https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCollough_effect is evidence to the contrary. This seems to rewire something outside the optical pathway. The effect can last for months. Works on almost all brains, no epilepsy required...
That sounds more like a learned visual effect, something quite different from frying the brain of anyone with a basilisk.
Experiments with cats( https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1111849/ ), and the outcome of patients with strabismus/lazy eye(effective blindness on defective eye), suggests that seeing (or not seeing) is a learned trait. Which is a few steps removed from being a backdoor to epileptic seizures or remote controlling heart activity
Exert from that same wiki page about the anti-McCollough effect, I may have the two confused.
Given that AMEs do transfer interocularly,[8] it is reasonable to suppose that they must occur in higher, binocular regions of the brain. Despite producing a less saturated illusory color, the induction of an AME may override a previously induced ME, providing additional weight to the argument that AMEs occur in the higher visual areas than MEs.[8]
