The Pineal Gland

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If we identify DMT as the software, then the pineal gland we can label the hardware. DMT is the endogenous hallucinogenic that research appears to find is responsible for enabling people to enter an altered state of consciousness complete with “spiritual” visions and a sense of wonder and communion with something greater and beyond the individual. This research though has been dependent on external injections of DMT made to subjects via IV. The theory put forward by Dr Rick Strassman, the foremost expert on the subject, is that it is the pineal gland that produces excess amounts of endogenous DMT during times of great relaxation and stress, leading to the experience of mystical states.

This tiny gland, about the size of the nail on your little finger, is situated in the middle of the brain and vaguely shaped as a pine cone (hence the name though it is properly termed the epiphysis). Properly speaking, it is not a gland but is in fact the remains of (literally) a third eye that once protruded from the top of our heads before retreating into the skull as evolution worked its magic. Nowadays however, it is still referred to as being a third eye, but in the mystical sense of an inner eye that can perceive different spiritual realms. Is this the source of the blinding white light that mystics through the ages say accompany enlightenment (literally meaning “to see the light”)? (Note that some anthropologists believe the origin of the term enlightenment is related to ancient sun worship…to see the sun was to see the light). Spiritualists would argue that this enlightenment is the cumulative result of specific training designed to move consciousness progressively through ever higher levels of awareness and energy centers (called, among other names, chakras). The final destination is the center of the crown of the head, the area where the pineal gland would once have been located. According to the Taoists for example, it is from this point that an Immortal would experience his chi (energy) exploding from his skull to unite with the energy of the larger universe.

The gland is unique. Although it is not in fact a part of the brain and is only situated in that area, other brain sites are mirrored and it has been a mystery for at least a couple of thousand years why this should not be so for the pineal gland. Though its original role is known (as a real third eye) it remains unclear why evolution would have determined its retreat into our brain area and what role it currently serves us. The gland itself has a hollow interior filled with a watery fluid and receives tremendous blood flow second only to the kidneys.

History tells us that the pineal gland was first identified by Herophilus, a third century B.C. Greek physician contemporary with Alexander the Great with other notable early commentators including Pythagoras and Plato. However it seems that the serpent headdresses seen in ancient Egyptian art points to the pineal with the snake symbolizing esoteric knowledge. The red dot still adorning the center of foreheads of Hindus today is also believed to indicate the third eye. Given the fascination that our ancient ancestors, across many cultures, had with the pineal gland we should not be surprised to find that it featured in sacred art and architecture all over the world and the accompanying pictures below will support this assertion.

Another interesting speculation is the importance ancient cultures placed on sacred mountains that were believed to have been the first land to emerge from the primordial sea during the separation of Heaven and Earth. The Sumerians maintained this tradition, as did the Babylonians who went further and held that this sacred mountain was also the axis mundi, the axis that the world moves around. These massive features were also representative of the pineal gland. While the physical mountain is held to be the point where the spiritual meets the physical, the theory of Dr Rick Strassman (see below) is that the pineal gland is where our life force (the spiritual) enters our body (the physical).

Along with the Greeks, another key philosopher to bring further attention to this strange gland was none other than Descartes. Descartes held that it was only possible to hold one thought at a time. Where did these solitary thoughts arise from? Perhaps the pineal gland, the only single organ in the brain? He further believed that thoughts flowed from the gland into and through cerebrospinal fluid (though the existence of this fluid was unknown at that time) and thus throughout the brain. The famous philosopher went further than this though and argued that the pineal was the bridge between the spiritual and the physical, with the two phenomena affecting one another directly in the gland.

We find a mix of these ideas represented throughout history.

The ancient Egyptians had the Benben stone which was further represented as the apex of each pyramid (themselves representative, quite possibly among many other things, of the sacred mountain). This is most commonly seen nowadays on the one dollar bill used in the United States. The picture depicts a pyramid (the sacred mountain) capped with a Benben stone (representing the pineal gland) which itself encompasses an eye (remember that the pineal was once literally a third eye but for centuries has been understood to be a spiritual gateway to perceiving other realities).

Benben stone

One dollar bill

In Hinduism the Shiva lingam has been the subject of all kinds of interpretations, the most obvious that it is a phallic symbol. Professor Wendy Doniger notes that some Hindu texts understand the lingam to be a pillar of light or as a symbol of God. Though the design of the lingam does vary from one artisan to the next, there are cases of the lingam being shaped as a pinecone.

