The development of Usui’s system after his death is connected with three names: the Gakkai, Dr Chujiro Hayashi and Hawayo Takata. The first is that of a Japanese organization, the second a Tokyo doctor and the third an American citizen – who secured the survival of Reiki and started its world tour through Hawaii, North America and the rest of the world. Until, in the 1990s, it finally returned to Japan.
After Usui’s death, the group of naval officers he had trained took it upon themselves to continue the practice. They formed the Usui Reiki Ryoho Gakkai (translated as Usui Reiki Healing Association) and Reiki experienced a tremendous surge in popularity. Within a decade, hundreds of thousands of Japanese people were practising it. Some estimates are as high as 1 million. Branches of the association were established in every major city and the system was used for both physical healing and self-development.
This success story came to a sudden end, however, when the Second World War broke out. The Japanese government started to question whether people with healing energy in their palms, promoting the concept of oneness and sensing an inner connection to the universe, would support the idea of joining the war and shooting other human beings. The Gakkai fell under suspicion and its members had to go into hiding.
Then the war came, millions of Japanese were killed and afterwards the country concentrated on rebuilding and economic success. Spirituality was largely forgotten and even today the word ‘Reiki’ is unknown to the majority of Japanese. The system would have become extinct had it not been for another development: a schism. One member of the Gakkai, Dr Hayashi, broke away.
Dr Chujiro Hayashi, who is said to have trained originally as a medical doctor, was one of the group of naval officers and the youngest of Usui’s 20 Reiki Masters. A founder member of the Gakkai, he was the author of a manual detailing the organs in the human body, common illnesses and suggested hand positions for Reiki students. But in the 1930s he decided to leave the organization and open his own Reiki clinic. This was a highly successful venture – contemporaries noted that the client list read like a who’s who of Tokyo’s establishment, including actors, authors and business leaders. In the clinic Dr Hayashi had 10 treatment couches and his speciality was having two practitioners working simultaneously on each client. (I now use this practice in some of my workshops: two people work intuitively on the same recipient. It’s fascinating to watch the practitioners being drawn to the same places! And, of course, very reassuring, too.)
In 1936 Dr Hayashi was asked to take on a new client, an American lady who came as a medical emergency. And it was this encounter that guaranteed the survival of the system of Reiki. The lady’s name was Hawayo Takata. Born in 1900 in Hawaii (hence the unusual first name given by her Japanese parents), she had recently lost her husband, was working hard to bring up her two children and had come to Tokyo on family business. Falling seriously ill there, she had been diagnosed with a tumour in her stomach, as well as a number of additional problems, and told she needed urgent surgery.
Then something strange happened: she was lying on the operating table when suddenly she heard a voice saying: ‘No surgery necessary. No surgery necessary.’ And it just wouldn’t go away. Pondering what to do, she decided to ask the surgeon if he knew of an alternative to surgery. To her great surprise, he did – his wife was a student of Dr Hayashi! Mrs Takata was driven to his clinic straight away.
Dr Hayashi told her that she would need to come in on a daily basis for several weeks. Just one week later, the pain had gone, a few weeks on, the tumour had disappeared, and in a few months, all her medical problems had been cured. It isn’t hard to imagine her amazement! Especially as, sensing a slight vibration and intense heat during one of her first sessions, she’d lifted the blanket to see what kind of device the practitioners were using – only to find them laughing out loud. Of course, there was no device – only hands. What she had felt was energy – the energy of the universe. She had to learn this method too!
Apparently offering Dr Hayashi all her money (all!) helped to convince him of her sincerity and he accepted her as a student – the first-ever foreigner to learn Reiki.
She stayed for half a year, living in Dr Hayashi’s household and working as a volunteer in his practice. In the morning, she would treat clients in the clinic; in the afternoon, conduct home visits. Dr Hayashi trained her in Reiki 1 and 2, and when her training was complete, she returned to Hawaii and began to work as a Reiki practitioner herself.
A year later, in 1937–1938, Dr Hayashi visited her there. He stayed several months, giving treatments and Reiki courses and training Mrs Takata to the next level. Before he left, he awarded her with a certificate stating that she had been trained as a Master of the Usui System of Natural Healing – the first time that the Western title ‘Master’ had been adopted (rather than the Japanese Shinpiden). To make the certificate official, it was verified and stamped by a solicitor.
Soon after his return to Tokyo, though, Dr Hayashi found himself under pressure from the authorities. His Reiki practice, and particularly his extended visit to US territory, had raised their suspicions. Eventually he felt the pressure was untenable and in 1940 ended his life.
