Online Event: The Psychology of Ancient Egypt
Thursday, November 16th, 2023
4pm Pacific/7pm Eastern

Join us for a 90-minute interview and Q&A session with Brian J. McVeigh on his latest book, The Psychology of Ancient Egypt: Reconstructing A Lost Mentality.

We will be delving into many aspects of ancient Egypt that are relevant to Julian Jaynes’s theory. This online event will be held on Thursday, November 16th, 2023 at 4pm Pacific/7pm Eastern. The hour-long interview will be followed by a 30 minute question and answer session with the event participants. Free and open to the public (RSVP required).

The Importance of Nailing Down the Basics:
Commentary on the Jaynes Theory Quizzes
by Brian J. McVeigh

“A word of thanks to all those who tested their knowledge of Julian Jaynes’s theory by taking the JJS Quizzes on Jaynes’s Theory. In an earlier blog, I made the point that a major deterrent to understanding Jaynes is the …” Read more

Fact Checking Scott Alexander’s Discussion of Julian Jaynes’s Theory on “Slate Star Codex” – Part 1
by Brian J. McVeigh

“Scott Alexander begins his review of Jaynes’s The Origin of Consciousness with an odd opening. He describes it as “brilliant” and writes that it only has “two minor flaws”: It purports to explain the origin of consciousness and it “posits a breakdown of the bicameral mind.” …” Read more

Fact Checking Scott Alexander’s Discussion of Julian Jaynes’s Theory on “Slate Star Codex” – Part 2
by Marcel Kuijsten

“In June 2020, the psychiatrist and blogger Scott Alexander wrote a review of Julian Jaynes’s The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind for his popular “Slate Star Codex” blog. His discussion of Jaynes’s theory contains a number of misconceptions and errors, and I will attempt to clear those up here. …” Read more

If you haven’t logged in recently, be sure to check out the many new Julian Jaynes lectures and interviews we’ve added this year.

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Not a member or did your membership lapse? Stay up-to-date with the latest content on Julian Jaynes’s theory while helping to support our mission by joining the Julian Jaynes Society. All memberships are tax-deductible contributions. We appreciate your support!

“End of Summer” Reading Sale!

Now through Thursday, August 31st, enjoy 10% off our latest book, Conversations on Consciousness and the Bicameral Mind on Amazon or the JJS website:

Including in-depth interviews with Stanford anthropology professor Tanya Luhrmann, UC Berkeley psychology professor emeritus John Kihlstrom, and many others, this book answers the most common questions people have about Jaynes’s theory and extends the theory into many new areas.

(If you live outside of the U.S., your best option is to purchase the book through your country’s Amazon website or via special order from your favorite bookstore.)

If you’re already enjoyed the book, please help others discover it by writing a positive review on Amazon, Goodreads, or the Julian Jaynes Society website.

Professor Tanya Luhrmann
Hearing Voices, Sensed Presences, and Imagined “Others”
Read the full interview in Conversations on Consciousness and the Bicameral Mind

Plus Professor John Schedel, “Julian Jaynes and Owen Barfield on the Origins, Nature, and Trajectory of Consciousness,” and more!

Consciousness as “Super-perception”:
Like Technological Innovations and Linguistic Coinages, Consciousness Greatly Extends Our Senses, Increasing Adaptability
by Brian J. McVeigh

“People commonly confuse and conflate sensory perception with Jaynesian consciousness. Indeed, this is why in much of my writing I have stressed their distinction. However, here I argue that despite their important differences, they are nevertheless intimately related. …” Read more

Fact Checking Erik Hoel’s The World behind the World: Consciousness, Free Will, and the Limits of Science
by Brian J. McVeigh

“In the second chapter of The World behind the World: Consciousness, Free Will, and the Limits of Science, Erik Hoel briefly treats the historical development of what he calls the “intrinsic perspective” (mental experiences). In doing so he brings up the contributions of Julian Jaynes but dismisses his theories. Whatever value the arguments of Hoel’s book might have, he greatly distorts and misrepresents the Jaynesian perspective. …” Read more

The Julian Jaynes Society’s Marcel Kuijsten and filmmaker Brendan Leahy filming an interview with Dr. Clive Svendsen for a potential Julian Jaynes documentary at the Regenerative Medicine Institute at Cedars-Sinai hospital in Los Angeles. Stay tuned for additional updates and behind-the-scenes footage!

Plus Paul Evans, “Julian Jaynes, the Noosphere, Altered States and Consciousness Evolution,” and more!

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Not a member or did your membership lapse? Stay up-to-date with the latest content on Julian Jaynes’s theory while helping to support our mission by joining the Julian Jaynes Society. All memberships are tax-deductible contributions. We appreciate your support!

Memorial Day Sale!

Now through Monday, May 29th, enjoy 20% off our latest book, Conversations on Consciousness and the Bicameral Mind when you order from the JJS website:

Including in-depth interviews with Stanford anthropology professor Tanya Luhrmann, UC Berkeley psychology professor emeritus John Kihlstrom, and many others, this book answers the most common questions people have about Jaynes’s theory and extends the theory into many new areas.

