Beverly Oliver
Well, hey, me, I’m out the bush. Dr. Sebi was born and grew up in the bush. The environment that I have internally and mentally is not the same as a child born and who grew up in a city. When I grew up I saw snakes. I could tell you the different snakes, spiders, bush, herbs, the taste of them, the birds, because I grew up in that. ~ Dr. Sebi in Seven Days in Usha Village: A Conversation with Dr. Sebi
Before his journey to heal others, Alfredo’s own illnesses—impotence, diabetes and obesity—were cured thanks to a friend who recommended that he go to Mexico to see an herbalist. Alfredo agreed. He travelled to Mexico with a conviction that he would abide by the Mexican’s treatments since all others had failed him.
After 90 days of taking the herbs, Alfredo’s diseases disappeared. Encouraged by his recovery, he conducted experiments with water and natural plants such as cascara sagrada and chaparral. Friends suffering from various ailments gave him permission to administer these herbal mixtures to them. Removing diseases like diabetes and lowering high blood pressure inspired him to delve deeper into the research of herbal compounds and remedies for other ailments.
By 1980 this had become a full-time passion and career and a commitment to use alkaline herbs and plants to heal people.
He travelled to the Caribbean, Mexico and Africa for research and to collect herbs. He embraced the name “Sebi,” called his herbal compounds the African Bio Mineral Balance, and watched his mom-and-pop operation blossom into a full-fledged natural healthcare business called The Fig Tree, operated by his Usha Herbal Research Institute.
Clients who suffered from cancer, diabetes, lupus, sickle cell anemia and AIDS were treated and cured. (Yes, cured. Documents can attest to that fact.) Awestruck lay people that witnessed his success immediately bestowed the title “doctor” upon him. Sebi accepted it and thereafter was known as Dr. Sebi. With a public speaking tour in full swing in the 1980s, he shared his healing method and products with audiences from the southeastern United States to New York, from Central America to the Caribbean.
He faced some challenges as a natural healer, including razor-sharp scrutiny by New York Attorney General Robert Abrams. His office ordered Dr. Sebi’s arrest on charges of practicing medicine without a license. Abrams brought The Fig Tree before the New York Supreme Court in 1987, demanding Dr. Sebi (Alfredo Bowman) and his company cease and desist the following: 1) Operating The Fig Tree; and 2) Advertising herbal products and cures for AIDS in New York City newspapers The Village Voice and New York Amsterdam News.
With more than 70 witnesses and clients attending the trial on his behalf, Dr. Sebi won the case. “In a historical decision in Brooklyn Supreme Court Monday, a jury of six men and six women found Alfredo Bowman not guilty on two counts of practicing medicine without a license,” wrote reporter Harold Jamison in his article for New York Amsterdam News, Oct. 1st, 1988.
Even though the court acquitted Dr. Sebi, he eventually changed the description of the African Bio Mineral Balance therapy to “Natural vegetation cell food,” and today, four years after his death in Honduras in 2016, the public continues to seek his products and nutrition guidance, found at 40-year-old The Fig Tree, still open in Brooklyn, New York, and Atlanta-based Next Generation Herbal Products. It is a company created and operated by Xave Bowman, Dr. Sebi’s daughter.
https://www.sevendaysinushavillage.org
