Was Robert Davis looking for health or illness when he was confronted by a low CD4 count and the doctor’s judgement that he had just had the “Poor Man’s HIV Test”…and failed. After an agonizing period during which he was tormented by the fear he had AIDS he talked to Christine Maggiore who suggested the only way to relieve his stress was to have an HIV test…and he tested negative.
This was not the end of his journey from illness to health, but it was an important step. David Crowe and Robert talk about these issues and try to come to terms with the gulf between our modern medical treatment system and what good health really is.
Robert Davis has websites for his radio show, Robert Davis Energetics and a body care product.
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loved the show, wonderful to learn about new perspectives of healing. I was hopping you guys could post a link to Robert Davis’ website…
Glad you liked the show. I’ve added the URLs to the posting (I thought I’d already done this!)
Very interesting interview. I’m just curious about something. If I missed it in the interview, I apologize, but I don’t remember any mention of whether Mr. Davis was at any point diagnosed with idiopathic CD4 lymphocytopenia. I only ask because he had a low T-cell count and opportunistic infections. So I’m just wondering if he also got the poor man’s AIDS diagnosis. I only ask because I’ve long been curious as to what goes into diagnosing that condition. I’ve never known anyone who was actually diagnosed with idiopathic CD4 lymphocytopenia, although I do know a number of people who got negative HIV antibody tests and skipped merrily off into the sunset, relieved that they did not have AIDS.
I’m not aware of anyone diagnosed with ICL. After all, they acknowledge that the cause is unknown (that’s what “idiopathic” means) and they also acknowledge that it’s not really a disease as there are people with low CD4 counts without ill health. IDCL/ICL never caught on with doctors and if it’s not in their mind you won’t get the diagnosis. And what he said was that the doctors told him he basically had AIDS. His story is an amazing illustration of the power of the mind to make us sick or healthy. As you said, people who get a negative HIV test are relieved and go back to live their lives quasi-normally (not fully normally or they would never have got an HIV test in the first place) and those who test positive are swallowed by the temple of doom.
David,
Thank you for the reply. The whole reason I bring it up is that I’ve never known anyone who has received a diagnosis of ICL and yet it’s in the literature. And as it is often described as being far less common than HIV diagnosis, I think it might be important to see where in the statistics cases like this are being noted. I know of far too many people who are experiencing AIDS-like symptoms who are given HIV tests “to rule it out.” When it is ruled out, shouldn’t it be categorized as ICL? How else can there be any statistical relevance to claims that ICL is far less common and has a better prognosis? It seems to me that cases of people who present clinically with AIDS-like symptoms but are HIV- are going down the memory hole, artificially keeping that ICL number very low. (Or what was once the troublesome number of HIV- AIDS patients who were filed off into that new category.) I fully acknowledge that they are probably better off being spared any diagnosis and getting on with their lives.
“His story is an amazing illustration of the power of the mind to make us sick or healthy.”
That’s not what I took from this interview. Granted, I have not read his book as yet. But I knew 5-10 minutes in that what he was describing was probably a kundalini awakening and very definitely a spiritual emergency, as defined by Stan Grof. Had he not addressed that I probably would be posting to recommend he read Stan Grof. I’m glad to know he found Grof’s work and got the support he needed. I’m well acquainted with kundalini crisis and sprititual emergency and it is not anywhere near as simple as the “mind” controlling our health. Kundalini awakening actually has an imunosuppressive effective for many people. Much of it presents as both physical and mental illness and all of that is actually a normal, well-chronicled, part of the process. To get through these transformations, one really has to let go of preconceived notions of what is negative or positive, in terms of health, and surrender to the process. What I heard him saying is that not only do allopathic and psychiatric models fail to address this properly, so do many holistic and energy therapies. And I concur.