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Deepak Chopra
Chopra in his office, August 2013
Born	(1947-10-22) October 22, 1947 (age 77) New Delhi, India
Nationality	American
Occupation(s)	Alternative medicine advocate, physician, public speaker, writer
Spouse	Rita Chopra
Children	Mallika Chopra and Gotham Chopra
Parent(s)	Krishan Chopra, Pushpa Chopra
Website	www.deepakchopra.com

Deepak Chopra (/ˈdiːpɑːk ˈtʃoʊprə/) (born October 22, 1947) is a controversial Indian-American author, New-Age authority, alternative-medicine advocate, public speaker and physician. Through his several dozen books and videos, he has become one of the best-known and wealthiest figures in the holistic-health movement.

Chopra obtained his medical degree in India before emigrating in 1970 to the United States, where he specialized in endocrinology and became Chief of Staff at the New England Memorial Hospital (NEMH). In the 1980s he began practicing transcendental meditation (TM) and in 1985 resigned his position at NEMH to establish the Maharishi Ayurveda Health Center. Chopra left the TM movement in 1994 and founded the Chopra Center for Wellbeing.

Chopra states that, combining principles from Ayurveda (Hindu traditional medicine) and mainstream medicine, his approach to health incorporates ideas about the mind-body relationship, a belief in teleology in nature and a belief in the primacy of consciousness over matter – that "consciousness creates reality." He claims that his practices can extend the human lifespan and treat chronic disease. This position is criticized by scientists, who say his treatments rely on the placebo effect; that he misuses terms and ideas from quantum physics (quantum mysticism); and that he provides people with false hope that may obscure the possibility of effective medical treatment.

Biography

Early life and education

Chopra was born in New Delhi, India, to Krishan Lal Chopra (1919–2001) and Pushpa Chopra; his mother tongue is Punjabi (his first name, Deepak, means lamp).

His paternal grandfather was a sergeant in the British Army. His father was a prominent cardiologist, head of the department of medicine and cardiology at New Delhi's Mool Chand Khairati Ram Hospital for over 25 years; he was also a lieutenant in the British army, serving as an army doctor at the front at Burma and acting as a medical adviser to Lord Mountbatten, viceroy of India. As of 2014 Chopra's younger brother, Sanjiv, is a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and on staff at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.

Chopra completed his primary education at St. Columba's School in New Delhi and graduated from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in 1969. He spent his first months as a doctor working in rural India, including, he writes, six months in a village where the lights went out whenever it rained. It was during his early career that he was drawn to study endocrinology, particularly neuroendocrinology, to find a biological basis for the influence of thoughts and emotions.

He married in India in 1970 before emigrating with his wife that year to the United States (the couple have two children and three grandchildren as of 2014). The Indian government had banned its doctors from sitting the American Medical Association exam needed to practice in America, so Chopra had to travel to Sri Lanka to take it. After passing he arrived, penniless, in the United States to take up a clinical internship at Muhlenberg Hospital in Plainfield, New Jersey, where doctors from overseas were being recruited to replace those serving in Vietnam.

Between 1971 and 1977 he completed residencies in internal medicine at the Lahey Clinic in Burlington, Massachusetts, the VA Medical Center, St Elizabeth's Medical Center and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. He earned his license to practice medicine in the state of Massachusetts in 1973, becoming board certified in internal medicine, specializing in endocrinology.

East Coast years

Chopra taught at the medical schools of Tufts University, Boston University and Harvard University, and became Chief of Staff at the New England Memorial Hospital (later known as the Boston Regional Medical Center) in Stoneham, Massachusetts, before establishing a private practice in Boston in endocrinology.

While visiting New Delhi in 1981, he met the physician Brihaspati Dev Triguna, head of the Indian Council for Ayurvedic Medicine, whose advice prompted him to begin investigating Ayurvedic practices. Chopra was "drinking black coffee by the hour and smoking at least a pack of cigarettes a day." He took up transcendental meditation to help him stop; as of 2006 he continued to meditate for two hours every morning and half an hour in the evening.

Chopra's involvement with TM led to a meeting, in 1984, with the leader of the TM movement, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, who asked him to establish an Ayurvedic health center. He left his position at the NEMH. Chopra said that one of the reasons he left was his disenchantment at having to prescribe too many drugs: "hen all you do is prescribe medication, you start to feel like a legalized drug pusher. That doesn't mean that all prescriptions are useless, but it is true that 80 percent of all drugs prescribed today are of optional or marginal benefit."

He became the founding president of the American Association of Ayurvedic Medicine, one of the founders of Maharishi Ayur-Veda Products International, and medical director of the Maharishi Ayur-veda Health Center in Lancaster, Massachusetts. The center charged between $2,850 and $3,950 a week, offering Ayurvedic cleansing rituals such as massage, enemas and oil baths, with an extra charge of $1,000 for lessons in transcendental meditation. Celebrity patients included Elizabeth Taylor. Chopra also became one of the TM movement's spokespersons. In 1989 the Maharishi awarded him the title "Dhanvantari of Heaven and Earth" (Dhanvantari is the Hindu physician to the gods). That year Chopra's Quantum Healing: Exploring the Frontiers of Mind/Body Medicine was published, followed by Perfect Health: The Complete Mind/Body Guide (1990).

