First, let me thank you for the chance to do this interview. I decided to accept it because I had been thinking that, somewhere along the way, I would want to take a proper occasion like this to let people know about me and about the Usui-kai臼井会. I’m grateful to you for giving me that occasion. So let me answer everything I can think of.

Let me make one thing clear at the outset. What I’m about to say does not represent the Usui-kai, and it is not its official position. It is my own account, mine alone. That said, if my words help deepen your sense of what the Usui-kai is, even a little, I’ll be glad. Let me also ask to call it the Usui-kai here, rather than the Gakkai学会 — that is the name we use among ourselves.

I’ll begin with why I use a pen name. The Usui-kai keeps contact with other groups to a minimum, and it avoids speaking about itself to those outside. Some time ago, Doi-san土居さん of Gendai Reiki現代霊気 did much the same thing, speaking outward. Among the things he spoke about, some came across correctly, but a number of them ended up being conveyed inaccurately. And, as I’ll come to later, he brought a so-called keizu系統図 — a lineage chart — of the Usui-kai into the present day. Because of all this, he was kept at a distance within the Usui-kai. He does, however, have a large organization of his own, Gendai Reiki.

I don’t know the whole history of the Usui-kai, and I don’t belong to an organization the way Doi-san does. But when I look at the Usui-kai as it is now, it is aging. There are many voices from abroad saying they’d like to know more about it, and yet it stays closed in on itself.

It’s against that background that I came onto Facebook, hoping to let people know a little about the Usui-kai. But what I say was not asked of me by it — I do this on my own. If this became public, the Usui-kai would likely keep me, too, at a distance. That is why I use a pen name, though I expect it will come out in time.

Finally, on what I’d ask you to steer around: the names and forms of the o-shirushiお印 (the symbols), the way reiju霊授 is done, who the members are, and the contents of unpublished materials. I’d be grateful if we left those aside.

At first, I knew nothing at all about Reiki Ryōhō霊気療法, Reiki therapy. In 2013, my mother developed bile duct cancer. By the time it was found, it was almost too late. Even so, while she received the most advanced treatment available, I kept looking for anything else that might be done. It was in the middle of that search that I happened upon Reiki Ryōhō.

Teate ryōhō手当て療法 — hands-on healing — has long existed in Japan. Around thirty years ago, there was even a time when the phrase “hand power” was all over the television.

I grew interested in Reiki Ryōhō and looked into where I might learn it. But everything I found was spiritual in nature, with almost nothing about treating illness. In the course of that, Gendai Reiki現代霊気 caught my eye. Then I learned that the original Reiki organization still existed, and I tried to reach it — only to find no address, no contact, no phone number, no email, nothing at all.

After a great deal of effort, I tracked something down and wrote a letter. I put into it, as best I could, that I wished to learn in order to treat my mother’s illness. And then a call came from the Usui-kai. That was my first meeting with Reiki Ryōhō.

The ones who interviewed me then were the eighth president and the seventh president. I entered without anyone to introduce me. Normally, joining requires an introducer; but I had none, and so these two became my introducers.

I have no one I could call my teacher. Unlike Western Reiki, there is no teacher assigned to you. In the Usui-kai, each shihan師範 teaches the members — but always within the organization, as part of it. So even if there is a shihan, a kaichō会長 (president), or a sōke宗家 whom I deeply respect, I would not say I am that person’s student. The kind of relationship Western Reiki has, where a particular individual is “your teacher,” simply doesn’t exist here.

For that reason, there is no keizu系統図, no lineage chart either. What the Usui-kai has is only this: a succession of kaichō, the shihan, and the members. The very question of which lineage one belongs to carries no meaning in the Usui-kai, because there is just the one organization.

Nor does a lineage extend out from the Usui-kai to someone in another group. There is no such thing to begin with. There is no keizu running from a particular kaichō to a particular member. And since one isn’t taught by a single kaichō for all time, no line extends from there either.

Then is the person whose name is recorded as the denju-sha伝授者, the one who transmits, on the reiju-shō霊授証 (the reiju certificate) one’s teacher? Not really. On the present certificate the wording is indeed denju-sha, but it is simply the name of whoever happened to teach you the o-shirushiお印 at that time, or of the shihan, kaichō, or sōke who recognized that you had moved up a grade — and no keizu emerges from that. So, we have no lineage chart.

Within the Usui-kai, there is no lineage. We are members of the Usui-kai, and that alone is enough — so there is no need for a lineage in the first place.

What connects us to the source is not a lineage, but the fact that we belong to a single organization that has continued from Usui-sensei臼井先生. There have simply been nine kaichō会長 (presidents) over the years; that is not a lineage chart.

