CAN THE PINEAL GLAND BE TRUSTED, or does our “third-eye” beguile us with a most peculiar yet enchanting entrapment? That we should play the game of peek-a-boo beyond the cosmic curtain, complete with spectacular visions or voices of otherworldly inhabitants, is expected of us, at one time or another—even if we refuse to volunteer for the part. It is no surprise then that we find a smorgasbord of religions laid out before us. They are certainly confusing and seemingly contradictory around their hand-hewn edges, when viewed as a whole. Yet each mythology is easily outed as the same damnable confederation of spiritual entanglements which has vowed to enlighten the whole of human history apart from God’s anointed one, Jesus. The Word of God exposes them. Even many of the claimed spiritual experiences and prophetic words arousing from my own Christian brethren give me reason for pause.

Adam and Eve walking with God in the cool of the day is a thought which I have often pondered. I confess—their very ability to visually observe the manifested presence of our Creator in the temporal body peaks my curiosity. For the Bible believer, these experiences are no more. Such exercises ceased the moment after God confronted them of their sin and cut a cloth of animal skin, or perhaps even before. How Adam and Eve perceived their Father’s presence after they hid themselves in shame is not made immediately clear. But at any rate, God is holy and sinful man is not. A physical separation was necessary. Or as Paul writes: “For the wages of sin is death.” This I hope we can agree upon. If anything, we deserve to be cast out of God’s eternal presence, which makes the punishment two-fold. But let us not overlook another result of sin. Even our biological being was tampered with. Thank God for the atoning sacrifice of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, but at present, our biological “tampering-with” remains. What if our inability to properly perceive the LORD—from the moment of the forbidden fruit onward—played a part in His decision to physically excuse Himself from our lives? This brings me back to the pineal gland.

I know—I know. I’ll immediately be reprimanded by my fellow Christian, “What does the…..”

“Pineal gland,” I’ll say.

“Yes….pineal gland. What does that have to do with my walk with God?”

Let me get to that in a moment.

See, the human pineal gland, which is roughly the size of a fingernail and accurately resembles a pine cone, is not actually part of the brain. Rather, it develops from special tissues in the roof of the fetal mouth. From there it migrates to the center of the brain, and as Dr. Rick Strassman has pointedly exclaimed, “has the best seat in the house.” Humanist philosopher Rene Descartes of “I think therefore I am” fame believed the pineal gland was the seat of the soul, the intermediary between the spiritual and physical—or the stream of consciousness, if you will. Although commonly attributed to Descartes, the notion that our pineal gland was the interfacing organ where the spirit of man gained access and animated the human body supposedly originated with a Greek physician named Herophilus. As a contemporary of Alexander the Great, and living three centuries before Christ, Herophilus specialized in dissecting corpses, mainly reproductive organs and the brain. This is all official history, by the way. I shall also be reprimanded for not mentioning the mainstream narrative. But truth be told, neither he nor Descartes were solitary in their knowledge.

That pine cone symbol, completely independent from the reckoning of official establishment history, was openly hewn in ancient stone by the very conglomerate of self-enlightening faith-systems which seemingly contradict each other in their outward perceptions yet arguably blend together with spiritual ease. One needn’t look far to unearth a pine cone. The Indonesians, Babylonians, Egyptians, Greeks and Romans, Gnostics, the theosophists, Freemasonry, the whole of esoteric knowledge and the occult, and not to be overlooked, the Vatican, all give reliable testimony to its supernatural appeal. The Sumerian god Marduk can be viewed holding a pine cone. The Egyptian god Osiris was equipped with a pine cone staff, as was the Greek god Dionysus and Bacchus, his Roman counterpart. Even the temple ruins of Angkor Watt in Cambodia are filled with pine cone symbolism, including its magnificent stone steeples, which keep their magical upwards gaze towards the heavens. I could go on with honorable mentions.

The pine cone however holds the same meaning for all. It is nothing less but the secret vestigial organ which we were all endowed with—our third eye.

For Dr. Rick Strassman, particularly in light of the “sixty” who volunteered for his New Mexico study on the effects of DMT—the similarities between those undergoing near-death, spiritual, and mystical states with or without the drug should not merely be considered a coincidental occurrence. The resemblance between encounters of non-material beings with everyday people and his “sixty” is also undeniable. By all appearances, Room 531—where he conducted his study; and the outside world are bound at the hip. DMT, Strassman is quick to note, is naturally produced in the body and therefore commonplace to our human experience. “The most general hypothesis,” he writes, “is that the pineal gland produces psychedelic amounts of DMT at extraordinary times in our lives. Pineal DMT production is the physical representation of non-material, or energetic, processes. It provides us with the vehicle to consciously experience the movement of our life-force in its most extreme manifestations”

Accordingly, the pineal releases a flow of DMT at birth. We were born with spiritual experiences. Throughout our lives, pineal DMT is successively secreted, therefore producing further spiritual and religious insights—possibly even at pivotal moments until finally, as we breathe our last, another flood of DMT in the pineal produces near-death and other religious experiences.

