At the end of the nineteenth century, Dr Mikao Usui, who lived in Kyoto, Japan, as a Christian Minister, became President of a small university.
One day a senior student asked him if besides preaching and teaching he could demonstrate healing.
This question made him go on a search, first to Chicago USA, where he received a doctorate degree in religious studies while he searched for the methods of ancient healers. Back in Japan he visited monasteries until he found one which he could study the Buddhist scriptures in Japanese. As he did not find the way of healing he learned Chinese and studied the Chinese translations, still without success.
He then learned Sanskrit so he could read the original Buddhist sutra that had never been translated. Finally Dr Usui found the formula, the symbols, the key of healing. Then, after twenty one days meditating on a sacred mountain, the meaning and use of these symbols were revealed to him and he received the power for the Usui system of Reiki.
Coming down the mountain he hurt his foot and healed himself on the spot. For the next seven years he worked in a beggar’s camp and developed the principles of Reiki. Dr Usui practised and taught Reiki for many years. When his life was drawing to a close, he recognised Dr Churjiro Hayashi as the master of Reiki and charged him with keeping the essence of his teaching intact.
Dr Hayashi founded a Reiki clinic in Tokyo, open to everyone who wanted treatment or to learn Reiki in order to be a practitioner outside. He left records demonstrating that Reiki reaches the source of the physical symptoms, fills the body with energy needed and restores it to wholeness.
In 1935 a Japanese woman, Hawayo Takata, was guided from Hawaii to Japan to Dr Hayashi and to Reiki. After experiencing the blessings of this energy on her own body, she stayed one year with Dr Hayashi, learning and practising, then returned to Hawaii with the gift of Reiki.
In February 1938 Mrs Takata was initiated as a master of the Usui system of Reiki by Dr Hayashi. Until the end of her life in December 1980 she committed herself totally to Reiki. Through her and the Reiki masters initiated by her, Reiki became known in the western world.
