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Hawayo Takata and the Circulatory Development of Reiki in the Twentieth Century North Pacific

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Hawayo Takata and the Circulatory Development of Reiki in the Twentieth Century North Pacific Hawayo Takata and the Circulatory Development of Reiki in the Twentieth Century North Pacific by Justin B. Stein A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Department of the Department for the Study of Religion Centre for Diaspora and Transnational Studies University of Toronto © Copyright by Justin B. Stein 2017 Hawayo Takata and the Circulatory Development of Reiki in the Twentieth Century North Pacific Justin B. Stein Doctor of Philosophy Department for the Study of Religion Centre for Diaspora and Transnational Studies University of Toronto 2017 Abstract Scholarly literature on religion in contemporary North America and Europe has taken Reiki, a form of spiritual healing, to be indicative of broader trends in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century. These works generally assume Reiki is either a form of American unorthodox medicine in Oriental trappings or a form of Japanese religious practice that has found a place in Western biomedical settings. This dissertation avoids such characterizations by foregrounding transnational exchange instead of national culture. It argues Reiki is best understood as a product of the twentieth century North Pacific (specifically Japan, Hawaii, and North America). It proposes an analytical framework of “circulatory development” to understand Reiki’s movement through transnational networks. Circulatory development describes how the movement of practices transforms both the practices (as they are adapted for new audiences) and the people who encounter them (by embedding them in new social and spiritual relationships). This dissertation also proposes a category of “spiritual medicine” for practices that transcend the assumed differentiation of religious and medical spheres. ii Usui Mikao (1865–1926) fashioned Reiki’s earliest forms from a mix of elements in 1920s Japan, including some with long local histories and some that had been recently imported from North America. Since the mid twentieth century, Reiki’s most prevalent forms have been reconfigurations of Usui’s practice adapted for audiences in Hawaii and North America by a second-generation Japanese American named Hawayo Takata (1900–1980). Using archival materials and oral history interviews, this dissertation analyzes how Takata creatively transformed Reiki practice from the 1930s through the 1970s. It focuses on the relation between her gendered racialization as a Japanese American woman, her development of spiritual capital in social networks, and shifts in the meanings assigned to Japanese religion in Territorial Hawaii and mainland North America. It concludes that Takata’s innovations to Reiki practice both accommodated and resisted elements of North American cultural hegemony by gradually introducing practices intended to: 1) professionalize Reiki as a practice of spiritual medicine; 2) transmit “Japanese” values to her students, and 3) establish a form of “particular universalism” that valorized Japan while promoting Reiki as a “universal” practice. iii Acknowledgements Researching and writing this work took countless hours of solitary labour, but it also relied on the assistance of countless individuals. In the following pages I would like to acknowledge the contributions of a few dozen people to whom I am particularly indebted, but there are necessarily many more whom I am leaving out. My mentors at the University of Toronto have ceaselessly pushed me to tell this story in a way that would be both a pleasure to read and a contribution to conversations in the study of religion. So many of the parts that I am most pleased with in the pages that follow result from their provocations to deepen my analysis and to clarify my prose. My greatest debt is to my supervisor, Pamela Klassen, who not only has offered ongoing support for my dissertation work, but has also supported my intellectual development over the last seven years by including me in numerous workshops, conferences, and conversations, and has endlessly inspired me with her own model of scholarship’s potential. I am also forever indebted to the rest of my dissertation committee—Simon Coleman, Kevin O’Neill, and Mark Rowe—for their patience to re-read chapter drafts and their generosity to meet in person and talk through ideas, to Takashi Fujitani for providing incisive feedback as respondent to my departmental colloquium and internal reader at the doctoral defense, and to Wendy Cadge for providing a foundation for the excellent conversation at the defense in her role as external examiner. Thank you all. There are three other groups of interlocutors who have been so invaluable to the research and writing of this dissertation that I am tempted to identify them as collaborators. First are all of the Reiki students, Reiki Masters, and their families who have spoken to me over the years about their experiences with Hawayo Takata and the iv practice of Reiki. Many of these names come up repeatedly