Where does Reiki come from?
Reiki was developed by a man called Mikao Usui. Usui grew up at a time
when Japanese society and culture was going through a period of rapid
change. It was not until the 1850s that Japan opened itself up to the
Western world; for two centuries starting in 1641, all Europeans except
the Dutch had been expelled from Japan. Those Chinese and Dutch that
remained were confined in special trading centres in Nagasaki, and no
Japanese were allowed to leave the country. Christianity was declared
illegal and all Japanese were forced to register at Shinto temples.
Those Japanese who refused to renounce Christianity were executed, and
so were a few Christian missionaries who refused to leave the country.
This ban on Christianity was not lifted until 1873. It was the United
States that finally forced Japan to open its borders, and open its economy,
to the outside world, and this event led to a great flood of new ideas
and esoteric systems coming into Japan from all over the world.
Not only that, but Japan underwent a period of rapid industrialisation, transforming itself from a feudal society into an industrialised nation - able to compete with the West on an equal footing - within a period of only 30-40 years. Such a period of rapid change created a real climate of 'wanting to keep hold of traditional culture'. Japan was looking for a spiritual direction and people wanted to rekindle and maintain ancient traditions, while embracing the new. This is what Usui did when he developed Reiki. In the time when Usui was growing up, Japan was a melting pot of new ideas, with many new spiritual systems and healing techniques being developed. Reiki was one of these systems.
Usui's Life
Mikao Usui was born on August 15, 1865 in the village of 'Taniai-mura'
(now called Miyama-cho) in the Yamagata district of Gifu prefecture,
Kyoto - the former capital of Japan, and he died on March 9, 1926. He
had an interesting life. He grew up in a Tendai Buddhist family and
had a sister and two brothers, one of whom studied medicine. As a child
he entered a Tendai Buddhist monastery near Mt. Kurama ("Horse
Saddle Mountain"). He would have studied 'kiko' (the Japanese version
of Chi Kung) to an advanced level - and maybe practised projection healings
- and he was exposed to martial arts too. From the age of 12 he trained
in a martial art called Yagyu Ryu - Samurai swordsmanship - in which
he attained the level of Menkyo Kaiden in his 20s, this being the highest
licence of proficiency in weaponry and grappling. He continued training
in the Arts and reached high levels in several other of the most ancient
Japanese methods. He was renowned for his expertise and highly respected
by other well-known martial artists of his time.
In his younger life he experienced much adversity, lack of money, no security or regular employment. It is not known why; it could have been due to bad luck or simply that he did not attach importance to material things. He was regarded as something of an eccentric. He married, and his wife's name was Sadako, and they had a son (born 1907) and daughter. Usui followed a number of professions: public servant, office worker, industrialist, reporter, politician's secretary, missionary, and supervisor of convicts. Usui was private secretary to Shimpei Goto, who was Secretary of the Railroad, Postmaster General, and Secretary of the Interior and State. The phrase 'politician's secretary' can be taken as a euphemism for 'bodyguard'! It is during his time in diplomatic service that he may have had the opportunity to travel to other countries. In 1868 (when Usui was 3) there was restoration of rule by Emperor, the Meiji Restoration. Mutsuhito reigned until 1912 and selected a new reign title - Meiji, which means enlightened rule - to mark a new beginning in Japanese history. It is known that Usui travelled to China, America and Europe several times to learn and study Western ways, and this practice was encouraged in the Meiji era. At some point Usui became for a while a Tendai Buddhist Monk, or Priest, (maybe what we in the west call a lay priest) but still having his own home, not living in the temple. This is called a 'Zaike' in Japanese: a priest possessing a home.
Usui Sensei was interested in a great many things and seems to have studied voraciously. His memorial states that he was a talented hard working student, he liked to read and his knowledge of medicine, psychology, fortune telling and theology of religions around the world, including the Kyoten (Buddhist Bible) was vast. There was a large University library in Kyoto, and Japanese sources believe that he would have done most of his research there, where sacred texts from all over the world would have been held. He studied traditional Chinese medicine and Western medicine, numerology and astrology, and psychic and clairvoyant development. Usui also took Zen Buddhist training in 1922 for about three years. Many different spiritualist/healing groups were in existence at the time, and one of these - attended by Usui - was 'Rei Jyutsu Kai'. Today this organisation consists of the most spiritual monks and nuns in Japan, psychics and clairvoyants.
