A Brief History of Reiki

Mikao Usui, the founder of Reiki, was born in Japan in 1865. A businessman, scholar, and spiritualist, Usui developed the Reiki healing system after he experienced a spiritual enlightenment while on a meditation fast. Usui opened a Reiki clinic in Tokyo in April of 1922 and began to teach and heal others. He taught Reiki as a spiritual way of life and intuitive healing art. Usui eventually taught over 2,000 students and trained 16 teachers before passing away in 1926. One of those teachers was a physician, Dr. Chujiro Hayashi who founded his own Reiki school in 1931.

Dr. Hayashi developed a system of hand positions and took a more formalized approach to the use of symbols and attunements. One of his students was Mrs. Hawao Takada who had been born in Hawaii in 1900. Suffering from many ailments, Mrs. Takada went to Japan to seek medical treatment. She found out about Dr. Hayashi’s clinic, however, and took daily Reiki treatments from him and his associates, becoming completely cured in just a few months. She convinced Dr. Hayashi to train her in the use of Reiki energy healing and received Reiki Levels I and II from him in 1936-1937. Dr. Hayashi died in 1940 of a self-induced stroke.

Mrs. Takata began giving Reiki treatments and instructing students after returning to Hawaii. Prior to his death, Dr. Hayashi attuned Mrs. Takata as a Reiki Master. She eventually initiated 22 Reiki Masters before her death in 1980. Mrs. Takata's teachings focused on stories and anecdotes that put a “Western” spin on Mikao Usui’s story in order to make Reiki more acceptable in the United States. Mrs. Takata also developed a series of series rules governing the cost and method of teaching Reiki to others insisting that the Reiki symbols and attunements were sacred and should be kept secret. In 1995, as a response to the elitism of this approach, independent Reiki Master Diane Stein published Essential Reiki, which revealed the symbols and attunement process publicly for the first time.

Today, Reiki is practiced all around the world. What was once known to only a few is now a way of life for many.