Blog Post #3 - Energetic Medicine on TikTok

This week, something that’s caught my eye in the realm of magic, imagination, and belief is the practice of “energetic medicine” on TikTok. One account in particular, @ela_qi, caught my eye. Essentially, the energetic healer – Ella – claims that she’s able to heal us through our screens. She shares videos for many different emotions and conditions, including headaches, coughing, poor concentration, depression, intrusive thoughts, anxiety, ADHD paralysis, and insomnia. She focuses on psychic surgery, aura cleansing, brain massage, toxic energy removal, and evil eye cleanses. She explains to her followers that she’s channeling healing energy called qi to us from her side of the screen to ours; she says that, while qi defies explanation, it is a universal life force energy that runs through all things and all of the meridian pathways in our bodies. She claims to have been taught by an acupuncturist, by someone who does energy healing in conjunction with Chinese medicine. She claims that, throughout the video, she sets her intention to channel healing universal life force energy; it enters into her body, flows down toward her heart space, out into her arms, and into the “portal” located at the center of her palms. She says that the energy gets to us because qi operates outside of space-time; she tells us to pretend that screens do not exist and to keep in mind that all that matters is connection. Her intent is to send energy our way, and we’re consenting to receive it. You can send healing to the past, send healing to the future, and sit and send healing in the present. She claims that the transmission of energy is overseen by our spiritual guides, by high vibrational light beings, and by the universe.

An interesting comment that I found attached to one of her videos is, “I don’t 100% believe this kind of thing would work through a screen, but I shivered and felt tingles in my brain.” The person who commented on this has had a similar experience to me. Logically, at first glance, I dismissed Ella and her account as “woo woo”; I was (and still am) very skeptical as to whether someone sitting in front of their camera, moving their hands, and talking as if they’re speaking to me directly is actually doing anything. But, emotionally, when I watch her videos, I feel as if she’s pulling negative energy off of me, making my body lighter and my mind clearer and brighter. Sometimes, I feel as if tight strings are being pulled out of my mind and body and released. Whether I’m actually being affected by the energy healing or I’m simply willing myself to feel as if I am, something happens. I navigate to her page and scroll through her videos thinking “Yeah, right,” but once I’m watching a video and leaning into the experience, I start to believe her, and I keep coming back for more. I'm curious to learn more and eager to keep exploring the mysterious world of energy healing. As I’ve continued to draw upon in my blog posts, and as we’ve discussed in great length in class, the mind is a powerful thing. When someone believes something hard enough and wants something to be true so deeply, it becomes their reality.