The Roots of Reiki
The system was rooted in Tendai Buddhism and Shintoism. Tendai Buddhism
(a form of mystical Buddhism) provided spiritual teachings, and Shintoism
contributed methods of controlling and working with the energies. Usui
had a strong background in both kiko (energy cultivation) and a martial
art with a strong Zen flavour (Yagyu Shinkage Ryu), and he also took
Zen training, and these studies may have contributed in some way to
the system that he developed. There also seems to be a strong connection
between Usui’s system and Shugendo (mountain asceticism). Shugendo
was a blend of pre-Buddhist folk traditions of Sangaku Shinko and Shinto,
Tantric Buddhism, Chinese Yin-Yang magic and Taoism.
Usui's Associates
During his life, Usui associated with many men and women of very high
spiritual values. Some were famous people in Japan, for example Morihei
Ueshiba (founder of Aikido), Onasiburo Deguchi (founder of Omoto religion)
and Toshihiro Eguchi (founded his own religion and was a good friend
of Usui). There are even connections between Usui and Mokichi Okada,
the founder of Johrei, and Jigoro Kano, the founder of Judo.
Usui the Man
Usui Sensei could be very outspoken, apparently, and controversial.
His friends would often be concerned about his welfare. His answer to
them would be 'just for today do not worry', one of the Reiki precepts.
According to one of his surviving students, Usui was physically big,
quiet in manner and extremely powerful. He did not suffer fools gladly,
and could be quite abrasive at times. He could become righteously angry
and quite impatient, particularly with people who wanted results but
were not prepared to work for them.
Usui's Motivation
But what prompted Usui to pursue all these studies? Well, according
to Hiroshi Doi, a member of the Usui Reiki Ryoho Gakkai in Japan (see
later), Mikao Usui was wondering what the ultimate purpose of life was,
and set out to try to understand this. After some time he finally experienced
an enlightenment: the ultimate life purpose was 'Anshin Rytsu Mei' -
the state of your mind being totally in peace, knowing what to do with
your life, being bothered by nothing. Doi says that with this revelation,
Usui researched harder, for 3 years, trying to achieve this goal. Finally,
he turned to a Zen master for advice on how to attain this life purpose.
The master replied "If you want to know; die!" Usui-sensei
lost hope at this and thought, "My life is over". He then
went to Mt. Kurama and decided to fast until he died.
So it seems that - according to Hiroshi Doi anyway - Usui was looking for a way of knowing one's life's purpose and to be content, and despite all his exhaustive research, he could not find a way to achieve this state. The monk's advice prompted him to go to Mount Kurama and to carry out a 21-day meditation and fast. We now know that Usui Sensei carried out a meditation called 'The Lotus Repentance', which comes from Tendai Buddhism. Usui carried out the meditation and, according to his memorial stone, he experienced an enlightenment or 'satori' that led to the development of Reiki. But this does not seem to have the ring of truth to it, because he performed the meditation five times during his lifetime, and Usui's system wasn't something new that came to him in a flash of inspiration, but a system that was rooted in many existing traditions. Usui was already teaching his system long before he carried out the meditation. Originally, Usui's system did not have a name, though he referred to it as a 'Method to Achieve Personal Perfection'. His students seem to have referred to the system as 'Usui Do' or 'Usui Teate' (Usui hand-application). The name 'Reiki' came later, perhaps first used by the founders of the 'Gakkai.
Mount Kurama, where Usui carried out one of his meditations, is a holy mountain. It is near Kyoto, the former capital of Japan, a place which I heard described on a recent television travel programme as being 'the spiritual heart of Japan' - a place with a thousand temples representing a whole range of deities. Mount Kurama is also important from a martial arts perspective, being the place where mountain spirits - Tengu - are said to have given the secrets of fighting to the Samurai. Morihei Usheiba, founder of Aikido, often took students to the mystical Shojobo Valley to train.
