I'm so happy to have stumbled upon this book, which has helped me to connect with my late grandmother. She was a Reiki master, and I always wondered exactly what it meant. I was so young when she was practicing it and didn't understand exactly what Reiki was. It all blurred into New Age/Eastern Mysticism in my uninitiated mind. This book helped me with distinguishing Reiki from other spirituality/healing modalities, and from what I thought it was, which was pretty foggy to begin with. I appreciated Pamela Miles for her unique position as a Reiki practitioner who trains physicians, nurses, patients, etc., in first degree Reiki. Her emphasis on self-care intrigued and surprised me. The broad scope with which she sees the history and the possible futures of Reiki makes this a great one-stop shop for understanding Reiki practitioners and clients. I feel I have a firm foundation for future inquiry. My favorite chapters were about Pamela Miles' area of expertise: how Reiki is being used in modern medicine and what studies have been done in this area. I understand this is dated information, but it inspired me to look into further studies. We've all heard about the proven benefits of meditation, so it is easy for me to believe these studies coming out about Reiki in hospital care. My one gripe is the redundancy, but I understand this is a teaching method. There were some parts I read twice because they were so interesting, and other parts that felt repetitive and unnecessary. All in all, an excellent primer on Reiki, the Japanese healing art.