It was my good fortune to be raised in the presence of healers. My mother was the director of medical care and hospitals in Shanghai, an enormous job that could only be accomplished by someone with boundless energy and deep curiosity about medical treatments of all kinds. She spoke about the causes and cures of illness almost all the time, no matter who was around. One of my first memories is of my mother talking about the importance of public health to the strength of the nation.

When it came to health, she was very open-minded. "A good doctor has to trust his intuition because some things can be sensed but not explained," she told me. "It is important to rely on science, but even more important to remember that intuition usually comes first and then leads to science"

It was a rare day when our house was not teeming with doctors of all kinds. They would stop by after their day's work and drink some tea in the living room of our French colonial-style home in downtown Shanghai. Sometimes the room would fill up and the conversation would become very lively, as doctors talked about difficult cases or some of the many public health hazards that plagued China in the early years of the People's Republic.

As a young man I benefited from these debates. I realized that there were many paths to healing, not just one. A particular path might work for most people but not everyone. Sometimes new treatments would be discovered, or rediscovered, and people who were thought to be hopeless would now become treatable.

A good doctor was aware of al1 the paths and open to trying new ones, especially if a patient was otherwise on a road to nowhere. Sometimes patients take several different paths to find healing. Sometimes they never find it, no matter how many paths they take. The role of a good doctor is to know all the alternatives and help the patients understand where they are going in their search for health.

Raised in this kind of environment, there was never any question that I would become a medical doctor. I enrolled in the Military Medical College, where my studies were focused on allopathic medicine, the type of medicine familiar to most Americans, also known as Western medicine. But in addition, we were trained in Chinese herbal medicine, which is the use of nature's pharmacopoeia in healing diseases.

During medical school and into my practice, I returned home to immerse myself in the ongoing debate about health and healing. This debate had now expanded to include healers who were beyond the scope of "usual" medicine. During the Cultural Revolution, Chairman Mao's wife had ordered that all ancient medical traditions be banned so that he could gain tighter control over Chinese society. But my mother had bravely spoken out in favor of traditional medicine, an act that convinced the responsible officials to exempt them from extinction.

Many Qi Gong masters, as well as other healers, had been released from prison because of my mother's intervention and they immediately recognized her as a friend. Now they, too, came to drink tea and mingle with the medical doctors.

The Chinese say that "where Qi Gong masters gather, so do patients." This was certainly true at our house, where a crowd of sick people arrived with each visiting master.

There was one Qi Gong master, however, who outdrew all the others. Every time he came from his home in the mountains of southern China, the house filled with people who wanted to be examined by him. Sometimes the house became so full that it was almost impossible for me to get across the living room and into my own bedroom. I would stand and watch as he diagnosed and treated dozens of people.

The examinations he conducted were amazing. He never asked what ailment the patient had. Instead he looked at the person briefly as though they were some kind of curious flower. Then he would just blurt out the patient's illness and where it bothered the patient most. He told patients their symptoms and could even tell what problems they had had in the past and whether their illness was hereditary.

After giving them external Qi treatments, using his own energy to unblock theirs, he would show people techniques and exercises they could do to manipulate their own Qi. Sometimes he would write a prescription for herbs.

When he was finished, he moved on to the next patient, and so on until he was finished with everyone.

One night he was pressed for time and did something that was new to me. He asked a group of about twenty patients to sit down and concentrate on their illness. Then he began to meditate, projecting his Qi on the group for about fifteen minutes. Suddenly some of the people began to laugh while others began to cry. They spoke of sensations that were like electrical charges inside their bodies. Others said they could feel things move inside of them. Almost everyone came away filled with vitality, as though each person had been recharged with life.

I was in awe of what I saw. It was as though he were pulling energy from the universe and transmitting it to those who needed it. One night after he left I told my mother that I was stunned by what I saw this man do.

"We are constantly using science to search for the meaning of life and the power of the universe," I said to my mother. "Yet this man seems to possess the power of life without science."

What she said confused me at the time, although I came to understand it perfectly later.

"What this master possesses isn't magic," she said. "It is just science that has not yet been examined."

I began to find out more about this Master Kwan, although much about him remains a mystery to me, even to this day. I was told that he lived outside of Canton high on a mountain in a cave. Even though the path to his home was steep and somewhat difficult, the citizens of Canton and surrounding areas flocked to see him. It was common for him to start seeing patients early in the morning and to be working with them until well after sundown.

The only people who did not trek up the mountain were high government officials. Instead they sent messengers to make the trip for them. When they requested his presence, Master Kwan reluctantly ventured off the mountain. Even a master does not say no to the government of China.

When he was treating government officials in Shanghai he usually stayed at my mother's house. Then, at any time of day or night, we could expect a black government car to appear in the alley and take Master Kwan away. Usually he would be taken to the offices or private residences of the officials to conduct treatments. On rare occasions, however, government officials came to our house for treatment. One such occasion came when the mayor of Shanghai came for treatment of a problem that he refused to talk about in advance. His assistant was mysterious when asked why the mayor was coming. At first he would say nothing about the mayor's medical condition. Then, when my mother pressed him, the nervous young man would say only that the mayor had dealt with a number of Western-trained physicians, but to no avail.

"It is you who must ask him what the problem is," said the assistant. "It is too personal for me to tell you."

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Tags: Healing

About the Author

Master Hong Liu became a medical doctor in China with a specialty in the treatment of cancer and an advanced degree in herbal medicine, and he is one of only a small number of Qi Gong masters in the world. He trained for thirty years with renowned Taoist and Shaolin masters, including eight years under the Qi Gong Master Kwan, and treated high-ranking Communist Party members in China. Master Liu served as a distinguished professor of Qi Gong at the Emperor's college of Traditinal Oriental Medicine in Santa Monica and Samra University of Oriental Medicine in Los Angeles, and currently maintains professional offices in suburban Los Angeles. More

Paul Perry is the coauthor of three bestselling books, including Saved by the Light. He lives in Scottsdale, Arizona. More