The gay community and any other sufferers attracted “so-called AIDS” to themselves with their bad thoughts and poor reality interpretations. If you’re seeking to avoid HIV, replace your condoms with spacetime possibilities. And if you’re a sufferer who’s hoping to reduce its symptoms, throw out your prescription and simply create a different reality.

The man spewing this murderous counsel, Deepak Chopra, is the media’s favorite spiritual advisor to the nation… and a medical doctor. That officially makes him far more dangerous than the worst of faith-healing hucksters. This garbage comes from a disturbing interview of Chopra that recently came to light. It opens with slimy self-help guru Tony Robbins saying “HIV is not the source of AIDS.” (at 22:30). Chopra agrees:

DC: HIV may be a precipitating agent in a susceptible host. The material agent is never the cause of the disease. It may be the final factor in inducing the full-blown syndrome in somebody who’s already susceptible. TR: But what made them susceptible? DC: Their own interpretations of the whole reality that they’re participating in. TR: Could that be translated into their thoughts, their feelings, their beliefs, their lifestyle? DC: Absolutely. In fact, I have a lot of patients with so-called AIDS, this label that we’ve given them, that are healthier than most of the population that’s living in downtown Boston… TR: But someone has told them that they have this disease. DC: Yes, somebody has told them that. TR: And they bought into it. DC: Exactly. And the label is not the disease. AIDS is not the disease… We’re facilitating that process through our own thoughts, beliefs, emotions, ideas and interpretations. When they accept it, they make it happen. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. TR: Maybe they take something like AZT with a side effect of which is immune suppression. DC: Yes. The implications of this are enormous, mind-boggling and frightening… It’s a collective belief system, a hypnosis of social conditioning. It’s cultural, religious, social indoctrination… Psychologists call this phenomenon “premature cognitive commitment.”

Classic Chopra. Throw in irrelevant jargon to lend a veneer of credibility to his meaningless tripe.

TR: So what’s the way out of the trap…? DC: Ultimately, unbounded awareness, so that you realize you are the field of all possibilities, that you have the ability to create anything…

Robbins actually says AIDS spokesman Magic Johnson shouldn’t have believed the doctors who told him he had HIV, and Chopra actually agrees:

DC: If he is heterosexual, and I think he is, the statistical likelihood of his having the disease is just impossible. If he knew how difficult it is for the virus to infect a male in these situations that we’re talking about, it just doesn’t make any sense. The test… it could be a false positive; in fact, most of them are.

Yes, Chopra’s actually telling people to stop being tested for HIV, and not to seek treatment if they test positive for it. He justifies this with the fully discredited 100th Monkey myth:

DC: The collective consciousness influences it. I’m sure you’re familiar with the 100th Monkey Response… Once you reach a certain threshold…1% or so of the population… then suddenly the whole behavior of the entire population changes… Everybody believes that is true… I think it’s the mechanics of evolution… the evolution of consciousness of consciousness. TR: Going back to Magic Johnson… they convinced him to take AZT… DC: Horrible, horrible. Travesty. AZT will destroy the immune system even more… there’s a lot of money involved…

It’s darkly amusing to hear him accuse others of being all about money, when he’s become rich telling people want they want to hear instead of the truth, even if it kills them. This from the man who pushes ridiculous products in The Chopra Shop that promise happiness for the elite who can afford it… or those who can’t, yet buy anyway because they believe him when he says it can be found here:

“Sacred jewelry,” such as the “Dosha Harmonizing Necklace, with Blessed Gem Stones designed to Balance Vata,” for $128, or a “Third Eye Chakra Necklace” for $180.

“Ayurvedic Herbs and Supplements” making unsubstantiated claims, including a “weight loss tea” package for $45.

Aroma candles that will “balance your dosha” for $74.

A “Chopra Wear” clothing line, including the “Good Luck Prayer Scarf” for $85.

“Rejuvenating Antioxidant Gluten-Free Herbal Jam” for $36.

Hair conditioner that will “balance your daily routine” for $189 (now on sale for just $99.64!)

And of course, hundreds of books, videos and audios, from “Quantum Healing” to “Golf for Enlightenment.”

The good doctor sums up his HIV-AIDS denialism with this priceless deepity (with thanks to Jerry Coyne Dan Dennett [thanks for the correction, JC] for the perfect name for Deepak’s cosmobabble):

If I can find the experiencer in the midst of every experience and get in touch with that experiencer, I’ve discovered that the original experiencer is just a silent witness that never changes… Consciousness is the field of all possibilities, it’s pure potentiality… it’s the continuum of all possible states of energy and information that subsequently manifests as spacetime events. And I am the field.

The media has finally fallen out of love with America’s favorite doctor, Dr. Oz, and revealed him for the shameless huckster he is. It’s time they also stop fawning over Deepak “The Field” Chopra and reveal him for the dangerous snake-oil salesman he is.

Update

The heat today was too much for Chopra, who apparently has reversed his stance, as he announces in a missive to Jerry Coyne. But he venomously attacks Coyne for supposedly misrepresenting him — a blatantly false accusation. As is typical in his exchanges with critics, his only defense is ad hominem toward Coyne:

…smear tactics… he didn’t go to medical school, but I did… scurrilous and intellectually dishonest…so irrational… He has a toxic relationship to the truth. What a dishonest ploy this is: Any sensible physician would advise that someone stay in good general health, eat a proper diet, practice good hygiene, and get sound sleep. For me to connect such practices to HIV is hardly controversial… Right, that’s what we found controversial–good hygiene, diet and sleep. Even though he didn’t suggest those… instead, he prescribed “unbounded awareness.” He fails to acknowledge the parts that were controversial: his claim that most positive HIV tests are false positives, that Magic Johnson doesn’t really have HIV, that it “doesn’t make sense” that a hetero man could have HIV, that AZT shouldn’t be taken, and that AIDS is all in the victims’ minds. He pretends he was not clearly agreeing with Robbins’ comment that “HIV is not the source of AIDS” by responding with: The material agent is never the cause of the disease… When they accept it, they make it happen. …which does NOT equal today’s epiphany from him: Of course the HIV virus causes AIDS. If Chopra had honestly admitted he was wrong, that would have been a good step. But this… Well, hopefully he will now cease spreading his HIV-AIDS myths. More likely, he will walk a fine line, camouflaged in obscure rhetoric.