The Pineal and the Third Eye – The Seat of the Soul and the Alchemical Marriage

Posted On August 18, 2022 / Written by Dr. Linda Gadbois

In this article I’m going to lay out a new model for understanding the principles involved in the function of the Pineal gland and its corresponding subtle organ of the Third Eye. My intention is to provide the basis for forming a new way of understanding the nature of what we also call the ‘soul’. This model will be illustrated through the symbolic depictions commonly given in Esoteric Sciences, which reveal the universal principles involved as corresponding ideas. I’m going to focus this description in terms of how it relates to the soul and the link between parallel dimensions in which different aspects of the soul exist and function simultaneously while playing complementary roles in creating and sustaining a greater whole we call ‘reality’. I’m not going to go into a lot of detail on any particular aspect or subject, because my purpose in writing this is to form a model that will provide you with a new way of thinking about it that will breed a more practical understanding of how the soul operates in creating the reality that provides it with an ‘experience’ of itself, and how to begin working with it more effectively in your everyday life.

I’m going to include symbolic representations and numeric formulas in parenthesis as a means of helping you to correlate ideas and learn how to interpret symbolic language of the spiritual planes as a means of developing skill in deciphering what is normally considered ‘hidden knowledge’. This knowledge is ‘hidden’ because it’s communicated using images, symbols, names, letters, colors, numbers, and so on, all of which correspond to universal principles. If you want more information on these symbols and numbers, I encourage you to research them on your own in order to broaden your understanding of them through a variety of novel perspectives, each of which will elaborate and expound on different aspects of the same idea. Numeric formulas given in parenthesis can be decoded using numerology, sacred geometry, physics, the Qabalah, astrology, and the archetypes of the Tarot.

I’m sure that many of you have noticed that most of the information being put out on the internet is a regurgitation of the same basic information over and over, along with ‘opinions’ given by those who seldom have any true knowledge of what’s being discussed, coupled with very little understanding of the fundamental laws and principles involved. Universal laws are always communicated using symbols and allegories that require interpretation in order to be understood and can only accurately be comprehended by someone with a broad knowledge and understanding of spiritual sciences. So, when you research an idea, always keep this in mind, and try to keep your research focused on those who are truly knowledgeable and qualified in explaining whatever subject you’re seeking more information around. Anyone who is a casual reader or novice in spiritual sciences may find this article difficult to understand, but it may be useful in providing the basis for further study.

A Basic Physical Description of the Pineal Gland

We’ll start with a description of the pineal gland, which will help in understanding how it functions in the body. The pineal is the only ‘ductless’ endocrine gland within the brain and body that’s single and not paired, lobed, or accompanied by a symmetrical twin. It doesn’t originate within the brain but develops initially from specialized tissue in the roof of the fetal mouth, and from there it migrates to the center of the brain where it becomes seated between the two hemispheres (right and left) of the brain, in the midbrain. It becomes visible in the fetus 49 (7 x 7 = 49 = 13 = 4) days after conception, and the sex of the fetus becomes known at the same time (pineal regulates sexual development). This is because our gender while in our physical body is what ‘polarizes’ us to our (its) complementary aspect on the higher parallel plane of our conscious, universal mind, which is androgynous or bisexual in nature.

Our higher mind is what emanates and projects ‘both aspects of our mind’ (subconscious and self-conscious) into the material plane of the body. All interaction as vibration, whether on the same plane or parallel planes, occurs through polarity, where one aspect acts to send or project an electrical impulse and the other acts to conceive it. Once conceived its gestated in the ‘womb of the subconscious’ (our feminine aspect), where it’s molded into our existing mental model and birthed as a fundamental part of our outer (greater) reality, where its then ‘perceived’ by the self-conscious (masculine) mind, forming a natural part of our experience.

