By Terry Willard ClH, PhD (as presented at the Canadian Herb Conference Nov 7, 2020)
In part 1, we looked at how us 2-legged meat computers fit into our environment and how signaling both intra- and inter- cellularly is the basic form of biological communication. Starting with the big bang, moving through the beginning of our solar system, earth’s creation, we see life starting here some 3.5 – 4 billion years ago. It appears that the time of life on earth has been made up of over 75% of single celled organisms. We will pick it up at this point to see How Botanical Medicines Really Work.
How Medicines Work
We can see that the explanation for how medicines work goes along the same argument as the scientific discussion of our timelines of celestial and living evolution but just on a tighter ecosystem – the human body – A fractal relationship
If it is all about the signal to create communication, lets look at how modern medicine has modelled this.
Random Chemical Interaction– Certainly in the 1950 – early 1970s (but still used today) the explanation of how medicines worked was this: The medicine just bounced around the body until it randomly found a place to work and worked there. This might be true for a few single constituent remedies. If a person has a calcium deficiency, then you take calcium. Since most pharmaceutical products are single constituent products, this seemed to be a good enough for their claims. The thing is, I have never found a patient with a Prozac or Valium deficiency. And even if a person had a calcium deficiency, there is a pretty complex mechanism, which includes lots of other chemicals, to start building up the bones. There is no mention of this complex mechanism in this model of life. It is a random spontaneous action of non-living matter.
Does this sound familiar?
This level of signal transference is like randomly running into a person while out and about that randomly talks to you about the information you need to hear, through oral communication (signal), to solve an issue you were wondering about. It is possible, but I wouldn’t want to run my life that way. It seem likes science doesn’t mind this.
Biochemical Pathways– In the 1960 – 80’s the educational system started to work more with biological pathways. This meant the constituent (calcium or Prozac) was metabolized along an organized biochemical pathway to help target the signal.
This idea is like going to a conference and attending a specific lecture or running into a certain expert at the conference that gives you an idea that you were looking for. This communication or signal seems random but occurs within pretty tight perimeters.
We now start to see the communication of the signal to be important in control systems.
The two biggest communication and control systems in the body are:
- Endocrine – hormonal
- Neural — Nerves
Receptor sites– little packets of information travelled like letters that could only be read by certain receptor sites. This means hormones (or other chemicals) could travel along regular pathways (the blood circulation system) and once the information got to suitable readers (receptor sites) the signal could be unpacked and transferred.
Just like in the mail system, a single letter from a colleague or a Lover can contain all kinds of information that can start into motion a set of reactions (physical, intellectual and/or emotional). The communication is rather slow (snail mail) and infrequent but can deliver a tremendous amount of information. The receiver can digest this information and send out feedback to the signal received.
Neural Communication– here the communication is similar to the telephones, where there are wires connecting each phone to a grid, creating two-way communication. This is better for communication as it is basically instantaneous with a packet of most of the information that would come from a letter, but with a slightly different ‘feeling’.
ECS– The Endocannabinoid System is a relatively newly discovered communication system within the body. It is named after cannabinoid receptor sites, as that is where it was first discovered. It is a very sophisticated whole-body communication and controls system. But it wasn’t just created for pot-heads. We now know that many other botanicals also use this signalling system. The ECS is above both the nervous system and endocrine system of communication and control.
I like to think of this system as like the internet. It can combine both the mail service and the phone service, but steps it up a few octaves, with lots of bonus material. Now we get a full-service communication system. This comes with not only packets of information, it comes with ‘YouTube, Netflix, Facebook and Zoom’ all wrapped up in the signal. Both good and bad!
The thing is that the signal can go along ‘wires’ as in LAN lines but can also communicate wirelessly as if the communication is both ‘WIFI’ and ‘Bluetooth’ capable. Single ingredients can turn on a whole set of instructions.
Welcome into the 21st Century
I like to consider this both travelling along wires and creating an electromagnetic field (wireless) around the organism. This helps explain acupuncture, energy work, chakras, auras and whole fields of both ancient and modern healing technologies.
Turmeric and piperine: turmeric is known to works 100’s of issues but it is hard to ’absorb’ and be utilized by the system. By adding as little as 7 mg piperine or 70 mg of black pepper, its activity increases by as much as 2,000 %. Pepper and piperine seem to ‘light-up’ the ECS and make it more functional for other substances like turmeric.
Transdermal ointments: and other transdermal applications of THC and CBD are very popular. But it has been shown that less than 10% absorbs. Well then how come they work so well? They connect into another communication system formed by living crystals. Works with the Field.
Living crystals: Is the term accurately used by Dr. James Oschman, in Energy Medicine.[i]This living matrix is composed of connective tissue, cytoskeletons, nuclear matrix and water molecules. It is the sum of thousands of fibrous pathways made of polymers, each one of the fibers surrounded by a layer of water. And its mechanism and functionality could be described as a continuous semiconductor vibratory biopolymer network.
