Takata’s Handouts

BY WILLIAM LEE RAND

A
fter receiving her training from Hayashi Sensei during a has value because of the usefulness of her healing and teaching
yearlong internship at his clinic in Japan, Mrs. Takata methods. Therefore, it’s important that we forgive her for the
brought Reiki to Hawaii in 1938. She became an confusion some of her methods created and honor her for the
accomplished healer, practicing and teaching Reiki until her value of her legacy.
passing in 1980, a period of over 40 years. This was a great One of the myths that Takata created is that Reiki is an oral
accomplishment, as her work prevented Reiki from falling into tradition. Although she herself had been given a manual by
obscurity after World War II, and allowed Reiki to become estab- Hayashi,2 she made it a rule that students not be given anything
lished as a popular practice. It has since grown to include millions in writing and should not be allowed to take notes or tape-record
of practitioners worldwide. Reiki classes. This requirement prevented accurate records from
After World War II, circumstances in Japan greatly curtailed being created about how she taught. Since her students had only
the availability of information about Reiki. Takata became the memory to rely on, over time, changes developed in how Reiki
main source. Takata changed the system of Reiki from what she was practiced and taught. In addition to variations in how her
was taught by Hayashi Sensei. According to John Harvey Gray, students remembered information, Takata sometimes changed
one of her Master students, Takata told him she had simplified the what she taught from class to class.
system, making it easier for Westerners to learn.1 This included All of this has created confusion within the Reiki community
eliminating the hand position system she had been taught and about the history and practice of Reiki and has allowed many con-
replacing it with seven or eight positions, which she called the flicting ideas and systems to develop. Only through careful
foundation treatment. She also left out many of the important research, including interviews with her few surviving students and
healing techniques she had learned from Hayashi Sensei. information from her two biographies has it been possible to dis-
Even though she had changed Hayashi’s system, the dominant cover how she did actually practice and teach. This information is
idea she promoted to most of her students was that she was teach- provided in an article researched and written by Marianne Streich:
ing the unaltered system created by Usui Sensei. There were also “How Hawayo Takata Practiced and Taught Reiki” (Spring 2007).
factual errors in her version of Reiki history. Not having any other However, I recently learned that Takata didn’t always teach
source of information about Reiki, students were inclined to believe the oral tradition. This fact came to me by the way of a packet I
her. This idea continued to be promoted by some of her students received in the mail from Alice Picking. Alice had taken a Reiki
after her passing, thus perpetuating misinformation and discourag- I class from Takata in June 1975 in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. In
ing research into how Reiki had been practiced by its founders. this class Takata mentioned nothing about an oral tradition.
Fortunately, curiosity prevailed and in the 1990’s several Instead, she provided instructional handouts to her students and
researchers including Toshitaka Mochizuki, Frank Arjava Petter allowed them to take notes. The packet I received included
and Hiroshi Doi began providing professionally researched and Alice’s copy of the handouts Takata had given students, along
verifiable information about how Hayashi and Usui had prac- with the notes she had taken. She also sent her Reiki certificate
ticed Reiki. This information included the location of Usui signed by Takata, several handwritten letters from Takata, along
Sensei’s grave and memorial stone, and contact with the Usui with a postmarked envelope, and the class list of 20 students. I
Reiki Ryoho Gakkai in Japan. We now have a much clearer pic- talked with several of the students on the class list, and they ver-
ture of the history and practice of Reiki. Today, most of the orig- ified the information Alice had sent me.
inal methods are being taught by various Reiki schools.
Despite the myths she created, it’s important to remember 1
John Harvey Gray and Lourdes Gray with Steven McFadden and Elisa-
that Takata was an excellent healer and that she accumulated beth Clark, Hand to Hand: The Longest-Practicing Reiki Master Tells His
invaluable experience over her 40 years of practice. In addition, Story (Gray 2002), page 93.
the system she created, though different than what she had been
taught, is an effective healing system. It’s important that we have 2
After Takata’s death, Takata’s daughter, Alice Takata Furumoto, gave
a clear idea of how she practiced for historical reasons, but it also this manual to John Gray. See Gray’s book, pages 183-195.

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Class Handouts. Alice included several pages of class handouts Takata had given to her class. These include the one
shown on this page and the next page, plus an additional page and a half of recipes. Her notes show that Takata
taught only a few simple hand positions.

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Alice Picking’s Hand Position Drawings

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©iStockphoto.com/JLFCapture
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Reiki in Japan
A fter Usui Sensei’s transition in 1926, the practice of Reiki
was preserved by the organization he started: the Usui
Reiki Ryoho Gakkai. However, after World War II, strict laws
impossible to learn it. The Usui Reiki Ryoho Gakkai remains
a secret organization even today, and no one outside of the
Gakkai is giving the same attunement that Usui Sensei gave.
were passed about healing that required one to have a massage As a result of this secrecy, Takata became the main source for
or medical license to practice Reiki. Rather than conform to training and information about Reiki from 1940 until the early
this requirement, the Gakkai decided to continue as a secret 1990’s. Those in Japan who wanted to learn Reiki turned to
organization. They stopped giving public lectures and advertis- Western Takata-style teachers who traveled to Japan to teach, or
ing, and the members talked about Reiki only among them- they took classes in the USA. Reiki sessions have been exchanged
selves. They would admit new members to join their group and between Gakkai members and those from the Takata lineage, and
study Reiki only as replacements for members who died. Once these sessions indicate that both styles seem to provide a similar
one became a Shinpiden or Master, he or she wasn’t allowed to level of healing ability. Tadao Yamaguchi, who learned from his
teach or even talk about Reiki outside the Gakkai. They also mother, Chiyoko, teaches a Reiki style whose lineage goes direct-
had strict rules governing who was allowed to be a member. ly to Hayashi Sensei and attempts to closely follow his teaching.
Because of this, it was very difficult for anyone to find out any- However, most Reiki teachers in Japan today are teaching a com-
thing about Reiki in Japan after World War II and almost bination of Japanese and Takata-style Reiki. n

Opposite Page: Takata Letter from 1977. Included in the packet from Alice Picking was a letter Takata sent out to those
who sponsored her classes. In it Takata thanks all who helped her promote Reiki and states she will be retiring. Added at
the end is the statement that she has created three Reiki Masters to “carry on this noble work.” This is important
because it indicates that she didn’t appoint these three to be Grandmasters who would be in charge of Reiki, nor that
they would be her successors in any official capacity, but that their purpose was simply to carry on the work of Reiki.3
Apparently she changed her mind about retiring and about having only three Masters. She created many more (a total
of 22) and continued to practice and teach until her passing at the end of 1980.

3
The concept of Grandmaster of Reiki didn’t develop until after Takata passed. Soon after her passing, Barbara Weber Ray, one of the 22 Masters,
declared that Takata had appointed her as Grandmaster of Reiki. This title was not a part of the Usui system, and Ray offered no meaningful proof to
support her claim. Shortly after this, a group of Takata’s Masters asked Phyllis Furumoto if she would be the Grandmaster, and she accepted. Because
there was little authentic historical information about Reiki at this time, many people accepted the concept of Grandmaster, but as research revealed
the facts, this idea lost credibility within the Reiki community.

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