Of course, when I joined, the shihan師範 at the time taught me with great care. But there are several shihan. And sometimes a shihan steps down because of age, and another person becomes shihan in their place. In this way, there is no one fixed teacher. So there is no lineage running through a shihan either.

I think this is hard to grasp for those who practice Western Reiki, but for us there is no lineage chart.

The reiju-shō霊授証, the certificate, is given when you finish the Okuden-kōki奥伝後期 course — the latter part of Okuden. It isn’t given when you begin.

The grades run from rokutō六等 (sixth grade) up through gotō五等 (fifth), yontō四等 (fourth), and santō三等 (third). Nitō二等 (second grade) is reserved for Usui-sensei臼井先生, and ittō一等 (first grade) is left empty. This is because Usui-sensei said that the first grade should be kept open, in case someone finer than himself should appear in the future.

When you first join, you start at rokutō, and your date of entry is recorded then. It varies by branch, but there are study meetings two to four times a month. And once or twice a year there is a meeting attended by the kaichō会長 (president) and those of higher grade — and it is then that one moves up a grade.

Once you reach santō, the head office looks at how far your study has come, and you receive Okuden-zenki奥伝前期 (the earlier part of Okuden), and after that Okuden-kōki (the latter part). Beyond that comes Shinpiden神秘伝. The practical, hands-on work goes up to Okuden-kōki; anything above Shinpiden is for those who remain in the Usui-kai to become shihan-kaku師範格 or shihan師範 and take part in running a branch.

So reaching Okuden-kōki takes at least four years, even at the very fastest. And unlike Western Reiki, becoming a shihan does not let you set out on your own. You stay within the Usui-kai and take part in the running of the organization. Those who can’t give that much time don’t go out of their way to receive Shinpiden. This, too, is a place where things differ greatly from Western Reiki.

I don’t know what the structure of leadership was in the period right after Usui-sensei臼井先生 passed away — there is little material on it. These days, the kaichō会長 (president) is chosen from within the society at the general meeting. There is also something called the shihan-kai師範会, where the shihan師範 gather and decide how things are run.

From the sixth president, Koyama-kaichō小山会長, it passed to Kondō-kaichō近藤会長, then to the eighth president, Takahashi-kaichō高橋会長, and now it is Inoue-kaichō井上会長. Inoue-kaichō is the ninth president. Under the eighth president, Takahashi-kaichō, Makino-sensei牧野先生 was the sōke宗家.

As far as I know, there is no family line that reaches back to Usui-sensei’s own time. I have heard, though, that a shihan who was taught directly by Usui-sensei devoted himself to the Usui-kai for many years. He, too, has long since passed away, but in an old members’ newsletter there remains a piece he wrote, his recollections of Usui-sensei.

Let me also tell you about our gyō行 (practice). We perform the gokai五戒 (five precepts), the gyosei御製, kenyoku乾浴, jōshin-kokyū浄心呼吸, gasshō合掌, and reiji霊示 — both in our own self-cultivation and at the study meetings. Reiki Ryōhō霊気療法 rests on three principles: gasshō, reiji, and treatment.

In Reiki Ai no Hikari霊気愛の光, supervised by Koyama-kaichō, it is written like this: Reiki is a spiritual power that might be called the very source of all life force; and Usui Reiki Ryōhō臼井霊気療法 is the practice of receiving the Reiki that fills heaven and earth, and praying for the health and happiness of all things. To sense that power, and to borrow it in order to give treatment, is not something done idly — it is built up day by day, with love as its foundation. Treatment cannot be separated from this.

What this means is that when there are study meetings, [you should focus on] the study meetings; when there are no study meetings, self-cultivation is important.

As to which matters more — one’s own self-cultivation or the study meetings — for us, neither can be left out. One alone is not enough.

The gyō行 (practice) can be done on your own. So, before sleeping, or when you wake in the morning, you try to keep a little time each day to do the gyō by yourself. The gokai五戒 (five precepts), the gyosei御製, kenyoku乾浴, jōshin-kokyū浄心呼吸, gasshō合掌, and reiji霊示 — these are the daily ground you can keep up alone.

But that alone is not enough. The study meetings are held two to four times a month, depending on the branch. There, you do the gyō together with other members, and you give each other teate手当て, hands-on treatment. There are things you can’t do by yourself, things you can’t notice by yourself, and they are found here.

So when there is a study meeting, we value the study meeting. When there is none, we value our own cultivation alone. It isn’t a matter of choosing one over the other; it’s that only with both does the practice keep going. This, too, is part of how the Usui-kai臼井会 works.