The pineal sits in close proximity to a primary channel of cerebrospinal fluids, which allows its secretions to be immediately distributed to the deepest recesses of the brain. It’s the main component of the Thalamus, called the Epithalamus, and sits strategically close to Hippocampus, which are crucial sensory and emotional centers of the brain. Small mounds of specialized brain tissue called colliculi, located in the midbrain below the pineal, separated only by a thin channel of cerebrospinal fluid are what you might call ‘relay stations’ for the registration and interpretation of sense data and the electrical and chemical impulses that begin in the eyes and ears and pass through these colliculi before they’re ‘experienced’ in the mind as sights and sounds. Anything secreted by the pineal into this cerebral fluid immediately registers in these colliculi, forming visual images and sounds. The pineal sensitivity to ‘light’ is in regard to the ‘inner light’ that it seems to produce as piezoluminescence, that acts to translate a vibratory impulse into a holographic image, forming a kind of ‘internal vision’ of what originates as ‘cosmic memory’ being transmitted from our higher mind to our subconscious. This functions in a similar way to the memory of ‘animal instinct’ on the physical plane.

The pineal regulates ‘state’ (mood) and is surrounded by the limbic system of the emotional brain involved in the experience of feelings, such as fear, joy, anxiety, anger, pleasure, and so on. It regulates the brains emotional centers and demonstrates the natural relationship that exists between visual thoughts and emotion, which combine in producing natural activities and how we experience ourselves through the perception of reality created. It’s involved in the production of melanin and is what determines ‘skin color’ (race). It regulates all the natural cycles of the body, which function in harmony with the cycles of the sun (symbol of our higher mind) and the reproductive cycles of our lower, animal energies of our subconscious (lower mind, governed by the cycles of the moon). Darkness produces melatonin, which blocks reproductive function and shrinks sexual organs while stimulating pineal growth. Light causes the pineal to shrink, reduces melatonin production, while increasing sexual function (mystics were known to live in caves and were celibate).

The pineal also secretes a little understood substance called N-dimethyltryptamine, or DMT, which is known to induce spiritual visions associated with ‘mystical experience’ and states of ‘ecstasy’. This is what’s called the ‘resin’ (risen) produced by the pineal (like pine sap), that’s a golden amber color, also called the ‘elixir of life’ and secret to immortality that was highly sought after by ancient societies. DMT causes an ‘altered state of consciousness’ that makes you feel ‘one with all life and the universe’. It’s thought to be the ‘chemical interpreter’ through which the body and spirit ‘meet’ and communicate. Melatonin is the hormone of darkness that induces the internal experience of ‘dreams’ through activity of the pineal, which can come as an expression of emotions suppressed throughout the day, or as a form of spiritual guidance or revelation as a vision communicated in the universal language of archetypes, symbols, and metaphor.

The adrenal glands, associated with the subtle organ of the solar plexus (one of the 3 main spiritual centers of the body) produces noradrenaline and adrenaline (norepinephrine and epinephrine), and releases these hormones directly into the bloodstream in response to stress, and acts to ‘turn on’ melatonin synthesis in the pineal. However, it’s only the ‘equivalent hormone’ produced and released by the pineal nerve endings, and not by the adrenal glands, that have any effect on pineal function. This is surprising due to the pineal originating outside of the brain where it would normally respond to and be affected by blood-born chemicals and drugs. The pineal is designed with a form of security system that protects it, called ‘vacuum nerve cells’ that clean out the blood-born hormones in an incredibly efficient manner, making it almost impossible to stimulate during the day by the activities of the body. At night when you sleep, your body has what’s called ‘sleep paralysis’ and becomes inactive while inwardly a great deal of mental activity takes place.

Melatonin levels in the body drop dramatically at puberty when sexual function begins, which is the same stage of development when our conscious mind starts becoming actively dominant over our subconscious and we begin the process of creating our ‘identity’, a creative function associated with our higher, conscious mind as the process of ‘self-creation’. Melatonin is chemically very similar to DMT, which means it may have psychoactive effects that produce inner visions as vivid dreams when we sleep or reside in a meditative state. It also causes our body temperature to rise when we sleep, which drops again as we wake. There’s a sharp dip in body temperature at around 3am when melatonin levels are highest, which accounts for the tendency some people experience of waking up at around 3am and then having trouble going back to sleep.

