Forbes magazine cited a report from Organic Trade Association that says “52% of organic consumers are millennials, and they eat 52% more vegetables than older generations.” Holistic lifestyle entrepreneurs Chef Ahki, celebrity Chef Lauren Von Der Pool and Xave Bowman can attest to those statistics. They’re millennials making phenomenal strides in natural food and natural healthcare industries. But only one is the daughter of the late nutritionist and herbal medicine specialist Dr. Sebi. That’s Xave [ZAH-VAY] Bowman, founder of Next Generation Herbal Products, and yes, she treats and cures AIDS just like her father. And like her father, she can prove it.
“I’m still actively doing all the things that my father taught me. I don’t want anyone to feel that because he’s gone now everything else is,” Xave said in an interview from her home in Georgia. Next Generation Herbal Products is also based there and sprang up — due to public demand — after her father died in Honduras, Central America, in 2016. He left behind a mournful and confused group of new and long-time fans, people who bought his herbal compounds and received consultations from his company, but wondered where to turn. A bit of history is necessary here, a backdrop to events that caused Xave to heed the call to return to healing and relieve a frustrated public.
In 2014, a major change occurred at Dr. Sebi’s company in Los Angeles. He rebuilt and renamed Dr. Sebi’s Office, LLC when managers decided to leave (more about the separation in Xave’s memoir). The result of that restructure is Dr. Sebi’s Cell Food, a new bricks and mortar facility and e-commerce website.
News about the change spread like wildfire on social media. When the flames died down, two groups rose up: supporters of Dr. Sebi’s Cell Food and those loyal to Dr. Sebi’s Office, LLC. To calm the masses and dismiss rumors his company was distressed and about to close, Dr. Sebi stepped in to referee. He spoke to the public in a YouTube video. It proved effective — for 2 years. On August 6, 2016, Dr. Sebi died. By that time, Xave had moved on, to Miami, and had completed a business plan to open a vegan restaurant there. But destiny followed. Xave recalled hanging out with her cousin one fateful afternoon.
“This lady, she comes up to me. She doesn’t know who I am. I’m not wearing anything that would signify Dr. Sebi or healing. I’m not in a place that would signify healing. I wasn’t in a farmer’s market. She comes up to me while I’m standing next to my cousin and she says to me I have diabetes and I need help. What do I eat? How do I fix this? So, my cousin looked at me and she’s like, I have goose bumps. Feel my arm. And I’m telling her no. Shake your head no. We don’t know anything about it. I’m opening a vegan restaurant. Please, I can’t handle this. And my cousin is like no, you keep getting signs.”
Xave ended up giving the stranger advice, simple tips about choosing vegetables, salads and water instead of carbohydrates. A week later, the lady contacted Xave and told her she experienced two straight insulin-free days. Occurrences like these didn’t stop. People from out of the blue continued to seek Xave’s consultation, even while she planned her restaurant.
“It’s so beautiful and I want it. I was so excited about doing this in Florida because there hadn’t been a lot of vegan restaurants there,” Xave said, raving about her new venture. But when her cousin noticed a pattern of people coming straight to her with health questions, she encouraged Xave to help them full time, to go beyond answering questions on the fly on the streets of Miami. Xave agreed. She moved to Georgia with her restaurant plans in tow and created Next Generation Herbal Products.
Where the Passion for Herbs Flows
By the time Xave was born in Carolina, Puerto Rico, her father, Alfredo Darrington Bowman (Dr. Sebi), had created a budding herbal medicine practice. But Xave revealed that as a child — her mother is Patsy Bowman, also known as Matun — she felt little excitement about the family business.
“Growing up in a household with my father it was so normal. I would say regular, something you could easily overlook as a child. I don’t want to say it wasn’t anything special, but you’re so accustomed to your father saying someone took the herbs and they’re healed. It wasn’t that exciting but I can definitely remember him saying these are really important things to learn, like how he would create the compounds and the temperatures we would use.”
Dr. Sebi and Matun, Xave’s Parents
She learned the type of pots some herbs required when most children her age were learning how to read and write. But she remained unphased by Dr. Sebi’s innovations in herbal medicine.
“During the time at those ages, it was like oh, I’m in the kitchen with my dad. I’m in the kitchen with my mom when she’s showing me how to make teas. I wasn’t excited about it. It was like ok, you steep it and then you strain it, then you let it cool. It wasn’t anything major, but now it’s something different.”
It’s been something different for the past 17 years. As Xave grew older, she watched her father’s business grow too. She developed a new awareness and a passion for natural healing in her teen years, a period when she observed clients alongside Dr. Sebi. She recalled her apprenticeship.
“He would ask me questions like what do you think this person would need? What do you think is truly wrong with this person? And how do you feel about the situation overall in terms of approaching the healing portion of this? So, there was a lot of that done and I didn’t realize at the time this was him still trying to teach me and to make sure it was embedded in me.”
