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History of Reiki Dr Usui was born in a district of Kyoto, Japan on August 15th 1865. He was a Buddhist. As a young boy, he studied kiko, a Japanese version of Tai Chi, which focuses on the movement of life energy, or Ki, and some practitioners were able to use this energy for healing with the hands.   Throughout his life, Usui searched for knowledge, studying medicine, religion and psychology, and travelling extensively throughout Japan, China and Europe. He was a successful businessman for some years, but in 1914 he decided to become a Buddhist monk. In 1922, he returned to Mount Kurama, where he had practised kiko as a boy, to take a retreat on the mountain. After fasting and meditating for twenty-one days, he experienced a powerful light entering the top of his head, he saw a series of symbols within the light and he understood that the light was Reiki energy. He was now able to channel healing energy. Following his discovery, he moved to Tokyo, opened a clinic and started the ‘Usui Reiki Ryoho Gakkai’, or Usui Reiki Healing Society. In 1923 an earthquake in Japan killed 140,000 people and injured many more, and Usui and his students worked tirelessly to bring Reiki to as many people as possible. In 1925, Dr Usui began to travel throughout Japan to spread Reiki. It was his wish that Reiki would be available to everyone, all over the world. In the short time before his death on March 9th 1926, he had taught Reiki to over two thousand people and trained sixteen teachers. Mr Juzaburo Ushida, one of the sixteen teachers trained by Usui, was president of the Usui Reiki Ryoho Gakkai after Dr Usui´s death. Dr Chujiro Hayashi was another of these sixteen teachers, but he was never president of the URRG. Later, Hayashi broke away from it to form his own association. He was never the Grandmaster of the Usui system, indeed the original Usui system never used the title of Master or Grandmaster. Hawayo Takata was born in Hawaii in 1900. Her husband died in 1930 and she worked hard to bring up her two children alone. In 1935 she was in poor physical and mental health. She went to Japan to visit her parents and was admitted to hospital, but decided to try a different approach and eventually went to Dr Hayashi’s clinic, where, after four months’ treatment, she was completely healed. She decided to learn Reiki, and was taught by Dr Hayashi and worked in his clinic. In 1937 she returned to Hawaii. Dr Hayashi later visited and they travelled together around Hawaii teaching Reiki and giving treatments. In 1938, Mrs Takata was initiated as a Reiki teacher by Dr Hayashi, and she opened two clinics in Hawaii. She later travelled to the United States to teach Reiki. In 1970 she began training people to the level of Reiki Teacher, or Master as she called it, charging $10,000 for the weekend class. She initiated twenty-two Reiki Masters before her death in 1980. Mrs Takata’s way of teaching Reiki was different from that of Dr Usui. A number of the exercises that he developed were later excluded from Mrs Takata’s teaching. Fortunately these methods are still available to us in Dr Usui’s handbook. .After her death in 1980, some of the restrictions that Mrs Takata had placed on the teaching of Reiki were relaxed; various schools of Reiki developed: • Phyllis Lei Furumoto, Takata´s granddaughter continued the Reiki Alliance with the exact same teachings of her grandmother, • Barbara Weber Ray said that Takata taught her techniques that she had not taught to anyone else and developed Radiance Reiki, • Other Reiki Masters wanted to charge much lower fees and for Reiki to spread more rapidly. Some also wanted to allow their students to take notes and to include other techniques such as meditation and working with crystals and from this, the Usui Tibetan system of Reiki was formed. This is the form that Teresa and I teach. It combines the Usui system with some additional techniques and meditative practices, and at Master level it offers four extra symbols. It was first taught in the United States in 1989, and was introduced into Spain in 1994. It would seem that the most direct line of Reiki originating with Dr Usui remains in Japan, although nowadays several different schools of Reiki exist even there. In the West, there are now over thirty different types of Reiki, including The Radiance Technique, Raku Kei, Tibetan Reiki, Karuna Reiki, Rainbow Reiki, Golden Age Reiki, Reiki Jin-Kei Do, Seichim, Saku Reiki, Blue Star Reiki, Reiki Plus (1). The following four characteristics define a healing technique as Reiki: 1. The energy is channelled after receiving an attunement, or initiation. 2. The technique has been passed from teacher to student through an attunement. 3. The energy is not guided by the mind; it goes where it is needed. 4. The energy can do no harm.