Usui Sensei Teaches his System
According to Usui's Memorial stone, Usui was a very well-known and popular
healer, and he taught nearly 2,000 students all over Japan, but this
should be taken as just meaning a large number, maybe 1,000 or more
though. All of his students started out being treated by him. Usui would
give them empowerments so that they were connected to Reiki permanently,
so they could treat themselves in-between appointments with him, and
if they wanted to take things further then they could begin an open-ended
programme of training in his system. His teachings were very popular
amongst the older generation, who saw them as a return to older spiritual
practices; Usui was teaching at a time of great change for the Japanese
people. In April 1922 Mikao Usui opened his first 'Seat of Learning'
in Harajuku, Tokyo, and he used a small manual which had come into use
about 1920. It did not contain any hand positions for healing others:
it contained the Precepts, Meditations and the Waka poetry.
Of the people that he taught, 50-70 went on to the first level of Second Degree, and maybe 30 went on to the second level of Second Degree. Usui trained 17 people to Shinpiden level. There were 5 Buddhist nuns, 3 Naval Officers, and nine other men, including Eguchi who was said to have been Usui's main friend/student. Eguchi later formed his own religion called Tenohira-Ryouchi-Kenyuka, which was Shinto revivalism, getting back to the early Shamanic roots. Even to this day in Japan there is a spiritual community which carries on Eguchi's tradition, where they carry out a simple hands-on treatment technique based on the use of intuition and involving simple initiations. Usui's teachings were what is called a 'Ronin' (leaderless) method. This was to make sure that no one person could lay claim to them and they would be freely available for all who wanted to learn them. It would have been more usual for Usui to have kept his system as an Usui family method, rather than passing it on to outsiders.
Usui Sensei did not only practice and teach his Spiritual Teachings in his school but he also gave healing. He became very well known for his healing skills and his fame spread very quickly throughout Japan. In 1923 the Kanto earthquake struck 50 miles from Tokyo, destroying Tokyo and Yokohama. An estimated 140,000 people died from the 'quake or the fires that followed it. This was the greatest natural disaster in Japanese history, and Usui gave many treatments to vistims. The Usui Memorial says that Usui Sensei "reached out his hands of love to suffering people", and in recognition of his services to the people during this emergency he was awarded an honorary Doctorate. It is when he was giving healings at a Naval base that he met a group of Imperial Officers, who became students, including the man who would be responsible for allowing Reiki to come to the West.
Mikao Usui died from a stroke in a town called Fukuyama in Hiroshima in 1926.
Some Unusual Students
The Imperial Naval Officers were Jusaburo Gyuda/Ushida, Ichi Taketomi
and Chujiro Hayashi. It was certainly surprising to Usui's students
that Usui would teach such people as Officers of the Imperial Navy.
Indeed, it seems that there was some 'resistance' to this taking place,
and Usui's friends were upset that he would teach his spiritual system
to military men. But Usui had been doing some healing at a naval base,
and it seems that there was some metaphorical 'arm twisting' that led
to the officers learning Usui's method. But Dr Hayashi, certainly, does
not seem to have been interested in the 'spiritual path' aspects of
Usui's system, he was a Christian, and he focused on the treatment aspects,
which was not really so important from Usui's point of view. Usui modified
his teachings accordingly, to meet the needs of his new students. Since
Dr Hayashi - and probably the other Naval Officers too - were having
difficulties in experiencing the energies, Usui and his senior student
Eguchi introduced something new into his system: the symbols that are
so familiar to Western Reiki practitioners.
Dr Chujiro Hayashi
Chujiro Hayashi was born in 1878. He graduated from Naval School in
1902 and by the time he was doing his Master training with Usui Sensei
in 1925 he was 47 years old, a former Captain in the Imperial Navy,
and he was a Naval Doctor. He and the other Naval Officers Ushida and
Taketomi were the last people to be taught by Usui. It seems that Hayashi
was one of Usui's less experienced Master students since he may have
trained with Usui for only 9 months. When you reached Master level with
Usui, this represented the commencement of a long period of training
which culminated in learning the connection rituals, and considering
that other students of Usui spent 9 months meditating on only one energy
at second-degree level, Dr Hayashi cannot have learned the inner teachings
of Reiki in such a short space of time, nor reached the higher levels
of Mastership. Together with the other naval officers, Dr Hayashi was
a founder member of the Usui Reiki Ryoho Gakkai, a 'memorial society'
set up after Usui's death. The 'Gakkai was described by Tatsumi (one
of Hayashi's Master students), rather disparagingly, as an 'officer's
club'.
