Artist Gets Cancer In His ‘Third Eye,’ And The Resulting Paintings Are Mesmerizing

Credit: Shawn Thornton

A person’s ‘third eye’ and whether it is even real or not has long been disputed, with some theorizing that the third eye is actually in a human’s pineal gland and others say it doesn’t exist at all. In a nutshell, the third eye, which is also called the mind’s eye, is described as a person’s invisible eye that allows them sense things that cannot be physically seen.

One theory that many have embraced is that the pineal gland, which rests between the two hemispheres of the brain and maintains light sensitivity and produces melatonin, is actually a human’s third eye. This theory derived from the thought that over time, a person’s third eye receded into the brain and became invisible while still functioning behind the scenes.

Credit: Shawn Thornton

It’s hypothesized that, on a daily basis, the third eye is used to empathize, give us gut feelings, feel energies like auras, and connect spiritually to deities. Some even claim that the pineal gland releases DMT, a hallucinogen that is often taken as a drug. That’s why it’s almost crazy that when Shawn Thorton gradually, and unbeknownst to him, developed cancer in his pineal gland while in art school, his style of art changed radically.

Many that have heard his story speculate that the growth in Shawn’s pineal gland activated his third eye and caused him to either hallucinate from DMT allegedly released from his brain or that he was able to reach a spiritual realm with outstanding new sights. Read Shawn’s own words below, which were posted on Reddit:

“I suffered from a slow growing cancer in my pineal gland while I attended art school and during subsequent years while my paintings developed with an underlined mythology that alluded directly to the pineal years before I even know of its existence.

Credit: Shawn Thornton

“I think I’d work myself into a frenzy for a while and yes, when I would fall lie down in bed I’d have something like a manic episode that was very lucid and visionary. That still applies to this day, but I try to control it better so I don’t get sick again.

“I’ve had a lot of truly mystical and otherworldly experiences as a result of my history and battle with brain cancer and I’m really drawn to things that resonate with a certain powerful energy, and I’m always honing in on that more and more. whether consciously or subconsciously.

Credit: Shawn Thornton

“I treat depression with mushrooms. Haven’t done DMT ‘intentionally’. Man made chemicals are a thing of the past for me, as I’m really sensitive.”

When speaking with The Green Line Cafe, where Shawn’s works were on display at one of the locations, he had this to say:

“Painting, for me, is largely an attempt to decrypt the mechanisms of illness through a disciplined medium. I feel, on some deep internal level, that through my painting practice I’m engaged in a psychic process to illuminate the intricate vessels and cogs of an insidious physic current that stems, in part, from having had a serious illness, and all the subtle and profound ways I was altered by this experience.

Credit: Shawn Thornton

“All throughout my early adulthood, I struggled from the mental and physical effects of a slow growing tumor in my brain, the symptoms of which were repeatedly misdiagnosed by my doctors as purely psychological in origin, and it ultimately took over half a decade to get a proper diagnosis and treatment to shrink the tumor. I suffered immeasurably during this period from having repeatedly undergone a host of treatments meant to treat the symptoms of mental illness, and paradoxically, from a mental illness that ultimately could not be contained. The tumor was in the very center of my brain, in a small, mysterious organ at the top of the spinal column, the pineal gland. I didn’t have any prior reason to consider the actual material existence of the pineal before this.”

What are your thoughts on whether humans have a ‘third eye’? Please share, like, and comment on this article!


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