Reiki Jin Kei Do's First Book is Finally Out

It would appear that my book ‘Reiki Jin Kei Do: The Way of Compassion and Wisdom’ has just come out pretty much everywhere now. I watched it travel across the US last week via emails received from various RJKD readers (Scott Wyman in California and then Christine Radice in Boston amongst others) within hours of them receiving a copy of the book and then into the UK as Amazon shipped it last Saturday (Ian Pordon in Birmingham letting me know via excited phone call). Rather peculiar being able to watch a book travel the world like this – even more so when it is possible to actually get a real sense of that journey via Google Earth and see the places that the book is already reaching.

On one level, this is just about an author following his creation’s birth. On another level this is about journeying – in a spiritual sense of course, but also about seeing the reach and spread of Seiji Takamori’s astonishing teachings that Ranga Premaratna facilitated the planting of. This small seed that Ranga nurtured has grown over the years and has now led to the massive increase in awareness of and engagement with Seiji's teachings right around the world. For my part, I really do hope that the major, in fact primary consequence of my book's publication is that many more people are brought to this particular lineage of Reiki. It really does have so much to offer to those who want a practice that they can immerse themselves in and emerge from renewed.

Getting a book out into the world, regardless of the message is of course in the first instance a commercial exercise. Publishers, as much as they hope like all of us that what they do might make a positive impact in the world, do not publish books based on some altruistic impulse. They do it to make money. A part of that process of making money involves the authors of the books that they publish promoting as well as they can the books that they have written. As a consequence of this it has been a very busy week for me so far. Following my books publication, I have given one radio interview on ‘Passion for the Planet’ which has at the time of writing not actually gone out yet. Two newspaper interviews, one more radio interview lined up ( I think...), another in the offing, at least one more newspaper interview to do, a podcast to record for a freelance interviewer, and several talks on Reiki Jin Kei Do now organized that I intend to do at various times over the next few months up and down the UK. A very, very busy week really, but a lot of fun too! The amount of interest that is being generated around this book is frankly astonishing.

Oh and my website is finally up and running this week. A few glitches to iron out still, but a big thanks to Tom Jeffs for his hard work and for hammering my rough and ready ideas into a really good workable and professional site. We'll get there in the end Tom!

One thing that strikes me about giving interviews is that no matter how careful you are in giving responses to the questions that the interviewer puts to you, they still pretty much make stuff up. This has happened to me time and time again. Over the years I have appeared in the local press quite a number of times in relation to my work with Reiki. Firstly back in ‘95/’96 as the first Reiki Therapist in my home town of Rugby and then in ’98 as it’s first Reiki Master and now again as the author of the RJKD book. It is truly astonishing to see how words can be misconstrued so easily and meaning re-interpreted! Truth really cannot be expressed through words at all. You say one thing and something else appears in print that has only a vague relationship to that which was actually uttered. Anyway, I wanted to put up on here the piece that appeared today in my local newspaper, ‘The Rugby Advertiser’. I do not defend the precise wording of this piece, but I do stand by its broad message. Better to make this clear right now I feel.

If anything else appears in print as a part of my promotional efforts for the book I shall put them up on here as they appear. On the subject of the Passion for the Planet interview that I gave; if anyone reading this lives in London or the South East of England, then please try to catch it sometime in the first three weeks of October. It will go out 12 times in total at various times in the day. I would love to get your feedback if you get a chance to hear it.

If you do buy my book, whether you are a Reiki Jin Kei Do person or not, if you enjoyed it, then please write a review of it for me on one of the book sites such as Amazon. In fact there are many sites that take readers reviews in various countries. All of your efforts in promoting the book would be much appreciated.

In the meantime, many blessings to you all. Namaste.