First, I think you’re quite right. “Western Reiki” and “Japanese Reiki” are convenient terms, but they capture only roughly what has actually taken place. When I use that division myself, I use it only as a convenience.

You raised the example of Mieko Mitsui三井美恵子, and that is exactly where the complexity shows itself. The line that ran from Hawayo Takata高田ハワヨ to Barbara Weber Rayバーバラ・ウェバー・レイ came back to Japan through Mieko Mitsui in 1985. Reiki went out, changed its shape, and returned. So a simple picture of it flowing in one direction, from East to West, no longer explains anything. The lines, as you say, are far more tangled than that.

With that said, let me tell you honestly how it looks from where I stand, inside the Usui-kai臼井会. When you are inside the Usui-kai, you tend not to take much interest in “the world of Reiki outside.” Hayashi-sensei林先生 after he went his own way, or Hawayo Takata — for us, they were simply people who had nothing to do with us. This is my own view, but I suspect many who know only the Usui-kai see it the same way. Us, and everyone else. That is how the line gets drawn.

But I no longer see things that way — because I have come to know the variety, and the sheer vitality, of Western Reiki. When I stepped outside, what I found was a genuinely diverse world of other Reiki. Some shaped by Tibetan Buddhism, some taking in chakras and auras, some rooted in Buddhism, some reaching for enlightenment. I’ll admit I was taken aback that there could be so many kinds of Reiki in the world.

Among them, there are those who compete with one another for standing, who pick quarrels, who insist that they alone are the legitimate line. And there are others who take in different forms of Reiki and live alongside them peacefully. I also came across places where a spiritual master had become something like the founder of a cult, with followers who had fallen into blind belief.

But just as many — no, far more — are people who, while walking a road different from ours, study seriously and practice with real sincerity. I think it is people like that who are, in fact, by far the most numerous. You yourself — not Japanese, yet trying to understand this practice from a Japanese perspective — I count among them.

Even if the outward form has changed beyond recognition, I believe that as long as the DNA of the gokai五戒 (the five precepts) is there, it is all the same Reiki.

There have been many divisions over the years. Some, perhaps, were made by people who set out to divide. But surely this is no longer the age for that. As long as we carry the same DNA, we are all students of Usui-sensei臼井先生. Our methods may differ, our thinking may differ, and still we learn from one another and walk on together. That, to me, is the truest reward of practicing Reiki at all.

To be honest, I don’t think I fit neatly into any of the categories. My center is the Usui-kai臼井会. It is the only thing I truly know — the only place I know from the inside. I learned Reiki霊気 as a member of the Usui-kai, and I set out from the side of traditional Japanese Reiki. That, I won’t blur.

And yet I think I have stepped outside the typical posture of the Usui-kai as it has been. From within the society, one tends to take no interest in the outside world, and to divide things into us and everyone else. I have moved away from that — because I came to know the world of Reiki outside, and grew to respect its variety and the people who practice it in earnest.

But it isn’t that I have crossed over to the side of Western Reiki either. What I am doing is digging into Usui Reiki臼井霊気 in its original form, the one centered on treatment, and one day recovering that form. I stand on the side of those who dig down, toward the source.

So, in terms of the categories you offered, I suppose I am closest to those who try to understand this practice from a Japanese perspective. Only, in my case, I am Japanese, and I do it from inside the society. That, I think, is the small difference.

Inside, yet open to the outside. Digging toward the source, yet seeing the whole as one and the same Reiki through that single point, the gokai五戒 (the five precepts). I don’t fit cleanly into any box — but for myself, I find I rather like where I stand.

What matters first are the materials that belong to the Usui-kai臼井会 itself. The Reiki Ryōhō Hikkei霊気療法必携, the Reiki Ai no Hikari霊気 愛の光, the Reiki Ryōhō Shidōsho霊気療法指導書. Then the membership rosters that once existed, the documents left behind by Usui-sensei’s students, the memorial stone, and the various materials handed down within the Usui family臼井家 as well. The materials held at the National Diet Library国立国会図書館, the reiju-shō霊授証 (the certificates) of that time, and the testimony of those who learned directly back then — these matter too.

But once you have these in hand as sources, the next task is to sort out, carefully, whether what they say is actually true. That a source exists, and that its contents are correct, are two different things.

The materials of the spiritual-healing practitioners of the same era are also worth consulting. The Tomita-ryū teate ryōhō富田流手当て療法, which broke away from the Usui-kai, or Eguchi江口‘s palm-healing — the contents of these, too, give you clues to what Usui Reiki臼井霊気 carried on, and what it made its own.

