Why does Japan have fewer Reiki practitioners than the rest of the world?
September 25, 2026
Is Reiki dangerous during pregnancy?
September 27, 2026
I don’t know, and nobody does. He would probably be flummoxed by some of what is taught in the West, and possibly by some of what is taught in Japan a hundred years and eight or nine presidents later. Things keep changing. All we can do is trace the teaching back as carefully as we can and try to keep some of that original experience in what we teach.
I don’t know. Would he even know that it had anything to do with what he was teaching? I have no idea. I am sure some of the things taught within the system of Reiki in the West would flummox him, and possibly some of what is taught in Japan too. It is a hundred years ago. The association in Japan has had eight or nine presidents in that time, and things change with each of them. In the West, things obviously change too. Things keep changing.
I can only hope that we can hold on to some of that original experience of what it might have been like to be with Mikao Usui in the early 1900s. That would have been amazing. Imagine having learned with him. I would have loved that, but it is not the case.
So all we can do is trace it back as well as we can, and really try to bring that sense of what he might have taught into our teaching. Whether he would recognise what we do today, I am sure he would recognise some things, and other things obviously not.
Who. Mikao Usui, 臼井甕男, 1865 to 1926. He founded the practice in Tokyo in 1922 after an experience on Mount Kurama and taught for only about four years before he died, leaving roughly two thousand students.
Where the story comes from. We have no writing by Usui himself beyond the precepts and the short answers attributed to him in the association’s manual. Everything else comes from his students, his memorial stone, the associations manuals, and what was passed down orally.
What the sources actually say. That he taught a practice of self-cultivation built on the precepts, meditation and hands-on healing, and that it was already changing in his lifetime, as students adapted it and as the association organised it.
The honest answer. He would not recognise most of the vocabulary, the chakras, the crystals or the certificates. He might recognise a person sitting quietly each morning with their hands together, reciting five lines. That is a part worth protecting.
You might also ask: What did Mikao Usui actually teach, compared with what is taught today? · What does Mikao Usui’s gravestone actually say? · Why did the West remove the most important part of Reiki?
I teach what can be traced back to Usui, and say plainly what cannot, inside Shinpiden+.
More questions answered: Reiki Questions Answered.