Normal liquids have no molecular order, but liquid crystals have orientational order; and unlike solid crystals, they are flexible, malleable and responsive. This is particularly true if functioning with nano-tubes. They have Piezoelectric properties that normal crystals have. Capacity to undergo rapid changes in orientation or phase transitions when exposed to electric and magnetic fields. Some people can’t believe this but don’t tell that to your computer monitor. This is a feature that has been widely used in display screens. Yes, your computer screen works that way
Instantly informed of events occurring elsewhere in the network.[ii]It creates “body consciousness” functionally inter- connected via the crystalline liquid medium of the ground substance (Ho and Knight, 1998). Memories related to dis- eases, dysfunctions, pain, infection, injuries, surgeries, physical and emotional trauma may be stored within this system, influencing the normal informational pattern either locally or globally, altering the properties of the fabric, distorting resulting vibrations. In this way, consciousness may be influenced by memories stored in soft tissues.
A Fractal Relationship
This also starts to explain all kinds of additional botanical preparations like sublingual, low dose specifics, Flower Essence and Homeopathic. These delivery mechanisms help the remedies tune the signal into specific frequency zones.
Ecosystem Communication– As herbalists one of our higher goals is to fit nicely and cleanly into our larger ecosystem. In a human, our ecosystem is ourself and our community of 100s of trillions of microorganisms. Some botanicals and other medications can send signals to the microorganisms in our body. These microorganisms can signal their cousins and, in many cases, other species, to produce distance healing. Most likely some of this is via the ECS.
Turmeric: Has been reportedly used for 100’s of applications. Prominent is its ability to reduce inflammation. One of the mechanisms starts in the GI tract, with some of the anti-inflammatory effect in the peripheral body being an Echo effect of the microorganisms in the GIT. It is almost like a new song comes along and it doesn’t take long before it echos around the ‘world’.
A Fractal Relationship
Wobenzym: Pancreatin 100 mg (300 protease Ph.Eur.units), Papain 60 mg (164 I.U.), Rutin 50 mg (3H20), Bromelain 45 mg (225 I.U.), Trypsin 24 mg (720 I.U.), Chymotrypsin 1 mg (300 I.U.). Also, works on similar inflammation to Turmeric, but even faster and more globally. It works on the microorganism in the GIT and reduces inflammation in muscles and joints in our peripheral system.
CBD and THC: work on pain and inflammation. THC for perception of pain. CBD for inflammation related pain. Relief occurs both inhaling and oral. But best if used as ointment either by itself or with above. It seems to readjust our personal holographic reality.
Microorganism Lives Matter Too
I know at first this seems to be putting a lot on the ‘shoulders’ of the microorganisms. But there have been thousands of papers on how both intra- and interspecies communication (signaling) is achieved by various frequencies of the electromagnetic spectrum from radio waves, to photons and x-rays.
Reishi can be seen as marching into the GIT singing Hallelujah, hallelujah and handing out sugars from their polysaccharide as pre-biotics. These beta-glucans have been shown to exercise our immune system almost like a fire drill, so it is ready if an incidence shows up.
There is more information travelling from the immune system in the GIT, via the vagus nerve to the brain, than from the brain to the GIT.
The thing is that microorganisms have been using these electromagnets frequency systems for a lot longer than we have. Remember they ruled for over 75% of our history (if not still and we just don’t want to admit it).
In fact, they use this signaling system for marketing and recruiting. Advertisements from biofilms.[iii]
They can also spread all kind of false news. There are over 3,000 papers on how biofilms can create ‘false news’.
Yeh, we are really in the 21stcentury now
Lesson: Stay in your own lane, fill your channel with messages that support you. You will reflect to the environment what you concentrate on.
Don’t become part of a biofilm spreading false new.
The concepts of this song vibration of botanical remedies was first introduced to me by don Antonio (Jaguar, shape-shifting shaman of Peru, 1994) and sent me down the path of sounds of Plants medicine. Each plant and each constituent has its own song, blending together in a choir of an ecosystem. If the ecosystem is healthy, the music is beautiful. If it is imbalanced, it is not as melodious.
A list of plants that function on the ECS from Beyond Cannabis: Plants and the Endocannabinoid Systemby Ethan Russo.[iv]
Our bodies are in a Fractal Relationship with our environment. The clearer we are inside our body, thoughts and emotions. The clearer our environment can respond to use. This Fractal Relationship communicates on a chemical, biological, electromagnetic frequencies´Via Endocrine, Nervous, ECS, electromagnetic frequencies, Living Matrix and microorganism ecosystem.
How Herbs Work is by anyone, or combination of, the above mechanisms. It is the job of the practitioner to help the client tune into the appropriate set of frequencies.
As Above so Below and vice versa
[i]https://www.amazon.ca/Energy-Medicine-James-Oschman-PhD
[ii]Journal of Bodywork & Movement Therapies (2014) 18, 259e265
[iii]Habimana O, Casey E. Biofilm recruitment under nanofiltration conditions: the influence of resident biofilm structural parameters on planktonic cell invasion. Microb Biotechnol. 2018;11(1):264-267.
[iv]Russo EB. Beyond Cannabis: Plants and the Endocannabinoid System. Trends Pharmacol Sci. 2016 Jul;37(7):594-605. doi: 10.1016/j.tips.2016.04.005. Epub 2016 May 11. PMID: 27179600.