And there is something one has to be very careful about. Taking unsourced rumor at face value. Assuming that because some famous person said a thing, it must be so. Or interpreting words however one likes and building one’s own doctrine out of them. These are the things to watch for most of all.

I’ll be honest: in talking with people, I have heard “legends” that left me startled — claims with no traceable basis at all. And what startled me more was to find people who genuinely believe them. But these days, in the world of Reiki, there are people doing real work to test the history properly. To ask what the facts actually are, and to go and find out on your own two feet — that, I think, is something of real importance.

Yes — honestly, it surprises me, and it keeps surprising me.

Until this year, I knew the world of Reiki outside almost entirely through books and my own assumptions. Since the start of 2026, working through translation, I have been able to speak directly with practitioners all over the world — and the landscape turned out to be far wider, and far more varied, than anything I had pictured. People on every continent, each with their own lineage, their own way of understanding, their own reasons for practicing. I had not imagined it would be so rich.

I should be honest, though, about whether I’m getting a fair and accurate picture. I don’t think I can claim that. The people who reach me are, naturally, the ones who choose to speak to me; those who feel no kinship with what I write mostly stay silent. So what I see is real, but it isn’t the whole. I try to keep that in mind.

Even so, what has struck me most is not the strangeness of the differences, but how many people are practicing seriously and in good faith. Before I began, I half expected to find more rivalry, more grand claims. Instead I have met, again and again, people who simply care about this practice and want to understand it honestly. And there is one more thing I did not expect to feel.

That I could sit and talk, plainly and as equals, with people whose languages I cannot read — across all those distances — would have been hard to imagine not long ago. That alone has been a quiet gift to me.

Since it is an organization, I think it is only natural that, as the years pass, the finer details change. All the more so where parts of it are handed down by word of mouth. What is never written down shifts its shape, little by little, as it is passed along. So yes — I believe there have been changes.

To be honest, that is exactly what I myself most want to know. When Usui-sensei臼井先生 was alive, what was he actually doing? What did he teach? What kind of hands-on treatment did he give? What of the o-shirushiお印 (the symbols)? How was reiju霊授 (the transmission) carried out? My mind is full of questions.

For that reason, I have worked through all sorts of documents, and I have gone out and done fieldwork of my own. I have visited and spoken with people who kept a very early form of the practice while scarcely mingling with the outside world. And when I do, there are indeed times when it seems to differ, in small details, from the Usui-kai臼井会 of today.

There is also one large event that must not be forgotten. In the war, the head office in Harajuku原宿 burned to the ground, leaving nothing behind. The organization itself was all but severed for a time, and after the war it was rebuilt, by the hands of the few who remained. With something like that having happened, it would be harder to suppose that nothing at all had changed.

To be candid, even within the Usui-kai, those who take an interest in their own history are by no means many. That is exactly why I am the one looking into it. And the truth is, I do this less for the sake of the Usui-kai than because I myself want to know. What was Usui-sensei truly doing? I want, more than anything, to find out. I cannot yet be certain of it as proven fact, and the evidence itself barely survives. It is difficult work. Even so, I mean to go on investigating as far as I possibly can.

And somewhere beyond that — to bring Usui-sensei’s way back to life once more, together with the thinking behind it. That, I confess, is a quiet dream of mine.

Let me be honest with you. Apart from the handwritten CV found in Taiwan, there is nothing that touches on Usui-sensei臼井先生‘s early life other than the memorial stone功徳の碑.

And that memorial stone was raised by his students after Usui-sensei had passed away. Whether what is carved on it is fact has never been verified. Stones of this kind, by their nature, tend to enlarge the story in order to honor the achievements of the one who has died. So we have to be careful before taking the inscription at face value as fact.

In other words, as things stand, I have nothing at all that shows me what Usui-sensei was doing before he began the Usui-kai臼井会.

Many legends are told. But those who tell them hold nothing certain either. If there were some basis for them, it would be a simple matter to show it. There is none. No one holds it. And so, telling one legend after another about things we do not know — I think it is time we stopped.

Something once surprised me. Legends that were never even spoken of in Japan are recounted in the West as a matter of course, and a great many people there know them. To my eyes, as a Japanese, most of them are like gazing at an image of Japan that is easy for Westerners to picture — but that is not the way Japan actually was.

Please don’t misunderstand me — I am not blaming anyone. It is I, myself, who genuinely wants to know what Usui-sensei was doing before he began the Usui-kai. That is exactly why, rather than speaking of uncertain things as if they were certain, I would rather admit that what we don’t know, we don’t know — and then confirm the truth, one piece at a time.

