Category: Julian Jaynes

Job and The Bicameral Mind

5/20/2019

If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear.
He went on to say, “Pay attention to what you hear. With the measure you use, it will be measured to you, and even more will be added to you.…"
Mark 4:23-25

One day I heard voices...

When we talk of hearing voices, we think of crazy people in the western world. It has been shamed and pathologized. Even though many revere those who have heard voices and the words they bring. Julian Jayne's believed that the split in the brain, the bicameralism, was a relatively recent occurrence in our development, and that prior to this separation in the brain one side turned to the other in crisis to ask what to do and instead of our regular inner voice, heard it as the voice of the God or similar. Although there is a lot of his theory that has merit, he didn't understand the way each side perceives and their role in our beingness. I have a theory that the right side of the brain is our 'link' and connection to the One and that the shaming of it is a way to create and maintain false and dangerous hierarchies and prevent people from hearing God for themselves.

I compare my own experiences with Jaynes theory, and the experience of Jill-Bolte Taylor and more. While there is a lot of merit to Jayne's theory, I think it needs a tweak.

This episode....I will also help you learn how to hear better for yourself with something that you already experience all the time.

Listen

Jaynes points to a timing for the origin of consciousness to be sometime between the publishing of the Iliad and The Odyssey. The former looks to Gods and Voices sound outside of them, and the latter deliberates with themselves.

Jaynes argues the shift to consciousness was the result of a number of factors including the development of complex metaphorical language and writing. The mass migrations and social disruption following the Thera explosion may have contributed to the process in the Mediterranean. Different cultures developed consciousness at different times in other parts of the world.

"Put simply, at a point where today one finds themselves deliberating over a decision, the bicameral person would have experienced a guiding voice. This voice was based on the same unconscious problem solving processes that modern introspective decision-making often relies on."

For more information about Julian Jaynes and his work please visit https://www.julianjaynes.org/