In May 1991 the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) published an article by Chopra and two others on Ayurvedic medicine and TM. JAMA subsequently published an erratum stating that the lead author, Hari M. Sharma, had undisclosed financial interests, followed by an article by JAMA associate editor Andrew A. Skolnick which was highly critical of Chopra and the other authors for failing to disclose their financial connections to the article subject. Several experts on meditation and traditional Indian medicine criticized JAMA for accepting the "shoddy science" of the original article. Chopra and two TM groups sued Skolnick and JAMA for defamation, asking for $194 million in damages, but the case was dismissed in March 1993.

West Coast years

By 1992 Chopra was serving on the National Institute of Health's ad hoc panel on alternative medicine. In June 1993 he moved to California as executive director of Sharp HealthCare's Institute for Human Potential and Mind/Body Medicine, and head of their Center for Mind/Body Medicine, a clinic in an exclusive resort in Del Mar that charged $4,000 a week and included Michael Jackson's family among its clients. Chopra and Jackson first met in 1988 and remained friends for 20 years; when Jackson died in 2009 after being administered prescription drugs, Chopra said he hoped it would be a call to action against the "cult of drug-pushing doctors, with their co-dependent relationships with addicted celebrities."

Chopra left the Transcendental Meditation movement around the time he moved to California. By his own account, the Maharishi had accused him of competing for the position of guru, although Chopra rejects identification as a "guru". Cynthia Ann Humes writes that the Maharishi was concerned, and not only with regard to Chopra, that rival systems were being taught at lower prices. Chopra, for his part, was worried that his close association with the TM movement might prevent Ayurvedic medicine from being accepted as legitimate, particularly after the problems with the JAMA article. He also stated that he had become "uncomfortable with what I sensed was a cultish atmosphere around Maharishi."

Chopra's Ageless Body, Timeless Mind: The Quantum Alternative to Growing Old was published in 1993. (Robert Sapolsky sued because the book used a chart of his without proper attribution; the issue was settled out of court.) The book and his friendship with Michael Jackson gained him an interview on July 12 that year on Oprah, which made him a household name. Paul Offit writes that within 24 hours Chopra had sold 137,000 copies of his book and 400,000 by the end of the week. Four days after the interview, the Maharishi National Council of the Age of Enlightenment wrote to TM centers in the United States, instructing them not to promote Chopra, and his name and books were removed from the movement's literature and health centers. Neuroscientist Tony Nader became the movement's new "Dhanvantari of Heaven and Earth."

Sharp HealthCare changed ownership in 1996 and Chopra left to set up the Chopra Center for Wellbeing with neurologist David Simon, now located at the Omni La Costa Resort and Spa in Carlsbad, California. In 2004 he received his California medical licence, and as of 2014 is affiliated with Scripps Memorial Hospital in La Jolla. Chopra is the owner and supervisor of the Mind-Body Medical Group within the Chopra center, which in addition to standard medical treatment offers personalized advice about nutrition, sleep-wake cycles and stress management, based on mainstream medicine and Ayurveda. He is a fellow of the American College of Physicians and member of the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists.

Teaching and other roles

As of 2014 Chopra serves as an adjunct professor at Columbia Business School and at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. He participates annually as a lecturer at the Update in Internal Medicine event sponsored by Harvard Medical School and the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. Robert Carroll writes of Chopra charging $25,000 per lecture, "giving spiritual advice while warning against the ill effects of materialism."

In 2005 Chopra was appointed as a senior scientist at Gallup, analysing the results of health and well-being surveys. In 2009 he founded the Chopra Foundation, a tax-exempt 501(c) organization, to promote and research holistic medicine; the Foundation sponsors annual Sages and Scientists conferences. He sits on the board of advisors of the National Ayurvedic Medical Association and the tech startup State.com. Since 2005 he has been a board member of Men's Wearhouse, a men's clothing distributor, and in 2006 launched Virgin Comics with his son, Gotham Chopra, and entrepreneur Richard Branson.

Ideas

Consciousness

Chopra speaks and writes regularly about metaphysics, the study of consciousness and Vedanta philosophy. He is a philosophical idealist, arguing for the primacy of consciousness over matter and for purpose and intelligence in nature – that mind, or "dynamically active consciousness," is a fundamental feature of the universe.