The pineal produces psychedelic amounts of DMT at significant times in our life that are directly related to soul activity and a more pronounced communion with our higher mind. The psychoactive effects produced are the physical representation of non-material energetic processes that provide us with the means for experiencing the movement of our life-force energy in its most extreme manifestations, not limited by the constraints of the material world formed out of crystallized light. When our individual life force enters our fetal body it passes through the pineal, triggering a flood of DMT, and at birth releases even more. Our brain is flooded with DMT again when we die and our soul (life-force) leaves our body, producing an altered state of what seems like a vivid dream of the significant events of our life passing before our eyes (life-recall). DMT also mediates the pivotal experiences some of us experience during meditation, hypnosis, psychosis, hallucinations, and near-death experiences. The pineal contains the highest amount of serotonin in the body, which is the precursor for producing melatonin, and is converted into tryptamine, which is a primary step in forming DMT.

The pineal body is a sac filled with liquid that has small hexagon (6) shaped crystals floating in it that are made of calcite. There are approximately 300 of these crystals that form a hexagonal lattice system that demonstrates the piezoelectric effect as a form of internally generated phosphine light. It receives an electrical impulse that generates phosphorescent radiation as a translation, which continues after excitation stops. It conceives of certain frequencies as ‘ideas’ inherent within the atmosphere and shapes them into visual images that makes them perceivable internally as a sensory construct. The pineal contains the ‘mental sphere’ of the etheric body as the karmic seed for this lifetime (the pineal regulates cycles of time and is an internal clock), which vibrates at the frequency of our mental model, called our ‘signature frequency’. The vibratory frequency of our mind serves as a form of tuning device that determines what frequencies we act to naturally receive from the space around us through sympathetic resonance. It not only acts to conceive the complementary frequencies latent in the space around it, but also generates positive frequencies on its own while simultaneously amplifying them (raising their vibration).

When we close our eyes, residing in internal darkness while focusing our attention on our pineal in the center of our forehead, it stimulates these crystals causing them to vibrate, raising and amplifying (intensifying) their vibration. Attention is a stimulating (active) force and when directed through deep states of concentration, channels our life-energy into whatever we’re concentrating on, causing it to vibrate. We can only resonate pineal crystals while in a relaxed state, where we subdue the active mind of thought associated with the awake state, close out all outer light and sound, and reside fully in our subconscious, which is a passive receptor for higher forms of consciousness. All activity associated with ‘thought’ originates in our self-conscious mind, and as long as this part of our mind is active, we can’t act to conceive of thoughtforms from the higher plane of our true conscious mind. As long as we’re actively thinking, we simply form the internal images associated with our thoughts and we can’t act to receive seeded thoughts (archetypal) from a higher plane.

The only other organ of the body besides the pineal that has these calcite crystals is the gelatinous otolithic membrane of the inner ear, which helps orientate us when our eyes are closed. Calcium carbonate is what also forms our bones, the organ of the body attributed to our soul, which forms the skeletal frame necessary for movement, and generates 95% of our red blood cells, including hematopoietic stem cells, which are undifferentiated cells available for forming new growth. When calcium carbonate is combined with water (crystals floating in a crystalline fluid) it becomes a conductor for subtle energy, which is what forms the electrical impulse as a ‘spark’ that acts to charge plasma, stripping off electrons causing magnetic fields to form, constructing a field of highly organized light (which is what reality is). These crystals are an amber-yellow color (gold is associated with our mind) and are referred to as ‘brain sand’ (sand is silicon dioxide). The pineal is basically a sack of liquid crystal (fluid-light) and solid crystals (frozen light), where the bottom half (or third) eventually forms into a solid crystal calcite (also called the Philosophers Stone), indicating the higher conscious aspect of the mind is fully seated within it.  

Crystals act as electromagnetic transmitters and transducers that also ‘hold memory’ and can be ‘charged’ with intention (will). In this case they contain the life memory of the cosmic, evolutionary soul that incarnates into a new body as a cyclical process of growth and development, that’s also referred to as our ‘karmic seed’, which is molded into an ‘archetype’. Our higher, archetypal soul is formed out of the accumulated experiences of all our previous incarnations synthesized into a single memory as an archetype or archetypal matrix, that makes up our ‘nature and character’. This evolved memory of ourselves is what forms the basis for our soul’s inner constitution as our predisposition for a particular type of growth and development when born into our current body and life condition, where it’s modified by combining with the memory inherent in our genetics, where it forms congruent characteristics and preexisting patterns as tendencies reestablished through our formative conditioning. We take on the same character being played out through the same type of dynamics as a continuation of our previous life patterns. Our life experiences are registered and interpreted through the ‘life recall’ that takes place at the moment of death, when all the significant experiences of our life flash before our ‘eye’, and we experience them from the opposite end as what we ’caused others’ through our actions or reactions, and they’re transcribed into the karmic seed for the next life cycle. Our third eye is the place where our ‘etheric double’ as the plan for our life is recorded in the ether (akasha) of the mind as a permanent record, right before the soul departs from the body.

