If you’ve looked into Reiki practitioners, you may have seen a chart of names on their website, running from Mikao Usui down to them. That’s their lineage.
Here’s what a lineage is, how Reiki traveled to get here, and what a lineage can and can’t tell you.
What is a Reiki lineage?
A Reiki lineage is the line of teachers your training comes from. You learned from your teacher. Your teacher learned from theirs. And so on, back to Mikao Usui, who began teaching Reiki in Japan in the early 1920s.
It’s a little like a family tree, but for learning. And like a family tree, it often branches. Many teachers studied with more than one person, so most lineages have several lines instead of one.
How did Reiki travel from Japan to the West?
The short version goes like this.
Mikao Usui developed Reiki in Japan and taught it to a group of students. After he died in 1926, some of them kept teaching in Japan.
Chujiro Hayashi, one of Usui’s students, opened a clinic in Tokyo and trained students of his own. One of them was Hawayo Takata, a Japanese American woman from Hawaii. She learned Reiki from Hayashi in the 1930s and brought it home.
For decades, Takata was one of the main teachers of Reiki outside Japan. Her students memorized what she taught. There were no handouts. Before she died in 1980, she trained 22 Reiki Masters, and most Western Reiki comes through them. These are often called the Takata lines.
Meanwhile, Reiki kept going in Japan, mostly out of view of the West. In the 1990s, Western practitioners began learning more about how it had been practiced there all along. Lines that come through teachers in Japan are often called the Japanese lines.
Reiki changed as it traveled. Different teachers emphasized different things, and some added ideas from other traditions. For example, the chakras many people connect with Reiki come from yoga and older Indian traditions, not from Reiki itself. That’s one reason lineage matters: it helps you see where each piece came from.
What does your lineage look like?
I trained in Usui Reiki through Level 2 (Okuden) with Deborah Dixon of Subtle Wellness in Durham, North Carolina, in a course through Duke Health.
Deborah trained with three teachers:
- William Lee Rand, founder of the International Center for Reiki Training. His lines include both Takata lines and Japanese lines, through Hyakuten Inamoto and Hiroshi Doi.
- Libby Barnett, a traditional Takata-line teacher. She learned from John Harvey Gray, one of Takata’s 22 Masters, and from Judy Carol-Stewart.
- A first teacher in Columbus, Ohio, whose line wasn’t recorded.
So my lineage runs back to Mikao Usui along both Japanese and Takata lines.
That last line, the one that wasn’t recorded, matters to me too. Deborah points out that there’s a long, rich tradition of people, often women, learning from each other in their kitchens and living rooms. That kind of teaching doesn’t always show up on a chart with names and dates. It should be honored just the same.
Reiki has often been passed person to person, and not every step was written down. A gap in a lineage isn’t a flaw. Often, it’s just where the teaching happened somewhere quiet.
Why does a lineage matter?
It names where the teaching came from
Reiki is a Japanese practice, and I learned it in North Carolina, many teachers away from where it began. Naming my lineage is one way of being honest about that, and of giving credit to the people who carried this practice to me.
It helps you understand a practitioner’s approach
Different lines can feel a little different. Some teachers keep things very simple and traditional. Some add meditations, visualizations, or ideas from other practices. Knowing a practitioner’s lineage can give you a sense of what they learned and where it came from.
It’s part of being clear
Clarity is one of my commitments. I tell you who trained me, what level I’m at, and what I haven’t trained in. I’m a Level 2 practitioner, and I haven’t trained to be a Reiki Master.
What can’t a lineage tell you?
A lineage can’t tell you whether a practitioner is kind, careful, or a good fit for you.
A long or famous lineage doesn’t make someone a better practitioner. A short or partly unknown one doesn’t make them worse. Many wonderful practitioners have lines with gaps in them.
If you’re choosing a Reiki practitioner, the lineage is just one thing to look at. You might also ask:
- Who taught you, and what level have you trained to?
- Do you ask before sending Reiki?
- Will you tell me what you noticed without interpreting it?
- Do you make any health claims? (A careful practitioner won’t.)
- How do you handle what I share with you?
You can read how I answer those on my ethics page.
Common questions
Do I need to know a practitioner’s lineage before booking? No. It’s helpful context, but it isn’t required. A good practitioner should be glad to share it if you ask.
Is one lineage better than another? No. They’re different branches of the same practice. What matters most is how a practitioner works with you.
What’s the difference between Takata lines and Japanese lines? Takata lines come through Hawayo Takata, who brought Reiki to the West. Japanese lines come through teachers who kept practicing in Japan. Many practitioners today, including me, have both.
What does “Okuden” mean? Okuden is the Japanese name for Level 2 in Usui Reiki. It’s the level where distance Reiki is taught.
Do you share the Reiki symbols? No. Out of respect for the teachings and for my teacher, I don’t share them.