Dr. Mikao Usui, born in Japan in 1864, was fascinated and inspired by the story of Buddha. Despite growing up in a family of great wealth, Buddha felt no need for material pleasures and choose to dedicate his life to achieving its spiritual enlightenment   and to developing healing powers to help others. Dr. Usui longed to attain then knowledge and metaphysical abilities possessed by Buddha on his disciples centuries before, but had no idea where to begin. He set out on a long journey across Asia too sick these secrets of healing, so he, too, could help others.

He began by asking Buddhist teachers, priests and head monks at the temples throughout Japan if they knew the secret to healing the physical body. They answered that when the Buddhist focus turned to the preservation of the spiritual self,  (thought to be more important than the physical) these secrets became lost out of disuse.  He was allowed to stay and study the secret writings of the temples, when he found little bits of information about healing which he kept in a notebook, but he didn't find all the answers that he longed for. So he kept searching.

He visited a Zen monastery and was invited by the abbot, who was intrigue by Usui’s search, to stay and study there. Dr. Usui's search was so committed to his quest that he learned Chinese and Sanskrit so he could read the sacred text instead origin of languages. Finally, in the Indian Sutras he found what he had been searching for: a formula to contact the "higher power" that could bestow the power of healing upon him Dr. Usui realized that the formula he found did not give him the Availed it to heal others, but it gave him the steps to take to contact the higher power and do I ask for the ability to heal. Dr. Usui climbed to the top of Mt. Kori-Yama, (Japan) and spent 21 day is meditating, fasting and following the formula for contacting the higher power.

At the end of the 21st day, Dr. Usui saw a bright light out over the horizon. He stood up, and saw the light start toward him. He realized that this light had a consciousness, and it was communicating with him. He knew the light had the information and power of healing that he had been searching for. The light communicated to him that to receive the information from the light, he had to let the light strike him, but it's power could also kill him. His choice was clear:  To risk death or to forgo his quest. Dr.Usui let the light strike him. It hit him in his 3rd eye, and he was rendered unconscious.

While unconscious, Dr, Usui was shown glyphs of information he interpreted as symbols to use in healing the sick. As he Studied each symbol, he received an attunement to enable him to use it. He was finally initiated into the use of the REIKI power. Dr. Usui gave the Master Attunement to 16 people before he died in 1930. Dr. Chujiro Hayasi, a retired naval officer, was one of those who received the Master Attunement from Dr. Usui, and was asked by him to be the person to preserve and carry on the REIKI tradition to ensure it would not be lost after Dr.  Usui's death.

Dr. Hayashi added his own stamp to the Usui System of REIKI. The Usui system included the energy itself. the symbols, the attunement process, and there REIKI ideals.. Dr. Hayashi added the stander hands positions, the three different degrees of REIKI study and the initiation process for each level, the opening of the first REIKI clinic, (located in Tokyo, Japan) and the Initiation of the first women into the reiki tradition: Mrs. Hawayo Takata.

Madam Takata why was the daughter of a Japanese immigrants. She was born in Hawaii in 1900, and she had a difficult life, widowed at the age of 30 and left to raise her two children alone.  In 1935 she developed a serious of ailments including severe abdominal pain and a lung condition, and she suffered a nervous breakdown. To make matters worse, her sister passed away, and she  was responsible for notifying their parents, Who had moved back to Japan. While she was in Japan, she finally checked herself into a hospital and was diagnosed with gallstones, appendicitis and a tumor.

After resting for a few weeks, she consented to an operation the doctors felt was necessary. While on the operating table, before she was giving anesthesia, she heard a voice telling her that the operation was not necessary. She look around, and realize that no one was physically there in the room with her. She had never "heard voices" like that before, and was intrigued. Again, the voice urged that the operation wasn't necessary, so Takata got off the operating table and insisted on speaking to the doctor immediately. She asked if there was any other option for her besides the initiated surgery. The doctor suggested that she visit Dr. Hayashi at his REIKI clinic in Tokyo.

Dr. Hayashi staff began treading madam Takata, and using their REIKI intuition, and their hands, arrived at a diagnosis that very closely matched the one from the doctors at the hospital.  In less than four months of daily REIKI treatments, she was completely healed of her ailments, and was inspired to learn the REIKI process.  At first, she was told that REIKI was a Japanese tradition, and could not be taught to an outsider. But when Dr. Hayashi realized that the coming war would take most of the man to battle, he decided to pass the REIKI tradition on to Takata so she could preserve it.

Hawayo Takata and Dr. Hayashi brought REIKI to Hawaii (USA) in 1937.  Between the years of 1936-1938, Takata received initiation into all three degrees of REIKI and received her mastership.  One her most important contributions to REIKI's history was her concept of creating a fee structure for REIKI training, so that the students and patients throughout the rest of the world would value it as highly as the original  Masters.  Since people in the "Western World" equate "value" with cost, Takata helped bring certain "legitimacy" to REIKI practice.

Reiki Master Hawayo Takata often said: “Reiki is cause and effect. The practitioner finds and treats the cause; then the effects, or symptoms, are gone.” Reiki means Universal Life Energy and that it is not a religion. She explained it to her students this way: “Here is the great space which surrounds us—"the Universe"  Madam Takata trained 22 Reiki Masters before she die in 1980 in Hawaii. One of the Reiki Masters was John Harvey Gray he was the first Master that trained Bertha in 1994 and 2000. Bertha is an active Reiki Master and still continues getting Reiki training to this day.

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