Surprising as it may seem, not all black panthers are black… “Black panthers, i.e. melanistic leopards, are exotic-looking felids at the best of times, but the individual constituting the principal subject of this present ShukerNature blog post was a truly exceptional female black panther, purchased from Dublin Zoo during the early 1980s, and exhibited for a few years at [...]

For the past few posts I've been musing on Julian Jaynes' famous book The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. I know some readers are highly skeptical of Jaynes' theory that ancient peoples had a profoundly different mode of consciousness from those of us in the modern world. This skepticism is certainly understandable, given the initial implausibility of Jaynes's ideas and their wide-ranging implications. Still, I think Jaynes was on to something, even if he overstated his case and may have gotten parts of it wrong. In this post I'll attempt to sum up my feelings about Jaynes and his theory – with the caveat that, perhaps like consciousness itself, my opinion on these matters is still evolving.

First, I need to make clear once again that when Jaynes talks about consciousness, he does not mean awareness in the broad sense. In a book I just bought called The Julian Jaynes Collection, editor Marcel Kuijsten uses the term “reflective consciousness” to describe what Jaynes was getting at. Obviously the people who built the pyramids and the ziggurats were conscious in the broad sense, but did they exhibit the nature and scope of introspection, self-awareness, and self-analysis that we take for granted today? Or was their awareness, their consciousness, of a qualitatively different order - a non-reflective, non-subjective mode of awareness?

I’m inclined to agree with Jaynes that their mindset was quite different from our modern, subjective, introspective, or reflective consciousness (call it what you will). For one thing, this seems like the only way to explain the incredibly long period of relative stasis in prehistory, when cultural advancements proceeded at a glacial pace. Over thousands and thousands of years, people continued to live the lives of their ancestors, apparently with only the most minimal changes in their routine. Innovations are measured in centuries and consist of slight improvements in fashioning a spearhead, or subtle changes in the sculpting of goddess figurines. Yes, there were major breakthroughs like the development of agriculture and the transition from a nomadic lifestyle to permanent settlements, but for the most part, we are looking at a vast period of time in which there is human progress is virtually at a standstill. Why? Could it be that the people of this era had not yet evolved the questioning, restless, ever-active mentality of modern humans, and were content simply to repeat the ingrained habits of the past? 

If they did not have a strong sense of self - what Jaynes calls “the analog I” - then how did they function in the world? Jaynes proposes that voices and visions originating in the right cerebral hemisphere guided and directed them, and that these hallucinations were the first “gods.” He further theorizes that the ubiquitous idols of that era served as a means of cueing these hallucinations that provided the all-important authoritative instructions necessary to run these people’s lives. When Micah cries out that his idols have been stolen and he has nothing left, he’s not just being melodramatic; a man bereft of his voices was hopelessly at sea. So central were the voices and visions to ancient culture that ziggurats, the palaces of the gods, occupied the central place in every Mesopotamian city and towered over all other structures - a policy that persisted anachronistically well into the modern age, when towns were built around cathedrals. 

Jaynes was thoroughly committed to the modern secularist worldview and probably could not seriously entertain the notion that there actually is a spirit would or that communication with spirits is a possibility. His few references to such things in Origin are dismissive. For those of us with a different point of view, an alternative to Jaynes' hypothesis presents itself. Instead of regarding the "voices of the gods" as hallucinations produced by the nervous system, we might interpret them as actual communications from the spirit world, not generated by the right cerebral hemisphere, but mediated by it. The voices, in other words, could be understood as signals, with the right side of the brain serving as a receiver (a variation on the so-called "transmission theory" of consciousness proposed by William James). These signals served to direct human activity at a time when conditions were not yet ripe for the emergence of reflective consciousness, which requires a certain level of cultural and linguistic complexity. 

What we could be looking at is a chicken-and-egg situation. Reflective consciousness could not evolve until culture and language had developed sufficiently; but culture and language required a level of directed activity that habit and instinct could not make possible. Stalemate … unless there was an intervention by outside forces, spiritual guardians or guides, who served as a steppingstone to the development of reflective consciousness by prompting our distant ancestors to take the first steps down the path of literacy, technology, and large-scale social organization. 

In this context, it’s interesting to consider the persistent and ever-popular speculative claims about the intervention of extraterrestrials in the earliest epoch of human history. Writers of "alternate history” books are forever telling us that we owe the ziggurats, pyramids, and other ancient marvels to the beneficent intervention of space travelers. I don’t buy this for a minute. But what if the persistence of these tall tales is rooted in an actual truth - that our earliest history was jumpstarted by the intervention of “visitors,” not from outer space, but from the noumenal realm? 

