THE ORIGINS OF REIKI - the abbreviated version

I've heard many renditions of the History of Reiki... Having great respect for Reiki and a large disdain for "creative" history, I thought I'd jot down what is fact and leave out the fiction. Mikao Usui, Sensei, the founder of Reiki, was born in 1865, near Kyoto, Japan. He was born into a religious family at a time that marked the beginning of more openmindedness and a renaissance of inclusive thinking. This new era was partly due to a new emperor with forward looking ideas.
Master Usui was sent away to a religious school (Tendai) at the tender age of four (normal for his sort of family) and took his studies seriously, which included religious Buddhist studies, martial arts and meditation. His mother, Sadako Suzuki was of Samurai lineage - so not your average Japanese family.
He was a very spiritual man in adulthood, too, who took his daily religious and meditation exercises very seriously, striving continuously to reach a higher state of spirituality and enlightenment. In 1921 his deep devotion, his constant personal searching, vast life experiences and a particular Satori, culminated into insights and energy transference that we now call Reiki. Master Usui died in 1926.
Master Usui studied the ancient scriptures, not by travelling to Tibet, India or Chicago, but by questioning the learned priests in Kyoto that had access to the Imperial Library's ancient works. Tendai monks, his friends, led him to partake of the common (three week duration) fasts, from time to time. On one such retreat on a nearby sacred mountain, Master Usui experienced Satori and insights came to him that formed the beginnings of what we now consider Reiki. Reiki is a Japanese word, made up of two Japanese kanji – Rei and Ki - meaning, roughly translated, universal and energy. Master Usui incorporated his new gifts and insights into the meditation classes that he was already holding and continued to add in more and more aspects of hands-on-healing as he developed them - such as using symbols to help guide the students to “feel”.
During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in Japan, the ancient art of hands-on-healing, part of shamanistic practices in all parts of the world for thousands of years, was enjoying a Renaissance. As Master Usui’s Reiki method spread, other teachers of other healing modalities shared their knowledge with him, his students and teachers. His close friend, Dr. Hayashi, a retired Rear Admiral, was putting some of Master Usui's Reiki work into written form, about the time Master Usui died.
From generation to generation, passing from Japan to North America and Europe and then throughout the world these notes have become most of the background to Japanese Reiki. Many stories, myths and legends about Master Usui and about the origins of Reiki have appeared - some honourable and some quite preposterous.
In the last 30 years, various Western Reiki teachers created their own personal variations of the system of Reiki and thus there are now many different Reiki “offshoots” with names of their own. It is estimated that there are more than 50,000 Reiki masters and one million Reiki practitioners in the world today. Google shows 8,800,000 entries for the word “reiki”.
In the late 90’s a few very dedicated Reiki Masters were determined to uncover the true origins of Reiki and details of the life of Master Usui - his intentions and his legacy. We owe these pioneers a debt of gratitude.
Usui-Sensei had a deep understanding of the wisdom and teachings of the Buddha - teachings that he always urged his students to examine for themselves. What he taught and urged his students was to always suss out what was the “truth”, based on one's own experiences, such as  whether Reiki was able to transform suffering into well-being and the integrity of the work itself.
There are a few documents of Master Usui’s original teaching methods and thoughts on Reiki. Class notes by students show us that they were very much concerned with proper etiquette, always bowing to each other upon arriving and departing; that they recited the Emperor’s haiku; that they recited the Reiki principles or precepts; that they modestly asked questions at the student sessions; that the students studied their teachers' notes; that they normally met one evening per week; and that one would be at a level of learning for many years before moving on to the next - no weekend quickies! So there was no exact system as Master Usui practiced his healing work (this we know because Master Usui’s teachings have been kept by several private Japanese societies known as the Usui Reiki Ryoho Gakkai, where the teachers and practitioners do not discuss the details of the society with non-members and where membership in the society is closed to foreigners and by invitation only). For the common good, as Master Usui would have appreciated, a bit more openness and communication would have given the whole world more insights and less fumbling, as they sat and watched us try... even Master Usui would have wished information for all of us.
