Reiki was discovered about 100 years ago, the first that we know about it being used was about a 100 years ago by a Japanese man named Usui Sensei and he was on a journey to spiritual healing when he started receiving these messages almost like seeing things. He saw because he had been fasting and walking through the wilderness that he was going crazy, but as it turns out he was actually just discovering Reiki. The more these messages kept coming to him, the more he thought "I have to see what this is all about." That's sort of a very abstract way that it was discovered, no one really knows why it was him that discovered it or why no one else did before or how it sort of just came to him. And after that, he passed it on to several other people. He practiced Reiki on people and he also had students who followed very closely with his work that sort of apprenticed with him. One of the most notable people in continuing Reiki and continuing to spread Reiki was Hawao Takata and she is the one who brought Reiki to the United States. She was actually born in Hawaii and she went back over to Japan when she was feeling ill and some of her relatives were sick, she went back over there to help take care of them. While she was over there since she was sick and her condition was getting worse, she went to go see a doctor that recommended her to go see a Reiki practitioner and she did. She was so amazed that it had healed her that she brought it first back to Hawaii and then all over the United States. She was really the person who got it going here and who introduced it to the United States and taught Reiki to so many people. From there it just grew into what it is today.
