Our Lineage
In Reiki, everyone has a “lineage,” the line of teachers that connects them to Dr. Mikao Usui, the founder of Reiki as we know it today. Below are the progenitors of our Reiki lineage.
Dr. Mikao Usui
Dr. Mikao Usui was a Japanese school teacher and Christian minister in Kyoto, Japan in the late 1800s, who set out on a quest to learn how Jesus, Buddha, and other enlightened beings were able to heal people with a touch. In his quest he studied at monasteries and universities in Asia and the United States, learned several languages, and pored over many ancient documents. After finding a set of symbols in a Sanskrit scroll, he set out on a 21-day fast atop Mount Kurama. It was on the twenty-first day of the fast that Dr. Usui was struck in the head by a beam of light that revealed to him much of the practice of Reiki, as well as the use of the symbols he had discovered. He went on to practice Reiki across the country, lecturing and traveling extensively throughout Japan, and training many Japanese students in the use of Reiki.
Chujiro Hayashi
Among those trained by Dr. Usui was a retired Japanese naval officer and physician, Dr. Chujiro Hayashi, who founded a series of Reiki clinics in and around Tokyo in the mid-1920s. His first clinic is said to have been near the imperial palace, and was frequented by royalty and members of the court, giving Reiki an immediate reputation and following among the educated elite in Japan. As the awareness and interest in Reiki grew, Hayashi opened more clinics, and trained increasing numbers of students. He is credited with codifying the system of hand positions commonly used in Reiki practice today, and it is believed he made a number of adjustments to Usui’s system that made it less mystical and more easily explainable to doctors and patients, and more easily taught to the average student. Medical doctors would often refer difficult cases to Hayashi’s clinics, and it was through such a referral that Hawayo Takata was first introduced to Reiki.
Hawayo Takata
Mrs. Takata was a Japanese-American woman from Hawaii who had numerous health problems, including a tumor, gall stones, and appendicitis. Her husband had died unexpectedly, and she was struggling to raise her two young children. As her health was deteriorating, Mrs. Takata went to Japan seeking medical help, and through a twist of circumstances, became a patient at one of Hayashi’s clinics. After several months of treatment, Mrs Takata’s ailments healed, and she spent the following year as a student of Hayashi’s with the intention of treating herself and her family. When she returned to Hawaii in 1936, Takata began to practice Reiki, and was soon visited by Mr. Hayashi and his daughter. Hayashi lectured in Hawaii, and when he left in 1938, he made Mrs. Takata a Reiki Master.
John Harvey Gray
In the 1970s, Mrs. Takata was frequently invited to the mainland to lecture on and teach Reiki in the United States and Canada. One such trip was to the Trinity Metaphyscial Center in Redwood City, California, led by the Reverend Beth Gray. Beth and her husband, John Harvey Gray, both studied Reiki under Mrs. Takata, and in 1976 John became the first Reiki Master initiated by Takata in California, and the third of her masters worldwide. In the 1990s, John often visited New York City, teaching Reiki in Manhattan at the studio of Elaine Abrams. It was there that Brian Brunius first met Elaine J Abrams and John Harvey Gray, taking the first and second degree Reiki classes with John and Elaine as co-teachers, and completing his Reiki mastery with Elaine a decade later. John taught over 900 Reiki classes to more than 15,000 students, and gave over 10,000 private Reiki sessions in his lifetime. He was the longest-practicing Reiki Master in the Western Hemisphere. Until his death at age 93 in January 2011, John and his wife Lourdes Gray together operated The John Harvey Gray Center For Reiki Healing in Rindge, New Hampshire.
Elaine J Abrams
Elaine J Abrams began her private Reiki practice in 1987, one of the earliest practitioners in New York City. In the professional loft she shares with her photographer husband Joel Gordon, she sponsored Reiki workshops for, and trained entirely with her Reiki Master John Harvey Gray. In 1993 John elevated Elaine to Reiki Master-Instructor. He continued teaching with Elaine in New York until 1999 and made his transition in January 2011. Elaine continues to teach in the early style she learned from John. Elaine has been invited to introduce Reiki, presenting demonstrations and talks to many people for over 20 years. She has been published in The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Body Mind Disciplines (Rosen 1999) and Reiki Magazine International (August/September 2002). She is a member of The Reiki Alliance, the International Association of Counselors and Therapists, The Somatics Society, Friends of the Institute of Noetic Sciences, IONS, and ASPP. She is the Executive Director of Neuro-Cellular Education Systems “Learning by Being.”
