The Three Masters

Dr. Mikao Usui

Dr. Mikao Usui, or Usui Sensei as he is called by students in Japan, is recognised as the founder of the Usui System of Reiki. He was born on August 15, 1865, in the village of Yago in the Yamagata district of Gifu Prefecture, Japan. Accounts say he entered a Tendai Buddhist school on or near Mount Kurama at age four and also studied kiko, the Japanese form of qigong.

Usui Sensei had an avid interest in learning and travelled in Japan, China and Europe. His studies are said to have included medicine, psychology, religion and fortune telling. He later worked as secretary to Pei Gotoushin, head of the department of health and welfare and later Mayor of Tokyo, before becoming a successful businessman. He was also a member of the Rei Jyutu Ka, a metaphysical group dedicated to developing psychic abilities.

In 1914, accounts say Usui’s personal and business life were failing. He returned to Mount Kurama for a twenty-one-day practice associated with fasting, meditation, chanting and prayer. It was during this training, according to the Reiki tradition, that he experienced the Reiki energy and realised he could offer this practice to others without feeling depleted himself.

Dr. Chujiro Hayashi

Dr. Hayashi was a retired naval officer who received Reiki Master initiation from Dr. Usui around 1925, at age forty-seven. At that time, the Usui system included the energy practice, symbols, attunement process and Reiki ideals.

Dr. Hayashi developed the Usui system further. He opened a Reiki clinic in Tokyo and kept detailed treatment records. Drawing on that work, he is associated with the standard hand positions, the system of three degrees and their initiation procedures.

Hawayo Takata

Reiki comes to the West through Hawayo Takata. She was born at dawn on December 24, 1900, on the island of Kauai, Hawaii. Her parents were Japanese immigrants and her father worked in the sugar-cane fields. She married Saichi Takata, the bookkeeper of the plantation where she worked, and together they had two daughters. Saichi died in 1930, leaving Mrs. Takata to raise their children.

After years of hard work and poor health, Mrs. Takata travelled to Japan following the death of one of her sisters. There, she learned of Dr. Hayashi’s Reiki clinic and began receiving sessions. The warmth in the practitioners’ hands fascinated her. She later asked to learn Reiki herself, and in the spring of 1936 she received First Degree Reiki. After working with Dr. Hayashi for a year, she received Second Degree Reiki.

Mrs. Takata returned to Hawaii in 1937. Dr. Hayashi and his daughter later travelled there to help establish Reiki in Hawaii. In the winter of 1938, Dr. Hayashi initiated Hawayo Takata as a Reiki Master. She was the thirteenth and last Reiki Master he initiated.

Between 1970 and her death on December 11, 1980, Mrs. Takata initiated twenty-two Reiki Masters. The original twenty-two teachers went on to teach others, helping Reiki travel throughout North and South America, Europe, New Zealand, Australia and beyond.

The twenty-two Reiki Masters initiated by Hawayo Takata

• George Araki
• Phyllis Lei Furumoto
• Barbara McCullough
• Dorothy Baba (deceased)
• Beth Grey
• Mary McFaden
• Ursula Baylow
• John Gray
• Paul Mitchell
• Rick Bockner
• Iris Ishikura (deceased)
• Bethel Phaigh (deceased)
• Fran Brown
• Harry Kuboi
• Barbara Weber Ray
• Patricia Ewing
• Ethel Lombardi
• Shinobu Saito
• Wanja Twan
• Kay Yamashita (Takata’s sister)
• Virginia Samdahl
• Barbara Brown