Have you ever wondered who started all of this? When you lie down on a Reiki couch for the first time, or feel the warmth of a practitioner’s hands resting just above your shoulders, it’s natural to wonder where this practice came from and who first shared it with the world.
The answer takes us to Japan just over a hundred years ago, and to a quiet, thoughtful man called Mikao Usui. I’ve been practising Reiki for over thirty years now, and I still find his story moving, partly because of what we know and partly because of how much has been embroidered along the way.
A seeker from a small Japanese village
Mikao Usui was born in 1865 in the village of Taniai, in what is now Gifu Prefecture in central Japan. From what we can piece together, he was a curious, well-read man who studied widely, travelled, and worked in many roles throughout his life.
By all accounts, he was a seeker interested in medicine, psychology, and Japan's spiritual traditions. He seems to have spent much of his adult life asking the same question so many of us do: “How can I heal?”
The retreat on Mount Kurama
In 1922, Usui went on a retreat on Mount Kurama, a sacred mountain just north of Kyoto. His students passed down the story that he spent around twenty-one days there fasting and meditating, and that toward the end of that time he had a profound experience of energy and clarity that changed the course of his life.
He came down the mountain feeling that he had been given a way to help others connect with the life force energy that flows through all of us. If you’d like to understand more about that idea, I’ve written about what life force energy is, why it matters, and what the word Rei-ki means in Japanese, which helps so much of this make sense.
What I love about this moment is that nothing was added to him on that mountain. He found what was already within him, beneath the noise, beneath the busyness, and beneath everything he thought he needed to become.
Teaching Reiki in Tokyo
Later that year, Usui opened a school in Tokyo, and the society he founded, the Usui Reiki Ryoho Gakkai, still exists in Japan today. He taught a simple system of hands-on healing alongside meditation, and he cared just as much about how his students lived their everyday lives as about what they did with their hands.
This is where the Reiki principles come from. They begin with the words “just for today” and invite us not to anger, not to worry, to be grateful, to work honestly and to be kind to others. They’re beautifully simple, and they’re just as relevant over a cup of tea in Surrey as they were in Tokyo a century ago.
In 1923, the Great Kanto earthquake devastated Tokyo and the surrounding area, and Usui and his students offered Reiki to many injured or grieving people. His reputation grew, and he went on to teach more than two thousand students before he died in 1926.
Separating the man from the myth
You may not know this, but when Reiki first came to the West, people retold Usui’s story in a way that made him feel more familiar to Western audiences. For years, people were told he was a Christian minister or a university dean. No evidence supports either, and research from Japan has since given us a much clearer picture of him as a Japanese spiritual teacher rooted in his own culture.
I think that matters, because the truth is lovely enough on its own and doesn’t need any decoration.
If you’d like to learn how the practice works today, I’ve written a simple explanation of Reiki that picks up where this history leaves off.
Why his story still matters for you
You might be wondering what a man who lived a hundred years ago has to do with you, especially if you’re feeling tired or stressed. For me, the answer is that Usui never made himself the source of anyone’s healing. He saw Reiki as a way to help people reconnect with something they already had, and I see it that way too.
Reiki is a lovely complementary practice that can help you feel calmer and more like yourself. It works best alongside your GP and any professional care you’re receiving, and never instead of it.
Coming home to the source
Every time I place my hands for a client, I feel a quiet thread running all the way back to that mountain in Japan. It’s a thread of trust, of kindness, and of the simple belief that peace isn’t out there waiting to be found, because it’s already within us. Usui’s story invites us to remember that, and I hope it speaks to something in you too.
With love, Carolina x