The student mastered her teacher’s lessons, so much so that when Dr. Sebi traveled to Africa to get herbs like cancansa and pōpa, he left his business in Xave’s hands.
“I was in the office basically by myself,” she said.
In the book Sojourn to Honduras Sojourn to Healing, Dr. Sebi praised Xave’s abilities.
“My daughter Xave is running the business,” he announced proud and emphatic. “She can mix herbs ten times better than me. . . . That salve you bought? Xave made that batch.”
But at first, Xave felt her parents placed too much responsibility on her shoulders, and besides that they were travelling abroad more than she wanted them to. As a consequence, she slowly embraced her new position, a position without further guidance.
“I honestly didn’t realize until later on it was oh, they know that I knew what I was talking about. They were like, you’re fine. Now you’re on your own. Now you’re going to do this on your own.”
The Next Generation
“I’ve been working with herbs for many years. After working with a couple of people one on one is really where I truly got passionate about it,” Xave said. In fact, one of Xave’s first clients was a woman with HIV. When Dr. Sebi and Xave’s mother traveled to Africa, Xave treated the woman at the Los Angeles office. She prepared herbs for her as well as diet recommendations. Her client committed to a regimen that included appointments with Xave 1–2 times per week. Over time, both women noticed improvements in the client’s health. At one point, the client wanted to stop the treatment. Xave considered that choice hasty.
“I will never forget it. About 7 months into her program, she called me and she says I know I don’t have this anymore. I know it’s gone from my body. And at that time, I said look, you’re dealing with something major. I don’t want to allow you to stop the program now and then say you’re healed when we don’t even have that in black and white. I said normally in situations we recommend that you go to the doctor so somebody can actually say in black and white that you have actually been healed because there are many parts of your program. You’ll get to where your body is doing amazing. You feel as though you’re healed because now you’re taking in so much iron and minerals and eating cleaner and drinking water. But it doesn’t necessarily mean the disease is completely gone.”
Xave gave her client two choices: either stay on the program to remove the virus or go to a doctor. The client opted to stay with Xave, but eventually sought a doctor’s report 2 months later. The diagnosis? Negative. She called Xave with the news but Xave sensed something went wrong.
“She was actually crying. So, I said to myself, while she’s on the phone and she’s trying to gather her thoughts, I said uh oh, maybe she went to the doctor and it still says positive. So, I just let her speak. Then she says I knew it. I told you. I told you it was gone. I knew the day I was free from it. And she actually spoke with my father directly about that case.”
In the following days, Xave read her client’s medical report, a requirement for anyone seeking treatment at Dr. Sebi’s Office. The reports served as evidence that clients who tested positive for a disease were eventually healed after taking Dr. Sebi’s herbal compounds. The process is demonstrated in the book Seven Days in Usha Village: A Conversation with Dr. Sebi. On pages 100–105, Dr. Sebi shares anonymous before and after diagnostic sheets of his AIDS clients.
Xave emphasized the importance of a firsthand view of these diagnoses. She said, “This is to protect me and my family. You absolutely have to 100% get the paperwork and we have to actually see it with your name because we don’t want you to say oh, I took Dr. Sebi’s products and I’m healed now. And then later on you get sick because it wasn’t fully gone. Now it’s left in the body and people are thinking ok, well his products didn’t work. So that was something I actually came up with to make sure to protect us, and of course that individual that’s saying they feel so good.”
She carried her keen business sense to Next Generation Herbal Products, where she continues to create compounds with the same herbs she used for more than 14 years at Dr. Sebi’s Office. Her products include a children’s line.
“It was something that I got excited about and I don’t know where that came from. I know it grew a lot more after the Banju because one of my little cousins was actually dealing with some issues, and I made the Banju. My father loved the way it worked so he was like we have to put this on the shelf. I got really excited about it. And I’m really thankful and pleased more than anything that I have been able to do what I have been doing, and work with so many people, and received a lot of testimonials that I have received, especially with the children formulas.”
The children’s products represent a natural progression for Xave’s work with herbs. Now, with Next Generation Herbal Products, she’s extended her focus.
“I want to learn about things I wasn’t necessarily taught by my father, like medications and learning about foods and the different industries out there like Monsanto. I wanted to go beyond the herbs. We have to look at our environment as well, and not just say I have to eat alkaline foods and then I’m going to be healed. Even our alkaline foods are being compromised. So, I wanted to look beyond just the herbs and the healing aspect of it. I want to look at everything as a whole for our bodies to be the way it’s supposed to be. And so that was one of the reasons that prompted me to name the company Next Generation, because it’s the next generation of my father and what he taught.”
Xave plans to share more in-depth stories about her journey with herbs and her life with Dr. Sebi in a memoir. Until that time, Next Generation Herbal Products is located in Chamblee, Georgia, on Peachtree Boulevard, a suburb near Atlanta.
Posted By: Beverly Oliver
Friday, February 1st 2019 at 1:46PM
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