Reiki is an ancient healing technique, rediscovered by Dr. Mikao Usui in Japan at the end of the 19th century. Usui was born on 15th August 1865 in a little village, where his ancestors lived for eleven generations. His ancestry dates back to the Chiba clan, once an influential samurai family. Born as a privileged member of a class-based system, Mikao Usui was educated accordingly. At the age of four he was sent to a Tendai Monastery to receive his primary education. At the age of twelve, Usui began martial arts training and attained a high degree of proficiency.
Usui was born during the Meiji restoration, under the Meiji emperor (1852 – 1912). It was a time of rapid social, military and industrial changes, in the way they opened up to the Western Countries and started to almost idolize them. The motto of the era Meiji meant “Enlightenment”. (Age of Enlightenment in Europe: second half of the 17th century to the end of 18th century)
As grown up man Usui was loyal to the emperor and became the head of the Christian Doshisha University in Kyoto. One day – this is probably more legend than truth – Usui was asked by one of the students if he literally believed in Jesus teachings and if he could explain the way Jesus healed other people. Usui was completely captured by this question and his life became engulfed in the search for finding an answer how Jesus and also Buddha were able to heal. Therefore, he embarked on a journey that would lead him to several universities and monasteries in different countries. He went to Europe, America (where he got his doctor title) and to China for study. He even learned the languages to be able to read the old scripts in Chinese, Sanskrit and probably Hebrew. But to his great disappointment, he couldn’t find the answer to his burning questions. Although, some of the authors believe, that he discovered symbols in an ancient scroll describing the healing methods of Buddha. These symbols would later become the Reiki symbols. But at the time, when he discovered them first, they were of no use for him; he was not able to activate the power within them. Later Usui sought help from a Zen-master and became one of his disciples. After three years the Zen-master told Usui one day: “If you are searching for enlightenment and the meaning of live, then you shall die”.
Discouraged and uncertain what to do next, Usui climbed upon mount Kurama to meditate and fasten for 21 days, which was very common in those days in Japan. On the 21st day of his fastening he was already feeling very weak, desperate and was willing to find death by jumping over the mountain cliff. In this very moment he had an enlightenment, and saw lights and colors and the accession to the meaning and use of the symbols where given to him.  
 
 
1 I have spent quite a lot of time on studying the history of Reiki and I found out that there are many versions, and all of them relay to a certain degree upon legends. If you want to know more about the Reiki history, then I would probably recommend the author Frank Arjava Petter. He is a German Reiki Masters who lives in Japan and who did a great deal on research. His books have been translated into English.

 
Where before, he felt exhausted and weak, he was now very energetic and strong. Excitedly he stumbled down the mountain and hurt himself on the toe. To his amazement he could heal his injury instantly. He went back to the Zen-master to tell him all about his experience, only to find the latter on his deathbed. Usui was able to heal his friend. After he gave Reiki to all his family and friends, he started to practice Reiki openly. He established his first clinic in Tokyo in 1921, where he also trained students.
In 1923, the Kanto earthquake hit the Kanto plain and devastated Tokyo, Yokohama and surrounding areas. The quake hit at midday, just when the city charcoal fires had been lit to cook lunch. Tokyo’s wooden houses burnt quickly, most of the central part of Tokyo was totally destroyed by fire, made worse by high winds. Re-building the city took years.
Usui was one of the many helpers, who worked in the streets to help the injured. This service for the victims of the earthquake would give him later an award from the emperor and would increase his publicity enormously. He began to receive invitations from all over Japan. In 1925, he moved to Nagano to open up a big, new clinic. He also gave seminars and founded the society “Usui Shiki Ryoho”, which still exist to the present day under the name “Usui Reiki Ryoho Gakkei”. Usui’s handbooks are still available translated into several languages.
Usui died in March 1926, at the age of 62, after suffering from a stroke.
 
Next to Usui, other persons played also vital roles in the history of Reiki, because they brought Reiki to the Western world! Hawayo Takata is one of them.
She was born on December 24th 1900 in Hawaii. She worked in the household of a wealthy sugar cane plantation owner, where she became head housekeeper and had 21 staff under her. Her husband died at the age of 34, leaving her with two daughters. She had to work very hard to keep her family going.
In 1935, after her sister died, she decided to go to Tokyo to see her family and to break the news of the death of her sister. It must have been a very hard time for her and she was suffering from various health problems, such as a tumor, gallstones and other physical problems. She consulted a surgeon in Tokyo and plans were made for an operation. But she had doubts about this solution and enquired for another way, she could be treated. That was when she came across Chujiro Hayashi’s Reiki clinic. Hayashi had been attuned and taught by Mikao Usui himself. Takata stayed at Hayashi’s clinic for six months and was successfully treated. During this time she inquired about enrolling as a student to which Hayashi agreed.  
In 1936, she volunteered to work at the clinic and lived at the Hayashi family home. She practiced and studied for a year. After she finished her training in 1937, she returned to Hawaii. Hayashi and his daughter followed her and stayed for six months, helping her to set up a Reiki practice in Honolulu. In 1938, she took classes in anatomy and other therapies before continuing her practice, because she had to adapt to the American system.
In 1939, she set up a successful practice in Hilo. She became a renowned practitioner of great experience. Takata never called herself a Grand Master. Her fees were flexible according to the client’s means.  

 
In 1940, she had a dream about her former teacher and friend Hayashi. Therefore she settled her affairs and went back to Japan, where she discovered that Hayashi had decided to end his life. He was a retired navy officer and duty demanded him to serve in the Second World War. He did not wish to take part in the war. In May 1940, he passed away from a self-induced stroke. Other sources claim that he committed hara-kiri, the traditional Japanese suicide. Hawayo Takata inherited Hayashi’s clinic, but she officially handed it to Hayashi’s wife.
For thirty years Hawayo Takata worked in Honolulu, travelling regularly around the islands for teaching. In 1973 she began teaching on the mainland of America and Canada. She taught Reiki level one and two until 1976. At the age of seventy six, she started to teach her first Reiki Master student (level three). Up to her death in 1980 she had trained twenty two Master students.  
In contrast to Mikao Usui, she taught only in an oral way; she did not give out written documents about Reiki. She kept her teachings very flexible, according to the knowledge and development of her students. She taught what she felt was appropriate for each class and no two teachings were identical.  
She did not teach the chakra system and gave her own version of the history of Reiki. Some authors believe she did this on purpose, to make it more acceptable to the Western mind.  
Hawayo Takata died of a heart attack in December 1980.  
She did not officially name her successor, but then why should she anyway? For some of her students this fact was not acceptable at all and that’s why they started a great dispute about it. In the end, it would lead to the formation of two different Reiki lineages, where both sides would claim, that only their Reiki was the real one. One was “The Reiki Alliance” founded by Takata’s granddaughter, Phyllis Lei Furumoto, the other was “American International Reiki Association” founded by Takata’s lifelong friend, Barbara Ray-Webber. Most of today’s Reiki Masters/Teachers living in the Western part of the world descend from one of these two lineages. The good news is of course, that both lineages work very well, despite the previous conflict. I descend from the Furumoto lineage.