What the hell is ASMR Reiki?

If you’ve never come across ASMR Reiki before (I hadn’t until about four weeks ago), you might be wondering what it is and what ASMR means.

ASMR is an acronym for Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response and it’s appearing all over social media (particularly TikTok) in the form of ASMR Reiki.

When you experience ASMR, you are meant to experience a deeply calming, sometimes brain-tingling effect at the back of the scalp or neck. Some people report it cascading down their spine and can be used to help you relax or fall asleep.

In an ASMR Reiki video, you will often find practitioners whispering softly, tapping or scratching at their phone’s screen, waving their hands, crystals or sage sticks about, or ‘plucking’ at things.

Personally, I find these videos extremely irritating, and the effects unpleasant, but more than that: what on earth have they got to do with Reiki? All that plucking, hand waving, whispering, and scratching might well elicit an ASMR response, but where does the Reiki come in? The answer is: it doesn’t!

There is nothing remotely ‘Reiki’ about any of these videos that I’ve come across so far. Some of them claim to have specific intentions that are realised by watching the video: falling asleep, solving relationship problems, for confidence, aura cleansing, ‘protection’ or to attract more money.

Of course, if you’ve taken a course in Reiki, you will know that all of this is pure nonsense because you simply can’t ‘make’ Reiki fix any specific thing because the practitioner has no control whatsoever over what the energy will do. Reiki is always drawn in, for their highest good (whatever that might be) by the recipient and not pushed in by the practitioner.

I’d be interested to know what you make of ASMR Reiki. Leave a comment and if you haven’t taken Reiki training before (and believe me, you should!) and want to know more about it, you can check out my Courses page on my website.

Beyond the theatrics of ASMR Reiki, genuine Reiki is a very powerful healing method, and even if you are a skeptic, give it a go. Some of my best students started as skeptics, but Reiki doesn’t require belief, so skepticism doesn’t stand much of a chance with this healing method.

PS. Do watch out for an opportunity to learn Reiki, up to the professional practitioner level (that’s Reiki levels 1 and 2), FOR FREE by following me on Instagram!