Pineal gland and 3rd eye

[Sanity Check]

More than 15 years ago when I was active on livejournal

 

I saw bloggers using the "eye of horus" as an avatar. 

 

 

Something about the geometry of the symbol struck me as containing hidden meanings.

 

Using search engines I was able to find references to "eye of horus" as well as  pineal gland and 3rd eye which were enough to satisfy my curiosity.

 

 

Over the years I have stumbled across random claims made about kings and prophets being obsessed over the pineal gland and 3rd eye.

 

I would like to ask what was all the fuss about?

 

Was this really an important or significant thing?

 

I don't get it.

[Mark Foote]

17 hours ago, Sanity Check said:

 

Over the years I have stumbled across random claims made about kings and prophets being obsessed over the pineal gland and 3rd eye.

 

I would like to ask what was all the fuss about?

 

Was this really an important or significant thing?

 

 

From my site, The Gautamid Offers A Practice:

 

In a chapter devoted to the cultivation of the bases of psychic power, Gautama the Buddha offered a practice in four parts, to wit:

 

So he abides fully conscious of what is behind and what is in front.
As (he is conscious of what is) in front, so behind: as behind, so in front;
as below, so above: as above, so below:
as by day, so by night: as by night, so by day.
Thus with wits alert, with wits unhampered, he cultivates his mind to brilliancy.

 

(Sanyutta-Nikaya, text V 263, Pali Text Society V p 235)

 

 

... “Thus with wits alert, with wits unhampered, he cultivates his mind to brilliancy”: Gautama explained that a monk “cultivates his mind to brilliancy” when the monk’s “consciousness of light is well grasped, his consciousness of daylight is well-sustained.”
 

... As to the “consciousness of light” or of “daylight”, the gland which is perhaps most responsive to daylight in the body is the pineal gland (the pineal produces melatonin), and the gland is supported by a bone in the interior of the skull (the sphenoid).... The bases of psychic power were desire, energy, thought, and investigation (together with the co-factors of concentration and struggle), and they were to be cultivated by the use of the four-part method described in Gautama’s stanza. Whether or not there is a way to perform miracles and see the past lives or karmic fate of others, I can’t say; that there may be a way to bring about psychic experience through a “consciousness of daylight”, and possibly the occurrence of consciousness at the place where daylight most affects the endocrinology of the body, I would guess could be (although the precise nature of that phenomena may not be what it was thought to be in 500 B.C.E, as for example, the miracle of “handling and stroking the sun and moon with the hand”).

 

 

As best as I can figure it.

I like the comparison of the eye of horus to the anatomy of the brain:  interesting! 

Looking for an illustration of the location of the pineal relative to the sphenoid, I see the that pituitary gland nests in the sphenoid, but I'm not finding anything about the pineal and the sphenoid.  I did find something interesting on a cranial-sacral therapy site:

 

With each breath we take, the nasal conchae fill up with air, which applies pressure on the anterior portion of the sphenoid bone and the sphenoidal sinus where it contacts the basilar portion of the occiput bone. This pressure causes the spheno-basilar junction to move slightly posterior and inferior. On expiration, the spheno-basilar articulation relaxes as the pressure created by the inhaled air is exhaled. This release of pressure causes the spheno-basilar junction to move slightly anterior and superior. These movements of the spheno-basilar junction are believed to drive the cranial-sacral rhythm.  This rhythm pumps cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) down through the spinal canal on its journey around the spine, sacrum and back up to the cranium.

(https://www.anchordpt.com/single-post/2017/11/05/the-mystery-of-sphenoid-bone-can-bodyworkers-influence-the-cranial-keystone)

 

And, I find this:

 

Cerebrospinal fluid bathes the gland through the pineal recess.
 

(https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK525955/)

 

If memory serves, my understanding of the support provided by the sphenoid bone to the pineal came from the writings of John Upledger, D.O..  Can't pin that down now, but if the sphenoid moves with respiration and affects pressure in the CSF system, then it may have an effect on the pineal through that fluid.

More:

 

It is located posterior to the third ventricle and encloses the small, cerebrospinal fluid-filled pineal recess of the third ventricle which projects into the stalk of the gland.

(Wikipedia, "Pineal gland")

 

 

The pineal recess (PR), a third ventricle (IIIV) evagination penetrating into the pineal gland, could constitute a site of melatonin passage to the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and explain the high concentrations of melatonin in this fluid.   ...Therefore, this study identified the localization of the main site of penetration of melatonin into the CSF, the pineal recess.

(https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11751596/#:~:text=The pineal recess (PR)%2C,of melatonin in this fluid.)

 

So that last study did find that the pineal recess was a site of melatonin passage to the CSF, that's what that last sentence says.

Does the sphenoid shift in respiration, affect the pressure in the CSF as a result, and probably the circulation of melatonin in the CSF?   Eh--maybe!  

 

[Daniel]

23 hours ago, Sanity Check said:

I would like to ask what was all the fuss about?

 

Was this really an important or significant thing?

 

I don't get it.

 

It looks like there are articles from various communities by searching google: "pineal gland prophecy"

[blue eyed snake]

14 hours ago, Mark Foote said:

Cerebrospinal fluid bathes the gland through the pineal recess.

 

 

thank you, that caused me to look up some pictures to aid my memory

 

 

from modern 3D pictures of the ventricles with the pineal recess marked in red

https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7195420#/media/File:Pineal_recess_of_3rd_ventricle_--_animation.gif

 

to a picture drawn by hand

 

 

 

[Mark Foote]

15 minutes ago, blue eyed snake said:

 

 

thank you, that caused me to look up some pictures to aid my memory

 

 

from modern 3D pictures of the ventricles with the pineal recess marked in red

https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7195420#/media/File:Pineal_recess_of_3rd_ventricle_--_animation.gif

 

to a picture drawn by hand

 

 

 

 

blue eyed snake, me too:

 

 

 

 

 

The third ventricle is one of the four connected ventricles of the ventricular system within the mammalian brain. It is a slit-like cavity formed in the diencephalon between the two thalami, in the midline between the right and left lateral ventricles, and is filled with cerebrospinal fluid (CSF).  (Wikipedia, "Third Ventricle")

 

 

Edited November 7, 2023 by Mark Foote

[Mark Foote]

2 hours ago, blue eyed snake said:

 

... pictures...

 

 

Looking at the sphenoid and the third ventricle:

 

 

 

 

(from https://www.uchealth.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/PE-Pituitary-Tumors_UCNI.pdf)

Good and positive article refuting all of Sutherland's claims (he being the founder of the Osteopathic school of medicine) with regard to the source of the motion palpated by osteopaths, but suggesting that a rhythm nevertheless exists, and that other sources for the rhythm must be researched:

 

The craniosacral therapy devised by the American osteopath Sutherland bases its theoretical foundations on the movement of the spheno-occipital synchondrosis (SOS) joint and other phenomena, such as the intrinsic oscillations of the nervous tissue, the movement of the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), the mechanical tension resulting from the cranial meninges, the movement of the sacral bone between the iliac bones, and the movements of the skull bones thanks to the sutures. The article reviewed the most recent information on the maturation of the sutures of the SOS and cranial bones, the behavior of the CSF, the maturation of the cranial meninges, and the evolution of the sacroiliac joint. We can strongly advise abandoning the absolute certainty of the validity of the mechanisms devised by Sutherland and looking for new motivations and new methods of palpation, with respect to what is palpated by expert operators, freeing oneself from the school imprinting of 1940.

 

(https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10552882/)