(If you live outside of the U.S., your best option is still to purchase the book through your country’s Amazon website or via special order from your favorite bookstore.)

If you’re already enjoyed the book, please help others discover it by writing a positive review on Amazon, Goodreads, or the Julian Jaynes Society website.

Consciousness Is More “Nurture” than “Nature”:
But Like a Massive Planet, the Gravitational Pull of the Word “Consciousness” Drags our Thinking in the Wrong Direction, Warping Scientific Analysis
by Brian J. McVeigh

“The nature-versus-nurture debate has framed discussions about the origins of mind for centuries: Is it innate or acquired? Has it biologically evolved or is it better understood as the product of historical development? To what degree is it learned? To be more specific, what about consciousness, understood here as one aspect of mind? …” Read more

Professor Roy Baumeister
The Why, What, and How of Human Consciousness

Marcel Kuijsten
The Gods of Mesopotamia and the Presentist Fallacy

Plus Eric Alexander La Freniere, Malcolm David Lowe, and more!

Log in or sign up to check out the latest Member Area updates.

Not a member or did your membership lapse? Gain access to original content on Julian Jaynes’s theory while helping to support our mission by joining the Julian Jaynes Society. All memberships are tax-deductible contributions. We appreciate your support!

New Book Reviews

A big thank you to Dr. Louis Arnoux and Michael R. Jacobs for their recent reviews of Conversations on Consciousness and the Bicameral Mind:

I read Conversations on Consciousness and the Bicameral Mind … with great delight. “… The material in Conversations is rich in detail and a great way to assist people to understand better each of [Jaynes’] core elements of theorising. The interviewers show great patience and a depth of understanding of the issues in play, and the interviewees demonstrate the abundance of research that has taken place over the last four decades that corroborate and refine Jaynes’ early insights. … We are greatly indebted to Julian Jaynes’ insights … and to Marcel Kuijsten for these interviews that demonstrate so well how alive, rich and extensive is the field opened up by Jaynes.”
— Dr. Louis Arnoux, Managing Director, Fourth Transition Ltd.

Endlessly fascinating, scintillating with insight and intelligence.
“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.”
— Michael R. Jacobs, “Self-Portraits As Other People” podcast

Whether you are new to Jaynes’s ideas or have been learning about them for many years, Conversations on Consciousness and the Bicameral Mind has something for everyone. It is now available from the Julian Jaynes Society, Amazon, Barnes & Noble and via special order from most bookstores.

If you’re already enjoyed the book, please help others discover it by writing a positive review on Amazon, Goodreads, or the Julian Jaynes Society website.

New from the Julian Jaynes Society blog, read the latest post from Brian J. McVeigh:

Falling between the Cracks:
Jaynes’s Defiance of Scholarly Conventions Challenged Cherished Methodological Assumptions — This Is What Makes Him Hard to Appreciate

“Academics make progress when they are inspired by the cross-pollination of ideas, and most researchers, arguably, utilize a multi-disciplinary approach to some degree, i.e., no piece of research fits perfectly into one scholarly field …” Read more

Q&A Session on “Conversations on Consciousness and the Bicameral Mind” Part 1

Gregory Conrow:
An Encounter of Julian Jaynes and Jacques Derrida: Consciousness, Divine Voice and Writing

The Julian Jaynes Society welcomes Professor Ulrich Schädler to the Science Advisory Board:

Ulrich Schädler, Ph.D.
Professor, Dept. of Art History and Archaeology, University of Fribourg, Switzerland, and Director of the Swiss Museum of Games, La Tour-de-Peilz

Ulrich Schädler teaches Greek and Roman Archaeology. He published mainly about Greek architecture and Graeco-Roman sculpture. For more than thirty years his research interests and publications have concentrated on the history of games, including ancient Greek and Roman games, Chess, Backgammon, and the culture of play and games in the Middle Ages and 18th and 19th centuries. He is co-founder of the International Society for Board Game Studies (see the Board Game Studies Journal and the annual BGS colloquium), co-editor of the publication series “Ludographie” (with Rainer Buland), co-editor (with Véronique Dasen) of the newly founded series “Locus Ludi,” and member of the scientific council of “Game in Lab” (Paris). From 2017 to 2022, he collaborated as senior researcher with Véronique Dasen in the research project “Locus Ludi: The Cultural Fabric of Play and Games in Classical Antiquity,” financed by a grant from the European Research Council. His interest in Julian Jaynes was stimulated by Jaynes’s investigations into the behavior of the Homeric heroes. He is currently working on a study of the relationship of early board games to Jaynes’s theory.

Coming soon: Parts 7 & 8

Not a member or did your membership lapse? Gain access to original content on Julian Jaynes’s theory while helping to support our mission by joining the Julian Jaynes Society. All memberships are tax-deductible contributions. We appreciate your support!

After reading Jaynes’s book people often have many questions, for instance:

– How does Jaynes’s theory apply to child development?

– Do recent studies in neuroscience support Jaynes’s neurological model?