In this view, consciousness is both subject and object. It is consciousness, he writes, that creates reality; we are not "physical machines that have somehow learned to think ... thoughts that have learned to create a physical machine." He argues that the evolution of species is the evolution of consciousness seeking to express itself as multiple observers; the universe experiences itself through our brains: "We are the eyes of the universe looking at itself." He opposes reductionist thinking in science and medicine, arguing that we can trace the physical structure of the body down to the molecular level and still have no explanation for beliefs, desires, memory and creativity. In his book Quantum Healing, Chopra stated the conclusion that quantum entanglement links everything in the Universe, and therefore it must create consciousness.

Approach to health care

Chopra argues that everything that happens in the mind and brain is physically represented elsewhere in the body, with mental states (thoughts, feelings, perceptions and memories) directly influencing physiology by means of neurotransmitters such as dopamine, oxytocin and serotonin. He has stated, "Your mind, your body and your consciousness – which is your spirit – and your social interactions, your personal relationships, your environment, how you deal with the environment, and your biology are all inextricably woven into a single process ... By influencing one, you influence everything."

Chopra and physicians at the Chopra Center practise integrative medicine, combining the medical model of conventional Western medicine with alternative therapies such as yoga, mindfulness meditation, and Ayurveda. According to Ayurveda, illness is caused by an imbalance in the patient's doshas or humours, and is treated with diet, exercise and meditative practices – there is, however, no scientific evidence to show that Ayurveda is effective in treating any disease.

In discussing health care, Chopra has used the term "quantum healing," which he defined in Quantum Healing (1989) as the "ability of one mode of consciousness (the mind) to spontaneously correct the mistakes in another mode of consciousness (the body)." This attempted to wed the Maharishi's version of Ayurvedic medicine with concepts from physics, an example of what cultural historian Kenneth Zysk called "New Age Ayurveda." The book introduced Chopra's view that a person's thoughts and feelings give rise to all cellular processes.

Physicists have objected to Chopra's use of terms from quantum physics; he was awarded the satirical Ig Nobel Prize in physics in 1998 for "his unique interpretation of quantum physics as it applies to life, liberty, and the pursuit of economic happiness." When Chopra and Jean Houston debated Sam Harris and Michael Shermer in 2010 on the question "Does God Have a Future?", Harris argued that Chopra's use of "spooky physics" merged two language games in a "completely unprincipled way." Interviewed in 2007 by Richard Dawkins, Chopra said that he used the term quantum as a metaphor when discussing healing and that it had little to do with quantum theory in physics.

Chopra wrote in 2000 that his AIDS patients were combining mainstream medicine with activities based on Ayurveda, including taking herbs, meditation and yoga. He acknowledges that AIDS is caused by the HIV virus, but claims that, "'earing' the virus in its vicinity, the DNA mistakes it for a friendly or compatible sound". Ayurveda uses vibrations which are claimed to correct this supposed sound distortion. Medical professor Lawrence Schneiderman writes that Chopra's treatment has "to put it mildly ... no supporting empirical data."

In August 2001 ABC News aired a show segment on distance healing and prayer, in which Chopra attempted to relax a reporter in another room; the reporter's vital signs were recorded in charts said to show a correspondence between Chopra's periods of concentration and the subject's periods of relaxation. Health and science journalist Christopher Wanjek, calling it "an instructive example of how bad medicine is presented as exciting news," argued that the experiment could prove nothing, and said that in any case a more detailed examination of the charts showed the correlations were not as close as claimed. After the show, a poll of its viewers found that 90 per cent believed in distance healing.

Medical anthropologist Hans Baer argues that Chopra has not explored the potential benefits of a truly holistic approach to health, ignoring factors such as air and water pollution, racism and inequality, and failing to encourage people to become part of reform movements. Instead, Baer writes, Chopra offers an alternative form of medical hegemony by offering products and services to more affluent members of society.

Aging

Chopra believes that "ageing is simply learned behaviour" that can be slowed or prevented and Chopra himself has said he expects "to live way beyond 100". He states that "by consciously using our awareness, we can influence the way we age biologically. . . . You can tell your body not to age." Conversely, Chopra also says that aging can be accelerated, for example by a person engaging in "cynical mistrust".

Robert Todd Carroll has characterized Chopra's promotion of lengthened life as selling "hope" that seems to be "a false hope based on an unscientific imagination steeped in mysticism and cheerily dispensed gibberish".

Spirituality and religion

Chopra has likened the universe to a "reality sandwich" which has three layers: the "material" world, a "quantum" zone of matter and energy, and a "virtual" zone outside of time and space, which is the domain of God, and from which God can direct the other layers. Chopra has written that human beings' brains are "hardwired to know God" and that the functions of the human nervous system mirror divine experience.

Reception

The New York Times stated that Deepak Chopra is "the controversial New Age guru and booster of alternative medicine." He has become one of the best-known and wealthiest figures in the holistic-health movement. In 1999 Time magazine included Chopra in its list of the 20th century's heroes and icons. The following year Mikhail Gorbachev referred to him as "one of the most lucid and inspired philosophers of our time." Cosmo Landesman wrote in 2005 that Chopra was "hardly a man now, more a lucrative new age brand – the David Beckham of personal/spiritual growth."

