Reiki - the Alternative™ CKR’s
by James Deacon
2007

EXCERPT:

Over the years since Takata-sensei's passing (in 1980) numerous variations of the four Usui Reiki symbols have come into being in the West.
The reason for this is primarily due to varying levels of calligraphic/artistic skill on the part of different students attempting to reproduce the symbols they have been shown.
And particularly in the case of the DKM and HSZSN - these two 'symbols' actually being phrases written in Japanese characters - the numerous variations of these symbols we find in books, manuals, handouts, and on the internet, are pretty much all due to poor attempts at writing the original kanji characters. In the main, these 'alternative' versions of the symbols have come into being as a result of people who were not familiar with the rules of Japanese calligraphy, attempting to replicate the symbol-forms shown to them by their teachers, who in turn had often made imprecise copies of the symbols as presented by their teachers, and so on...