Although he was one of the founding members of the 'Gakkai, he left, it seems, because the nationalism displayed by the other officers conflicted with his Christian beliefs and went against Usui's teachings, and because of the many changes that the other Imperial Officers were introducing into the system, for example the introduction of many kiko (Japanese QiGong) techniques. But Hayashi changed things too, as we'll discover shortly.
After he completed his training, Hayashi opened a clinic with eight beds and 16 healers working there, and clients were treated by two or more people. He kept detailed records of the treatments that were given, and used this information to create 'standard' hand positions for different ailments which ended up being published in the training manual given to the Gakkai's students (the Usui Reiki Hikkei). In fact this work had already been started when Usui was alive, and it seems that Dr Hayashi was carrying out the research with Usui's knowledge and approval. Usui was interested to see if his spiritual system would 'stand alone' as a healing system. This guide to 'hand positions for different ailments' is very much trying to mould Reiki into the 'medical model', where you diagnose a particular ailment and then prescribe a particular set of hand positions to deal with it, very different from Usui's simple and intuitive approach. Despite this research, though, Hayashi still expected his students to be able to use advanced scanning or intuitive techniques to work out their hand positions, with his 'standard' positions as a fallback position.
Dr Hayashi founded his own society in 1931, five years after Usui died. It was called Hayashi Reiki Kenyu-kai, which means Hayashi Reiki Research Centre. Since Dr Hayashi had made some changes to the system he had been taught by Usui, he was honour bound to change the name of the system, but the changes that he introduced were not popular: some of his senior students left the school, including Tatsumi, who believed that the teachings were no longer Usui's. Hayashi's focus was very much on hands-on healing. Dr Hayashi would teach First Degree over a five-day structured course, with each day's training taking 90 minutes, and students would receive his more complicated attunements on four occasions during this training, by way of echoing Usui's weekly empowerment sessions. Dr Hayashi trained 17 Reiki Masters and produced a 40 page manual which contained the hand positions for different ailments. Since Dr Hayashi would not have been taught Reiju by Usui Sensei, it would appear that he learned the technique when Eguchi joined the Gakkai for a year. Eguchi seems to have joined out of respect for Usui, but he was put off by the nationalism of the Gakkai members and left. Presumably there was enough time for Hayashi to have learned the connection ritual, and this ritual seems to have been modified by him. Certainly the ritual that was taught to Tatsumi is not Usui's Reiju, and neither is the ritual being used by Mrs Yamaguchi, another of Dr Hayashi's Master students.
Chujiro Hayashi died on May 10th 1940. Sadly, he took his own life; it seems that he was very concerned at the build up of nationalism in his country, and it was the threat of war that led to his death. Dr Hayashi's wife Chie continued as President of his school, teaching in the 1940s, but their children did not continue the clinic.
Hawayo Takata
Hawayo Takata was born in 1900 on the island of Kauai, Hawaii. She came
to Dr Hayashi's clinic suffering from a number of serious medical conditions
that were resolved through Reiki, but she was originally intending to
receive conventional Western medical treatments for her tumour, gallstones
and appendicitis. The story goes, though, that on the operating table
(just before the surgery was about to start) Mrs Takata heard a voice
that said "The operation is not necessary". She is said to
have refused the operation, and asked her Doctor if he knew of any other
way to restore her health. The doctor referred her to Dr. Hayashi and
she began receiving a course of treatments.
Mrs Takata was quite sceptical about Reiki. She felt so much heat from the practitioners' hands that she was sure they were using some sort of electrical equipment - maybe little electric heaters secreted in the palms of their hands! She looked in the large sleeves of their Japanese kimonos, under the treatment table, but of course there was nothing there. Her scepticism turned into belief as her health problems resolved themselves, and she decided that she wanted to learn Reiki for herself.
