The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind

Julian Jaynes

• Publisher: Mariner Books
• Year: 2000
• Topic: Psychology
• eBook ISBN:
  9780547527543
• Subtopic: Philosophical Essays
• Index: Psychology

National Book Award Finalist: "This man's ideas may be the most influential, not to say controversial, of the second half of the twentieth century."— Columbus Dispatch
 
At the heart of this classic, seminal book is Julian Jaynes's still-controversial thesis that human consciousness did not begin far back in animal evolution but instead is a learned process that came about only three thousand years ago and is still developing. The implications of this revolutionary scientific paradigm extend into virtually every aspect of our psychology, our history and culture, our religion—and indeed our future.
 
"Don't be put off by the academic title of Julian Jaynes's The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. Its prose is always lucid and often lyrical…he unfolds his case with the utmost intellectual rigor."— The New York Times
 
"When Julian Jaynes . . . speculates that until late in the twentieth millennium BC men had no consciousness but were automatically obeying the voices of the gods, we are astounded but compelled to follow this remarkable thesis."—John Updike, The New Yorker
 
"He is as startling as Freud was in The Interpretation of Dreams, and Jaynes is equally as adept at forcing a new view of known human behavior."— American Journal of Psychiatry

Index of Subjects

A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z

(References in italics are to footnotes.)

A

Admonition, experiences of, 106, 111–112, 279, 411–412

Adrenalin, 93, 262

Affect, and excerption, 62

Agriculture

causes of, 137–138

gods’ decisions in, 180

incipient at Eynan, 144

Natufian, 139

as primary subsistence, 144

Amos, 278, 305, 311, 372

Amulets, 232

Analog, defined, 54

Analog ‘I’, 65, 204, 271, 283, 287, 296, 375, 387, 415

defined, 62

in Gilgamesh, 253

in hypnosis, 398

loss of, in oracles, 328

loss of, in schizophrenia, 417, 419–421, 423, 425

origin of, in deceit, 219–220

protects against impulsive behavior, 402

and thumos, 263

Analog behavior, in Iliad, 82

Analog space, 65, 204

Anarchy, 211, 213

Andean civilizations, 156–158, 178. See also Incas

Angels, 233

origin of, 230–231

Anterior commissures, see Brain

Aoidoi, 69, 76–78, 82, 215, 269, 277, 362

change to rhapsodes, 369

hallucinatory echolalia, 424

and memory, 219

in Odyssey, 272

not possessed, 370

as unity with past, 256

verbal Iliad, 259

Aptic structures, 31, 39, 387, 443

definition, 31

for hallucinations, 416–417

for language, 50, 103

for science, 434

temporal priming of, 135

Architecture, 153, 155

Ashur, 209–210

Assimilation, 64–65

Associationism, 8

Assyria, 158

bicameral breakdown in, 223–228

cruelty of, 214

dead called gods in, 164

kings of, 249

rise of, 209–212

sortilege in, 240

Atlantis, 212. Se...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Contents
• Copyright
• Preface
• Introduction
• THE MIND OF MAN
• The Consciousness of Consciousness
• Consciousness
• The Mind of Iliad
• The Bicameral Mind
• The Double Brain
• The Origin of Civilization
• THE WITNESS OF HISTORY
• Gods, Graves, and Idols
• Literate Bicameral Theocracies
• The Causes of Consciousness
• A Change of Mind in Mesopotamia
• The Intellectual Consciousness of Greece
• The Moral Consciousness of the Khabiru
• VESTIGES OF THE BICAMERAL MIND IN THE MODERN WORLD
• The Quest for Authorization
• Of Prophets and Possession
• Of Poetry and Music
• Hypnosis
• Schizophrenia
• The Auguries of Science
• Afterword
• Index of Persons
• Index of Subjects
• The Drawings
• About the Author
• Connect with HMH
• Footnotes