Last of a two-part interview
Stephen Co is a internationally renowned lecturer, trainer and practitioner of Pranic Healing, who has taught the art of healing and human energy studies to thousands of students in the United States. His introductory lectures are thought-provoking, often compelling individuals who are not health practitioners to embark on learning Pranic Healing techniques to improve their lives. His students include hundreds of physicians, nurses, dentists, acupuncturists, chiropractors, social workers, psychologists and alternative health-care practitioners.
A senior disciple and personal student of Grandmaster Choa Kok Sui, the founder of Pranic Healing, Master Stephen Co and his wife, Daphne, started the first Pranic Healing center outside of the Philippines, the U.S. Pranic Healing Center/American Institute of Asian Studies, LLC, in Chino, CA, to promote and teach Pranic Healing in the United States.
He and Dr. Eric Robins wrote the book, Your Hands Can Heal You.
“What I want to get across is, if I can do this – having been emotionally, mentally and spiritually not open to it, open to just helping people – I think anybody can learn this,” Master Co said in an interview with The Edge. He returns to the Twin Cities to teach classes on Pranic Healing on March 23 and 24, and a weekend intensive healing seminar on April 17-18..
He spoke with The Edge to explain that the so-called “miracles” of Pranic Healing are actually the result of subtle laws of energy, nature’s response to the conscious direction of our life force energy (chi or prana) in a form of healing that has evolved in the East for thousands of years. He says all human beings are born with the incredible power to consciously, purposefully direct their life force energy, and that he trains and empowers people to tap into their own latent ability.
So Pranic Healing works with other forms of healing, like emotional or spiritual healing or other imbalances that are not directly related to physical ailments?
Absolutely. In fact, if a person really wants to experience the effect of healing energy, what we do in our demonstration classes is encourage you to feel the stress and whatever you come into the class with. Then we do about five minutes of self-cleaning, and most people feel that a lot of that negative emotion is gone. All we do in this case are simple sweeping movements. The interesting thing about negative emotions or an emotional problem, compared to a physical problem, is that the energy is still very subtle. It is not fully manifested.
It hasn’t anchored into the body yet.
Exactly. It is as if it is still in vapor form and has not yet turned into water or ice. It is still in a very simple form. Since we use energy, breathing, meditation and visualization, we are working on all energy, whether it is still in the aura or has become blocked in the body. In the case of emotional healing, it is easier to feel it and pull it out. That’s why people are amazed and say, “I walked in really stressed and angry, but when we did this technique on ourselves I just feel like I don’t feel it anymore. I know what it is, but it doesn’t have that emotional bite.”
Something else that responds very well to Pranic Healing is what are called spiritual emergencies. Some people experience a lot of emotional pain, and even physical pain, but when they go to see a doctor or a psychologist, they can’t find anything wrong, because the problem is not physical, and it is not really emotional. It is a block in the flow of Divine energy coming down into the chakras from above the body, and it is the block in the flow of kundalini energy going up into the body from the earth. Pranic healing techniques will pinpoint where the blockages are by doing a very deep and thorough cleansing. Most people within a few minutes will say, “Oh, I suddenly feel like something is moving.” The body is a self-repairing entity. As that flow increases, the body starts to get better.
What type of recognition is Pranic Healing receiving from the medical community?
As you know, more people statistically are turning to alternative medicine. When Dr. Robins did the research for our book, we found that there are a lot of medical doctors who are what you would call “closet healers.” They practice medicine, but on the side they also teach people how to use herbs, how to use breathing exercises, hypnosis and visualization. On our website, you can see a series of specials CBS News did when we taught Pranic Healing to medical doctors in Kaiser Permanente Hospital here in Southern California.
We have found doctors who are open to it, but they cannot outwardly practice Pranic Healing side-by-side with their medicine. What they do for patients who are open to it is suggest, “Oh, by the way, instead of just jogging, why don’t you do some breathing exercise, too,” and if patients are open to it, they will do healing right in the clinic, just some sweeping movements to remove the blocks.
Pranic Healing’s introduction into Western medicine is still in its infant stage right now.
Aren’t some of these ideas already a part of our culture?
Oh, definitely. A lot of old wives’ tales or home remedies actually are based on using energy. Even in the Catholic tradition, what you call holy water is essentially water and salt and the priest’s blessing on it. In Pranic Healing classes, we have buckets of salt and water, and when people do healing that’s what we throw the dirty energy to. People will say, “Hey, I do that in my Native American tradition” or “In my Jewish tradition, we do the ceremonial cleansing that you are teaching, a salt water bath,” and so on.
What are the greatest misconceptions people have about what you do?
Number one is that healing can only be done miraculously. A lot of people think healing is only done by God. Healing is essentially using natural laws that God has made available to us. All we have to do is learn these natural laws. When you produce an unexpected healing, for the common person it’s a miracle, but for you who understand it, it is not a miracle. It is an application of natural laws.
Another misconception is that you have to be born with a special skill to help people with healing. That is absolutely not true. Anybody can learn to heal, even somebody like me who was very skeptical and not open to it, by following simple, step-by-step instructions.
Please see Master Stephen Co’s website at Yourhandscanhealyou.com for articles, news, videos online and details of his events.