Dr Chujiro Hayashi

A retired naval officer, a commander in the Imperial Navy of Japan, Dr Hayashi was 47 when he was initiated as a Reiki Master. Dr Hayashi went on to open the first Reiki clinic in Tokyo.

At his clinic he kept careful records of the illnesses and conditions patients who came to see him had and from this, he developed the basic hand positions in use today. He also refined the attunement process by dividing it into three separate levels called degrees.

It is not known how many people Dr Hayashi trained in Reiki but it is known that, being a renowned psychic, Dr Hayashi foresaw the coming of the Second World War and decided to pass on Reiki to two women. He did this in the knowledge that many of the men he had trained would be killed in the fighting and he wanted to ensure that Reiki survived. The two women he trained were his wife and Mrs Hawayo Takata.

Because of his trip to Hawaii in 1937-38 prior to the Japanese Attack on Pearl Harbour, he was asked by the Japanese military to provide information about the location of warehouses and other military targets in Honolulu. He refused to do so and was declared a traitor. This caused him to lose face, which meant he and his family would be disgraced and would be ostracized from Japanese society. The only solution was seppuku (ritual suicide), which he carried out. He died honourably on May 11, 1940.