Japan in the 1920s
was awash with spiritual Societies andhealing methods. Many of them contained the word
Rei (as inRei-ki
), meaning Spirit. There was Dai Rei Do (a spiritualgroup, .Great Spirit Way.) and
Rei Shi Jitsu (a healingmethod), both started by
Morihei Tanaka. There was even aRei Ju
Society, according to Fumio Ogawa, a member of theUsui Reiki Ryoho Gakkai.
In earlier years, Usui is said to have been
involved with a group called
Rei Jyutsu Kai(.Sublime Meeting of Souls.). They met at the
base of Mount Kurama, north of Kyoto, and were
renowned for clairvoyant and psychic development.
Another group devoted to healing and spiritual purification,
with a connection to Usui, would arise in the 1930s,
using an energy called
Johrei (.purifying spirit.). This wasbegun by a man named
Mokichi Okada. In the .20s he belongedto a spiritual group called
Omoto Kyo, which had been startedyears earlier by a woman named
Nao Deguchi. Her adopted son,Onisaburo Deguchi
(original name, Kisaburo Ueda), becameits leader . and both he and Okada were at some point
students of Usui*. The
Johrei method has many parallels toReiki
and, like Reiki, has spread around the world. Alsolike Usui Reiki, it has given birth to many offshoots.
Someone else who created his own spiritual/healing system
was a very close friend and prominent student of Usui,
Toshihiro Eguchi
, a school teacher. He learned the deepestsecrets of Usui.s method, and it.s believed that it was he
who taught Hayashi and the other founders of the Usui Gakkai
how to give Reiki empowerments, after the death of Usui. He
also developed his own method of
Tenohira Ryoji (.hand healing.), and was allowed to teach it in Usui.s own .learning
place..