Reiki is a Japanese word translated as “Universal Life Energy” by Hawayo Takata.

She brought the possibility of a relationship with this energy to us through Usui Shiki Ryoho, a healing system founded by Mikao Usui in the early part of the 1900’s.

Usui Shiki Ryoho can be translated as “the Usui System of Natural Healing.”

Until the mid-1990’s, this was the most common translation and was used by nearly all of the various forms of hands-on healing practice that came from Hawayo Takata’s teaching. At this time, Phyllis Lei Furumoto decided to return to the Japanese title of the practice to identify the form of practice and the system that she teaches: Usui Shiki Ryoho.

To further identify the form of the practice, Phyllis Lei Furumoto and Paul David Mitchell engaged in efforts to bring clarity to the form of the practice that Hawayo Takata brought to the world, as well as incorporating the shifts that have occurred in the practice during this time. The form of the practice is held in the Nine Elements of Usui Shiki Ryoho. The philosophy and understanding of the system is expressed by the Four Aspects of Usui Shiki Ryoho. Together they define the system that masters and students practice under the lineage of Mikao Usui, Chujiro Hayashi, Hawayo Takata, Phyllis Lei Furumoto, and Johannes Reindl.