Deepak Chopra Teachings

Deepak Chopra (born October 22, 1946) is an American author, public speaker, alternative medicine advocate, and a prominent figure in the New Age movement.[3][4][5] Through his books and videos, he has become one of the best-known and wealthiest figures in alternative medicine.[6]

Chopra studied medicine in India before emigrating to the United States in 1970 where he completed residencies in internal medicine and endocrinology. As a licensed physician, he became chief of staff at the New England Memorial Hospital (NEMH) in 1980.[7] He met Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in 1985 and became involved with the Transcendental Meditation movement (TM). He resigned his position at NEMH shortly thereafter to establish the Maharishi Ayurveda Health Center.[8] Chopra gained a following in 1993 after his interview on The Oprah Winfrey Show regarding his books.[9] He then left the TM movement to become the executive director of Sharp HealthCare's Center for Mind-Body Medicine and in 1996 he co-founded the Chopra Center for Wellbeing.[7][8][10]

Chopra believes that a person may attain "perfect health", a condition "that is free from disease, that never feels pain", and "that cannot age or die".[11][12] Seeing the human body as being undergirded by a "quantum mechanical body" composed not of matter but of energy and information, he believes that "human aging is fluid and changeable; it can speed up, slow down, stop for a time, and even reverse itself," as determined by one's state of mind.[11][13] He claims that his practices can also treat chronic disease.[14][15] As of 2014, Deepak Chopra lived in a "health-centric" condominium in Manhattan.[16]

The ideas Chopra promotes have been regularly criticized by medical and scientific professionals as pseudoscience.[17][18][19][20] This criticism has been described as ranging "from dismissive [to] damning".[17] For example, Robert Carroll states Chopra attempts to integrate Ayurveda with quantum mechanics to justify his teachings.[21] Chopra argues that what he calls "quantum healing" cures any manner of ailments, including cancer, through effects that he claims are literally based on the same principles as quantum mechanics.[15] This has led physicists to object to his use of the term quantum in reference to medical conditions and the human body.[15] His treatments benefit from the placebo response,[6] and some argue that his claims for the effectiveness of alternative medicine can lure sick people away from medical treatments.[17] He is placed by David Gorski among the "quacks", "cranks" and "purveyors of woo", and described as "arrogantly obstinate".[22] Richard Dawkins publicly exposed Chopra, accusing him of using "quantum jargon as plausible-sounding hocus pocus".