The Controversy Over Dr. Sebi Revealed (Video)

Alfredo Darrington Bowman (Dr. Sebi) was a Honduran self-proclaimed herbalist healer, who also practiced in the United States for a period in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

Bowman claimed to cure all disease with herbs and a plant-based alkaline diet based on various pseudoscientific claims, and denied that HIV caused AIDS.

He set up a treatment center in Honduras, then moved his practice to New York City and Los Angeles.

Numerous entertainment and acting celebrities were among his clients, including Michael Jackson, Lisa ‘Left Eye’ Lopes, and John Travolta.

Who are The Honduras?

Christopher Columbus discovered Honduras in the 16th century, then home to the Maya and other indigineous people, and his discovery was soon followed by a Spanish conquest of the country.

Honduras has been inhabited by a number of indigenous peoples, the most powerful of which, until the ninth century CE, were the Maya.

The western-central part of Honduras was inhabited by the Lenca while other indigenous peoples settled in the northeast and coastal regions.

Bowman (Dr. Sebi) was born in 1933 in Ilanga, Honduras. He first learned of herbal healing and related traditional practices from his grandmother; his grandfather was originally from Haiti.

Bowman who was of African descent, identified himself as an “African in Honduras”, not as an African Honduran.

Bowman became frustrated with Western medical practices in treating his own illnesses such as asthma, diabetes, impotency and visual impairment and visited an herbalist in Mexico named Alfredo Cortez who confirmed to him that he was dying.

After that, Bowman began his own healing practice in Honduras.

He developed a treatment that he called the “African Bio-Electric Cell Food Therapy”, and claimed that it could cure a wide range of diseases, including cancer and AIDS, as well as a variety of chronic conditions and mental illnesses.

He also developed related herbal products.

Bowman set up a center in the 1980s near La Ceiba, Honduras, and marketed his herbal products in the United States.

He called his center the USHA Research Institute, as located in the village of Usha.

According to McGill University, Bowman’s diet and food therapy was based on the discredited alkaline diet and showed a fundamental misunderstanding of genetics.

His beliefs on the origin of disease denied germ theory and factored in faux-afrocentric claims about the unique genetic characteristics of Africans and their diaspora, which was referred to as “race pseudoscience” in a critical article published by McGill University.

In the early 1980s, AIDS had newly been recognized as a disease as an epidemic started in the United States, with numerous cases in New York and other major cities.

Bowman claimed that HIV is not the cause of AIDS and used herbal remedies to treat people.

In 1987, Bowman was arrested and charged in New York with practicing medicine without a license.

The jury acquitted him, saying the state had failed to prove he made a medical diagnosis.

In the 1990s, he was sued in New York for making claims of therapeutic benefits for his products; as a result of the civil case, he was prohibited from making such claims.

He relocated to Los Angeles, where he cultivated celebrities among his clients.

He gradually earned considerable revenue, more than $3000 a day, after giving advice and developing a wide range of celebrity clients, such as Lisa Lopes, Steven Seagal, John Travolta, Eddie Murphy and Michael Jackson.

He reportedly treated Jackson in 2004, before the latter went to trial.

His Death and Arising Controversy!

Sebi died on August 6, 2016 in a Honduran police cell after his arrest for carrying large sums of cash into his native country.

He was 82. The official cause was pneumonia.

Before he died he made a phone call to his children claiming he is fasting because “they want to poison” him so he never touched his food.

Dr. Sebi was originally arrested on May 28, 2016 at Juan Manuel Gálvez de Roatan Airport on charges of money laundering along with his associate Pablo Medina Gamboa while attempting to board a private plane headed to another location in Honduras with $37K in cash.

He was released pending a court hearing days later[June 3, 2016], only to be re-arrested by the Public Ministerio, which is the equivalent to U.S.’ FBI on money laundering charges. Despite his health condition, Sebi remained in custody until the last, but unsuccessful attempt to save his life when he passed away in transit to Vicente D’antoni Hospital.