Interpreting Symbols to Find Hidden Meaning  

The crystals of the pineal are hexagonal, and a hexad is formed out of two interlaced triangles whose points are oriented in different directions, one up and one down, symbolizing polar opposites that form a single entity. A triangle, or triad, is the universal symbol for the mind and soul, along with the Monad, which is presented as a sphere or circle with a dot in the center, the same symbol used to represent the sun (center of our solar system). Our mind is 3-fold in nature, which means its formed by the interaction of complementary aspects in forming a coherent field of highly organized (polarized) light (information). Polarity is the basis for vibration, which comes as a spiraling (electromagnetic) energy that moves between two poles, one negative (receptive and contracting) and one positive (active and projective). This spiraling energy moves in both a linear form between two parallel planes (upper and lower) or a circular or toroidal form on the same plane, forming a ‘sphere’ of pulsating, living energy.

The ‘light body’, which means ‘mental body’ formed out of polarized astral (star) light, also referred to as the Merkabah, is represented by two interlaced triads, a symbol commonly known as the ‘Star of David’ (3 + 3 = 6). How something is structured always indicates how it functions, and this concept connects our intellect (higher rational mind) with our emotions (lower instinctive mind), forming emotional intelligence as a harmonious mental state. The higher mind cleanses the energy of the lower mind while also amplifying it. We can only act to conceive higher knowledge by becoming of the same vibration mentally and morally. The Merkabah, or Metatron’s Cube, another name for the same process, both of which are considered the light-vehicle (body) used for ascending the hierarchical planes of the mind, comes by merging our lower mind with our higher mind so they form a single entity, raising our mental vibration to a level where we can be ‘drawn up’ into the higher planes through sympathetic resonance. 

The Hexad, like the Pentad, represents the holographic principle because the inner form of a hexagram is the same as the outer form, turned at a 90-degree angle (right angle). This demonstrates that by combining our lower mind with our higher mind, a portal to higher dimensions is created on the inner plane of the mind. Our pineal is a ‘single part’ whose complementary aspect exists on the higher, parallel plane of the conscious mind, and their union is what’s referred to in Alchemy as the Alchemical Marriage of Soulmates. The principle of polarity tells us that whatever is passive on the material plane is active on the astro-spiritual plane, and vice versa. All movement between planes occurs through the interaction of complementary opposites, often described as sympathetic resonance, which is also the principle operating in hypnosis, where the higher will impregnates the subconscious with a seed of manifestation as a suggestion (thoughtform).

The Mind Develops in 7 Year Increments

 Our mind develops in 4 primary stages of 7 years each (7, 14, 21, 28). Our higher mind, which is the part of us that reincarnates doesn’t come fully into the body until our conscious mind is developed to the point of being able to resume the task of creating ourselves through our ability to reason, discriminate, judge, make our own decisions, and willfully act out our decisions to form them into realities. The crystalline ‘sand’ of the pineal is directly associated with the higher mind. The pineal begins calcifying around the age of 7, when the conscious mind also begins developing, and is almost completely calcified by 12 to 14 years of age (adolescence and sexual development), when the conscious mind becomes actively dominant, and we begin forming our ‘identity’. This is when the true higher mind and soul becomes established and bound to the human, mortal body. Retrograde evolution or degeneration of the pineal body begins around the age of 6 or 7, and is practically complete by puberty, when we begin forming our identity, associated with our higher, creative, archetypal mind of our evolutionary Ego. Retrograde motion correlates with specific retrograde archetypes and accelerates the evolutionary momentum of the soul, because it retreats, rejects, or rebels against the status quo and how it’s expected to behave, and as a result facilitates the process of individuation.

