The Reiki Dojo

My journey in the process of Succession in the Spiritual Lineage of Usui Shiki Ryoho

When I received my initiations into 1st degree Reiki, my master had placed pictures of four people in the room where the ceremony took place. I didn’t really know who they were or why she had those pictures there, but I felt intuitively that they were significant. I came to learn that these were the four people of the Spiritual Lineage of Usui Shiki Ryoho. When I became a master myself a few years later, my connection with and understanding about the significance of these people grew.

I came to understand that they had each in their turn, during their lifetime, held a special role in the practice: Mikao Usui who developed the Reiki healing system, one of his students, Chujiro Hayashi who developed the practice and recognised a Japanese-American woman Hawayo Takata to carry on the teachings. She brought Reiki from Japan to the rest of the world. Phyllis Lei Furumoto, her grand-daughter, became her successor when her grandmother died in 1980. Phyllis held a still-point for the practice she had received from Takata, during a time of immense change in how Reiki was practiced. 

From that first experience of the pictures present during my initiation I have felt a connection with this line of teachers and experience this not simply from intellectual teaching, but an energetic experience of connection back to the source through them. 

My curiosity about who would succeed Phyllis was piqued in around 1995 when she was driving us to receive a massage and failed to stop at a junction, just avoiding being hit by an oncoming lorry. Having narrowly escaped death, I asked her if she had made any plans about who might succeed her! At the time she said she did, although it was not the plan that eventually took place.

So when she became ill and it was clear she needed to make a decision about her successor fairly soon, I was glad to support her by organising a weekend retreat to explore the question of Succession. This was the first of several such weekends, which were followed by the formation of the Succession Core Team, a group who met online for 3 years to explore the question of succession using Regenerative Thinking. We explored the whole question of succession deeply, including asking whether there should be a successor at all. We recognised that on a level that is difficult to put into words that the role of Lineage Bearer is significant for those who follow this practice. 

In March 2019 I was in Arizona to attend some courses to develop my mastery and learn more about Regenerative Thinking. Phyllis was clearly nearing the end of her life and the question of whether she would choose a successor, and who it would be, was in everyone’s minds. Having been something I’d cared about since that near-miss all those years ago, I felt deeply involved in this process. I anticipated that there would not just be the recognition of a person to carry on the teaching, but an energetic transfer of some kind, like an initiation.

On 15^th March we were working on our Regenerative Development tasks in Phyllis’ home. During a break I popped to the loo and found Phyllis dressed in a beautiful Japanese jacket. She was choosing some incense and I knew, having been there that she chose the very best incense from the temple on mount Kurama close to where Usui did his 21 day meditation. I knew that the time had come: that she was about to choose her successor. She came into the room where we were working, the incense was lit and we all chatted informally for a while.

Phyllis then began to talk about succession.  I remember sitting on the floor in front of her, my heart beating hard, giving myself Reiki in the knowledge that it would also support her in this significant moment. And yes there was a voice in my head, having walked this path of succession for so many years, that said “Will it be me?” when she looked at me.

Then she turned to Johannes Reindl and said “Johannes, you’re it”.

He was stunned, never having anticipated this. There was a sense of relief in the room that the choice had been made and gratitude that we were there to witness it. 

Phyllis had entered the room in wheelchair because she was too weak to walk. However, she stood up in front of Johannes, said some beautiful words of recognition and gifted him some special things, including a Native American medicine pouch that had belonged to her grandmother.  As she spoke her voice was strong and clear, there was no doubt in my mind that Reiki was supporting her in this moment.

On 15^th March this year those of us who were there that day met to remember what we witnessed. Johannes shared how it has been for him holding this role and I was interested to hear that in the early days after the recognition he experienced intense ‘light’, which I feel was the energetic transmission I had anticipated. It reminded me of my own experience of Reiki light when receiving my first initiations, while I was learning the second-degree symbols and in the first days after I was initiated as a master. 

I am grateful and honoured to have been witness to the process of succession, not just on 15^th March, but from the days when Reiki practice was still fairly new in the UK.