One of Master Usui’s senior students, Toshihiro Eguchi, knew the Sensei’s methods in its original form and taught this as well as his own system of touch healing. Yuji Onuki, one of his students, decided to travel the world in order to pass on what he had learned in 1971. Several of this teacher’s students went to Japan in search of more Reiki history and details and taught Japanese students - Reiki had come full circle, geographically!
In the mid 1990’s, when a German Reiki teacher, Frank Arjava Petter, was living in Japan teaching English and Reiki, he had no idea that Reiki in Japan actually existed. One of his students, explained that there were many others in Japan who knew Reiki from before World War II, but of a rather different form. (Obviously this student went against the norm of silent vigilence! and thankfully he shared his findings.)
Mr. Petter was exceptionally fortunate to meet a teacher who showed him a copy of an Usui student notebook. He found that indeed the past Reiki practices were quite different from those taught in the West, but that the Reiki energy was the same. The only difference was in the methods by which the energy was applied.
Chris Marsh (a British student of martial arts and the Japanese language, a Tendai Buddhist and frequent traveller to Japan) was introduced to a Buddhist nun, over 100 years old, who had been a student of Master Usui in the 1920’s and possible a niece of Master Usui’s wife! Chris was told by her that she and others were not happy with what had become of Reiki in the West - they had been observing us. She taught him what she had learned. And how wonderful to have this information shared, later on, with all of us.
Back in England Chris shared his new Reiki knowledge with another Reiki Master searching for solid history and details - Andrew Bowling.
In following years, Andy and Chris were judiciously and slowly introduced to more of Master Usui’s students (from 96 to 111 years old). Some original notes and notebooks and manuals were shown to them as well. Looking for the “historic truth”, culminated in the first Usui Reiki Ryoho International workshop, in Vancouver in 1999 organized by Vancouver’s Rick Rivard. Tom Rigler, Andrew Bowling and some other Reiki Masters from North American, came, as did Hiroshi Doi-Sensei, a member of the Usui Reiki Society in Tokyo. He came to Vancouver and spoke about the Japanese Society’s version of the history of Reiki and presented a modified version of Usui Reiki empowerment procedures called Reiju.
So, bit by bit, the details have been released to the rest of the world in a very controlled and limited manner.
Master Usui died in 1926 of a stroke and following his death, Dr. Hayashi, his close associate, continued Reiki on his own, separate from the Usui Reiki Ryoho Gakkai. Dr. Hayashi created the first healing Reiki Centre, where people could pay to receive healing and learning. By 1939, when he passed on, he had initiated thirteen Reiki teachers.
Mrs. Hawayo Takata was born on December 24, 1900 on the Island of Kauai, Hawaii, the daughter of Japanese immigrant farm workers. She married the Japanese plantation accountant and had several children. Her parents retired and went back to Japan. While visiting her parents there, in 1936, Mrs. Takata needed serious medical intervention. Just before the surgery, in the operating room, she heard a voice saying “There is another way - surgery is not necessary.” When she queried the surgeon just as he was to start the operation, he answered her that, yes, indeed, there was another way. This surgeon’s wife worked at a Tokyo clinic where hands-on-healing was done and he referred her to Hayashi’s Reiki clinic. Even today this would be an unheard of occurrence, let alone back in 1936, not to speak of the Satori, or “ spiritual helpful moment”... and after several months she was healed and was sold on Reiki! She stayed on and lived and studied with the Hayashi’s and obtained instruction while working in his clinic for about a year - Reiki Level One and Two. (Mrs. Hayashi and the daughter were also Reiki Masters.)
In 1937, Mrs.Takata brought the system of Reiki back home to Hawaii, where she started a little clinic. The following year, Dr. Hayashi and his daughter came over to help her and gave their blessing to the first Reiki clinic outside of Japan. Mrs Takata was initiated as a Reiki Master by Dr. Hayashi during that visit.
