Since the mass of the rotor in high energy density magnetically suspended motor (HEDMSM) is always large and there are only three balancing planes on the flexible rotor restricted by the structure of the motor, which means that the second bending mode cannot be balanced using N þ 1 planes method which is always applied to balance the flexible rotor. Then, the rotor displacements maybe large and this situation will make the system consume large amplifier currents when the rotor passes the first bending critical speed. Therefore, the mode separation method is proposed to separate the first and the second bending modes in rotor displacement and reconstruct the displacement signal nearby the first bending mode. Then, the original rotor displacement signal used by the digital controller is substituted by the reconstructed displacement signal and the amplifier current is reduced a lot when the rotor passes the first bending critical speed. Finally, the experiment of mode separation is carried out in 100 kW magnetically suspended motor and the experiment results show the effectiveness and superiority of the mode separation method in reducing the amplifier current when the rotor passes the first bending critical speed.