This is when we step out of the group identity of our family and social group and begin making decisions for ourselves that serve to define us as an individual of our own making. When our higher self merges with our body, it degenerates into the group mind of herd mentality and must exercise choice and will to free itself and establish its individuality. The higher mind is the creative aspect of will and imagination that acts to ‘create itself’ by creating its own experiences born out of calculated decisions as to ‘who and how’ they’re going to be in any given situation, and the course of actions they’re going to take that turn their decisions into realities of experience.

Metatron’s Cube and the Merkabah

Metatron’s cube is a symbol similar to the Merkabah and Start of David, formed primarily as a Hexagram, with greater emphasis on the Holographic Principle which, when drawn properly contains an inner hexagram that’s turned at a 90-degree angle to the outer one (polarized), similar to the pentagram, where the inner pentagram is diametrically opposite (reverse) of the outer one. Sometimes this feature is represented as the entire image forming the center. This represents not only synthesis of both aspects of the mind, but also the same structure of the outer or greater plane is fully contained within the inner sphere as a reflection of it. The inner part of Metatron’s Cube is made of the same 6 spheres in a condensed form, suggesting the outer is an expansion of the inner, centered out of the sphere in the middle, representing the Monad, forming 13 spheres in all.

13 is the number associated with ‘death and regeneration’, which are different aspects of the same function, symbolic of our ‘second birth’ achieved through spiritual regeneration into a higher level of consciousness. Our ‘old self’ as the personality developed through our conditioning has to die (be surrendered and sacrificed) in order for our higher self to be born in its place, because they’re formed and sustained out of the same energy. All rebirth comes as a form of transformation that’s self-induced and facilitated by us using the higher capacities of our intellect, will, and imagination. Initiation is achieved through sanctifying your lower nature to become a vehicle for your higher nature, where, by ‘becoming of the same consciousness’ as your higher self, you raise your vibration to within the lower reaches of the higher plane, where it can be drawn into it through sympathetic resonance. This process is illustrated in the Tarot through the major trump of 11 (Karma), 12 (Initiation and self-sacrifice), 13 (death of the old self), and 14 (raising your vibration).

Alchemical Marriage

What’s called the alchemical marriage in the transformative science of Alchemy, is achieved by cleansing and purifying the lower, animal, instinct driven aspect of our subconscious, to make it fit for our higher nature to reside in. We transform based on whatever it is we ‘combine with energetically’ and become fused with mentally that actively expresses certain qualities and characteristics. Regeneration comes by tincturing the sphere of the pineal gland in order to transmute base metal (animal nature) to gold (divine nature). When awakened by the Kundalini of the body (astral agent) it serves as the vehicle of the animal, subconscious (Aphrodite), but when tinctured by spiritual light, it becomes the chariot of the divine mind (Hermes), who brings knowledge of the higher realms of pure consciousness. This idea is commonly portrayed as one being with two faces, one male and one female (conscious and subconscious, higher and lower).

Kundalini is another term for astral light, the cosmic electricity that vitalizes everything with life which, like all forces of the cosmos, is polarized. Each hierarchical plane of the mind and soul, including the subconscious of the body, has its own astral agent that’s pertinent to that level of consciousness. On the lower plane of material reality it functions as the motivational force of instinct, we experience as ‘motions’, and on the higher plane of consciousness it’s the motivational force of ‘will’. In terms of the two levels of the lower mind, the conscious and subconscious, there’s a higher astral agent and a lower one, which are connected through the spiritual center of the heart, which is the ‘mediator’ between the upper 3 chakras (Triad) and the lower 3. One is inferior (body) and one superior (mind), both of which move in a spiraling, circular motion between opposite poles (inner and outer, upper and lower) of the same frequency, like all polarized electromagnetic fields do.