As of 2014 Chopra has written 75 books, 21 of them New York Times bestsellers, which have been translated into 35 languages. According to Paul Offit, writing in 2013, Chopra's business grosses around $20 million annually, built on the sale of courses, books, videos, herbal supplements and massage oils; a year's worth of anti-aging products can cost up to $10,000. Chopra himself is estimated to be worth over $80 million as of 2014. As of 2005, according to Srinivas Aravamudan, he was able to charge $25,000–30,000 per lecture five or six times a month.

English professor George O'Har argues that Chopra exemplifies the need of human beings for meaning and spirit in their lives, and places what he calls Chopra's "sophistries" alongside the emotivism of Oprah Winfrey. Paul Kurtz writes that Chopra's "regnant spirituality" is reinforced by postmodern criticism of the notion of objectivity in science, while Wendy Kaminer equates Chopra's views with irrational belief systems such as New Thought, Christian Science and Scientology.

Several scientists have criticized Chopra's mix of spirituality and science. According to Ptolemy Tompkins, the medical and scientific communities' opinion of him ranges from dismissive to damning; criticism includes claims that his approach could lure sick people away from effective treatments.

Position on Misplaced Pages

This article may lend undue weight to certain ideas, incidents, or controversies. Please help improve it by rewriting it in a balanced fashion that contextualizes different points of view. (July 2014) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

In 2013 he argued that militant skeptics were editing Misplaced Pages to prevent what he believes would be a fair representation of the views of such figures as Rupert Sheldrake. The result, he wrote, was that the encyclopedia's readers were denied the opportunity to read of attempts to "expand science beyond its conventional boundaries". Biologist Jerry Coyne responded claiming that at Misplaced Pages, Chopra's "own lucrative brand of woo is finally exposed as a lot of scientifically-sounding psychobabble".

Yoga

In April 2010 Aseem Shukla, co-founder of the Hindu American Foundation, criticized Chopra for suggesting that yoga did not have its origins in Hinduism but in an older Indian spiritual tradition. Chopra later said that yoga was rooted in consciousness alone, expounded by Vedic rishis long before Hinduism ever arose. Shukla responded that Chopra was an exponent of the art of "How to Deconstruct, Repackage and Sell Hindu Philosophy Without Calling it Hindu!"

Select bibliography

Books

• (2013) with Sanjiv Chopra, Brotherhood: Dharma, Destiny, and the American Dream, New Harvest.
• (2013) What Are You Hungry For?. New York: Harmony Books. ISBN 0-770-43721-4.
• (2012) with Rudolph E. Tanzi, Super Brain. New York: Harmony Books. ISBN 0-307-95682-2.
• (2012) God: A Story of Revelation. HarperOne.
• (2011) with Leonard Mlodinow, War of the Worldviews. Harmony.
• (2009) Reinventing the Body, Resurrecting the Soul
• (2008) The Third Jesus. New York: Harmony Books. ISBN 0-307-33831-2.
• (2008) The Soul of Leadership. New York: Harmony Books. ISBN 0-307-40806-X.
• (2004) The Book of Secrets. New York: Harmony. ISBN 0-517-70624-5.
• (2000) with David Simon,The Chopra Center Herbal Handbook, Random House.
• (1996) The Path to Love
• (1995) The Way of the Wizard. New York: Random House. ISBN 0-517-70434-X.
• (1995) The Return of Merlin. New York: Harmony Books. ISBN 0-517-59849-3.
• (1995) Ageless Body Timeless Mind. New York: Harmony Books. ISBN 0-517-59257-6.
• (1994) The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success. San Rafael: Amber Allen Publishing and New World Library. ISBN 1-878424-11-4.
• (1991) Return of the Rishi: A Doctor's Story of Spiritual Transformation and Ayurvedic Healing. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
• (1991) Perfect Health. New York: Bantam Books. ISBN 0-553-81367-6.
• (1989) Quantum Healing. New York: Bantam Books. ISBN 0-553-05368-X.
• (1987) Creating Health. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. ISBN 0-395429-53-6.

Articles

• (2014) "Reality and consciousness: A view from the East: Comment on 'Consciousness in the universe: A review of the "Orch OR" theory' by Stuart Hameroff and Roger Penrose", Physics of Life Reviews, 11(1), March, pp. 81–82.
• (2013) with Attila Grandpierre, P. Murali Doraiswamy, Rudolph Tanzi, Menas C. Kafatos, "A Multidisciplinary Approach to Mind and Consciousness", NeuroQuantology, 11(4), December, pp. 607–617.
• (2011) with Menas Kafatos, Rudolph E. Tanzi, "How Consciousness Becomes the Physical Universe", Journal of Cosmology, 14.
• (2011) with Stuart Hameroff, "The 'Quantum Soul': A Scientific Hypothesis," in Alexander Moreira-Almeida, Franklin Santana Santos (eds.), Exploring Frontiers of the Mind-Brain Relationship, Springer, pp. 79–93.
• (2011) "Medicine's Great Divide – The View from the Alternative Side", Virtual Mentor, American Medical Association Journal of Ethics, 13(6), June, pp. 394–398.
• (2000) Foreword in Amit Goswami, The Visionary Window: A Quantum Physicist's Guide to Enlightenment. Quest Books.
• (1997) Foreword in Candace Pert, The Molecules of Emotion: The Science Behind Mind-Body Medicine. Scribner.

