The Myths of the Pineal Gland
Among the many many COVID-19 conspiracy theories, I only within the near past came across particular person that’s bought a fascinating neuroscience twist.
The hypothesis is that infrared thermometers — widely musty to show of us for fever — are in actuality designed to injury the brain’s pineal gland with some roughly harmful rays.
The hypothesis is scientifically absurd (though counting on these thermometers is restful no longer a mountainous concept, because they’re inaccurate), nonetheless it’s moderately attractive from a historical point of look, for the explanation that pineal gland is a brain structure that has long been linked to mysticism and conspiracy.
The pineal gland is a pea-sized body positioned deep within the brain. Its most indispensable feature is the secretion of the hormone melatonin, nonetheless it has in total been ascribed grand extra mysterious significance.
Within the 17th century, Rene Descartes described the pineal gland because the point the place the immaterial soul contacts the topic material body — building on the work of earlier philosophers, who observed it as a roughly valve that controlled the lunge with the scuttle of “spirits” within the brain. Within the 19th century, the pineal used to be successfully known with the “third procedure” of Hinduism, and given grand non secular significance.
It has even been instructed that the form of the pineal is by some means maybe maybe reflected within the musty Egyptian mystical image of the “Seek of Horus,” though individually I assemble no longer seek it:
Image showing the supposed similarity between the human brain and Egyptian “Seek of Horus.” (Credit rating: Token Rock)
Within the unhurried 20th century, conspiracy beliefs sharp the pineal arose, which drew on the reputation of the pineal because the procedure of the soul. I comprise that the first of those used to be the postulate, relationship to the 1990s and restful going solid, that water fluoridation is a conspiracy designed to injury the pineal gland, and thus dampen the non secular or psychic skills of the population.
Later, cellphones and Wifi had been moreover accused of inflicting pineal injury. This argument rests on the now potentially not concept that the pineal gland contains piezoelectric crystals, that make it gentle to electromagnetic waves.
So the novel thermometer-pineal theory is correct the most modern variant of the postulate that the pineal gland is uniquely fragile and that it’s beneath assault by toxic ingredients of the atmosphere.
None of the pineal-assault theories are primarily based entirely on glowing science, nonetheless their persistence exhibits that they resonate with many individuals. I comprise these theories comprise a psychological foundation in issues about contemporary abilities and its results on our lives.
The paranormal pineal gland shriveling away thanks to fluoride or Wifi, may maybe nearly relief as a metaphor for the toxic raise out of modernity on the soul. Nonetheless whereas there may maybe presumably be fact in that as a metaphor, that is all it is.