 The Symbolic Significance of the Pinecone Courtyard of the Vatican

What’s called the Pinecone Courtyard of the Vatican contains extremely rich symbols regarding the significance of the pineal that are surprisingly ‘occult’ oriented. I’m going to just briefly describe the main features in this article because I’ve written an in-depth article on this that I’m providing a link for. One of the mistakes people often make in interpreting certain symbols is they pick out and only use particular symbols that are a part of a larger composite design, so they don’t get the full idea being illustrated. The entire courtyard is a symbolic representation for the process of undergoing ascension to a higher, divine level of consciousness. The main part of the yard is formed as a square, divided into 4 quarters as an equal armed cross, that has a sculpture in the middle called the ‘sphere within a sphere’, shaped like an eye, that has gears rotating in a polarized movement, similar to the equal armed cross. The inner sphere sits at a slight angle to the outer sphere, similar to a gyroscope, or what’s called the ‘celestial sphere’, commonly portrayed in Hermetic Sciences as the astrological sphere of archetypes (Zodiac), which represent the ‘cosmic soul’, situated in the pineal.

Article: The Art of Interpreting Symbolic Language: The Pinecone Courtyard of the Vatican

This sphere, like the celestial sphere, sits at a similar angle as the tilt of the Earth on its axis. It’s perfectly aligned with the pine cone, which sits on a higher level (terrace) shaped as a triangle, where it’s the only ‘single feature’ in an otherwise symmetrical design. It has 2 peacocks, the bird of transformation (phoenix) on both sides and 2 lions (symbol of our lower nature) on the lower level positioned on both sides of a man’s face, and the pine cone is perfectly aligned with the face on a higher level. The pine cone sits on what resembles a cup or chalice, with the design of 5 men, 1 in the center and a pair on each side, that all look like the same person as the face below. It’s centered in a dome (cranium of the skull) that has a circle in the top with 7 vertical rays-sections coming down like a fountain of sunlight, with 3 rows of 7 windows, forming 3 parallel planes (3 x 7 = 21 = 3), that all originate from the Monad in the top of the dome (22).

Directly behind the pine cone on the terrace sits an empty sarcophagus (stone tomb), that represents the astral body. Directly above it, in perfect alignment is an emblem, referred to as the ‘flying coat of arms’, that’s comprised of the same symbols associated with the ‘Hierophant’ (priest-pope) of the Tarot, which represents ‘union’ or ‘yoke’ (yoga) of the higher self with the 2 aspects of the lower self, which are represented by the ‘keys’ tied together with a twirling rope that has a keyhole in the center. The 2-fold scroll (Torah Book of Life – High Priestess), forms the lower part shaped like a chalice or shield, with an 8-pointed star (sidereal body as the seed of destiny), positioned over 3 mounds that resemble headstones forming a triangle (Same orientation as the Hierophant, Lovers, and Chariot), governed by the etheric double seated in the pineal.

The 8-pointed star, associated with the Star of the Tarot, number 17 (1 with 7 aspects) (1 + 7 = 8), represents ‘meditation’, concentration on an ‘ideal’, the color violet (lapis lazuli), and the symbol of the ‘fishing hook’, which is used to draw the fish out of the water (element of the subconscious). Water represents the reflected personal existence of the subconscious, symbolized by the ‘Hanged Man’, the archetype of initiation undertaken through self-sacrifice and surrender of our lower self in order to reside within the awareness of our higher self (giving up personal identity in order to embody universal identity). Our entire physical existence is contained in the ‘chalice of darkened waters’ of the subconscious and sidereal-body of karmic memory, represented as a sphere that contains 2 spheres (personality and identity) within it that are seated within the pineal, which when seen clairvoyantly, appears as a glass-globe. Any material substance that vibrates at the same frequency as light, is transparent. This is why silicon dioxide (quartz-sand) when heated to make glass, is transparent allowing us to ‘see through it’, because it vibrates at the same frequency as sunlight.

The Archetype of Our Soul

Our pineal gland is the physical organ that acts as the seat for ‘Agni energy’ of astral vision, intuition, and inner knowing. It’s the aspect of our mind we use to perform the functions of discernment, judgment, reasoning, and rational thinking. It’s a portal to the higher realms of the astral world and the creative hierarchies of the cosmos. It appears as an inner eye or nucleus that emits a vibrant spectromatic aura that surrounds the outer body of the pineal, pulsating with electric light as our spiritual aura, represented by the Monad. It’s our physical organ of perception contained within the aura of the pineal which answers in vibration (feeling) to any impression that’s felt and sensed, rather than perceived. It fluctuates (glass globe of fluorescent gas-like liquid) with an energetic luster during the process of thinking by translating thought into vibration that emits light as a frequency. The clairvoyant vision of this translucent globe that emits the energetic frequency of our mental state and thoughts is seen as a sphere divided in half (approximately), with the lower half formed as 7 scales and shades of light that go from dim shades to bright ones and represent the 7 planetary archetypes of the human psyche.