See also

• List of people in alternative medicine
• Andrew Weil
• Hard problem of consciousness
• Panpsychism
• Spiritual naturalism

References

1. Deepak Chopra and Sanjiv Chopra, Brotherhood: Dharma, Destiny, and the American Dream, New Harvest, 2013, p. 5.
2. "Deepak Chopra", The Huffington Post, retrieved May 15, 2014; "Deepak Chopra MD", American Medical Association.
3. ^ Chopra 1991, pp. 54–57; Joanne Kaufman, "Deepak Chopra – An 'Inner Stillness,' Even on the Subway," The New York Times, October 17, 2013.
4. ^ John Gamel, "Hokum on the Rise: The 70-Percent Solution", The Antioch Review, 66(1), 2008, p. 130.
5. ^ Hans A. Baer (2003). "The Work of Andrew Weil and Deepak Chopra—Two Holistic Health/New Age Gurus: A Critique of the Holistic Health/New Age Movements". Medical Anthropology Quarterly. 17 (2): p. 237. doi:10.1525/maq.2003.17.2.233. PMID 12846118.; Hans A. Baer, Toward an Integrative Medicine: Merging Alternative Therapies with Biomedicine, AltaMira Press, 2004, pp. 121–122.
6. Deepak Chopra, Quantum Healing: Exploring the Frontiers of Mind Body Medicine, Random House, 2009 , preface; Brian Goldman, "Ayurvedism: Eastern Medicine Moves West", Canadian Medical Association Journal, 144(2), January 15, 1991, pp. 218–221.
7. For Chopra and the placebo effect, Gamel (Antioch Review) 2008; Deepak Chopra, "I Will Not Be Pleased - Your Health and the Nocebo Effect", San Francisco Chronicle, October 17, 2012.
   • For "false hope," Ptolemy Tompkins, "New Age Supersage", Time, November 14, 2008.
   • For criticism of quantum-physics terminology and denying people the prospects of a cure, Robert L. Park, "Voodoo medicine in a scientific world," in Keith Ashman and Phillip Barringer (eds.), After the Science Wars: Science and the Study of Science, Taylor & Francis, 2000, p. 137; Robert L. Park, Voodoo Science, Oxford University Press, 2000, p. 192ff.
8. Chopra and Chopra 2013, pp. 5, 161.
9. Chopra 2013, pp. 5–6, 11–13; Michael Schulder (May 24, 2013). "The Chopra Brothers". CNN..
10. "Chopra, Sanjiv, MD", Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, retrieved May 15, 2014.
11. Deepak Chopra, Return of the Rishi, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1991, p. 1.
12. Carl Lindgren (March 31, 2010). "International Dreamer – Deepak Chopra". Map Magazine's Street Editors.
13. Chopra 1991, p. 57; Deepak Chopra, "Special Keynote with Dr. Deepak Chopra", November 2013, from 2:50 mins; Richard Knox, "Foreign doctors: a US dilemma", The Boston Globe, June 30, 1974.
14. "Dr. Deepak K Chopra", U.S. News and World Report.
15. "Deepak K. Chopra, M.D.", Commonwealth of Massachusetts Board of Registration in Medicine; "Verify a Physician's Certification", American Board of Internal Medicine.
16. Chopra 1991, p. 105ff.
17. Chopra 1991, p. 125.
18. Rosamund Burton (June 4, 2006). "Peace Seeker". Nova Magazine.
19. Chopra 1991, p. 139ff; Baer 2003, p. 237.
20. Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed, "The Crisis of Perception", Media Monitors Network, February 29, 2008.
21. Elise Pettus, "The Mind–Body Problems," New York Magazine, August 14, 1995, (pp. 28–31, 95), p. 30. Also see Deepak Chopra, "Letters: Deepak responds," New York Magazine, September 25, 1995, p. 16.
22. Cynthia Ann Humes, "Schisms within Hindu guru groups: the Transcendental Meditation movement in North America," in James R. Lewis, Sarah M. Lewis (eds.), Sacred Schisms: How Religions Divide, Cambridge University Press, 2009, p. 297. Also see Cynthia Ann Humes, "Maharishi Mahesh Yogi: Beyond the TM Technique," in Thomas A. Forsthoefel, Cynthia Ann Humes (eds.), Gurus in America, State University of New York Press, 2005, pp. 68–69.
23. Tony Perry (September 7, 1997). "So Rich, So Restless". Los Angeles Times. p. 2.
24. Hari M. Sharma; B. D. Triguna; Deepak Chopra (May 22, 1991). "Maharishi Ayur-Veda: Modern insights into ancient medicine". Journal of the American Medical Association. 265 (20): 2633–4, 2637. doi:10.1001/jama.265.20.2633. PMID 1817464.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
