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On one hand the pineal gland is just one of the many glands that make up the body’s endocrine system, but it’s also known as the “third eye” of mystic visionary traditions in cultures across the globe — the so called “seat of the soul.” It turns out that the pineal gland is photosensitive just like our actual eyes and that the gland produces a number of compounds associated with sleep and dreaming. This weekend I happened across this fascinating article that describes the evolution of the pineal gland, the role it plays in regulating our bodies’ day and night rhythms and the affects that various psychoactive substances and cannabis have on this special spot in our brains…

We know that multiple different regions of the brain are involved in the subjective experience of being high. The pineal gland is just one tiny link in an extremely long and complicated chain, which stretches between some of the most basic and fundamental parts of the brain (and the pineal gland can definitely be classed as basic and fundamental, as almost every living vertebrate possesses one) and some of the most advanced, such as the neocortex, which only exists in mammals.

However, the pineal gland has repeatedly been associated with the biosynthesis of important natural compounds related to sleeping, dreaming, and dream imagery. The presence of these compounds in the pineal gland is one of the most important reasons that so many view it as the “seat of the soul”, or a key to “spiritual enlightenment”. Without a doubt, the most famous of these compounds is N,N-Dimethyltryptamine, more commonly known as DMT.

It’s actually somewhat controversial as to whether or not the pineal gland is responsible for synthesizing DMT in humans, but there is significant evidence to suggest that it is the case. DMT and related compounds tryptamine and bufotenin have been found in human urine, and DMT itself has been shown to be synthesized in the pineal gland of the rat brain. A closely related compound, 5-MeO-DMT has been found to be synthesized in the human pineal gland, but thus far, it has not been proven that DMT itself is too.

In any case, it certainly appears that the pineal gland is very much involved in the production and/or processing of substances that are well-known to be involved in helping to create “dream states” when we are asleep. Thus, there are many theories that the subjective experience of getting “high” from cannabis, hallucinogens and other psychoactive drugs also involves this subjective creation of a “dream-like” or otherwise altered reality.

This is a long read, but a good one. Check out the whole piece at the link above, but first, here’s Terence McKenna on The Third Eye…

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Five years ago, on April 15, we lost author and activist Jack Herer. If his name isn’t familiar, the fruits of his labor certainly are. The changing tides regarding marijuana and hemp legislation along with the fault lines that are currently cracking through the edifice of the War on Drugs all owe their contemporary roots to the author and his books, especially The Emperor Wears No Clothes — an encyclopedic romp through the history of cannabis and hemp, and the military/industrial/police state phalanx that has trampled them underfoot for decades…

The Emperor Wears No Clothes is a non-fiction book written by Jack Herer. Starting in 1973, the story begins when Jack Herer takes the advice of his friend “Captain” Ed Adair and begins compiling tidbits of information about the Cannabis plant and its numerous uses,[1] including as hemp and as a drug. After a dozen years of collecting and compiling historical data, Herer first published his work as The Emperor Wears No Clothes in 1985. The eleventh edition was published in November 2000, and the book continues to be cited in cannabis rescheduling and re-legalization efforts.

The book, backed by H.E.M.P. (America), Hanf Haus (Germany), Sensi Seeds/Hash, Marihuana & Hemp Museum, Amsterdam, (Netherlands), and T.H.C., the Texas Hemp Campaign (America), offers $100,000 to anyone who can disprove the claims made within. Quoting from the book’s back cover:

“If all fossil fuels and their derivatives, as well as trees for paper and construction were banned in order to save the planet, reverse the Greenhouse Effect and stop deforestation; then there is only one known annually renewable natural resource that is capable of providing the overall majority of the world’s paper and textiles; meet all of the world’s transportation, industrial and home energy needs, while simultaneously reducing pollution, rebuilding the soil, and cleaning the atmosphere all at the same time… and that substance is — the same one that did it all before — Cannabis Hemp… Marijuana!”

The title of the book alludes to the classic fairy tale “The Emperor’s New Clothes” by Hans Christian Andersen. Herer uses Andersen’s story as an allegory for the current prohibition of cannabis.

You don’t have to be a pothead to hear Herer’s messages of environmental common-sense and the madness of the War on Drugs, and the man and his book deserve a big part of the credit for the better world they continue to make even five years after his death. Here’s the documentary Jack Herer: Emperor of Hemp, narrated by that great voice of the counterculture, Peter Coyote…

Stay Awake!

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