It’s just possible that the impressive engineering and social achievements of humans in the age prior to reflective consciousness age were the result of spirit guidance and influence. But such influence could not last forever, nor was it intended to. As culture became more complex and as more people attained literacy, the left hemisphere of the brain became increasingly dominant, inhibiting the right hemisphere and largely shutting off spiritual communications. There followed a period of confusion, panic, and despair, when people longed for the effortless authorizations their forebears had known. They looked back on their ancestors as demigods who talked face-to-face with divine powers in a golden age, unspoiled children of nature who walked with their gods (elohim) in an edenic garden. They commemorated the loss of these divine instructions in the myth of the Tower of Babel and recorded their gods’ abandonment of the human race in flood stories featuring Noah and Utnapishtim. They instituted new and more elaborate rituals in an attempt to coax the silent gods into speaking again, sometimes with success, as in the case of the Greek oracles and Hebrew prophets. Yet at the same time the newly dominant left hemisphere, egocentric and intolerant of other loci of consciousness, was trying to wipe out the last vestiges of spiritistic communications by slaughtering the nabiim, burning witches, and (yes) rationalistically dismissing all evidence of psychic phenomena. 

In today's world we see both the benefits and hazards of our left-brain-dominant mentality. The positives are obvious and are all around us, in our advanced technology, sweeping scientific discoveries, banishment of hurtful superstitions, and increasing tolerance for differing lifestyles and points of view. The negatives, however, are no less real: widespread neurosis and anomie addressed by prescription drugs and other mind-alterung substances, a pervasive sense of loss and longing too often filled by cults and craziness, and a susceptibility to authoritarian movements and leaders. When they gathered on street corners to hear Hitler's voice shouting through the radio, did the demoralized German populace hear a dim echo of their ancestral spirit-voices and experience, if only fleetingly, the frisson of unquestioned authorization that those voices once provided? 

If any part of this speculation is true, then what may be needed now is a new synthesis - a more equilateral distribution of power between the left and right cerebral hemispheres, in which the advantages of linear left-brain thinking and self-awareness are balanced by the gift of everyday contact with higher spiritual intelligences. This is not a forecast Jaynes would have taken seriously, I’m sure; yet his work, when read in this context, becomes highly suggestive and helpful. That’s one reason why it continues to fascinate me, whatever its flaws.

To all at the Cryptomundo team, We are contacting you from Minnow Films Limited, the production company responsible for the "Shooting Bigfoot" documentary.

He said he then looked up into the trees above the riverbank where water doesn’t reach at high tide, and saw a very big, hairy manlike creature sitting there between two trees, holding the trees alongside him, his legs hanging; the creature was watching him and his step-brother who was behind him.

"...There's absolutely no doubt in my mind that it's a story which will polarize readers into two camps..."

"...there is a demonstrable body of evidence available that links numerous people to the JFK saga who were also allied to the UFO subject..."

Coming this fall! See a sneak preview here on Cryptomundo!

A wonderfully amusing romp, this novel takes place in the Northern California town of Big Beaver, which has become a haven for Bigfoot, alien sightings, and the Phantom Bigfoot Bather.

Behind-the-scenes with Dianna Renee and Bigfoot in 'Skookum the Movie' (2013), now in post-production.

This post started as a comment, but when I found I was making some new points, I decided to convert it into a post of its own. 

I began by replying to this comment from Douglas in the thread on "The I of Childhood": 

I agree that many ancient cultures may have thought in different ways than today's, but, like my modern Japanese example, different does not have to mean 'less subjective' or 'lacking self awareness'.

We simply have no way of knowing how ordinary people felt or experienced, that's the problem with Jaynes' theory.

You are basing your suggestions on literary evidence from eras which were largely still oral based, just because they were oral based cultures doesn't give us any remit at all to assume that non literate cultures are less subjective or less self aware. In fact, recorded ethnographies of non literate hunter-gatherer societies, while I agree do show greater emphasis on the community, do not indicate that individuals lack a rich interior life, and to suggest they do is simply wrong.

With regard to ancient societies, you simply cannot know that they had a more limited subjective life, and to suggest this as being 'very likely' smacks of modern, literal western-centric bias of a huge degree, so great in fact that you are probably blind to it.

A piece of advice Michael, avoid anthropology seminars, you're likely to get lynched ;-)

Now, it's true that nearly the whole Jaynesian argument is based "on literary evidence from eras which were largely still oral based." But what other kind of evidence could there be? The stories people tell, and the way they communicate with each other, are the best - and probably the only - way of assessing their mindset.

I'm not sure, however, why an oral tradition necessarily leads to conventions such as a god or gods telling people what to do, or necessarily results in an almost total absence of introspection on the part of the main characters in those stories.

And remember, when the captured goddesses were sent down the river on a barge, they were to be provided with sheep so they could eat well on their trip. This is, at the very least, a rather unusual mentality in display.

