Reiki is commonly considered "a Japanese healing art", but in his recent book, Alternate Currents, Justin Stein argues that it may be better conceived of as a product of a "North Pacific intersystem" that integrates elements that developed in both Japan and the United States. Based on years of research, including archival materials and original oral histories, Dr. Stein traces Reiki's story from its founding in 1920s Japan to Japanese American communities in 1930s and 1940s Hawaii, and then the US mainland and British Columbia in the postwar decades. In this talk, he will present some of his research and ideas from the book, discussing how Reiki evolved from Usui to Hayashi to Takata, with ample time for discussion to follow.

 

Justin B. Stein is the Chair of the Asian Studies Program at Kwantlen Polytechnic University, in British Columbia, Canada, where he teaches about East Asian history, cultures, and societies. He has published his research on the historical development of Reiki in peer-reviewed journals like Japanese Religions and Asian Medicine as well as in his recent monograph and a volume he co-edited, The Routledge Handbook of Religion, Medicine, and Health.