This sphere of radiating light rotates on an axis that sits at the same angle as the Earth’s axis (21 to 24.5 degrees), with a spiraling whirlpool (vortex) at the center, and a correlating spiral orbiting it at what appears to be a 45-degree angle. The central nucleus emits a ring or plane that’s parallel to the linear axis. This mental sphere is divided in half, with the lower area appearing to be filled with a liquid-light and the upper with as a translucent gas-like light (fluorescent). This represents the sphere of Tiphareth (higher self) on the Tree of Life, which holds 4 spheres in balance, represented by the 2 keys that are crossed in both the Hierophant card of the Tarot and the Flying Coat of Arms hanging on the wall inside the dome directly over the pineal, between the second and third plane, forming an ‘X’ as an equal armed cross turned at a 45-degree angle (polarized to the cross in the square of the courtyard).

The 4 spheres held in balance, symbolized by the top end of the keys and the two bottom handles, represent karmic memory (Chesed), Higher will (Geburah), animal instinct (Netzach), and the intellect (Hod), brought together in a coherent state in the faculty of the imagination (Tiphareth – Christ Consciousness of our higher mind). This is the same sphere seated in the pineal, as the faculty of the imagination that’s used by the higher mind to seed the lower mind using pictures and images that are metaphorical in nature, similar to memory. This also symbolizes the fifth element of the mind as the ‘ether’, which creates reality by holding the 4 Elements of the material plane in an equilibrated state of coherence. This same idea is often depicted as the light-halo (globe or disc), shown at a slight angle radiating around the head of divine, enlightened beings, usually shown in white or gold, sometimes with a cross impressed in it, or 12 stars of deities surrounding the head.

Everything that takes place in the body, all thought, feeling, and movement, is first present in the aura of the 3^rd eye, and has its own shade of color. This aura is a hologram formed out of a vibratory frequency as a ‘etheric map’ and mental program (mold) for all the activity that takes place within the outer sphere of the subconscious, which produces all its activities out of the patterns inherent in our soul’s memory. We have to create an ‘etheric template’ as a holographic image that imitates an actual memory, because the subconscious functions out of instinct as automated patterns of activity. By building a desired experience as a reality in our imagination, imbuing it with sensory detail, we cause it to vibrate at a particular frequency on the inner planes which provides our subconscious with a pattern to fulfill by acting it out naturally within our daily life. Once it’s acted out to form an experience, it becomes infused in our mental model as a memory of ourselves. Experience is what combines the inner and outer as a process of synthesis. 

The aura emitted from our pineal is based on the mental frequency of our thoughts imagined internally as a reality, which forms a corresponding vibration in the brain as a ‘concept’ for reality. It forms the electrical impulse that imprints the idea in the cerebral fluid which runs through the circuit of the spinal cord to the rest of the body. It fires the rest of the endocrine glands correlated with the subtle organs producing the chemistry of hormones (messengers) that are released directly into the blood stream, regulating the energetic state of the body to match the frequency of the mind. It’s not about the individual or random thoughts you think throughout the day that matter or act to create your outer world, it’s the ‘state of mind’ (mood) you maintain consistently out of which those type of thoughts and memories naturally proliferate.

The subtle organs of the etheric body (7 spheres of light) are synthesized and form a coherent circuit through which the frequency of the mind naturally flows as the means of regulating the activity of the body to form the perception and experience of the material state. On the higher plane of pure mind everything exists in a holistic form as a mental state. The ‘nature of your thoughts’ and what you consistently picture in your mind, is reflected in your body as a program or metaphorical concept for producing a corresponding physical condition, both in your body and the outer reality being radiated through your body. It forms the ‘lens’ you look through (glass sphere) to perceive that same condition in the world around you. Not only is the outer world shaped through your perception of it, but you’re also emanating your energetic frequency and influencing everything in near proximity of you at the subtle, unconscious level, changing their vibration (mood) to begin vibrating in harmony with yours.

