The Fast on the Mountain and What Came of It

Reiki tradition holds that in 1922 Usui Mikao undertook a period of fasting and meditation on Kurama and received the ability to heal by the laying on of hands, which he then began to teach in Tokyo. That account is the origin story a worldwide practice tells about this specific mountain. Justin Stein's history of Reiki traces how the practice moved from Usui's Japanese organisation to Hawaii through Hawayo Takata in the 1930s, and from there into the North American and European alternative therapy world after the 1970s, changing substantially at each transfer. The version most widely practised today, with its attunements, symbols and graded levels, is closer to what developed in the United States than to what Usui's Japanese successors maintained.

The atlas records the Kurama fast as the tradition's own account of its origin, and the transmission history as that research establishes it. It does not record Reiki as an effective medical treatment. Health agencies that have reviewed the published trials, including the United States National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, report that the practice has not been shown to be useful for any health condition, and the atlas states that plainly rather than leaving it to be inferred. Its subject here is a religious origin site and the practice that claims it.