Dr Hayashi wanted to teach Reiki to another woman besides his wife (someone who would not have to be called up to fight in a war), and since Mrs. Takata was so persistent he decided to teach her to Master level, which happened in 1938. Dr Hayashi gave Mrs Takata permission to teach Reiki in the West, and she did so in the USA. She was the 13th and probably the last Reiki Master that Dr. Hayashi initiated, and between 1970 and her death in 1980 Mrs Takata taught 22 Reiki Masters. Until quite recently, all Reiki practitioners in the Western world derived their Reiki from this lady, and could trace their 'lineage' through her to Dr Hayashi and Mikao Usui.
The original twenty-two teachers have passed on the Reiki tradition, and Reiki has spread throughout North and South America, Europe, New Zealand and Australia to many parts of the world. It is almost impossible to estimate the number of Reiki Masters and practitioners in the world, but it must run into tens of thousands, and millions, respectively.
But it cannot have been easy for Mrs Takata, teaching a Japanese healing technique in the United States, after the Second World War, with memories of Pearl Harbour still in everyone's minds. The American population was not particularly well disposed towards anything connected with Japan. Also, while nowadays people are exposed continually to magazine articles about feng shui, tai chi and other energy cultivation techniques, ideas of traditional Chinese medicine, meridians, chi and the like, and alternative medicine in general, at that time in the United States these ideas must have seemed to have come from another planet. Mrs Takata was trying to transmit her whole culture, and a totally alien one as far as her students were concerned.
For this reason, Hawayo Takata was forced to modify, simplify and change the Reiki that she had been taught by Chujiro Hayashi, in order for it to be acceptable to the Westerners that she dealt with, and the Reiki that she had been taught by Dr Hayashi had already been modified by him after he had been taught by Mikao Usui. Not only did Mrs Takata have to modify the practices of Reiki, but she also felt obliged to put together a story about the history of Reiki to make it more acceptable to a hostile American public. Out went Mikao Usui, Tendai Buddhist, and in came Dr Mikao Usui, Christian theologian, who travelled the world on a great quest to discover a healing system that explained the healing miracles that Jesus performed. So stories about Usui being a Christian Doctor, going on a world-wide quest, and studying theology at various Universities along they way, are not true. Despite this, they are repeated in Reiki books, even ones that have been published recently.
As well as putting together a Reiki 'history', Mrs Takata ended up being referred to as 'Grand Master' of Reiki, to make a distinction between herself and the Masters that she taught. This is an office, position or title that was not envisioned by Mikao Usui. Reiki is not based on the idea of gurus or great masters to whom one has to pay homage. Unfortunately, some people in the Reiki community are greatly wedded to the idea of 'The Office of Grand Master' and what I see as the narrow and dogmatic view of Reiki that is approved by the current incumbent, Mrs Takata's grand-daughter, Phyllis Lei Furumoto.
Reiki in Japan
Now the story turns full circle, and Western style Reiki has returned
to its country of birth. At one stage people believed that Reiki had
died out in Japan, and that the only Reiki that remained in the world
was the Western version. But Reiki Masters who moved to Japan in the
1990s discovered that there were Reiki practitioners there who were
doing things that were very different from the Reiki that we had become
used to in the West. It was also discovered that there was an association
called the Usui Reiki Ryoho Gakkai (Usui's Reiki Healing System Association)
which to begin with seemed to have been established by Usui. Now we
know that this is not the case. The Gakkai was set up as a sort of 'memorial'
society by the three Naval Officers. Tatsumi described it as an 'officer's
club' and now it has almost the sort of place in Japanese society that
Freemasons occupy in the West: most people have heard of the 'Gakkai,
but they are not quite sure what they do. You need to be a member if
you are going to get on in business in politics.
As well as the 'Gakkai', there are other Reiki practitioners in Japan whose Reiki to varying degrees follow Usui's original form of Reiki.
Now Japan is experiencing a big explosion of Reiki, but it is mostly Western-style Reiki. Over time I am sure that the two forms of Reiki will join and blend, combining the basic traditions of Usui Reiki with the creative experimentation that characterises the Western approach to the system.
Incidentally, that is what my 'Integrated Reiki' course is designed to achieve!
What does a Reiki treatment feel like?
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