Reiki Histyory

Reiki History

Until 1998 the only information about Reiki history was passed on from Mrs Takata (Reiki Grand Master and lineage bearer). Since 1998 a number of Reiki Masters have come forward with information that came out of Japan. The majority of Reiki practitioners now are practice independently and are taught Mrs. Takata's version of the history(below).

Reiki was discovered and developed by Dr. Mikao Usui, who was a Japanese Buddhist monk and lecturer. He was born in Japan in a small village of Taniai in the Yamagata district, located near Nagoya around the 19^th century. He was greatly interested in Buddhist scriptures. Usui was aware of the Buddha’s possession of the power of healing. Usui learned Sanskrit and studied the original Buddhist writings in his quest for healing knowledge.

During Usui’s time of study at a Buddhist monastery on the abbot’s advice he started a 21-day meditation and fast on a holy mountain near Kyoto. On the last day of his fast, he had a deep meditation experience. He saw a shining light in the sky, which moved quickly towards him. The light struck him in the middle of his forehead (The third eye/sixth chakra) and he found himself to be in a state of extended consciousness. In this heightened state he saw many bubbles of rainbow colour lights around him. After awhile the light appeared to him and he recognized the familiar symbols that were glowing in gold in front of him, they were the symbols he had seen in the ancient Buddhist writings. He also had a realization of how the symbols were to be used and he then felt charged with a powerful healing force.

Usui states in his own words, in the Usui Reiki Hikkei (Usui Reiki Manual given to his students) that, "My Usui Reiki Ryoho is an original, it's nothing like this in the world. So I would like to release this method to the public for everyone's benefit and hope for everyone's happiness. My Reiki Ryoho is an original method based on intuitive power in the universe. By this power, body gets healthy and enhances happiness of life and peaceful mind." Going on he states that, "I've never been given this method by anybody nor studied to get psychic power to heal. I accidentally realized that I have received healing power when I felt the air in mysterious way during fasting. So I have a hard time explaining exactly even I am the founder. Scholars and men of intelligence have been studying this phenomenon but modern science can't solve it. But I believe that day will come naturally."

While making his decent from the mountain he badly stubbed his toe, causing it to throb and bleed. When he held his hands around his foot, the bleeding stopped and the pain vanished. This was Usui's first experience of rapid healing.

Usui spent a few weeks in the monastery and then went to the slums of Kyoto to heal the sick. Usui in his 7 years of healing the sick recognized that he had healed the physical body of the symptoms of disease but without a new way of living symptoms returned. He then made up the Reiki rules for life. These are the Reiki principles used today.

He also saw that many of the beggars he treated became healthy but they had not joined society and couldn’t handle their responsibilities. Usui saw how important it was to the patient to have desire to be healthy. The sick person must ask for the healing and must really want it. Usui offered his services free of charge but he now saw how important it is that people that receive healing also offer something in return. An energy exchange between healer and receiver is vital. (currently we if we value something we exchange energy in the form of money in modern world).

Usui now decided to travel to heal and teach Reiki. Usui founded a Reiki society called Usui Reiki Ryoho Gakkai. He died in 1926.

A few years before Usui’s death he initiated a retired naval officer, Dr Chujiro Hayashi, in the Reiki method and declared him his successor. Hayashi opened a private clinic in Tokyo where people were trained in Reiki and patients treated. The Reiki healers worked in groups round the clock and went out to patient’s homes for visits. Hayashi left documents, which showed that Reiki finds the cause of the physical symptoms and fills the body with the required energy and restores the body to wholeness. Mr Hayashi made changes to the Reiki system and it is thought that he developed the 12 hand positions used in Reiki today.

In 1938 Hayashi initiated Hawayo Takata, a young Japanese women living in Hawaii as his successor. Originally Takata had followed an inner calling to not have an operation to take out a tumour but to seek healing in Japan, she heard of the Reiki clinic where she went for several months of treatments, as a result she was completely cured. Takata became Hayashi’s student staying with him for a year and then returned to Hawaii to work as a healer until Hayashi initiated her as a Reiki Master and she took over. In the last years before her death, she began to train some of her students as Reiki Masters. When she died in 1980, she had initiated 22 Reiki Masters(most of them are still living today). Takata also at some point made changes in the Reiki system that was taught to her from Hayashi. The meditative and spiritual practices were missing and are being rediscovered from Japan. It is not known why they were dropped from the Reiki system.

After Takata's death, Reiki was split into two schools. One was the Radiance Technique taught by Barbara Weber Ray and the other was The Reiki Alliance and was founded by Takata's granddaughter who claimed she was the Grand Master now that Mrs. Takata had died. There was no real successor named at the time of Mrs. Takata's death, so these 2 factions tried to claim Lineage succession.

Phyllis Lei Furumoto, who in 1883, was recognized by the Reiki Alliance as the Grand Master of Reiki. Takata died leaving no successor named.

Through Takata and the Reiki teachers Furumoto had initiated, Reiki became known in the Western world. Today, Reiki is known in every country and there are several thousand Reiki Masters. In the 2^nd world war, Dr. Hayashi’s clinic was destroyed and Reiki was lost to Japan for a time but we are learning that Japan was practicing apart from Western Reiki traditions. In the decade since Mrs. Takata passing, Reiki has spread rapidly. It is now practiced throughout the world. There are now an estimated 5,000 Reiki Masters with as many as 500,000 people practicing Reiki throughout the world

Today there is an enormous variety within the reiki healing method. Some Reiki Masters have formed themselves into organizations (The International Centre for Reiki Training(William Rand), The Reiki Alliance, there are many now), while others work independently. The traditional Reiki systems still exists, representing the form and the content of the teaching in line with the original lineage of Usui and there are others teaching different techniques, styles, symbols.

Where this is all leading I have no idea but Reiki and the way it is practiced is changing. With that change you will find conflict and ego at times. It is up to all of us to lead the way to developing peace in relationships. There is always a way.

More History..Vincent Amador's Reiki History..http://angelreiki.nu/ryoho/