Conversations on Consciousness and the Bicameral Mind: Interviews with Leading Thinkers on Julian Jaynes's Theory

This book has been endlessly fascinating, scintillating with insight and intelligence. As someone who has been ruminating on Jaynes for the past two decades it was surprisingly refreshing to find a collection of not essays, but a more easily digestible format—conversations—that clarify and expand upon this complex and often misunderstood/dismissed theory. Like a kaleidoscope, Each chapter looks at the matters at hand through a different lens, with experts in different fields. For example, From a rhetorician’s perspective the creative potential of metaphor is highlighted, along with definitive insights about hallucination and ideology. Other outstanding chapters examine the vestiges of the bicameral mind through firsthand accounts of voice-hearers and TLE visionaries, all of them notably articulate. There are in-depth spelunks into the territories of child-development, imaginary friends, hypnosis, theory of mind, linguistics, psychology, history, Tibetan studies, religion, and philosophy. Kuijsten is a careful, diplomatic communicator who remains respectful and Socratic in debate, negotiating and adjusting perspectives wherever there are divergences in research or outlook. It is clear the intention here is an honest inquiry to further understanding, rather than a rigid imposition of ideas.

A wonderful collection of conversations with people who have investigated Julian Jaynes's hypotheses set forth nearly fifty years ago in "The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind." Timothy R Redford