An Eccentric Energy Healing

An Eccentric Energy Healing

Candace Silvers, an International Energy Healer
with a Surprising Past, Stops in Santa Barbara

By Callie Fausey | February 27, 2025

I didn’t know what to expect when I entered room 327. All I knew was that I was there, at that Residence Inn in Goleta, for an “energy healing” from a woman I knew close to nothing about. 

Energy healing, and particularly the idea of an energetic force surrounding and permeating the body (formally labeled a “biofield,” according to the National Library of Medicine), originates from ancient Chinese and Indian thought. It also has roots in Japan, in its younger, more popular form of reiki. But the Western version wasn’t coined as “energy medicine” until the 1980s. 

The idea is that people can use their hands to manipulate your life force, or channel healing energy into your body, and unblock your chakras or restore energy balance, and subsequently, heal your afflictions. 

It’s a hit on social media, up there with crystals and goat yoga.

It was a last-minute invitation, and since my proclivity for doing unusual things for a story has become a kind of inside joke at the office, I was like, “Why the hell not.”

I walk into this hotel room, which is laid out like a studio apartment — full kitchen, small living area, and a bed. Four friendly, normal-looking faces greet me from where they’re sitting on the couch. 

Lying on a massage table in the center of the room is a man, who looks to be in his sixties. 

Candace Silvers, the energy healer, is hovering her hands over the man’s crotch.

The first thing I notice about Silvers is her remarkably clean appearance. She says she’s in her sixties, but she looks about 10 years younger. Her brown, highlighted hair is perfectly straight. She’s wearing a black cashmere sweater with a white shirt and slacks. Her hands and neck are subtly accentuated with emerald jewelry. She is also barefoot. 

“Come in, come in!” She waves me inside and then reforms her hands into a triangle floating over the man’s genitals. “I’m healing this man’s prostate.”

In a manner that was completely professional and full of journalistic integrity, I repressed a chuckle and thought to myself, “Holy shit.”

I sat in a small leather chair next to the couch. The normal-looking faces tilted their heads toward me and offered meek, inquisitive smiles. 

Silvers was anything but meek. She looked at me and asked if I was “the reporter.” I said yes. She did a double take. “You’re adorable!” She exclaimed. “How old are you, 12?”

For the record, I’m 24, nearing 25. As I reluctantly reach the end of my young adulthood, I am much less sensitive to and much more appreciative of these comments.

Lighthearted jokes about my young age and relatively good health echoed around the group, the youngest of whom seemed to be in their forties.

“If nothing’s wrong with you, you probably won’t feel anything,” Silvers said, still twitching her hands above the man’s body. “You’ll feel better, but it won’t be as noticeable,” she added.

Not to toot my own horn, but there are definitely things wrong with me. But before we could get to my turn, she had actual paying clients to attend to. I wasn’t paying the usual $400 for my 30-minute session, so I didn’t mind waiting a while. 

I silently observed as she squeezed and poked around the man’s body, asking if he felt any pain. “Here?” she asked, pinching his toes or jabbing his side. “How does this feel? And here? Does it feel different?”

If he said yes, she would whoosh air out of her mouth and then twitch her hands. Then she’d do something like swipe her hands down his limbs, and clap and wipe her hands as if she were brushing off the bad juju. At one point, after affirming some pain in his head, she did a loud “POP! Phewwww” in both his ears. (I literally jumped. It scared the crap out of me.)

The man on the table, however, described the sensations as “wonderful,” or “lovely tingling,” reaching all the way down to his toes from his gut — “like going to the car wash.” 

“A car wash of the gut,” Silvers replied. Throughout the session, Silvers was all smiles and wit, in a way that almost seemed rehearsed. 

As she flowed through the other clients, including one who said she was a breast cancer patient and another who said she was a pediatrician, almost everyone acted like they had been there before. 

“We spent half an hour on your shoulders last year,” Silvers told the first man, noting that he felt no such pain this time around. The breast cancer patient was also apparently a repeat client and claimed that Silvers helped heal her breast lesion and put her into remission.

We’re going to pause right there.