25. "Financial Disclosure". JAMA. 266 (6): 798. August 14, 1991. doi:10.1001/jama.1991.03470060060025.; Andrew A. Skolnick (October 2, 1991). "Maharishi Ayur-Veda: Guru's marketing scheme promises the world eternal 'perfect health'". JAMA. 266 (13): 1741–1750. doi:10.1001/jama.1991.03470130017003. PMID 1817475..
    • Also see Andrew A. Skolnick (Fall 1991). "The Maharhish Caper: Or How to Hoodwink Top Medical Journals". ScienceWriters.
26. Robert Barnett; Cathy Sears (October 11, 1991). "JAMA gets into an Indian herbal jam". Science. 254 (5029): 189. doi:10.1126/science.1925571. JSTOR 2885745. PMID 1925571.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
27. Pettus (New York Magazine) 1995, p. 31; "Deepak's Days in Court". The New York Times. August 18, 1996.
28. "Deepak Chopra, M.D.", Gallup. Retrieved May 15, 2014.
29. Pettus (New York Magazine) 1995, p. 31.
30. Deepak Chopra, "A Tribute to My Friend, Michael Jackson", The Huffington Post, June 26, 2009; Gerald Posner, "Deepak Chopra: How Michael Jackson Could Have Been Saved", The Daily Beast, July 2, 2009, p. 4.
31. Pettus (New York Magazine) 1995, p. 31; Baer 2004, p. 129.
32. Deepak Chopra, "The Maharishi Years – The Untold Story: Recollections of a Former Disciple", The Huffington Post, February 13, 2008.
33. Nilanjana Bhaduri Jha (Jun 22, 2004). "'Employee loyalty comes first, the rest will follow' - Economic Times". Indiatimes. Retrieved 4 June 2014.
34. Humes 2005, p. 69; Humes 2009, pp. 299, 302.
35. Cynthia Ann Humes, "Maharishi Ayur-Veda: Perfect Health through Enlightened Marketing in America," in Frederick M. Smith, Dagmar Wujastyk (eds.), Modern and Global Ayurveda: Pluralism and Paradigms, State University of New York Press, 2008, p. 324.
36. Hoffman, Claire (February 22, 2013). "David Lynch Is Back … as a Guru of Transcendental Meditation". New York Times.
37. Don Kazak (March 5, 1997). "Book Talk". Palo Alto Weekly.; TNN (April 15, 2001). "The mind-body". The Times of India.
38. Paul A. Offit, Do You Believe in Magic? The Sense and Nonsense of Alternative Medicine, HarperCollins, 2013, p. 39; "Full Transcript: Your Call with Dr Deepak Chopra", NDTV, January 23, 2012; also see Craig Bromberg, "Doc of Ages," People, November 15, 1993.
39. For the National Council's letter, Humes 2005, p. 68; Humes 2009, p. 297; for the rest, Pettus (New York Magazine) 1995, p. 31.
40. Humes 2008, p. 326.
41. David Ogul (February 9, 2012). "David Simon, 61, mind-body medicine pioneer, opened Chopra Center for Wellbeing". U-T San Diego. p. 1.
42. "Chopra, Deepak", California Department of Consumer Affairs; "Dr. Deepak K Chopra", U.S. News & World Report; "Endocrinologists, Scripps La Jolla Hospitals and Clinics", U.S. News & World Report.
43. "Mind–Body Medical Group", Chopra Center; Deepak Chopra, "The Mind–Body Medical Group at the Chopra Center", The Chopra Well, May 26, 2014.
44. "Deepak Chopra, M.D.", The Chopra Center.
45. "Just Capitalism & Cause Driven Marketing". Columbia University. Spring 2014.; "The Soul of Leadership". Kellogg School of Management, Executive Education. Retrieved May 14, 2014..
46. "Faculty", Update in Internal Medicine.
47. Robert Todd Carroll (2011). "Auyrvedic medicine". The Skeptic's Dictionary. John Wiley & Sons. p. 48. ISBN 978-1-118-04563-3.
48. "Deepak Chopra, M.D.", Gallup; Deepak Chopra, "Special Keynote with Dr. Deepak Chopra", November 2013, 38:45 mins.
49. Chopra Foundation; "Sages and Scientists", Chopra Foundation.
50. "NAMA's Board of Advisors", American Association for Ayurvedic Medicine; "Advisors". State. Retrieved September 9, 2013.
51. "Men's Wearhouse Inc". Business Week. July 10, 2013.; David Segal, "Deepak Chopra And a New Age Of Comic Books", The Washington Post, March 3, 2007.
52. Deepak Chopra, "What Is Consciousness & Where Is It?", discussion with Rudolph Tanzi, Menas Kafatos and Lothar Schäfer, Science and Nonduality Conference, 2013, 08:12 mins.
    • Attila Grandpierre, Deepak Chopra, P. Murali Doraiswamy, Rudolph Tanzi, Menas C. Kafatos, "A Multidisciplinary Approach to Mind and Consciousness", NeuroQuantology, 11(4), December 2013 (pp. 607–617), p. 609.
