The Pineal Gland Is Mysterious, But It’s Probably Not A Psychic “Third Eye”

And one of the most stubbornly indecipherable things out there – or rather, in here – is the brain. That’s not surprising: it’s a hugely complex organ filled with hundreds of trillions of connections between billions of neurons. But sometimes, where knowledge is lacking, people have a tendency to fill up the gaps with… well, with bullshit.

Anyway. Have you heard of the pineal gland?

What is the pineal gland?

Nestled underneath the corpus callosum, in the middle of the brain, a tiny, pine-cone-shaped gland sits and spits out melatonin. It’s called the pineal gland, after its shape, and its main job that we know of is to help regulate our bodies’ circadian rhythms – when we sleep, when we wake, and how alert we are at various points in between.

It also seems to have some control over the pituitary gland – in particular, over the menstrual cycle – and it may influence new bone deposition. We know that the pineal gland calcifies as we age, though we aren’t sure why or whether it matters much (we did give it a pretty gnarly name, though: brain sand).

Any more information than that, though, is still kind of hazy. “The pineal gland is the least understood gland of the endocrine system, and it was the last part of the endocrine system to be discovered,” explains Cleveland Clinic. 

“Researchers and scientists still don’t fully understand the pineal gland and melatonin and their functions,” it adds, and “because of this, there are no known ways to keep your pineal gland healthy.”

So, the pineal gland is something of a mystery, is the point – but there are some things we know for sure about it. Like, for instance: no, it’s not a psychically sensitive area of the brain under constant attack from… well, whatever happens to be the latest technological moral panic, no matter what you may have read on Facebook.

Seriously.

Pineal lore

The earliest written description of the gland comes from Galen, in the second century CE, and the general idea at that point seems to have been that the pineal gland was filled with “psychic pneuma” – basically, as the heart regulated blood flow, so the pineal gland regulated… soul… flow.

Look, we’re not going to pretend it made a whole lot of sense – but the idea was evidently convincing. The pineal gland kept its spiritual reputation throughout the Middle Ages, and by the 17th century even noted brainbox René Descartes was declaring this little gland to be “the principal seat of the soul, and the place in which all our thoughts are formed.” 

Now, to be fair to our ancestors, this idea was quickly dismissed after Descartes’ time. By the 19th century, scientists were mostly convinced the pineal gland was kind of useless – a vestigial relic of a hypothesized third eye. We mean that literally, by the way, and it’s not as far-fetched as it sounds: in some animals, such as frogs and lizards, there really is a patch on the head, found between the two physical eyes, which can “see” light and is connected to the pineal gland.

But others heard “third eye” and frickin’ ran with it. Helena Blavatsky – founder of theosophy, repeat con artist to an absurd degree, and madcap biopic subject in the making – declared the pineal gland to be the “eye of Shiva” as found in “the Hindu mystics” (no, we don’t have more context for that), and followers of Discordianism are taught that the pineal gland is the means by which one can contact the goddess Eris (of course, given the purposefully chaotic and satirical nature of this religion, this view is arguably more respectable than Blavatsky’s).

Pineal wars

As technology marched on, so too did the pseudoscience around the pineal gland. Cranks like one Carnegie Wilson Pullen – “an efficiency engineer employed as investigator of manufacturing difficulties at the Western Electric Company in Kearny, NJ,” per the New York Times of 1930 – presented the gland as an extra-sensory analog of the crystal in a radio receiver, claiming that it “may help us to obtain a pyramidal quadrangulation […] which might translate to us a sense of the fourth dimension.” Meanwhile, noted fantasy-horror writer and racist HP Lovecraft linked the pineal gland to EM waves, writing a story in 1920 in which stimulation of the gland produced “a kind of augmented sight,” revealing the extra-dimensional “world that lies unseen around us.” 

In that particular vision, Lovecraft was ahead of his time. As the 20th century became the 21st, pineal gland nonsense started meshing with technological and scientific boogeymen: it’s been claimed that everything from fluoride in the water, to cellphone radiation, to WiFi and 5G, to (of course) COVID-19 treatments can interfere with the pineal gland. The idea seems to be that, by flooding the environment with these “toxic” additions, They (you know, of Them fame) will keep the population’s psychic and extra-dimensional awareness down, so that [end goal not found]. 

It is, of course, nonsense. The only way the pineal gland can help you “read minds” or perform magic is by sending you to dreamland. But as time and tech continues on, there’s little doubt we’ll see more iterations of the “magic brain pinecone is under attack” conspiracies – so, who’s taking bets on what the next pineal panic will be?