Psychedelia is everywhere. Alchemist Alexander Shulgin writes: “DMT is….in this flower here, in that tree over there, and in yonder animal. It is, most simply, almost everywhere you choose to look.” Strassman would only add to this, “Indeed, it is getting to the point where one should report where DMT is not found, rather than where it is.”

Is it possible that in a perfectly created order, without the damnable stain of sin—which blinds and corrupts us even in our kindest of humanist intentions—natural dosages of DMT was the method employed by our Creator in which we, beautifully crafted within our temporal bodies, might perceive Him? I will be reprimanded for sure.

“Most of us,” writes Strassman, “including the most hard-nosed neuroscientists and non-materialistic mystics, accept that the brain is a machine, the instrument of consciousness. It is a bodily organ made up of cells and tissues, proteins, fats, and carbohydrates. It processes raw sensory data delivered by the sense organs using electricity and chemicals.”

Strassman asks that we consider the function of our brains as “receivers of reality.” By visualizing our brain as a television, “it’s possible to think of how altered states of consciousness, including psychedelic ones brought about by DMT, relates to the brain as a sophisticated receiver.” The subjects of Room 531 exhibited the same sensations, feelings, and memories as the rest of us, but when DMT was enacted, the television antennae became adjusted for better clarity. And besides, “the euphoria brought on by DMT helped volunteers more unflinchingly look at their lives and conflicts.” Practically speaking, a man or a woman under the added influence of DMT would understand the reality behind past actions and the consequences resulting from them.

I return now to my question. Should my reader cling to the Word as his or her only trusted Testimony of truth, where God is concerned; and I most certainly do—then what of the pineal gland is to be trusted? It most certainly has a purpose. Or rather, it did at one time. And even now, I willingly confess, the LORD speaks to us through it. This I cannot deny. He speaks to me. He speaks to us, as a Father to His child, but only if we are confiding in His written Word, and certainly not if our grandest of otherworldly voices should tutor us to oppose it. Even in the church we are barraged with an endless feather-flapping line-up of self-appointed prophets, ear-tickling benefactors of visions, and bedtime dream interpreters. Eclipses can be accurately determined down to their very moment, and centuries in advance, yet our third-eye provocateurs are almost always wrong in the simplest of details. They are not held accountable. Why must we put up with them?

The 119^th Psalmist must have felt—or rather concluded—that the world was a terribly dark place to be if he should pen the phrase, “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path” (Psalm 119:105). Everything around him—and us, including our own perceptions, is darkness. It would be especially difficult to reckon this passage in any other scenario, whereas foolishly letting go of the God’s Word—even if it is to grasp for and rely on some visionary or self-illuminating peep-hole in our skull—is eternally fumbling around for a light switch in the dark.

We will see visions, alright, if we seek them out. God doesn’t hold back His graces, and neither does Satan his lusts. Indeed, the coveted days when God walked alongside Adam and Eve through the cool of the day is no more. Satan will walk alongside of us if we ask him to, and he will be willing to do it on a sun-scorched afternoon. The Creator meanwhile will not be found outside of His Word. Even His Spirit, who favorably rests upon His children, relies on Holy Writ to instruct us. We cannot veer an inch from the left or the right of it. As the writer of Hebrews would remind us, the Word is alive.

“For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” (Hebrews 4:12)

The man who employs the Word as his firm foundation needs only a carefree glimpse into Strassman’s research and others like him. He may pay mind to the esoteric, occultist, and shamanistic traditions as a whole. They all seem to agree upon one thing. The God of the Bible will not be found among them. That man may return to his studies in the pages of Holy Writ with ease, knowing there is truth to Strassman’s conclusions—knowing there is truth to all of them; be they damnable ones at best, when he incites our spiritual taste buds with the beckoning call of an age-old Mystery School Psychonaut: “What happens when the spirit molecule pulls and pushes us beyond the physical and emotional levels of awareness? We enter into invisible realms, ones we cannot normally sense and whose presence we can scarcely imagine. Even more surprising, these realms appear to be inhabited.”

Maranatha from Destin, Florida!

Noel