Lingam

Representations of Shiva are also very interesting. As you can see in the picture, Shiva sports a pinecone-like hairstyle, has a fully opened third eye and has the kundalini serpents writhing around his neck.

Lord Shiva

In ancient Greece there was the Omphalos stone, kept at the Oracle at Delphi, and also shaped like a pine cone. The Greeks believed that Apollo resided within the stone and that oracles could contact him…again demonstrating the idea of the physical realm meeting the spiritual realm. Of further interest is that omphalos means “the center of the earth” and also “navel”. In many Asian martial traditions emphasis is placed on developing power and coordination in the lower abdominal area (the tanden in Japanese) around which all techniques flow. Also the area located just below the navel is where many elementary breathing exercises want to center attention and draw breath into. From here this energy is raised up through the body before exiting the top of the head.

The Omphalos Stone

In ancient Rome there was the baetyl stone, also shaped somewhat like a pine cone and also associated with oracles and prophesy. Again drawing parallels with the one dollar bill in the US, both the Omphalos and baetyl stones appeared on coins of the periods.

Baetyl Stone

That Rome regarded the pineal gland as being something special was further confirmed when they placed a giant bronze statue of a pine cone in the Court of the Pine Cone in the Vatican (which also features ancient Egyptian symbolism and hieroglyphs) and also adorned the staff of the pope, as well as certain of his apparel, with pine cone imagery. According to Catholic orthodoxy the Pope is the mediator between God and his followers (the spiritual and the physical).

Court of the Pine Cone

The light of the body is the eye: if therefore your eye be single, your whole body shall be full of light.
-- Matthew 6:22

Note that the Pope is wearing a hat and a cape clasp while carrying a staff that are all adorned with the pine cone

Returning to the work of Dr Rick Strassman, his hypothesis connecting the pineal gland to DMT was: Does the pineal gland produce psychedelic amounts of DMT at extraordinary times in our lives?

Some of these “extraordinary times” would include when our individual “life force” enters our fetal body: does it pass through the pineal and trigger the first rush of DMT? Later, at actual birth, does the pineal release more DMT? Fast forward an entire lifetime and as we experience the change to death, does the life force flow through the pineal, thereby releasing another flood of the psychedelic molecule? In between these two extremes we may also experience deep meditation, psychosis and near-death experiences. Undoubtedly the pineal contains the necessary building blocks to manufacture DMT. Plus the pineal can make beta-carbolines; compounds that markedly enhance the effects of DMT.

Marduk (Nimrod) holding a pine cone

Birth, near-death and death experiences are all highly stressful events that generate huge quantities of stress-related hormones, including adrenaline and noradrenaline, both of which are pineal-stimulating.

Science tells us that DMT is present in newborn animals and it is supposed it would therefore also be present in human babies (and mothers may also be experienced heightened floods of DMT). Vaginal delivery in particular is believed to set in motion DMT release, followed, in terms of intensity, by anesthetized delivery and finally Cesarean. In support of this is an observation made by Dr Stanislav Grof, an LSD psychotherapist, who says that much of what takes place during psychedelic therapy sessions is a reenactment of the birth process. Grof has found that those born by Cesarean are less able to let go during psychedelic therapy than those born vaginally. Possibly this is because of psychedelic levels of DMT being present during normal birth.

Bacchus, Roman god of drunkenness and revelry holding a pine cone tipped staff

Near-death experiences (NDEs) are high impact psychological experiences often accompanied by psychedelic experiences and like birth, this may be because of a hugely increased flood of stress hormones stimulating DMT production.

Obviously when it comes to death there is not a great deal of information to go on. When precisely to we die? When we stop breathing? When brain activity stops? Many ancient spiritual traditions maintain strict guidelines regarding when a body can and cannot be moved or buried and we have to question why there is an effort to avoid possibly disturbing residual, post-death (if we deem ourselves to in fact be dead) consciousness. As our pineal gland decomposes, does this have any influence on any existing consciousness? Are we still producing DMT and experiencing its effects despite being clinically dead? Remember, although the pineal gland is located within the brain mass, it is not part of the brain. It is feasible that though there is no longer any brain activity there is still DMT having an active effect on our consciousness.

Angkor Wat profusely designed with pine cone symbols

The Tibetan Buddhist Book of the Dead holds that it takes forty-nine days for the soul of someone recently dead to reincarnate in a new physical body. The unborn embryo in the womb of the mother takes forty-nine days to develop the pineal gland…and forty-nine days is when the fetus splits between male or female gender. Of course, this is all supposition, but nevertheless there are plenty of traditions that argue for some kind of survival of consciousness beyond physical death followed, in some religions, by some form of reincarnation. Near-death experiences, if they are in fact an accurate prelude of actual death, certainly suggest this to be true.

