The Reiki Alliance has supported one version of the history, through our Lineage Bearer Phyllis Lei Furumoto, which was passed down by her Grandmother Lineage Bearer Hawayo Takata.  However, differing versions of the history of Reiki have been surfacing over the past few years and many of these versions, with roots in Japan, appear to contradict parts of the official version passed down by Hawayo Takata.  Rather than declare a definitive version,  I would prefer to summarize the key elements of the story that stand out the strongest for me.  The real history of Reiki, in fact, starts with you in First Degree.  For me it is the only real history that matters.

About a hundred years ago, a Japanese man, named Dr. Mikao Usui had what we would call a mystical experience in an extended meditation on a mountain top in Japan.  This experience lead him to an understanding and a practice of hands-on healing.  A few years later, a retired medical doctor and naval officer by the name of Dr. Chujiro Hayashi  assisted Dr. Usui in creating a system of healing based on this ancient healing art which Dr. Usui called Reiki.  This system of healing became known (in Japanese) as the Usui System of Natural Healing.  The system was comprised of standard forms of treatment, five personal precepts plus principles of conduct and treatment.  Reiki is not aligned to any particular religious group or practice.  When Dr. Usui died he passed all of his teachings on to Dr. Hayashi.  In the late nineteen thirties Dr. Hayashi foresaw World War II, and also that Japan would enter the war and lose.  He decided to pass the teachings to a Japanese Hawaiian woman by the name of Hawayo Takata in order to guarantee the safety of the teachings outside of Japan.

 Hawayo Takata created twenty-two Reiki masters before her death in 1980.  In the ensuing year or so, several of her masters (eighteen) acknowledged Hawayo Takata's granddaughter Phyllis Lei Furumoto  as the Grand Master, or Lineage Bearer of the teachings.  They formed an association to support her known as The Reiki Alliance.   However, a woman by the name of Barbara Webber Ray, also a master of Hawayo Takata's, had chosen not to acknowledge Phyllis and set up her own branch of Reiki, initially call the A.I.R.A., now known as The Radiance Technique. 

 From this initial split, between the Alliance and Barbara Webber Ray other factions have split off and become independent "schools" and practitioners of Reiki.

 Under Hawayo Takata,  Reiki was taught in three levels - First Degree, Second Degree and Master Level.  Barbara Webber Ray changed this to seven levels with two sub-levels.  Independent practitioners and teachers of Reiki have changed this even further.  To date there appear to be at least seven or eight different "schools" of Reiki, with innumerable independent practitioners and Masters.

 The practice of Reiki is world-wide.  In 1996 there were over one million Reiki students in Germany alone.  Typically, a Reiki Alliance Conference will supply formal translation for six to seven languages, although the actual number of languages represented at a conference is closer to fifteen.

 What started as a rather pure school with specific methodologies has become quite diverse in the past twenty-one years.  Within the practice of Reiki there have also been many individuals whose own personal paths have contributed to a greater understanding of healing often with accompanying methodolgies and publications.  Although there is a body of 'scientific' data, the Reiki community generally honours anecdotal histories above the methodolgies of scientific testing.

 Reiki has been taught to nurses in specific hospital and clinical settings in the U.S. for several years.  This writer has also taught psychotherapists, counsellors, alternative health care practitoners  and doctors in addition to nurses and many complementary care workers in Canada and the U.S..  It is considered a tool that any health care practitioner can use to enhance the quality of time spent with clients and patients in order to facilitate healing. [top]