Calcification of the pineal gland is shown to be closely related to defective sense of direction. In a tricentre prospective study of 750 patients lateral skull radiographs showed that 394 had calcified pineal glands. Sense of direction was assessed by subjective questioning and objective testing and the results noted on a scale of 0-10 (where 10 equals perfect sense of direction). The average score for the 394 patients with pineal gland calcification was 3.7 (range 0-8), whereas the 356 patients without pineal gland calcification had an average score of 7.6 (range 2-10). This difference was highly significant (p less than 0.01). A smaller parallel study in pigeons showed that pineal calcification also leads to a reduction in homing abilities.

The findings suggested that the pineal gland plays an important part in directional sense and that damage to the gland, as indicated by calcification, causes defective sense of direction – perhaps by altering the intrinsic intracranial electromagnetic environment and thus affecting the magnetite response mechanism.

•http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/…

Worth looking into?

That said, I think allowing one of the groups of volunteers to see their surroundings before asking them to point home, is a potential fatal flaw. Without having read the actual experimental protocol, it opens up the possibility that the non-magnet and presumably consistently blindfolded groups could “sense” the magnetic field purely through being less wrong than the others allowed to see environmental cues!

If I were to perform the experiment I’d rather just put blindfolded volunteers in a swivel chair in the middle of a round room, and then study the differences in the distributions of the directions in which non-magnet and magnet groups of volunteers point. Buses and circuitous routes just add confounding variables.

As the links in the article to Baker’s work describe, there were two groups. Both were blindfolded and driven around, and then asked to point the direction toward home. But one group had their blindfolds removed and were allowed to look around before pointing, while the other left their blindfolds on. Contrary to what Baker expected, he claimed that his *blindfolded* group was more accurate at pointing the way home than the group allowed to look around first. (?!)

In any case, I don’t think he had any idea about a possible mechanism (involving light-activated proteins) so he didn’t think to shine blue light or otherwise in anyone’s eyes. But yes, if the claim is now that some protein complex gains a magnetic response when excited by blue light, then obviously Baker’s experiment had nothing to do with it, since his subjects’ eyes weren’t exposed to any light!

Dave

After several controlled, analytical sessions of psilocybin and studying the effects on myself, I became convinced of the drug turning “filters” off in the brain for the extraneous information that lies beyond the standard visible spectrum. Fractal organization of nature, be it an individual leaf, plant, field, forest, and so on became exceedingly apparent, as did the fractal structure of water, snow, and clouds. And, it all adhered to phi. Also being made visible during peaks were close-by strong magnetic fields, instantly being recognizable by field lines shaping familiar toroids.

I believe the information is always there and that our bodies are receptive without our conscious awareness, it’s just a matter of a longstanding human lifestyle limiting information no longer necessary to our survival, and perhaps a lack of training.