A Symbol Borrowed Widely

Western esoteric and later New Age usage of "third eye" draws heavily on the tantric and Shaiva material but circulates the phrase far more loosely, applying it to any claimed faculty of extrasensory perception, psychic insight or altered awareness, frequently without reference to a specific chakra practice or to the disciplined visualization the source traditions describe. Theosophical writing from the late nineteenth century onward played a significant part in carrying the term into English-language occultism, where it has since attached to a wide range of practices with only a loose connection to Hindu tantra.

The atlas treats "third eye" here as the cross-tradition English shorthand for this brow-point symbolism generally, while the specific tantric content, ajna's petals, seed syllable and place in the kundalini ascent, belongs properly to the Chakra type's own entry on Ajna, which this body part links to directly.