The electrical impulses that are always firing in the brain, when illuminated by the life energy of the astral agent (akasha) of the higher mind, allows the whole universe to be seen as a dynamic living entity. This idea is represented by the ‘star map’ of the celestial sphere that Hermes is commonly portrayed as holding, and which mounts the pillar of Jakin (bowl of fire), and the terrestrial sphere mounts the pillar of Boaz (bowl of water), representing the ‘gateway’ to the divine world. The pillars of Jakin (masculine) and Boaz (feminine) have a circular staircase that goes up between them as the pathway to higher planes of consciousness. This ‘celestial sphere’, which appears as a gyroscope, a device used for navigating, is comprised of the 36 celestial constellations seen from the Earth (12 x 3 = 36 = 9) with a polarized band that contains the symbols of the 12 universal archetypes of the Zodiac, of which the soul uses as the means of developing itself. Our archetype is revealed through our astrological birth chart, which is likewise formed out of a celestial sphere divided into 12 houses or aspects of existence and is what forms the invisible, glass-like sphere of our ‘single eye’, also known as our ‘etheric blueprint’ programmed with our karmic seed of destiny. These archetypes are not rigid or fixed concepts but are dynamic living ideas that are in a constant state of transformation as an evolutionary process of growth and development.

Seat of the Soul

Our entire subtle body is formed as a mental sphere (Monad) that’s seated in the pineal, which regulates all the subtle organs along with their correlated endocrine glands, through the master gland of the pituitary body, which is often symbolized as a bird (vulture or eagle) wearing a 3-tiered crown perched on a spiral globe or glass sphere. The pineal regulates all the cycles of the body based on the movement of celestial bodies (stars and planets) governed by their own star and solar system. Its primary physiological function is to form and maintain our mental state (the pineal regulates mood), and the process of growth and regeneration, as well as our sexual development. All growth and development, whether mental or physical is regulated and controlled by the pineal and the subtle organ of the third-eye (single eye of perception). It generates all the hormones necessary to do this through electrical impulses that work through your nervous system to produce biochemical functions. Your mental state produces all your normal thoughts, what memories you tune into and play out consistently in your mind, which work together to regulate the energetic state of your physical body through a process of polarity.

Your entire ‘life plan’ is contained within the etheric-egg of your subtle body (latent seeds in the pine cone) as a holographic blueprint for your physical body and mental constitution, out of which you radiate a corresponding outer reality as the means of ‘experiencing yourself’. What we call reality is formed through our ‘perception’ of it, and our perception is formed by our mental model. Our soul’s constitution is the basis out of which our outer reality is formed as a reflection of our own mind based on how we exist in ‘relationship’ with ourselves (same attributes, qualities, and characteristics) in everything else. It’s not about particular events or happenings, it’s about the general ‘theme’ that consistently plays out to give our life ‘meaning and direction’. We shape an image of ourselves through the ‘story’ that begins playing out in our mind as a dialogue we have with ourselves (thoughts). The soul comes into the material world as the means of ‘experiencing itself’ through the reality of its own making. The outer material world is projected by the inner world of our imagination, setting the stage necessary for acquiring certain types of experiences that are translated through our mental model into memory of ourselves.

We tend to focus primarily on the material world as being what’s real and important, due to the fact that we don’t realize its being created by us through our ability to ‘perceive it’, and as a result we often experience our life as happening ‘to us’ by outside forces, where we often become a victim to our own life circumstances. We imagine the material world to be fixed and permanent and our mental thoughts to be fleeting and temporary when it’s actually the other way around. We fail to realize that our life is set in motion and transpires faithfully out of our own mental model as a state of mind that orders and arranges the outer world into the stage necessary for experiencing our own, internally generated thoughts about it that allow us to develop different parts of our character by how we choose to go through them. We become who we are by how we form a relationship with the same aspects (character traits) in everything and everyone else. It’s not so much about what happens to us in life that matters, its ‘who we become’ by way of what happens to us. We always live and die by our own hand, while living the life of our own making.

Dr. Linda Gadbois

Transpersonal Psychologist, Personal Transformation Coach, and Spiritual Mentor