Pranic Healing

Pranic healing is a type of energy healing based on the belief in a vital energy called Prana. It is considered to be a holistic method of treatment that focuses on health as a whole, including our physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, and energy bodies.

Although the ideas behind pranic healing are based upon ancient ayurvedic traditions, the modern concept of pranic healing was developed by a Filipino businessman named Choa Kok Sui (born Samson Lim Choachuy). He spent much of his life working as a chemical engineer and he was able to apply this scientific reasoning and practical processing to develop his method of healing. He showed an interest in alternative medicine and meditation from an early age and after becoming a grand master of energy healing, he spent 20 years traveling the world, teaching his system to thousands of eager followers.

He passed away in 2007, but not before writing 25 books and setting up more than a hundred healing centers. Practitioners of his methods claim that with the right teacher, it can be a very easy skill to learn. Much of this comes from Grandmaster Choa Kok Sui’s powerful distillation and simplification of these healing principles. For those interested, this powerful method of healing can be learned over a weekend. Naturally, one does not become a master overnight, but with practice one can easily become a powerful healer.

Pranic healing takes advantage of the core belief that our own bodies have the natural ability to heal itself, and that pranic healing just encourages the body to tap into this ability. According to believers, our bodies utilize the vital or subtle energies to fix itself. This energy, or prana, can be replenished or obtained from a number of sources including but not limited to: energy from the sun, from the Earth itself, and the air we breathe.

In addition to this, we can get energy from living things such as animals and plants. It can also be obtained from the food we eat, from our positive social interactions, or from the spiritual realm.

The flow of this energy has been likened to the effects we get from a visit from a friend in need of help. If a friend is feeling distressed and needs support, you can often help that friend, but this will often leave you a bit drained. This happens because there was an exchange of energy, and since the friend needed the energy more, it flowed from you into him or her.

People who have learned the best methods to heal will thus have the ability to focus this energy and cleanse without being drained. This type of healing is meant to be complementary, to help the body heal faster, not as a replacement for modern medicine.

It is believed that pranic healers need to focus their powers on two aims, cleansing and energizing. Many healers fixate primarily on the latter, but ignore the former. By skipping this step, the healer has the potential of transferring this negative energy from one person to another or even have it adversely affect themselves.

Pranic healing is very closely associated with Arhatic Yoga, another powerful method of meditation developed by Grandmaster Choa Kok Sui. It is through this type of meditation and yoga that pranic healers are able to cleanse themselves, stay pure of negative energy, and help their souls grow so they can provide the best healing. It does this through a mixture of special breathing exercises, asanas, and specific meditation techniques to help practitioners reach their best state of mental, spiritual, emotional, and physical health.

Arhatic yoga has five main pillars: devotion, meditation, service, study, and purification.

A pranic healing session typically has three main steps. First, the healer scans the patient for imbalances or irregularities in their vital energy. This negative energy is then flushed out of the patient and blockages are removed. Finally, the patient has his or her energy replenished with fresh prana from the healer. By doing this, the patient’s body is able to amplify their body’s own natural healing techniques with the extra prana to heal their body quicker. This is all down without physical touch.

Pranic healers learn a specific “cookbook approach” to healing where all ailments are treated in their own unique way, as opposed to the general healing that many other methods employ. Practitioners believe that it can be used to help alleviate or help fix a large number of ailments including symptoms related to minor illnesses such as fever, coughs, or nasal congestion. It can also help with more serious issues as well. In addition to this, this healing energy can improve concentration and memory, reduce stress, make people feel more confident about themselves, help improve their social skills, and aid in their spiritual awakening.

As this prana energy flows through all living things, some researchers have begun applying these techniques to cereals and other farm-produced crops. Although more research is likely needed, scientists have found a positive effect of these methods on the plants’ size, crop production, and ability to resist disease. It remains an exciting application.

Naturally, practitioners as well as teachers of pranic healing methods have hyperbolic claims to the power and efficacy of their treatments, claiming not to have cured, but assisted in curing (and this is an important distinction mentioned on most websites for these methods) headaches, colds, influenza, ulcers all the way up to incurable ailments to Multiple Sclerosis, cancer, and asthma. These claims are merely anecdotal.

Actual scientists have studied the efficacy of the treatment, but the literature does sound a bit dubious. For example, in looking at the effectiveness of pranic healing on breaking dependence on nicotine addictions, it was found to be effective, but the study was labeled by the researcher herself as “quasi-experimental”. This doesn’t mean that there was no effect or is not effective, but it does suggest that maybe further non-quasi-experiments should be conducted before one can make conclusive claims.

Another study conducted in India showed that pranic healing can help give a positive effect on the outcomes of neurosurgery. However, there was no proper control group as the comparison group was being treated at another hospital. Therefore, there may have been other variables at play. Again, this does not discount the findings completely, but it does show that further study is needed before making any definitive claims.