Just to clarify, the jury is out on whether energy healing actually works. Science with a capital “S” says no. There is no solid evidence that this “life energy” — qi in China, or prana in India — really exists, let alone any evidence that healers can make it move and jive and flow out of our ears. But it is rooted in ancient techniques and has long been practiced in Asian and Indigenous cultures (that said, we have obviously diverted from that here). 

In America — and I say this endearingly — many lovely kooks living on the fringe stand by the benefits of energy healing.

Silvers herself emphasized that this alternative practice is not meant to replace traditional Western medicine or therapy, but rather to complement it.

She called it “performing energetic surgery,” using the trademarked “Silvers Healing Modality” — a method she said she has been honing her entire life. She offers it both in person and on Zoom (this remote healing practice has also gained traction in recent years).

“When I was a little girl, I loved fixing broken Slinkys, and now I think of the thousands of people I’ve worked on as broken Slinkys,” she said, adding that she healed 200 people in Peru the month prior.

According to her website, her modality involves the healer using their hands as “scanning devices” to identify “energy blocks” in the client’s body to “remap” their energetic state. She claims that it works on muscles, bones, neurological and spinal systems, and internal organs. “Depending on the specific condition, multiple sessions may be necessary or advantageous,” her website adds.

“I’m hoping this works,” the pediatrician said as she lay down on the table. 

“Fuck hope,” Silvers replied. “Be faithful.”

Melting My Migraines 

All of a sudden, it was my turn. Silvers reiterated that if there wasn’t anything wrong with me, I wouldn’t really feel any different.

But as the pediatrician was getting off the table for me to take her place, I could feel a headache coming on. They hit particularly hard when I am anxious or stressed. Some days, I get a persistent, sticky migraine that coils and melts around my brain like a snake made of honey (if you get migraines, you get it), and on other days, I get ice-pick headaches, which are exactly what they sound like.

Wait, I thought, duh. Maybe she can fix my head. 

How did I not think of that sooner? Well, migraines have become so ingrained in my day-to-day life that I barely give them a second thought. I hardly even flinch when they strike. It’s also not like they’re tangible, like a breast lesion. I wouldn’t be able to go to the doctor the next day and be told my migraines had gone “poof” and I was in headache-remission.

But just in case she could make the pangs go poof, I filled Silvers in on my affliction and stretched out on the table.

“Okay, then,” she said, accepting that there are, in fact, things wrong with me, “we’ll focus on your head.”

But we started at my feet. She sent energy through my feet up my legs, saying I may feel a temperature change or some tingling sensation. To my surprise, on one foot, I felt a rush of cold, and on the other, I felt a wave of heat. I told her this, not hiding the incredulity in my voice, and she said that it was because I had multiple dysfunctions going on.

Who knew?

As she worked her way up, she’d pause to check for energy blocks by squeezing or pressing on parts of my body. If I indicated that I felt any unpleasant sensations, she’d “fix” it by blowing air and moving her hands around the area.

The group looked on, not hiding their amusement. They gave me kind, excited smiles and a barrage of affirming chirps like, “Yeah, crazy, right?”

Eventually, Silvers got to my head. She had me sit up, and before I could comprehend what was happening, she was holding my head and popping and “phewing” in both my ears. 

“Lets see if it feels like a bowl getting cracked off your head,” she said.

When I lay back down, Silvers moved some energy away from my jaw, noting that people often hold a lot of tension there. There was an actual pulling or stretching sensation across my face through my temples. I had never felt anything like it before. She was then holding her hands near the crown of my head. It felt like the energy was draining out of my ears.

I was flabbergasted. Gobsmacked. When I write stories like this, I try to stay open-minded, but of course I was skeptical. My logical brain was trying to rationalize why, then, it felt so real, so tangible, so corporeal.

That feeling was only solidified when I slowly got up and off the table and got dizzy. I had to sit down and compose myself. What the [expletive]? Burn the witch!

I felt crazy. But I also felt better.

Silvers told me not to drink alcohol, drink plenty of water, and get a good night’s sleep, saying I would be tired for the rest of the day and her office would follow up with me. I thanked her and went on my way, making a note to myself to keep track of any future headaches.

