From the book Hand to Hand
John’s Road to Healing –
Reiki Classes with Hawayo Takata
Beth and I asked Takata, as she liked to be called, if she would give classes at our house in Woodside. She agreed, and on June 12, 1974, we began an association of several years in which she would stay at our house, giving a class or two while she was enroute from Honolulu to visit her daughter in Iowa. She also instructed us informally in Reiki concepts and practices. Takata came frequently, staying a week in the house. A trim, elegant lady, she wore normal western-style clothing, but when teaching she wore beautiful gowns. She stayed in the blue room and ran up horrendous phone bills. She was a vegetarian, enjoying however, from time to time, such non-vegetarian dishes as lamb kidney sautéed in gin (vegetarian lambs of course).
During one of her first Reiki classes at our house, a man with severe multiple sclerosis arrived in his wheel chair. He needed me to write his check for the class fee, signing it with his hand making a fist to grasp the pen. Following the class, he contracted with a student to live at his house, doing the housework and supervising swimming sessions in his pool. He also asked me for Reiki sessions, which I agreed to give him weekly before the meeting at Trinity Center on Sunday. The treatments worked so well that in three months he was able to walk into Trinity Center with a cane and play the piano for us.
This experience led us to give regular treatments before the meeting. Persons who had taken Reiki classes would join me. Takata suggested that we give each recipient an envelope for a donation with “THANKS TO REIKI” printed on it. This was the beginning of the first and largest American Reiki Center, and it lasted for many years. I supervised the Sunday sessions from 1974 to 1979, when I eventually became a minister in the Universal Church of the Master. The number of sessions grew so that when I left in 1979, we had ten bodywork tables for ten people to receive treatments at the same time. We usually held two sessions before the Church service began, so 20 people could receive Reiki, with between 10 and 35 Reiki practitioners giving the sessions. Mrs. Takata helped us to set up and supervise the sessions. During this time from 1974 to January 1979, my day work was with the Bechtel Power Company, in its planning and scheduling system.