Then there was Pearl Harbour! The Japanese were not very popular for a while and out of self preservation she kept a low profile. Mrs. Takata continued to practiced Reiki on the Hawaiian Islands after 1948. She concluded that Reiki had not survived WWII in Japan as her contact with the Hayashi’s had ceased and obviously she was not a memeber of any secret society.
She later began to teach the level One and Two classes. By 1975 she began to teach practitioners to become Reiki teachers/masters (by invitation). She travelled to the American mainland and Canada and eventually initiated 22 Reiki Masters in all by the time of her death in 1980. Of these masters, five were from the Slocan Valley in BC.
One of her earlier students, Helen J. Haberly, wrote an interesting book ten years after her death - Reiki: Hawayo Takata’s Story. At the time there was very little written on Reiki, so this book became popular. In it were many details of remarkable sessions that Mrs. Takata had experienced with clients and students, attesting to the power of Reiki. Also in this book was an overview of the “history” - a casual version - and told like a tale. The acknowledgements start with: “this is a story - not a history” and Chapter One starts with “Once upon a time - for all proper stories begin with “once upon a time” - a gift of great value was given to the Children of Earth.”
I suspect that Mrs. Takata was very wise when she spoke of the Reiki history. Now it is hard to imagine, given our present day understanding and open western world ways, but Mrs. Takata’s 1940’s and 1950’s was much different than today. To start with, North Americans were much more closed and suspicious of foreigners than today. For Reiki to be even remotely viable, to be considered by people as a good alternative, Mrs. Takata had two large speed-bumps to overcome. Hands-on-healing was quackery and deemed a criminal offense (jail) and anything non-Christian was highly suspect, as was everything foreign or patently non-American or non-British in nature. Two officers were assigned to sit in her little clinic so they could pounce the minute any monies changed hands and quackery could be charged. She could only work on a non-monetary basis (so people paid with cakes, casseroles, chickens and barter).
Back in the 1950’s when my family came to Canada, we experienced severe discrimination - my father’s life was threatened because he had taken a job away from a “Canadian” and that while employers were desperate for workers. A girl you lived up the street from me was beaten by her mom because she had played with a foreigner (that was me). I got the strap daily because I refused to kneel in school - we were not kneeling at home, so I didn’t feel the need. The school bully beat me up because i was a foreigner. The school was run by Irish nuns. They needed to make a point about what was “normal” and “tolerated”. Can you imagine if I had also looked different and had been Buddhist? How difficult would that have been! I think Mrs. Takata navigated the bigoted waters of North America of the 1950’s and 1960’s rather well... it was either a little awkward embellishment of the Reiki history or no Reiki at all... those were her choices.
Intense debate over the true nature of Reiki, how to continue teaching Reiki and who would take her place, began immediately following her passing in 1980. A group of mainly Mrs. Takata’s original 22 Reiki teachers formed the Reiki Alliance and called the work Usui Shiki Ryoho. Mrs. Takata’s granddaughter, Phyllis Lee Furumoto was the head of this Reiki Alliance and took the title “Grandmaster” and continued on as close as possible to her gandmother’s previous ways. New Reiki Masters added their own concepts, tools and idiosyncrasies (Mrs. Takata’s teachings stayed very close to that of her teacher, Dr. Hayashi, but she just organised the class content into a smaller time frame).
As Reiki practitioners we naturally exercise tolerance for those who practice a different form of Reiki and who belong to a different lineage. A Hindu yogi master once said, “When you have found a path up the mountain and you can see the summit from far below, it is tempting to call out to those struggling to ascend – ‘Look, I have found the way.’ It is only when one reaches the summit itself that one has the all-encompassing view of the mountain and then one realizes that there are many paths to the summit, each with its own charms and pitfalls.”
by Merrie Bakker, Pacific Holistic, info@pacificholistic.com, http:www.pacificholistic.com, 604-261-7742