “Art of Healing” essay come four photographs: a portrait of Usui-sensei that Takata seems to have received from Hayashi during her training; photos of Hayashi-sensei and Takata-sensei covered in leis taken in Honolulu in February 1938, just before Hayashi returned to Japan; and a photo of a Reiki demonstration at the Young Men’s Buddhist Association Hall in Honolulu. In this final photo, Takata can be seen giving a treatment in the center and Hayashi is seen seated behind the table and to the right. To the right of Hayashi hangs the gokai scroll. Alice’s caption indicates this was a meeting of the “Reiki Therapy Association” (Reiki (Ryōhō) no Kai), although she seems to misdate the photo as 1937; as the same photo ran in the Hawaii Hochi on March 4, 1938, titled as Hayashi’s 14th (and final) seminar, it was likely from February 1938. As there are over 120 people in the photo, this is likely a gathering of students from these classes taught between October 1937 and February 1938, who came to say farewell to Hayashi-sensei.
The following page reproduces the February 1938 notarized certificate, signed by Hayashi, declaring Hawayo Takata to be a “Master of Dr. Usui’s Reiki system of healing”: the only one in the United States and one of only thirteen “fully qualified as a Master of the profession.” Based on other contemporary information, this number seems to be the number of shihan (Masters) in the Hayashi Reiki Kenkyūkai, and does not recognize the shihan of the Usui Reiki Ryōhō Gakkai. This document may be the first time the now-standard phrase (Reiki) Master appeared in print. Also notable is the use of the term “Usui Reiki system of drugless healing”; Usui himself seems to have emphasized that his system did not require needles or herbs, and Takata preserved that language of “drugless healing” for decades.
The final two pages jump forward in time more than forty years, to the time of publication and of Takata’s transition. First, Alice compiled a list of twenty-one “Master Students” whom she knew her mother to have trained; all of these (including Takata’s sister Kay Yamashita and her granddaughter Phyllis Furumoto) were trained as Masters between 1975 and 1980. As Paul Mitchell notes in his foreword, the list is incomplete (missing at least George Araki); it also contains a notable misspelling (Barbara “Webber”, rather than “Weber”).
Then, Alice included a brief final dedication, which she signed and stamped with three seals (hanko). The large hanko may have been inherited from Hayashi or it may have been created by Takata: it reads “Seal of the Superintendent of the Usui-style Reiki Research Association” (Usui-shiki Reiki Kenkyūkai Shukan no in). This stamp symbolizes the authority of the office Takata assumed as Hayashi’s successor, which became known as “Grand Master”. The two smaller hanko bear the names Takata and Furumoto. This final dedication pronounces Phyllis as the rightful heir to Takata’s legacy, and asserts that Takata lives on in all those who practice Reiki. As such, it makes the book itself a kind of lineage chart, documenting Reiki’s transmission from Usui, through Hayashi and Takata, to Furumoto and (implicitly) to the book’s owners and readers.
In sum, the Grey Book was created by Alice Takata Furumoto as both a loving tribute to her late mother and an offering to her daughter. It chronicles the lineage transmission in a way that was meant to concretize Phyllis’ inheritance and make it legible to the Reiki community. Moreover, the book served as a physical token that indicated its owner was an authentic, recognized Master of Usui Shiki Ryoho (USR). As such, its materiality became as important as its contents; to possess it was as (or more) important as to be able to read and understand it. By the late 1990s, one could find scans of the Grey Book online, but to have the .pdf file was quite different than possessing the item itself.
Today, the second edition of this book cannot help but transform the “aura” of the object. However, the dedication of the USR Office of the Grandmaster and Reiki Centers of America to reproduce the physical book as closely as possible to the original while also supplementing it with translations of and commentaries on the contents is truly remarkable and is a testament to a new era of Reiki – one that is more global, more inclusive, and possesses a more profoundly historical consciousness. It is an honor to have been a part of this process.
~Justin Stein, PhD
Vancouver, BC
May 2021
