A new film from Sri Lanka reveals “Spirituality is a good business,” reviewing what Song Qili and Scientology were selling as pseudo-science

YouTuber Xilan, in her new video, debunked the “life aura portrait photography” by Taiwanese influencer Jolie, saying that the aura camera is essentially a colorful LED double-exposure that composites the halo; the hand sensor is actually measuring “hand sweat.” Looking back, 30 years ago, Song Qili used a darkroom to create “clone photos” to rake in more than NT$70k. The U.S. Scientology, meanwhile, packaged an E-meter that measures skin electrical current as a way to “detect souls” thetan.

(Background: Xilan is calling out Boen “taking money to help Indian prodigies cut the grass”?)
(Fact check: the two parties had no financial transactions between them.)

(Background add-on: artificial miracles—a high-performance scam that never gets old)

Table of contents

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• Expensive hand sweat
• You’re probably too young to know Song Qili
• Measure skin electrical current to “raise the soul”
• Spirituality is good business
• Faith doesn’t issue invoices

Key takeaways

• YouTuber Xilan exposed that Taiwanese influencer Jolie’s “life aura portrait photography” is a “hand sweat machine”: colorful LED double exposure to form the halo, sensors measure hand sweat, and it’s estimated to earn at least $140k.
• The same dual-exposure trick: 30 years ago, Song Qili used a darkroom to make “clone photos,” raking in $200 million to $300 million; he was sentenced to seven years in the first instance, but later acquitted on retrial after appeal.
• Scientology’s core tool, the E-meter, is fundamentally a galvanic skin response meter that measures skin electrical current. It claims it can detect the soul thetan, and U.S. courts required adding a “no medical or scientific efficacy” disclaimer label.

Stand in a quiet room, wait for fifteen minutes, and a Polaroid camera will spit out a photo. In the photo, a purple or gold glow sits above your head. The photographer lowers their voice and tells you that’s your “life aura,” the color of your soul right now. Then they tell you to take out 1,500 yuan.

Xilan fires back directly: that light is actually your hand sweat.

Expensive hand sweat

In a video uploaded on July 24, Xilan reinterpreted Taiwanese influencer Jolie’s “life aura portrait photography.” She said there’s nothing mystical about how the aura camera works: first it shoots a normal portrait in a dark environment; then it uses the camera’s built-in colorful LED light strips for a second exposure, overlaying the two shots so the aura light “appears.”

Xilan said if you put it plainly, skin electrical current is just the amount of hand sweat.

Xilan bought Jolie’s manifestation course priced at 11,111 yuan. When she opened her book, she found it “explained” the manifestation rules using quantum physics—getting things wildly wrong. Conservatively, Xilan said these courses alone brought Jolie more than 40 million yuan. Xilan called it an “intelligence tax.”

Jolie also responded to these criticisms in the media afterward. This article does not intend to judge either side; legal judgments and personal judgments are up to people.

But the money is honest—$40 million. What supports the business is a machine that measures hand sweat.

You’re probably too young to know Song Qili

If you think this is a new trick that only came out in 2026, you’re underestimating how old this business really is. The same “hand sweat machine” was being used in Taiwan 30 years ago—and it was done on a much larger scale.

In 1996, the Song Qili Imaging Association shook the whole of Taiwan. Song Qili claimed he could “duplicate” and “emit light.” Followers would kneel before photos of him floating in midair with a bright spot on his forehead. Some people even brought their babies to pray together. Those miracle photos sold for 70k yuan apiece with barely any effort. Meanwhile, the price for his own signature “original” was 140k yuan.

Taipei City Councilor Yu Meifeng exposed the scheme. Photographer Luo Zhenghong admitted that the photos were all produced by multi-exposure compositing in a darkroom. With this “clone superpower” gimmick, Song Qili was estimated to have raked in $2 billion to $3 billion yuan.

Have you noticed? Song Qili’s darkroom multi-exposure, and Jolie’s camera’s colorful LED double exposure, are the same trick. Only the props changed over 30 years.

What’s even more absurd is what happened next: Song Qili was sentenced to seven years in the first trial. After years of litigation, the second trial reversed the verdict and he was ultimately acquitted. The reason was that freedom of religion and the elements of fraud were insufficient—but the court never said those photos were real.

Measure skin electrical current to “raise the soul”

Now shift the camera to the United States. Scientology’s core ceremony is called “auditing.” Devotees hold a metal handgrip in each hand, connected to a device called an E-meter, or “spiritual meter.” The church says the gauge readings reflect your mental state, helping identify “engram” traumas from past lives, and even detect the immortal soul that inhabits the body—the thetan.

Outside Scientology, this device has another name: a galvanometer. It measures skin resistance, using the same principle as a polygraph lie detector. Without any research that has passed scientific review, there’s no evidence proving it can measure the thetan or engrams.

In 1971, a U.S. federal court ruled that the E-meter’s medical use had to stop, while religious use required adding a disclaimer label in plain black and white stating that it cannot improve anyone’s health or bodily functions “in medicine or science.” The Church of Scientology still denies it’s pseudoscience.

Aura cameras measure hand sweat; Song Qili’s darkroom stacked photos; E-meters measure skin electrical current. Take a body signal you can explain with junior high chemistry and physics, slap a spiritual label on it, and sell it at a high price.

Spirituality is good business

Why does this business never stop working? Because it satisfies the three greediest conditions for any “good business”:

• Cost approaches zero: a set of LED light strips, a galvanometer, and a darkroom. Hardware costs are so low they’re negligible—you’re selling the narrative.
• The product is not falsifiable: you can’t prove you “don’t” have an aura, just like you can’t prove you don’t have a thetan. If it can’t be disproven, there will never be refunds.
• Customers bring their own faith: buyers arrive with a craving for meaning; as long as the seller says your spirituality can be improved, you’ll pay.

Spirituality is good business precisely because what it sells is something you can never produce evidence to prove doesn’t exist.

Faith doesn’t issue invoices

Let’s make it clear: this article isn’t mocking faith.

Real faith gives you the power to face the unknown and suffering. It doesn’t run VIP courses. It doesn’t sell signed photo mementos from the guru. It doesn’t use a device to score your soul. The difference has never been what you believe—it’s whether anyone is profiting off your faith by counting money. When a “spirituality” starts charging fees, begins letting a guru profit, starts using pseudoscience to vouch for itself, and doesn’t allow any questions, it has already slipped from faith into something else. That thing is called a cult. More plainly, it’s fraud.

And on the blockchain, there are also many versions of this hand sweat machine—projects that guarantee they “will change the world,” NFTs packaged as manifesting energy. They’re selling the same kind of stories that investors can’t falsify. The “cutting the grass” that Xilan talks about is a term invented in the financial world to begin with.

When did you last pay money to buy something “invisible,” yet someone swore on their chest that it exists?

My answer is yesterday—I bought a bit of token spot.

Common questions

What’s the principle behind the aura (halo) camera that Xilan exposed?

First shoot a portrait in the dark. Then use the camera’s built-in colorful LED light strips for a second exposure, overlaying the two to form the “halo.” The hand sensor measures skin electrical current—i.e., the amount of hand sweat—not soul energy. Xilan calls it a “hand sweat machine” and an “intelligence tax.”

Was Song Qili ultimately convicted?

No. He was heavily sentenced to seven years in the first trial, but after years of appeals, the second trial reversed the decision and he was ultimately acquitted. The reason was that freedom of religion and the elements of fraud were insufficient. However, the court still found that his “clone, emits light” photos were darkroom multi-exposure composites.