(Japanese) The ascetic En.
The legendary founder of Shugendô, also known as En-no-Ozunu. He is said to have been born in 634. From the age of 32 he practiced esoteric Buddhism and laid the foundations for Shugendô (esoteric mountain Buddhism).
Researchers today claim that Mikao Usui practised Shugendô and that many of the understandings of the system of Reiki grew from it.
Due to the outlawing of Shugendô in 1872, the author of Shugendô, Miyake Hitoshi, wrote that many new religions sprang up ‘to take its place and respond to the human need for fulfilling worldly aspirations.’ Shugendô thus became the central foundation for many of these new religions. Reiki is not a religion. It was created as a system that could be openly practiced by individuals regardless of their beliefs. It does however have similar origins to many of the new religions of that particular time in Japanese history.