A caller asks about pineal glands and if they have a link to spirituality. Joe Heschmeyer responds.
Transcript:
I have a co-worker who is obsessed with something about the pineal gland.
You guys know anything about that?
I’ve heard some interesting claims about it. We’ll put it that way.
I was just trying to see if there was any Catholic teachings on that,
if there was any links or any books on that. And then he said something about that the pope has an acorn on his staff, and what would the meaning of that acorn would be?
Yeah, that’s probably it. Wow. Okay, the top of the pope’s staff is a crucifix.
There may be, on some of the papal croziers, carved pine cones for decorative reasons, just as there were carved pomegranates on the temple.
I’m not sure about that. I know that there is in Rome the Fontella della Piña, the fountain of the pine cone, which is in the Vatican. And it’s just a cool pine cone with peacocks and things around it. But as far as I know, that is decorative. It may have been related to an old family’s crest. Sometimes you’ll see that stuff.
In Rome, a lot of the decorative art matches. So if you have, I want to say the metachies have bees on their crest, and so you see a lot of bees in the art.
That sort of thing is there in the decorative art. I think trying to read any kind of New Agey reading of pineal glands is reading way too much into a pine cone.
I think Freud said that. And I’m reminded of… It’s close to what Freud said. It’s in the ballpark.
I’m reminded of something Pope Francis said. It was just posted on the Pope’s Twitter account, but I think he said it at a recent general audience. He said, “Our secularized world is teeming with magicians, occultism, spiritism, astrologers, and satanic sex. If we kick the devil out the door, he tries to return through the window. If we overcome him with faith, he seeks to return through superstition.” That we can downplay authentic spirituality and create a void that then gets filled with New Agey practices with chakras and other sorts of things where we imagine we can tap into things with auras and all of that stuff. And I would just say that is an imitation and a substitute of true spirituality.
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