Then the war came – and afterwards Mrs Takata seems to have been convinced that she was the only Reiki Master to survive. Taking this very seriously, she made a huge effort to promote Reiki, offering treatments and teaching levels 1 and 2. After Pearl Harbor, this wasn’t an easy task, given that the system was not only Buddhist-inspired but also Japanese! Still, in the end, her healing successes were just too convincing and she established a prosperous practice and teaching business. She also began to travel to the US mainland and Canada.
When she reached her seventies, she realized that it was time to secure the continuation of Reiki and finally began to train the Master level. When she died in 1980, she had trained 22 Reiki Masters. Through them, Reiki spread all over the globe – well over 90 per cent of Reiki practitioners world-wide have one of these 22 Masters in their lineage!
What she taught, however, wasn’t entirely authentic. It isn’t clear whether she introduced the changes herself or Dr Hayashi had already changed the system. But both promoted Reiki as an alternative therapy and focused on physical healing. As Hawayo Takata was a practising Buddhist, she may not have felt the need to include any of the philosophy in her courses. For the American public, however, she stressed Reiki’s connections with Christianity – going so far as to invent the story that Usui was a Christian missionary who had been asked by a pupil how Jesus could heal. Lacking a convincing answer, he had made it his mission to find out – and discovered Reiki. These and various other stories were later found to be historically incorrect and this led to many Reiki students sincerely questioning the entire system. In addition, Mrs Takata introduced a set sequence of hand positions (utilizing the concept of chakras) for giving a treatment, rather than relying on intuition, and also changed the wording of the Reiki principles.
It may be that this focus on physical healing initially secured Reiki’s popularity in the West, but at some stage practitioners felt there was something missing. And a strange development was set in motion: Reiki started to get ‘add-ons’.
Reiki today is the story of moving away and being pulled back. Indeed, many Reiki students have moved away. Not from Reiki, but from the techniques and explanations they were given. After all, how was it possible for a system for physical healing to lead to psychic experiences, spiritual development and life improvements? So they started to look for answers in other esoteric traditions. Eventually they adopted not only various (often useful) theoretical concepts, but also new techniques and even new symbols. Crystals, visualizations and hypnotherapy were also often introduced, and the origins of Reiki were assumed to lie in a whole variety of places, from Atlantis to ancient Egypt.
Many of these techniques and traditions are useful healing modalities and can also be walked as spiritual paths. But they are not Reiki. Adding them obscured Reiki – and in quite a few cases radically changed it.
Fortunately, just in time to stop this from developing any further, the system of Reiki went back to its origins: to Japan. A few Western Reiki Masters began to teach it there and eventually were introduced to the memorial stone. Finally some written historical information! They were also put in touch with a few Japanese who still practised Reiki (most notably a lady called Chiyoko Yamaguchi) and it turned out that the Reiki Gakkai had survived all that time, and a few other Reiki practitioners were still practising independently. The knowledge gained from these sources (albeit, in the case of the Gakkai, rather reluctantly shared) threw a very different light on Usui’s system. Here, the focus was on spiritual self-development and the palm healing was almost entirely based on intuition.
For many, it felt like two sides of a coin. But, as I said right at the beginning, by turning this over, the true depth of the system can be revealed. This is the opportunity we have today: to understand the history and spiritual foundations of Reiki and use the many practical techniques in our lives every day.
Looking for Reiki on the internet can be very confusing. The last time I counted, I found about 70 different names and varieties. The vast majority of them have little or nothing to do with the Usui system of Reiki. But there are also just slight variations. Here are the main categories of what is on offer:
These are the branches of traditional Reiki that kept Mikao Usui’s original system of Reiki to a large degree intact. Differences here are rather a matter of emphasis than of changing the basics. Although each teacher will have their own style, the essence of the system is the same and any student taught in one of these systems will be able to have similar experiences and produce similar effects. Unless mixed with other esoteric disciplines, these traditions are the most authentic. The main branches are:
These are Usui Reiki with significant additions from other esoteric traditions. Because of this, some professional Reiki associations do not consider those practising them as eligible for membership.
These are healing systems that have adopted the name Reiki but have no connection to Usui’s teachings and lineage. Often hands are used and energy felt, and these traditions are regarded as valuable healing modalities. Many claim to be channelled and are said to work by connecting to spirit entities. The most prominent are:
Many other systems found on the internet combine the name Reiki with fancy additions, and it seems rather clear that they are not meant seriously – but then, you never know on the internet!