No. I learned the system of Reiki before I was pregnant, and practising it while pregnant was one of the most wonderful things I have done: hands-on healing with the baby, breathing into the deep belly, and feeling connected to everything with a child who was already part of that. Treatments from a partner or friend are lovely too. If you are pregnant, go and learn.

I don't know, and nobody does. He would probably be flummoxed by some of what is taught in the West, and possibly by some of what is taught in Japan a hundred years and eight or nine presidents later. Things keep changing. All we can do is trace the teaching back as carefully as we can and try to keep some of that original experience in what we teach.

Partly size, mostly history. The association founded in Mikao Usui's time still exists, but its Tokyo headquarters was bombed in the Second World War and the people inside were killed, and after the war it dwindled. Western-style Reiki came back to Japan in the 1980s and 90s, and interest in the traditional practice has been growing slowly since the 2000s, but the association itself is still small and elderly.