If you have read about Reiki on the Internet then you will undoubtedly have come across references to Reiki “lineage”. A Reiki lineage is a list of Reiki Masters (teachers) starting with the person that taught you Reiki and then going back, teacher by teacher, to the founder of Reiki, Mikao Usui. So all Reiki people should be able to trace their Reiki “family tree” showing that their teacher was taught by this person, and they were taught by that person, and they were taught by this person, leading all the way back, in an unbroken line, to the founder of Reiki.
There does seem to be some strange behaviour going on when it comes to the subject of lineage. Reiki lineages are very important in some European countries, I understand, and some people like to play the “my lineage is shorter than yours” game, on that basis that a shorter lineage indicates in some way that your Reiki is more pure and untainted than that of someone who has a longer lineage.
In my view what is more important than the length of a lineage is the degree to which that lineage has stayed true to the original teachings, how much the lineage has distorted and amended what it has been given, but this is all a bit academic really because the vast majority of Reiki people on the planet have lineages that go like this:
- Mikao Usui
- Chujiro Hayashi
- Hawayo Takata
- One of the Masters that Mrs Takata taught
- … and so on
Most Reiki people in the world have a “Western style” ‘Mrs Takata’ Reiki lineage with teachings that have been amended and altered as they have been passed from one teacher to another and as Reiki has journeyed through the “New Age” movement. Hardly any Reiki people have a lineage that differs from this, though there are a few Japanese lineages.
The lineage of Reiki Evolution teachers has two strands, two sides to it: a ‘standard Western Reiki’ strand and an ‘original Usui Reiki’ strand. Taggart King, founder of Reiki Evolution, has various Western Reiki lineages and has been attuned by a number of European Reiki Masters, and it would serve no useful purpose to include all these lineages here, so here is Taggart’s first Western Reiki lineage:
- Mikao Usui
- Chujiro Hayashi
- Hawayo Takata
- Phyllis LeiFurumoto
- Florence O’Neal
- Jerry Farley
- June Woods
- Simon Treselyan
- Marcus Hayward
- Diane Whittle
- Taggart King
Taggart has another important ‘lineage’ which is outside the usual Usui – Hayashi – Takata line, which passes on the energy of Usui Sensei through the intermediary of a Tendai Buddhist nun – Suzuki San – who trained with Usui and was over 100 years old when she was became known to Westerners in 2000. Here is the route that the information and techniques took:
- Mikao Usui
- Suzuki San
- Chris Marsh
- Taggart King
Anyone training with Taggart through his Reiki home study courses, or through his team of trusted teachers on live Reiki courses in various parts of the country, also have these people in their list of Reiki teachers stretching back to Mikao Usui.
Author: Taggart King