53. Deepak Chopra, Stuart Hameroff, "The 'Quantum Soul': A Scientific Hypothesis," in Alexander Moreira-Almeida, Franklin Santana Santos (eds.), Exploring Frontiers of the Mind-Brain Relationship, Springer, 2011 (pp. 79–93), p. 85.
54. Chopra 2009 , preface, pp. 71–72, 74.
55. Deepak Chopra, "Dangerous Ideas: Deepak Chopra & Richard Dawkins", University of Puebla, November 9, 2013, 26:23 mins.
    • Also see Deepak Chopra, Menas Kafatos, Rudolph E. Tanzi, "From Quanta to Qualia: The Mystery of Reality (Part 1)", "(Part 2)", "(Part 3)", "(Part 4)", The Huffington Post, October 8, 15, 29 and November 12, 2012.
56. Deepak Chopra and Leonard Mlodinow, War of the Worldviews, Random House, 2011, p. 123.
57. O'Neill, Ian (26 May 2011). "Does Quantum Theory Explain Consciousness?". Discovery News. Discovery Communications, LLC. Retrieved 11 August 2014.
58. Deepak Chopra, "Deepak Chopra Meditation", courtesy of YouTube, December 10, 2012.
59. "Deepak Chopra and the Chopra Center". ReligionFacts.com. Religion Facts. Retrieved 22 July 2014.
60. "Oprah Winfrey & Deepak Chopra Launch All-New Meditation Experience 'Expanding Your Happiness'". Broadway World. Retrieved 22 July 2014.
61. For imbalance, see Baer 2004, p. 128; for the rest, Chopra 2009 , pp. 222–224, 234ff.
62. "Ayurvedic medicine". Cancer Research UK. Retrieved August 2013. There is no scientific evidence to prove that Ayurvedic medicine can treat or cure cancer or any other disease. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)
63. Chopra 2009 , pp. 15, 241; Deepak Chopra, "Healing wisdom", The Chopra Center, June 12, 2013.
    • That he uses the term "quantum healing" as a metaphor, see Richard Dawkins, "Interview with Chopra", The Enemies of Reason, Channel 4 (UK), 2007, 01:16 mins.
64. Suzanne Newcombe, "Ayurvedic Medicine in Britain and the Epistemology of Practicing Medicine in Good Faith," in Smith and Wujastyk 2008, pp. 263–264; Kenneth Zysk, "New Age Ayurveda or what happens to Indian medicine when it comes to America," Traditional South Asian Medicine, 6, 2001, pp. 10–26. Also see Francoise Jeannotat, "Maharishi Ayur-veda," in Smith and Wujastyk 2008, p. 285ff.
65. John W. Zamarra, "Quantum Healing: Exploring the frontiers of mind/body medicine", New England Journal of Medicine, 321, December 14, 1989.
66. Park 2000, p. 137; Victor J. Stenger (2007). "Quantum Quackery". Skeptical Inquirer. 27 (1): 37.; "Winners of the Ig Nobel Prize". Improbable Research. Retrieved December 1, 2008.
    • Brian Cox says that "for some scientists, the unfortunate distortion and misappropriation of scientific ideas that often accompanies their integration into popular culture is an unacceptable price to pay." See Brian Cox (February 20, 2012). "Why Quantum Theory Is So Misunderstood". The Wall Street Journal.
    • The main criticism revolves around the fact that macroscopic objects are too large to exhibit inherently quantum properties like interference and wave function collapse. Most literature on quantum healing is almost entirely theosophical, omitting the rigorous mathematics that makes quantum electrodynamics possible. See Doug Bramwell. "'Magic' of Quantum Physics". Association for Skeptical Enquiry. Retrieved December 15, 2012.
67. "Nightline Face-Off: Does God Have a Future", ABC News, courtesy of YouTube, 17:22 mins; also see Dan Harris and Ely Brown (March 23, 2010). "Nightline Face-Off: Does God Have a Future". ABC News.
68. Richard Dawkins, "Interview with Chopra", The Enemies of Reason, Channel 4 (UK), 2007; Deepak Chopra, "Richard Dawkins Plays God: The Video (Updated)", The Huffington Post, June 19, 2013.
69. Dann Dulin, "The Medicine Man", interview with Deepak Chopra, A&U magazine, 2000.
70. Chopra 2009 , pp. 37, 237, 239–241.
71. Lawrence J. Schneiderman (2003). "The (Alternative) Medicalization of Life". Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics. 31 (2): 192. doi:10.1111/j.1748-720X.2003.tb00080.x. PMID 12964263.
