An Overall Orchestration
Rhythmic standing waves of brain activity create chemical-electrical traces in space of the many actions of our being. Various sections of the brain and nervous system normally work together with a high degree of harmonious and coordinated interplay. They become aware of each other through very specific frequencies of function, in the same way that animals in the rainforest identify each other by their distinctive voices and calls. Many of these tunings happen together at any given time, and the sum total of these waveforms creates an overall orchestration of electrical firing that carries a unique signature of health for the individual.
Cannabis Induces a Qualitative Shift of Brainwaves
Some of the many effects of cannabis use include changes in these harmonious brainwave patterns. This occurs because cannabis induces a clearly discernable qualitative shift in the syncopation of brainwaves.
If you measure the effects of cannabis on any particular area of the brain or nervous system, they may not seem very strong. But when you observe them on the brain as a whole, what you’ll find is a state of disruption from the norm. The neurological term for this effect is disorchestrated brain networks. With cannabis use, the strongest disorchestration happens in the communication between the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex, which are areas often associated with memory and decision-making. Similar disruptions happen in the brains of schizophrenics.
Although this pattern of interrupted communication happens in the short-term and can be induced in people who have no other tendencies to schizophrenia, it may also be a factor in why long-term and/or heavy cannabis use is highly implicated in chronic schizophrenic illness. The cannabis may be training the brain to function in this way.
Another Look at Cognitive Chaos
Is cognitive chaos always a bad thing? Many people claim they benefit greatly from using cannabis. I’m thinking about patients with ADD, who insist that cannabis helps them to think and function more clearly. Could it be that chaos plus chaos can sometimes equal cognitive order? It may very well be.
Let’s also consider all those rigid folks out there. For example, OCD is a disorder of order and control. Remember back in the day when the Hippies truly believed that if square people just got stoned they would ‘get it’, and the world would turn into a happy place? Maybe they were right. Would a little chaos hurt the squares?
Health isn’t about order or chaos. It’s about freedom in the relationship between the two. A satisfying drug experience contains the essence of an initiation: we survive the unknown and return to life with a greater sense of wholeness. Revelation comes out of surfing from order into chaos and back again. If we are successful in our efforts, we return with the gift of being more than who we were before we took the journey.
This initiatory experience is a major reason why many people, particularly adolescents, get into drugs in the first place. It provides a very real sense of accomplishment if it’s done in the right way. Yet a part of what makes it real is the ever-present danger that you might not do it in the right way and wind up worse off than you were before. Failure defines success and vice versa.
There’s a new level of integration, or neo-orchestration, that is the natural by-product of success in an initiation. Without it, the journey these people take happens for nothing. To simply return to the old way carries with it an unshakable sense of failure. It’s like suffering from an internal Gulf-War syndrome.
What’s important, then, in our treatment of cannabis-induced brain disorchestration is to do what shamans in native cultures have always done. We want to create a positive matrix of coherency within and around the individual to help her/him emerge from chaos into a place that is better than where s/he was before. We want to incubate a successful round-trip journey into chaos and back again. We want to promote positive brain neo-orchestration.
But how?
Brain Disorchestration and TCM
We’ve been aware of the effects of cannabis for a very long time in the world of traditional Chinese medical diagnostics. Our descriptions of this pathology differ only slightly from those of Western neurologists. Although a full description is much too detailed to go into in this article, in essence, TCM views brain disorchestration as marijuana’s hot and ascending nature burning the root of the brain- the Jing, which is the foundation of brain and nervous material- and disrupting the coordination of brain activities via the eye system. In a very traditional diagnostic, this disruption opens the door for an invasion of the host by pathological entities.
Positive Brain Neo-Orchestration
Does Traditional Chinese Medicine offer methods to retune disorchestrated brains? It’s our specialty.
In the realm of acupuncture, there are many techniques that we can use. Exactly which ones we choose will be based on very precise information that we gather from the patient to take into account her/his constitutional factors, plus specific information regarding the effects of the marijuana on the patient at that particular moment. This leads us straight to the diagnosis and treatment principle. The highly specialized treatments that derive from this procedure frequently become religious experiences for marijuana users as their brains retune into a new order.
What about Traditional Chinese Medicine in the form of herbs? There are many herbs and herbal combinations that are excellent for treating brain disorchestration. Substances from the Clear Wind category can be excellent for treating neurological issues and supporting the brain. Others are fantastic for cleaning the brain and nervous system of hot poisons. How you use them depends on the specifics of Chinese diagnostics, which will always get you much closer to the proper combinations and proportions than a generic Western-style disease assessment.
For example, the OTC herbal formula Balance the Herb incorporates layered herbal combinations to address virtually every dimension of cannabis-induced brain disorchestration. To accomplish this task, it has 81 ingredients combined in over 30 interpenetrating synergistic combinations. It was specifically designed to promote positive brain neo-orchestration in cannabis users, but it does so from a purely traditional Chinese perspective.
Another powerful method for inducing positive neurological brain orchestration is to listen to anything produced on the Eremite record label. These consummate masters have dedicated their lives to expressing the edge of order through music.
Protocol of The New Medicine
Are there ways to re-coordinate brain function from a state of cannabis-induced disorchestration? There are many, but they are absolutely apocryphal from the perspective of modern medicine. The reason is that they are low-to-no tech. They require the skill of a sensitive, experienced and accomplished practitioner who is willing to actually witness and acknowledge the state of being of the patient in the moment.
To develop these abilities requires the practitioner to take a step into the unknown. S/he needs to push beyond the boundaries of the current very limited biomedical culture and go into another world. Once in that world, s/he needs to learn and acquire new tools and return to the world with them for the purpose of helping others.
Apocryphal? Sure. But maybe heroism can be the protocol of the new medicine.
For extensive details on how to balance and optimize the effects of cannabis using Traditional Chinese Medicine, please refer to
Marijuana Syndromes
How to Balance and Optimize
the Effects of Cannabis
With Traditional Chinese Medicine
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For extensive details on how to balance and optimize the effects of cannabis using Traditional Chinese Medicine, please refer to
Marijuana Syndromes
How to Balance and Optimize
the Effects of Cannabis
With Traditional Chinese Medicine
Home