Pineal Gland

[Jim and His Karma]

from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pineal_gland

"The pineal gland is large in children, but shrinks at puberty.....Calcification of the pineal gland is typical in adults."

[anthony574]

Calcification is also accelerated by consumption of fluoride, it actually tends to accumulate in the pineal gland before anywhere else.

[Jim and His Karma]

cool info, thanks. if i ever have kids, they're not drinking flouridated water.

I was wondering why all my 10-12 year old friends turn dead eyed at 13.

[anthony574]

Yes, it is the source of a lot of conspiracy theories regarding government mind control/dulling. I know this isn't the place for that kind of argument, however, there is something to be said perhaps on a larger social scale about these types of poisonings and their effect on spiritual and intellectual development. They say the average person has about 60 times more lead in their system than they used to and it's been shown that lead contributes to low IQ. Scary stuff. Fluoride is definitley something to stay away from yogically, I hear the pineal gland is kinda important :-)

And about the teeth thing, people are usually worried that their teeth will fall out if they stop using fluoride...but the fact is there really aren't a lot if any studies done that show that it is beneficial for teeth. Here is a very good article on fluoride and health.

http://www.naturalhealthway.com/articles/water/water.html

Dr. Mercola also warns heavily against it.

[Jim and His Karma]

The problem with conspiracy theories is that they count on The Powers That Be to be smart. And, of course, they're idiots. I just can't see politicians getting together and deciding "hmm...the pineal gland contributes to spiritual development [in fact, stop right there...that's unlikely enough!], so let's flouridate the water to choke that off so people remain glazed and compliant".

But regardless of intent, result is the same, and must be worked around.

[AYPforum]

Moderator note: Topic moved for better placement

[anthony574]

Well, fluoride has had a history of use during WWII. It was a subject of study by Nazi scientists and they found that it contributed to increased complacency among their prisoners. Studies of fluoride and complacency and even mind control have already been done many times over. I have even read of the CIA conducting experiments with it that are declassified now, similar to the famous MK-ULTRA experiments done with LSD. These are not conspiracy theories, they are actually real declassified documents released to the public because of the Freedom of Information Act. It always blew my mind that they would ever even allow such information to be released to the public but apparently not enough people read them.

I've always been personally interested in whether Yogis and spiritual masters consume fluoride and if their hypersensitivity to energy centers would pick up on a change over time because of exposure.

[Jim and His Karma]

I'm more interested in seeing the pineal gland of an advanced yogi dissected after his death. If it's juicy and large, that might be a first step toward getting the scientific community to look into the connection.

[anthony574]

Well, it's a somewhat accepted fact that the pineal gland is the origin of DMT synthesized in the body...and thus could easily be applied to spiritual experience. That, as well as seratonin which is responsible for most of the LSD experience. I could go on and on about that little thing.

[Kyman]

All ears.  

[Eitherway]

The pineal does seem to figure very prominently in spiritual matters.  For those interested, I would recommend reading DMT: The spirit molecule by Dr. Rick Strassman.  It details the first research with a psychedelic (DMT) since the powers that be banned such scientific inquiry (often under the guise that there were no studies  that showed benefits of the various substances-what a catch-22).  It is a fascinating read.  In fact, I have my copy in storage and if anyone is interested, I'll mail it to them.

I'm a medical student on hiatus due to some family issues and hope to be going into my clinical semesters by the end of next year.  I'm interested in spiritual neurology and I think even PET scans (allow measurement of activity in different parts of the brain) will shed some much needed light on the subject.  If I do end up in a neurology residency, I would love to make this my side area of study.  I would love to do these studies on Yogani!!!! or other awakened brethern.  Lets see what life holds in the future.

[Jim and His Karma]

Eitherway, it's a very promising prospect. Just to dump a few thoughts on you, fwiw...

1. There seems to be a consensus among spiritual teachers/schools that for whatever reason (critical mass, astrology, trickle-down from the asana craze...who the heck knows) more people out there are accelerating, spiritually, and we're near a point of critical mass where it starts popping like popcorn in a hot pan. FWIW I've always had really good intuition for mass "trends", and my intuition agrees that in five or ten or twenty years, this stuff will be vastly more mainstream. At that point, if you've established some credentials and research, you'll be in a terrific position to lead the charge as science moves to try to catch up.

2. It ain't quite ripe yet. And until that tectonic shift happens - i.e. this stuff goes so mainstream that scientists can no longer laugh at it - laugh they will. So you have to tread a fine line. Right this sec, and for the next few years, it's mostly still crackpot stuff (though the tide is perceptibly turning). So you have to tread carefully so as not to tarnish your reputation. When real spirituality goes mainstream, the scientific/medical community likely won't reach out to the community of previously-deemed crackpots; it will be distinguished members of the mainstream scientific/medical community who move forward with this research. So there's much to be gained by remaining in that mainstream community for the time being.

So you have the somewhat paradoxical task of building some sort of credentials in a crackpot field while not being deemed a crackpot. And then jumping in whole hog when things are ripe. It's possible, but difficult. On the other hand, yogis live comfortably with paradox!

Just my thoughts FWIW. You surely have already considered this.

J&K

P.S. I hope it doesn't take some sort of apocalypse to attain that critical mass. But spiritual writers for all of history have spoken of darkest before the dawn, etc. A state of utter disenchantment with worldly activities always sparks the juicy stuff.

[Eitherway]

Hey Jim and K,
 
    Thanks for your wise suggestions.   Mentioning spirituality amongst mainstream scientists and doc's draws quizzical looks even though there seems to be some important work that is starting to get published or atleast getting some kind of press.  I believe, Dr. Andrew Newburg at U Penn, wrote "Why God won't Go Away" and of course there is a lot of research on meditation.  The problem remains that the majority of the research is considered flawed by medical standards (a recent review of a bunch of studies about meditation came to the same conclusion) and as most people in the sciences know publishing papers is what it is all about.  Interestingly, matters relating to spirituality have often been more of a side note to research into psychotic states and or recreational drugs.  

I believe the first step towards legitimacy is sound research into meditation.  I also hope that some highly respected scientists get AYP fever and thus acclerate the process by their curiosity.  Interestingly, the book mentioned above and some others have lately taken the stance that all this God/spirituality mumbo/jumbo is in the "head" because some studies have shown that stimulating certain areas of the brain (I believe temporal lobes) have produced feelings of "oneness" and or "other prescence".  

Of course, most of us here would simply state, DUH, of course, it's in the "head" , where else would it be???  The idea that spiritual evolution correlates directly with neurological evolution needs to take hold in the mainstream but as you said we might more conclusive research, measuring instruments, etc.... before we reach that threshold.

Should be some interesting days ahead!   I'm  optomistic by nature by I share the concern about apocalyptic events preceeding the rise of spirituality in our world.  The majority of us (me as well, hoping to be more proactive in the future) just don't seem to learn but from being smacked!

[Jim and His Karma]

agreed re: "in the head".

I read a few months ago that there is a type of seizure that very closely mirrors the symptoms of spiritual ecstacy, meaning that all us practitioners are sort of epileptic.

My first reaction on reading this was contempt for the stupidity of this conclusion. But my second was to think: ok, maybe true...and so what?

If they want to deem it a benign seizure, that's fine by me. It's just terminology. And if we're to expand science in this direction, we'd best get accustomed to hearing things expressed in coldly scientific language! If we truly want yoga factored into science, it's going to be on science's terms, not yoga's terms.