72. Christopher Wanjek (2003). Bad Medicine. John Wiley & Sons. pp. 224, 228ff. ISBN 978-0-471-46315-3.
73. Gary P. Posner (November–December 2001). "Hardly a Prayer on ABC's 20/20 Downtown". Skeptical Inquirer.
74. Baer 2003, pp. 240–241, 246.
75. Francis Wheen (6 July 2005). How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World: A Short History of Modern Delusions. PublicAffairs. pp. 46–. ISBN 978-0-7867-2352-2.
76. Stephen Barrett. "A Few Thoughts on Ayurvedic Mumbo-Jumbo".
77. Moukheiber, Zina (1994). "Lord of immortality". Forbes (Book review). 153 (8): 132.
78. Carroll, Robert Todd (19 May 2013), "Deepak Chopra", The Skeptic's Dictionary, retrieved April 2014 {{citation}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)
79. Lois Malcolm (2003). "God as best seller: Deepak Chopra, Neal Walsch and New Age theology". The Christian Century. 120 (19): 31. commenting on Deepak Chopra (2008). How To Know God. Ebury Publishing. ISBN 978-1-4090-2220-6.
80. For Time, Peter Rowe, "Truly, madly, deeply Deepak Chopra," U-T San Diego, May 3, 2014, p. 1; for Clinton, Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton, 2000-2001, January 1 to June 26, 2000, Government Printing Office, 2001, p. 508; for Gorbachev and the quote, Cosmo Landesman, "There's an easy way to save the world," The Sunday Times, May 8, 2005.
81. "An Afternoon Meditation on the Lawn with Deepak Chopra and Arianna Huffington", University of Virginia and the Contemplative Sciences Center.
82. Offit 2013, pp. 245–246.
83. Rowe 2014, p. 1.
84. Srinivas Aravamudan, Guru English: South Asian Religion in a Cosmopolitan Language, Princeton University Press, 2005, p. 257.
85. George M. O'Har (2000). "Magic in the Machine Age". Technology and Culture. 41 (4): 864. doi:10.1353/tech.2000.0174. JSTOR 25147641.
86. Paul Kurtz, Skepticism and Humanism: The New Paradigm, Transaction Publishers, 2001, p. 110; Wendy Kaminer (2008). "The Corrosion of the American Mind". The Wilson Quarterly. 32 (2): 92. JSTOR 40262377.
87. Ptolemy Tompkins (November 14, 2008). "New Age Supersage". Time.; Park 2000, p. 137.
88. Deepak Chopra, "The Rise and Fall of Militant Skepticism", The Huffington Post, November 4, 2013.
    • For the series, see Deepak Chopra and Jordan Flesher, "The Rise and Fall of Militant Skepticism (Part 2)", "(Part 3)", "(Part 4)", November 13, 18, 26, 2013; Deepak Chopra, "Misplaced Pages, A New Perspective on an Old Problem", The Huffington Post, May 15, 2014.
89. Jerry A. Coyne (8 November 2013). "Pseudoscientist Rupert Sheldrake Is Not Being Persecuted, And Is Not Like Galileo". The New Republic.
90. Aseem Shukla (April 28, 2010). "Dr. Chopra: Honor thy heritage". Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive.; Aseem Shukla. "On Faith Panelists Blog: Hinduism and Sanatana Dharma: One and the same – Aseem Shukla". Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive. Retrieved July 9, 2010.

Further reading

• Official website

Butler, J. Thomas. "Ayurveda," in Consumer Health: Making Informed Decisions, Jones & Bartlett Publishers, 2011, pp. 117–118.

Butler, Kurt and Barrett, Stephen (1992). A Consumer's Guide to "Alternative Medicine": A Close Look at Homeopathy, Acupuncture, Faith-healing, and Other Unconventional Treatments. Prometheus Books, pp. 110–116. ISBN 978-0-87975-733-5.

Kaeser, Eduard (July 2013). "Science kitsch and pop science: A reconnaissance". Public Understanding of Science. 22 (5): 559–69. doi:10.1177/0963662513489390. PMID 23833170.

Kafatos, Menas, Nadeau, Robert. The Conscious Universe: Parts and Wholes in Physical Reality, Springer, 2013.

Nacson, Leon (1998). Deepak Chopra: How to Live in a World of Infinite Possibilities. Random House. ISBN 0-09-183673-5.

Scherer, Jochen. "The 'scientific' presentation and legitimation of the teaching of synchronicity in New Age literature," in James R. Lewis, Olav Hammer (eds.), Handbook of Religion and the Authority of Science, Brill Academic Publishers, 2010.

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