in the chapters that follow, but I would particularly like to thank a few who answered my questions for hours, replied to my ceaseless emails and phone calls trying clarify information, and granted follow-up interviews after I was lost data when robbed during my fieldwork. Ichita Takahashi, the Yajimas, the Nagao-Kimuras, the Yudas, the Ventos, Shannon Mackler, Vivian Kimura, the Twans, Chelsea Van Koughnett, and Rick Bockner have unceasingly stunned me with their generosity. Paul Guillory and Walter Quan have also been tremendously generous and encouraging over the last few years and I offer them a heartfelt gasshō. Next, a particular group of Reiki Masters (including the two who make up Usui Shiki Ryoho’s Office of the Grand Master) deserve particular recognition for their ongoing support of this project. Phyllis Lei Furumoto, Joyce Winough, and Paul and Susan Mitchell invited me and another Reiki historian, Robert Fueston into their lives to form a group that we grew to call “the archive team.” I have been honored to be part of this group as we have worked together over the course of about two years to organize and digitize the personal papers of Hawayo Takata, which will be housed in the American Religions Collection at the University of California – Santa Barbara. It was invaluable to have this group of long-time, highly-regarded Reiki Masters, three of whom studied with Hawayo Takata, as conversation partners as I worked through these materials. I am particularly grateful to Susan Mitchell for quickly and carefully reading through the entire dissertation draft and sharing her reflections (and highlighting many typos). Third, I am indebted to an informal network of scholars researching Reiki, several of whom are also part of a larger research group on Japanese spiritual healing, organized by the incomparable Shin’ichi Yoshinaga. Naoko Hirano, currently finishing her v doctorate at Waseda University, has been my closest collaborator. We traveled together to Hilo to conduct initial oral history interviews with Japanese Americans who learned Reiki from Takata in the 1930s and 1940s, worked together to locate and translate Japanese-language articles from Honolulu newspapers about Reiki’s early years in the U.S. Territory of Hawaii, and collaboratively developed the idea that, from its beginning, Reiki has been a product of dialogue between twentieth century Japanese and Americans, a cornerstone for each of our dissertation projects. Additionally, Jojan Jonker, Dori Beeler, Liad Horowitz, and Robert Fueston have each been excellent conversation partners over the years as we have tried to make sense of an often-nebulous history and an often-mysterious practice. Special thanks to Jojan Jonker for reading a complete draft of the dissertation and providing me with copious notes. Thank you to the many archivists and librarians who have helped me with this research. Masafumi Honda of the Hawaii Japanese Center was a particularly big help organizing interviews with elderly Nisei in Hilo; Malina Pereza and Helen Wong Smith at the Kauai Historical Society; Chris Faye at the Kauai Museum; Joan Hori, Dore Minatodani, and Sherman Seki at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa Library; and Gary McDougall at the Penticton Museum Archives all helped me access invaluable archival sources. Thank you also to Christine Kirk-Kuwaye and Lori Pierce for referring me to the Romanzo Adams Social Research Laboratory Student Papers Archive. I have had the opportunity to participate in many workshops and conferences throughout my graduate program, including many where I presented and received aspects on this work. I cannot name them all, but I would like to identify two that have been particularly helpful. First, the Nanzan Seminar at the Nanzan Institute for Religion and vi Culture was an unparalleled opportunity to receive feedback on my work from Japanese scholars; thank you to Michiaki Okuyama and Paul Swanson for putting on the seminar and thank you to all of the panelists and discussants for an incredible experience. I spent two wonderful weeks as a visiting research fellow at the Centre for Studies in Religion and Society at the University of Victoria, where I benefited from the conversations at that Centre’s daily coffee hour; I am particularly grateful to Paul Brahmadat and Victor Sōgen Hori for their guidance and encouragement while I was there. There are many reasons why the Department for the Study of Religion at the University of Toronto has been an incredible place to study but the incredible community fostered there is the reason closest to my heart. How incredible to be able to call so many brilliant and compassionate individuals my colleagues and friends! I cannot but omit some, but my particular gratitude goes to Rebecca Bartel, Arun Brahmbhatt, Matthew King, Maria Dasios, Ian Brown, Jairan Gahan, Zoe Anthony, Aldea Mulhern, Sara Abdel-Latif, Adil Mawani, Khalidah Ali, Andrew Tebbutt, Nick Field, Helen Mo, Saliha Chattoo, Youcef Soufi, Tim Langille, Rebekka King, and Paul Nahme for being there for me through the difficult process of the doctoral program and always being willing to discuss aspects of my work.
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