Dr. Sebi was survived by his 17 children.

In August 2021, her daughter, Kellie Bowman who is the owner of Sebi’s Daughters and licensed nurse opened the Honduran Experience Wellness Center in Atlanta.

The Honduran Experience Wellness Center will offer products, a mini-spa, private consultations and Pilates classes. Sebi’s Daughters will also launch a new line of products including Sebi Sicles, a wellness frozen treat, and Candy Butter, a hair and body moisturizer.

Kellie Bowman is putting together an exhibit that will honor her father, showing attendees “how he came from being Alfredo Bowman into Dr. Sebi.”

It will showcase photos, products he developed, information about court cases, items from his hobbies and personal items.

“I decided during COVID that I didn’t just want to offer a store,” said Bowman. “I wanted it to be a serious experience.

We’ve been through so much. I wanted for people to feel that innermost natural part of themselves — to de-escalate from all the anxieties.

I want to bring calm to your door.”

Nipsey Hussle’s Death!

Rapper Nipsey Hussle was killed in March 2019.

At 2:50pm on 31 March 2019, the rapper Nipsey Hussle sent out a tweet.

“Having strong enemies is a blessing”

Just 30 minutes later, he was dead!

Initially, some people believed Nipsey Hussle was murdered because he was working on a documentary about the late herbalist and holistic doctor.

Both Dr. Sebi‘s daughter and grandson made a recent appearance on BET‘s Black Coffee, where the pair discussed the conspiracy theory that came about following Nipsey Hussle‘s death involving the herbalist and holistic doctor.

Shortly after the late rapper’s murder, some people began to theorize that Hussle’s murder was because he was working on a documentary about Sebi.

Some even said that his death was an attempt by the American government and pharmaceutical industry to silence Sebi’s work.

“When Nipsey first passed, most people thought, ‘Oh, he died because he was going to put out a documentary about Dr. Sebi.’ Then three hours later, they found the shooter – found the killer- then all the speculation went out the window.

When negative things happen or tragedies happen, our society is always quick to jump to an opinion, instead of knowing facts,” Izeal Bowman, Sebi’s grandson, said.

“So the fact that Nipsey Hussle didn’t die over doing a documentary, it makes you think, ‘Why would they want to kill Nipsey over doing a documentary if he wasn’t Dr. Sebi? Or he wasn’t healing people?’ Yes, he was talking about the message, but a theory on killing Nipsey Hussle? No.

There is no conspiracy.

Nipsey Hussle died in gang violence, something that was very tragic to our society and to hip-hop, period,” Izeal added.

Elsewhere in the interview, Izeal also confirmed that Nick Cannon had taken up Hussle’s documentary on Sebi.

“Nick got in line with the documentary right when Nipsey passed away. When Nick reached out and wanted to talk, he said he wanted to get healthy first, before the documentary,” Izeal said.

“So, I put him on a plant-based diet, start taking the minerals, then we started talking about the documentary, and now we’re making it today.”

Before colonisation, Africa was heavily dependent on herbal remedies for curing all kinds of infections, diseases and for long life.

From the 1900s when Africans were introduced to Western or European medicine (which are mostly extracts from natural sources), they abandoned the old ways of healing which is the reason for high levels of sicknesses among blacks.

They have indeed abandoned the old and ancient ways sadly. 

So anybody who rises to project such ancient healing African remedies is niffed in the bud or silenced.

It happened to famous herbalist and chief priest of the Kwaku Fri shrine located in Ghana in the early 90s.

He was killed mysteriously after discovering the cure for HIV/AIDS. 

Indeed he escaped assassination attempt from Asia after he was told to present samples of his remedies.

Back home in Ghana he was killed by people who were close to him.

Read: What Happened To The Late Chief Priest of Kweku Fri Shrine and Famous Herbalist, Nana Drobo II?