Women In Reiki

Education

Jan 12

How Women Helped Reiki Survive And Thrive

Women's…tenacity has been a driving force for the revival of Reiki today.
-Masaki Nishina

How it started

I feel happy when I remember the practice of Reiki is alive and thriving today because of the grit and tenacity of women. It's true, a male — Sensei Mikao Usui — was the first to create a structure around the practice of channeling Reiki as we know it today.

But after his passing in 1926, dissension developed among the group of Reiki practitioners Usui had assembled known as the Gakkai. Some members of the Gakkai shunned publicizing the practice of Reiki, preferring to keep their teachings a locked secret, as it remains today. Other students and Gakkai defectors left to establish their own healing clinics, adapting varied modalities and changing core aspects of Reiki.

One such student was Chujiro Hayashi, a Navy captain. Eventually, Hayashi met, befriended, and taught the matriarch of Western Reiki, Japanese-American Hawayo Takata. Takata had traveled from Hawaii to Japan seeking relief for her chronic health issues. Chujiro Hayashi successfully treated Takata’s ailments with Reiki, and the two maintained their relationship.

Hayashi later traveled to Hawaii to help Takata teach Reiki to other Japanese Americans living in Hawaii. Their offerings were successful — full seminars and classes, and widespread coverage in local Hawaiian newspapers. Historical photos show that women comprised over 60% of their student base.

And then… war. Because of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, prominent Japanese Americans in Hawaii were forced into concentration camps. This caused Takata — who escaped that fate — to channel and teach Reiki in secret because “any group gathering with more than 10 Japanese was forbidden and use of Japanese language in public venues was banned,” according to Nishina.

The sorrow, frustration, and fear Japanese Americans must have felt is heartbreaking. While history is never short on oppression and segregation, Mrs. Takata was likely doubly fearful because her beloved practice of Reiki was new to the West and frightening for uneducated Americans. If Buddhist and Shinto monks were being imprisoned, surely someone practicing something as spiritual as Reiki was also a target for imprisonment.

How it's going

The historical records of Hawayo Takata teaching or channeling Reiki for decades following the war are scarce, and it would appear she took her practice underground for 20-30 years. A generation had gone by before she was comfortable to publicize Reiki once more.

It wasn’t until the 70s, long, long after the war, that she reemerged more confidently and began teaching publicaly, first in Hawaii, then across the Pacific Northwest.

Mrs. Takata had tough decisions to make when she began teaching more visibly in the 70s. Her beloved Reiki would likely only survive if she adapted the practice to a Western culture. Hawayo Takata had directly seen the impact of two cultures turning on each other. So, as an intermundium of Japan and the U.S., she adapted Reiki training to her present Western world. Reiki Master Masaki Nishina explains it this way: “Takata gave people what they wanted at the time.”

Her teachings further changed the landscape of Reiki from the time of Mikao Usui. A primary area of change was her more structured, 3-level system of Reiki training. We know Usui and Hayashi’s trainings historically had layers, and devoted students eventually went from students, to assistants (shihan kaku), and possibly on to become teachers or masters (senseis). They moved to another level under the guidance of their teachers. Growth of Reiki students was a teacher-lead opinion, with master teachers establishing when and what a student was ready to continue learning as they progressed.

Hawayo Takata standardized the process by creating the 3-level system of Reiki we know today. She taught her students a specific curriculum at each level, and she also created a specific type of Reiki induction ceremony — known as an attunement or Reiju — for each level. Takata crafted a deliberate, structured system of Reiki training so students received more uniform trainings irrespective of their personal connection to the process.

Sensei Takata was a smart, perceptive, and tenacious woman who knew Reiki had to adapt to survive and thrive. We owe the popularity and success of modern Reiki to Mrs. Takata. In honoring her, we also give credit to the millions of women who have helped the practice spread. Even during Usui’s time, “there were already a great many women practitioners,” according to Nishina.

Women haven't just been practitioners of Reiki, in actuality, the path of Reiki from past to present has been paved primarily by women.
-Masaki Nishina