In summary, one theory put forward by Dr Rick Strassman is that at death stress hormones are released that stimulate the production of DMT in the pineal gland and this opens our awareness to another realm beyond the physical. Though our bodies may cease to function, consciousness of a sort remains in a disembodied state for forty-nine days in this other realm. After seven weeks consciousness returns to a new body via the newly formed pineal gland and a surge of DMT “turns on” consciousness of the physical realm once more (albeit in the womb of our mother) and the first effect of this is the differentiation of our gender.

Staff of Osiris decorated with a pine cone

Summary

Consider that much of this information is highly speculative. There is no actual proof that the pineal gland is able to grant access to alternative dimensions, nor that such dimensions even exist in the first place. That said, there does seem to be considerable proof that something happens when we are experiencing extreme stress (such as the near-death phenomena) or extreme relaxation (when we are engaged in high level meditation) or when we imbibe hallucinogenic drugs (or if we are suffering from psychosis). The precise details vary from person to person but still commonalities can be found (serpents, as an example, are often seen in altered states of consciousness). What is also apparent is that ancient cultures regarded the pineal gland as being crucial in this process and the work of Dr Rick Strassman introducing DMT into his subjects suggests that the importance of the pineal may have been known hundreds and even thousands of years ago.

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Graham Hancock and the Sacred Vine

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Graham Hancock and the Sacred Vine

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Graham Hancock and the Sacred Vine.

More widely, Hancock believes that hallucinogenic drugs (or medicines, as ayahuasca is described in South America) can be useful as an aid to psychological understanding and healing. He believes they open the door to the spiritual world, or to parallel dimensions as scientists would perhaps describe them, where various lessons and insights can be gained useful to one’s life in the material realm that we normally perceive. These trips into the spiritual realm though are not to be undertaken lightly as there are dark entities residing there that can cause us harm. Therefore ayahuasca journeys with experienced and knowledgeable shamans are highly preferred.

This research into one’s consciousness is of vital importance because Hancock holds the opinion that human life and the experience of a human body is a vehicle to understanding ourselves at a higher level. This is, to Hancock, the meaning of life and why we are here.

Hancock also discusses his forthcoming book, War God, about the Spanish conquest of South America and the spiritual forces playing out behind the scenes.

In addition to ayahuasca, Hancock has also taken the African drug iboga, which reputedly allows people to see the dead. He experimented with this while researching his book Supernatural which deals with the shamanistic psychedelic drug culture and alternative, parallel realities. Hancock was both interested in his psychological exploration but also in contacting his late father, who had passed away with Graham being present at his transition, something that he has come to understand as a sacred duty.

He goes on to talk about his trips with DMT, the active ingredient of ayahuasca and a former podcast with Joe Rogan.

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Left in the Dark

Left in the Dark by Tony Wright is one of two books that I have read in the last year that has impacted my life, my way of thinking and my teaching of the Way of the Enlightened Zen Warrior in an enormous way. My first exposure to the book was through an interview with author Tony Wright and a review of the book.

Since then I have devoted more and more time to researching the shared, broad central thesis of both The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind: that the human race has experienced a profound neurological shift in its dominant brain hemisphere from right to left causing a massive shift in consciousness that is continuing and being reinforced today. The effects of this are many but not so varied. Essentially this shift in dominant brain hemisphere has caused a crisis in our ability to contact and experience ‘the divine’, has led to us losing a sense of our inner guide or our inner voice, has stifled our emotional development and has caused a decline in various motor skills that would be otherwise enhanced if the left hemisphere was less controlling.

Although The Origin of Consciousness was written at an earlier date it covers a more recent period and begins its investigation with an analysis of the Greek classics. Left in the Dark searches much further into our past to trace the exact origins of this shift in brain hemisphere dominance.