In fact, it was common to feed the gods by placing trays of food in front of them (i.e., in front of their statues). We can safely assume the statues did not actually eat anything, yet their priestly servants apparently believed that actual consumption was going on. (The alternative is to believe that the priests were engaged in a massive charade that persisted for thousands of years. Not only is this unlikely, but it fails to explain how the charade got started in the first place.)

If the priests did indeed believe that the god-statues were actually dining on the delicacies served to them, isn't that suggestive of an extremely alien mindset with an almost trancelike ability to not perceive things (like untouched food, day after day) that would contradict their belief system?

As Jaynes notes, hypnotized subjects show the same ability to simply ignore facts that contradict the hypnotist's instructions. For instance, if a hypnotized person is told there is no chair in front of him and is then ordered to cross the room, he will deftly walk around the chair - even while he remains in complete agreement that there is no chair. Clearly he does see the chair and does recognize its existence on some level, but his mind does not allow that fact to become quite real to him.

The priests who saw uneaten food but remained convinced that the food had been eaten were perhaps entranced in a similar way, though in their case the hypnotic instructions were originating not from a hypnotist but from another, more authoritative part of their own brains.

Then there's this: "A piece of advice, Michael, avoid anthropology seminars ..." 

Okay, but when exactly did anthropologists become experts on ancient civilizations? I'd bet that life in ancient Sumeria or Babylon is well outside their purview. If they were to reject the bicameral hypothesis out of hand, they'd presumably be basing their views on the study of societies in the contemporary world. This is comparing apples and oranges. Even if these contemporary tribal societies have been totally isolated from all foreign influences throughout their entire history with no exceptions (unlikely), they have still had thousands of years in which to evolve new lifeways on their own. They are no more representative of Ur than they are of the Stone Age. Even the Mesoamerican civilizations, which seem to have been cut off from other societies, had evolved unique customs and traditions by the time the Europeans found them. 

One might even argue that any anthropologists who took such a position would be guilty of (unintentional) racism, inasmuch as they're assuming that only "developed" societies can evolve over time, while the "undeveloped" ones remain frozen like flies in amber, waiting passively for the enlightened emissaries of Western civ come along and study them. 

This certainly wasn't Jaynes's view. He did not think bicameral societies were static, though he did think they had a slower pace of progress than modern societies. Remember, when Jaynes says these people were "unconscious," he is using the word in a rather special way. He means they had not developed a sense of self comparable to that seen in later peoples, and that they were running on autopilot to a greater extent than we typically do today. He does not mean that they were incapable of problem-solving, innovation, or change. He also notes that the bicameral mind can become unstable as societies become more complex or as new problems arise, and this instability can precipitate further (sometimes violent) social change. None of this is consistent with the idea that tribal societies today would be identical to their forebears of 5,000 years ago. In fact, that is the last thing we should expect. 

By the way, Jaynes also takes pains to point out that even today we run on autopilot a good deal of the time. Anyone who has practiced mindfulness meditation knows the truth of this. Much of our daily life is spent running habitualized subroutines that require little, if any, conscious awareness, and much of our thought consists of tedious, repetitive internal chatter of limited utility.

Let's say that 60% of our waking life fits this description. Is it so unlikely that 5,000 years ago, the percentage was higher? Could it have been 70% ... 80% ... 90%? 

And if not, wherefore the sheep on the goddesses' barge? 

Sasquatch now has Twitter @MeSasquatch! We're having a giveaway to help celebrate!

Morgan Matthews interviewed about Shooting Bigfoot and whether or not he's in possession of a dead Bigfoot.

“Cats were disappearing from Redruth, Falmouth, and Penryn over the summer..."

Left: screenshot of face from film Center: screenshot from camper/tent video Right: artist rendering of camper/tent video subject click on image for full size version Christopher Noël attended the premiere of Shooting Bigfoot in Toronto on April 30th. He reviewed the film exclusively for Cryptomundo.

"...Bigfoot, elementals, and diminutive esoteric entities..."

"I wanted to share some mildly interesting alleged Bigfoot sightings that took place in my general area, all within a few miles of each other..."

Pierre Sonnerat was a famous 18th-Century French explorer and naturalist. As will be revealed here in the following ShukerNature post of mine, however, he was also a blatant hoaxer – confirmed by the curious case of New Guinea’s non-existent penguins, and kookaburra.  ”Pierre Sonnerat’s publications include Voyage à la Nouvelle-Guinée (1776), documenting an expedition that he [...]

"...upon glancing into the shadowy trees he saw two bright, fiendish yellow eyes glaring menacingly back at him..."

Strange creatures and government...

This Saturday I will be giving a cryptozoology lecture at the Carnival of ParaHorror event in Niagra Falls, New York.