THE TRADITIONAL REIKI STORY

 The founder seen above is Dr. Mikao Usui who was born in the village of Taniai-mura, Kyoto, Japan in 1865.  He was Principal and a Christian Minister of Doshisha University. One day in discussion with his students about the healings of Jesus, they asked whether he believed in the Bible's stories of Jesus' healings. Usui answered that he did and in response, the students asked him to demonstrate the method by which Jesus healed. Unable to demonstrate or answer these questions, he resigned from the University and began a 10-year quest to find and learn the skills. 

Dr. Usui studied the Bible and the Christian Scriptures but nowhere could he find the information he was seeking. He approached the Christian authorities in Japan who told him that no such healings were talked about or written.  Knowing that there were striking similarities between the healings of Buddha (Gautama Siddhartha, 620 - 543) and in the life of the historical Jesus, Usui then sought the information through Buddhist teachings, the Path to Enlightenment. He entered several Buddhist Monasteries and began to study and after a further period of time discovered that all focus seemed to be on the purification of the mind rather than the body.

Mikao Usui then traveled to the United States where he stayed for seven years. In that time he studied at the University of Chicago and became a Doctor of Theology. He also studied Sanskrit, which is the ancient scholarly language of India and Tibet.

Back in Kyoto 7 years later, Dr Usui visited many other Buddhist Temples where more scriptures were available for study but still the Buddhist monks seemed indifferent to his questions on the healing of the body. Soon after he entered a Zen Monastery and became good friends with the Zen Abbott who was interested in Usui's search of this particular healing method. He gave Usui the opportunity to study in his monastery outside Kyoto where he studied Buddhist Scriptures, and Sutras in Japanese. 

In the early 1900's, more ancient Sanskrits were found depicting the travels of St. Isa, who many scholars thought was Jesus himself.  In one of these Sanskrits, Dr. Usui found texts describing the healing formula that he could now read in their original Sanskrit. It did not however give instructions on how to activate the energy; it is thought that the obscuring of such information was intended to prevent such powerful material falling into the wrong hands. So although he had finally found what he was looking for, he didn't how to activate the energy and therefore did not have the power to heal. 

He decided to engage into spiritual practice to try to trigger a spontaneous initiation.  He went to Mount Koriyama in Japan where he fasted 21 days and meditated.  After 21 days, he became discouraged and decided to leave.  On the way down the mountain, he fell into a coma. 

While unconscious, he was initiated into the knowledge of Reiki, the Symbols, etc. When he awoke his whole experience of the world around him shifted.  He continued down the mountain and hurt his foot.  As a reaction of being injured, he placed his hands on his foot and his foot healed instantly.

He initiated 17 Reiki masters until his death in 1930.

One of the initiates, taught Madam Takata.  It is she that brought Reiki to the west.