The basic premise of Left in the Dark is that thousand and thousands of years ago our neo-cortex functioned as a single consciousness system with no differentiation between areas of specialization neurologists now identify as existing between our left and right brain hemispheres. Effectively we existed as a species of animal. Culture and technology in even the most rudimentary forms did not exist and could not exist at this stage of our evolution. Then, somehow and in someway, our brains suffered damage and the origins of a distinction in function between the two brain hemispheres was initiated. This damage may have arisen primarily from an altered level of testosterone and this damage was therefore suffered more acutely by males (who produce more testosterone). Of further important note is that the damage done to the brain was not equal: the left hemisphere suffered more severely during this period. At this time though our living conditions in tropical rain forests granted us access to wide varieties of fruits (and plants, but fruits in particular) and the chemicals within those fruits suppressed interference from the more-damaged left hemisphere and allowed the right hemisphere to thrive. To put it more simply, at this stage in our evolution our right brain hemisphere was dominant.

Left in the Dark traces the shift from right hemisphere to left hemisphere dominance back some 200,000 years to a time when humans left the tropical rain forests and, more importantly, the fruit-based diets we were following at the time. Up until this point our brains were developing neurologically from generation to generation both in size and functional ability due to a biochemical positive feedback loop that inhibited certain steroids which in turn suppressed left hemisphere dominance. This loop was created by our fruit-based diet and grounded from our very inception in the womb of a mother awash with the chemicals provided by fruits. When our ancestors left the tropical rain forests our diet changed immediately and, with less fruit in particular being eaten, certain steroids were no longer inhibited and this initiated a decline in the use of our right brain hemisphere and a shift to left hemisphere control, a condition that is prevalent and continually reinforced today.

Left in the Dark notes that the result of this split was the emergence of two different senses of the self, the one arising from the left hemisphere and the other from the right hemisphere. Unfortunately these two selves could not easily co-exist and, as the left hemisphere became more and more dominant through time, it began to suppress the perceptions provided by the right hemisphere. Part of this historical shift in consciousness is covered in great detail in The Origin of Consciousness over a period of a several hundred years. More and more human consciousness became a continuous internal left-hemisphere monologue arising from stress and anxiety caused by a feeling of the loss of wholeness both within the self and with wider society, difficulty in connecting to ‘the divine’, stifled emotions and a reliance on external authorities for guidance. It is also from this period that the overall size of our brains began to shrink (after growing at an unprecedented pace), a fact that continues to haunt us today. It has been estimated that our brain size may have decreased by as much as 5% over the last 10,000 years. Popularly our brains are considered to be in a state of evolution and the development of high technology would seem to support this. But this increased ability to create and use technology has come at the cost of a very obvious decline in our awareness of and contact with the numinous. Science and rationality have not simply destroyed God, they have further stifled the consciousness arising from the right hemisphere and inhibited our ability – even our very desire – to commune with the divine; and those that seek communion suffer frustration in their efforts. So what I would suggest is that while our left hemispheres does in fact continue to become more adept at using technology and solving the problems of technology the overall net effect has been a devolution. While our left hemispheres may have become more complex our right hemispheres have declined in usage and ability to function at a disproportionate pace leading to an overall net decline in brain capacity and function.

So what we are left with today, all these millennium later, is a damaged brain that has forever cut us off from our animal-like existence of yesteryear. Left in the Dark argues that this brain no longer functions as a single unit producing an undifferentiated consciousness but instead generates two forms of often contrasting consciousnesses with the more ‘rational’ and conceptual left hemisphere claiming dominance over the more intuitive and beyond-conceptual right hemisphere. One of the biggest problems that faces us however is that it is this very left hemisphere that suffered the greatest damage when out testosterone level increased and caused the initial left-right hemispherical split. We are living our lives using damaged goods.

Of particular interest and relevance to me is Tony Wright’s recognition that this split into two consciousnesses and the subsequent decline in ability to fully access the consciousness found in our right hemisphere has been described in numerous ancient religious texts as mankind’s ‘fall from grace’. It is this investigation that has consumed my time and attention more and more over the last year as it is central to both my chosen lifestyle and my philosophy of the Way of the Enlightened Zen Warrior. Through my exposure to Japanese martial arts in particular and the philosophies of Zen, Taoism and Confucianism I had become aware of how to contact the right hemisphere and – importantly – how to integrate that fresh (right hemisphere) consciousness into my everyday life; a life that was primarily designed by and for people whose consciousness was forcefully guided by their left hemisphere. Left in the Dark has given me a fresh perspective and a new vocabulary that is less mystical and which allows me to further my understanding and ability to teach people how to live a holistic lifestyle of happiness. Left in the Dark then serves as a fundamental observation and theory in my life philosophy of the Way of the Enlightened Zen Warrior and I will be referring back to this article extensively in the future.

To learn more about Tony Wright and the central thesis of Left in the Dark visit Tony's website.

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