Teate手当て, sitting quietly, waka和歌, the precepts五戒 — I do not see any one of these as central, with the others there to support it. The weight is the same for all. Let me walk through why, step by step.

First, let me set one word straight. What Tomita Kaiji富田魁二 practiced was not meditation in the usual sense. Tomita himself calls it seiza静座, sitting quietly: sitting, settling body and mind, clearing away stray thoughts, and raising the Reiki霊気. He names it the seiza no gyō静座の行 (the practice of sitting quietly), and describes its purpose as composing body and mind, governing the five senses, driving off stray thoughts, and gathering the mind’s power into the power to heal. It is not sitting for its own sake; it is placed as one stage in mastering treatment — and that is why one moves from it, without a break, straight into treatment.

In the Usui-kai臼井会, it is exactly the same. We recite the gyosei御製, the waka of Emperor Meiji; we perform kenyoku乾浴; we do jōshin kokyū浄心呼吸; we bring the hands together in gasshō合掌; and so we raise the Reiki. In the study meetings, at this stage, we receive reiju霊授 from a shihan師範, and through that the Reiki comes to flow more freely. Then, at the point of reiji霊示, we practice sensing the hibiki響き (the resonance). And when we actually treat, we train in how to feel the hibiki and in how to make it fade away. Only then do we move into treatment.

Now set the two side by side. Tomita’s flow: the seiza practice, and straight on into treatment. Our Usui-kai flow: gyosei, kenyoku, jōshin kokyū, gasshō, reiju, hibiki, and on into treatment. You can see that the order they follow is almost the same. And the very words, when compared, are strikingly close. What Tomita did and what we do are very nearly one and the same.

And here is the most important point. From this whole sequence, you cannot lift out just one part. Hands-on treatment, sitting, waka, the precepts, reiju, hibiki — these are not separate elements set in a row; together they make a single set. So asking which is central and which is not has little meaning. All of it matters, and all of it runs together toward one point: treatment.

If I make treatment the pivot, it is not because it stands at the top of some order. It is because treatment is the place where all these practices are finally drawn together and take form — the destination they arrive at, not a rank set above them.

Lift out the treatment alone and it means nothing; lift out the practice alone and it means nothing. All of it is one. This, I suspect, is where it differs from the Reiki many of you know.

Let me tell you one dream of mine. There are people who have been doing this work for years already — carrying Reiki霊気 into palliative and hospice care, sending Reiki to animals, building circles where practitioners hold one another up. This is not something yet to come; it is already being done, in many places. For each of these efforts, I hold real respect.

What I picture is a framework that binds such work together on a larger scale. At its center I would place the Usui Reiki臼井霊気 that the Usui-kai臼井会 practices. With that as the axis, across the differences of streams, I want to put the weight on mutual aid and study among members. Palliative care, nursing, Reiki for animals, its use in the face of real illness: a place where those already leading the way in each of these fields can gather, pool what they have, and work together.

Always, of course, in full keeping with the medical-practitioner laws and related regulations of each country — and, above all, never taking away anyone’s access to medical care. Usui-sensei臼井先生 left us this: first, if you fall ill, go to the hospital; let Reiki make up what is lacking; and even if the doctor gives up, still go on giving Reiki. That trust in medicine, we carry on just as it is.

And one more thing — this may be only my own imagining — I am thinking of it as taking in work not directly tied to Reiki Ryōhō霊気療法 as well: members simply supporting one another, for its own sake. I take an international fraternal and mutual-aid society as one model.

Whether this dream will come true, I do not know. Even so, resting on respect for the practice already built up, I want to keep at it, step by patient step — to see whether we might tie that work together and form a core by which we can hold one another up.

And there is something I must tell you. A great many people sent Reiki to my father from afar. At ninety-five he fell to sepsis, lost consciousness, and day after day the doctors told us he might not last the night. Yet now he can take food, his fever has come down, and he can hold an ordinary conversation. Even to me this is astonishing, and had it not been for everyone’s distant Reiki, I do not believe my father would still be alive. Truly, thank you. From my heart, I am grateful.

And it makes me think this: however our streams may differ, we are able to use Reiki for the sake of others, and surely we may take a little more confidence in that. Of course there will be crushing things ahead as well, events that shatter that confidence. Even so, I want to go on honing the power I have and lifting my spirit higher. Reiki is something by which that can truly be done — of that I am convinced.

Bronwen, let me close by thanking you once more. Thank you, truly, for making an occasion like this. Each of your questions was direct and had a center to it, and that is exactly why I, too, could speak my mind plainly, without bracing myself. A good question, it seems, draws the words out of the one who answers. I owe that to you.