In late Meiji Japan and throughout the Taishō period, as the nation underwent a process of rapid and far-reaching transformation, thousands of forms of seishin ryōhō ("spiritual therapies") flourished. Amid this vast and diverse landscape, in 1922, one man developed a method destined for a future that no one could have foreseen: Usui Reiki Ryōhō. This book restores that method to its original historical context.

Drawing upon rigorous historical research and a wide range of Japanese and Western sources, it reconstructs the figure of Mikao Usui beyond the realm of myth, carefully distinguishing what is historically documented from what belongs to tradition or pure legend. What emerges is an unexpected portrait of Reiki: a practice indebted to the teachings of earlier masters, intertwined with Ōmoto, Chinkon Kishin, Taireidō, disciplines of the body and breath, and the spiritual currents that travelled from the West to the East.

This is a history, not a hagiography. It is an inquiry that seeks to disentangle the authentic roots of Reiki from the narratives later constructed around it, offering a critical perspective for practitioners, scholars, and all those who are unwilling to settle for legend alone.