Who Is Candace?

I thought about what I had just gone through the entire drive home. My curiosity was piqued, to say the least. I knew I needed to look into Silvers and this unbelievable practice of hers. As soon as I got home, I glued myself to my couch and started my archeological dig (Googling her).

When I first agreed to do the story, I thought I was just going to write about my experience with this weird healing trend. (I’ve done it in the past.) But then I looked Silvers up.

During the session, Silvers recounted growing up in Beverly Hills with her famous father — among the many hints she dropped about her background.

As it turns out, Candace Silvers is the daughter of Phil Silvers, a famous comedian from the 1950s, also known as “The King of Chutzpah.” I, personally, had never heard of him. My news room, however, erupted in surprise when I told them. Her twin sister, Cathy, was also on Happy Days.

She mentioned her time in Santa Barbara and her sons, saying they are Michelin-star chefs — which they really are, including Lennon Silvers Lee, who owns Silvers Omakase in the Funk Zone, and Phillip Frankland Lee, who created Sushi by Scratch, which has a location at the Montecito Inn.

Chefs and actors. Quite the family, right?

As for Silvers herself? Naturally, as a daughter of Hollywood, she also tried her hand at acting and then became an acting coach. 

But this is where it gets spicy.

Cult Accusations and Other Controversy 

When I looked her up, one of the first things to pop up was an article from the Hollywood Reporter calling her a “false prophet” in an incredibly long feature that I have neither the time nor the wherewithal to fully recount here. In essence, the article accuses Silvers of using manipulative, cult-like tactics to control her students and exploit their insecurities for personal gain, at one point calling it “psychological and financial predation.”

After a transformative trip to India, it says, Silvers rebranded herself as a spiritual, energy-healing self-help guru. She created a life class and later a “human behavior course,” which some students have found helpful but others have criticized as emotional manipulation and as lacking professionalism. She also teaches her healing modality to students — our session was live-streamed on Facebook.

A key aspect of her initial teachings involved a Balinese healing technique she learned, which she rebranded as Shiva Murti, and then tweaked and rebranded as the Silvers Modality after some reported fallout with her original teacher. Concerns have circled about the legitimacy of her practices, but her followers defend her, describing her approach as tough but transformative.

Silvers’s team denies all claims from the three-year-old article.

“We are aware of the defamatory article that misrepresents Candace Silvers Studios and the unique modality we offer. This false narrative is driven by individuals who aim to undermine our position in the field and mislead the public by harming our reputation,” her office said in a statement. “We stand by the transformative impact of our healing practices, rooted in authenticity and years of dedication. We are taking all necessary legal measures to address this matter. Our commitment to helping others heal and learn this modality remains steadfast, and we are grateful for the ongoing support from our healing community as we continue our important and impactful work.” 

Okay, But Does It Actually Work?

While some people insist that our bodies can be energetically misaligned (like mine, I guess, with my hot and cold feet), and that energy “medicine” can help treat both physical diseases and mental ailments — with some research to suggest that it may help reduce pain and anxiety — there is no rock-solid data to prove that energy healing is efficacious. 

But I did feel a bit more aligned after my session. My migraines have not been as intense nor as frequent since the session (but they have not disappeared, either). Silvers would say that “Rome wasn’t built in a day,” and more sessions would benefit me. Logic would say that any perceived change was probably a combination of the placebo effect and confirmation bias.

But who knows? Maybe my qi was all out of whack. 

As Silvers said during our session,“What if  crazy bullshit stupid lies were actually real and we were really healing people?”

All of this is to say, if you want to try it and have the money to add it on as alternative or complementary medicine to your regular and irreplaceable doctor’s visits and therapy sessions, go for it. I don’t see anything wrong with slowing down, relaxing, being more in tune with your body and checking up on it however you’d like. And I’m definitely not in the position to say what is or isn’t real.

If anyone wants to try it out for themselves, Silvers has online sessions, and told me she comes to Santa Barbara about every six weeks. You can check it out at
candacesilversstudios.com.