ORIGINS
OF REIKI
Reiki's founder
was Dr. Mikao Usui, also known as Usui Sensei in Japan.
Until the mid-1990s little was known of the historical man,
not even the dates of his birth and death.
For several
decades the sole knowledge of Dr. Usui in the West came from
the late Hawayo Takata who brought Reiki from Japan to
Hawaii in the late 1930s.
She freely admitted her knowledge of Dr. Usui was hearsay as
he had made his transition (Reiki jargon for passing on or
dying) several years prior to Mrs. Takata's first trip to
Japan in the mid-1930s.
Nature and story-tellers abhor a vacuum, and in the absence
of any direct knowledge of Dr. Usui's life the myths and
legends were born. And some are quite amazing. I have a
photocopied set of notes from another Reiki master in which
Dr. Usui's healing miracles from the 1830s are sombrely and
reverently recorded. The only problem with this is that we
now know Dr. Usui was born in 1865.
For years the only story known in the West of Dr. Usui's
life was the oral story told over and over by Mrs. Takata to
her students. We do not know if Mrs. Takata ever read the
works of the late, Joseph Campbel but her rendition of Dr.
Usui's life reads like a script from Professor Campbell's
book on the archetypal hero's journey.
There is even a tape recording (made in 1979) of Mrs. Takata
telling the story in detail. It takes her about 45 minutes
to do so. Briefly, here is a summary of some of the high
points of Mrs. Takata's story of Dr. Usui's life:
Dr. Usui was the principal of the Doshisha University in
Kyoto, Japan, and also a Christian preacher and missionary.
One day one of his students asked him if he could duplicate
the healing by laying on of hands which the Bible describes
was done by Christ.
Dr. Usui replied he could not, and thereupon resigned his
position at the university to travel to the United States to
receive further Christian training at the University of
Chicago in the hope of learning this healing skill described
in the Bible.
After studying seven years in the U.S. and discovering
American Christians had no idea about Christ's healing by
hands either, he began studying other philosophies and
religions, including Hinduism, Zoroastrianism, and Buddhism.
He read a passage in the Buddhists texts about the Buddha
healing by laying on hands and decided to return to Japan
and see what the Buddhists there might know.
After a few years of studying in a Japanese Zen Buddhist
temple in Kyoto, where he was befriended by the wise head
monk who became his mentor, Dr. Usui had not found his
answer. He then moved on to study in China with the Chinese
Buddhists, but came to the same conclusion as he had in
Japan, that they did not have the answers he sought either.
Realizing many original Buddhist text were written in
Sanskrit, the ancient language of India, he decided to learn
that language so that he might study those ancient Buddhist
Sanskrit writings (some versions of the story have him in
India for this).
After diligent study of Sanskrit, Dr. Usui eventually found
an inscription in Sanskrit which explained how to do the
laying on of hands, although the inscription did not contain
instructions as to how to activate the energy. (A citation
for this inscription is never included in any version the
story, by the way.)
Dr. Usui was inspired to return to the Zen temple in Kyoto
and talk to his mentor, the senior monk, about what to do
about activating the energy.
The two of them decided Dr. Usui would be best to meditate
at the top of a mountain outside of Kyoto for 21 days. On
the last day of the meditation Dr. Usui had a spectacular
epiphany experience during which he was shown how to
activate the energy and give the gift of Reiki, the healing
by laying on of hands.
He then came down the mountain performing miraculous
healings. After consulting with his mentor, he later set off
into the world doing good works, teaching Reiki, and healing
the infirm with his newly-given gift, all the while learning
many important lessons about human nature.
Parts of this story surely are myth. Significant efforts by
western Reiki masters in the 1990s were made to verify Dr.
Usui's Christian connection. No verification of his
Christian teaching position in Japan or his theological
studies in Chicago in the United States has been unearthed.
However his membership in a Kyoto Zen temple has been
verified, and the photograph above (one of the very few
photographs of Dr. Usui anyone has found) apparently shows
him wearing either a Zen or Taoist robe. Whether he was a
full-time or part-time monk is still debated amongst Western
researchers. It is known he was involved in a family
business of some sort, but the exact nature of the
enterprise is as yet unknown.
A memorial stone next to his grave in Tokyo has recently
been discovered by Westerners although it has been known to
Japanese Reiki people for some time. Miraculously, the
graveyard survived the bombings of Tokyo in World War II.
Apparently the Americans felt no need to bomb a cemetery.
The inscription on the memorial stone is now known to have
been written by a close friend of Dr. Usui's shortly after
Dr. Usui's passing in 1926.
The memorial stone makes no reference to Dr. Usui's
Christian connection, but does speak of his scholarly
abilities. Enigmatically the stone states "he travelled to
several Western countries and China to study." The
inscription mentions the 21-day mountain-top fast and
epiphany experience without getting into detail about it.
The stone notes Dr. Usui opened a Reiki clinic in Tokyo in
1922 and performed fine healing works the following year
when many people were injured in a serious earthquake. By
1925, the stone's inscription tells us, the clinic was so
busy it expanded to a new location on the outskirts of
Tokyo. The next year Dr. Usui died of a stroke at age 62. He
was survived by his wife, a son, and a daughter.
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