– What are some the critiques of the theory and how have they been countered?

– Do studies of modern voice hearers support Jaynes’s theory?

– Has evidence for bicameral mentality been discovered in other cultures?

– How did bicameral people construct the pyramids and other ancient structures?

In our latest book, Conversations on Consciousness and the Bicameral Mind: Interviews with Leading Thinkers on Julian Jaynes’s Theory, we attempt to answer these any many other questions about Jaynes’s theory, present the latest evidence, and extend the theory into new areas.

Whether you are new to Jaynes’s ideas or have been learning about them for many years, Conversations on Consciousness and the Bicameral Mind has something for everyone. It is now available from the Julian Jaynes Society, Amazon, Barnes & Noble and via special order from most bookstores.

A big thank you to everyone that has already ordered the book, as well as to Dr. Phillip Kent, Patrick Garner, Patricia P., Philip Ardery, Gian Anello, and Julie D. for being among the first to post 5-star reviews.

If you’re already enjoyed the book, please help others discover it by writing a positive review on Amazon, Goodreads, or the Julian Jaynes Society website.

Julian Jaynes Interviewed on Hearing Voices
WHDH Boston Radio, Boston, MA
May 14, 1989

Listen to the latest interview on Julian Jaynes’s theory, from the “Self Portraits As Other People” podcast:

Julian Jaynes and the Origin of Consciousness
in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind (EP 25)

New from the Julian Jaynes Society blog, read the latest post from Brian J. McVeigh:

The Myth of “Pure Consciousness”:
The Belief in a Fundamental Psychic Process Hinders Progress in Psychology

“I have often wondered why so many well-credentialed researchers continue to bark up the wrong tree in their quest to understand consciousness. Many reasons could be offered, but in a recent discussion …” Read more

Julian Jaynes – A Service in Celebration of His Life
First Unitarian Society, West Newton, MA
May 2, 1998

Includes commentary by Prof. Marcia Johnson, Prof. Don B. Rubin, Prof. William R. Woodward, Prof. Sam Glucksberg, Jim Beardsley, Walter Tower, and other friends of Julian Jaynes.

Not a member or did your membership lapse? Gain access to original content on Julian Jaynes’s theory while helping to support our mission by joining the Julian Jaynes Society. All memberships are tax-deductible contributions. We appreciate your support!

It’s official! Our latest book, Conversations on Consciousness and the Bicameral Mind: Interviews with Leading Thinkers on Julian Jaynes’s Theory was published last week and is now available for immediate shipping from the Julian Jaynes Society as well as Amazon.com.

International Jaynes enthusiasts: The book is now available on Amazon sites in the following countries:

Canada
France
Germany (also serving many nearby countries)
India
Italy
Japan
Mexico
Netherlands
Poland
Spain & Portugal
Sweden
United Kingdom, with additional locations coming soon.

You can also special order the book from many bookstores worldwide. If you order via a bookstore, please share your experience by replying to this e-mail.

A big thank you to everyone that pre-ordered the book, as well as to Dr. Phillip Kent, Patrick Garner, Patricia P. and Philip Ardery for being the first to post reviews of the book on the Julian Jaynes Society website and Amazon:

A wonderful addition to the literature. Well worth the money
“The title says it all. The book contains a series of interesting interviews by leading researchers in the field. Strongly recommended for all those wishing to learn more about Jayne’s theory, and research which supports it.” — Dr. Phillip Kent

Excellent addition
“Nicely edited, timely, compelling read. Easy 5 stars.” — Patrick Garner

Fascinating!
“Highly recommended for anyone interested in learning about Julian Jaynes’ fascinating ideas. … filled with a great deal of interesting insights, stimulating observations, and clarifications and extensions of the theory.” — Patricia P.

Boosted my Learning
“Conversations enables any reader to get deeper insight into Jaynes’s work and its impacts. … Conversations does more than advocate and promote Jaynes’s ideas and document their widening influence. The book’s “Bicameral Mentality” section concludes with Kuijsten interviewing partial skeptic John Kihlstrom, emeritus cognitive social psychologist at University of California, Berkeley. Kihlstrom tells Kuijsten, “I accept two and a half of Jaynes’s four hypotheses,” and the respectful sparring of these two thinkers over 30+ pages yields many sharp insights and rich food for reflection.” — Philip Ardery

Now Available:
Conversations on Consciousness and the Bicameral Mind

Clarifying and offering the latest evidence for Jaynes’s theory, the book includes interviews with Professor of Medicine Edoardo Casiglia, Professor of Psychology John Kihlstrom, Professor of Anthropology Tanya Luhrmann, Professor of Philosophy Jan Sleutels, Professor of Psychiatry Iris Sommer, Professor of Applied Psychophysiology Laurence Sugarman, and many others.

“Julian Jaynes was my teacher in the early 1960s. … Much psychological science since then points to the possibility that he was right. Right about consciousness, right about ancient history, right about evolution, right about language, even right about Homer. This volume begins to close the gap, bringing Jaynes’s brilliance to the attention and appreciation of the contemporary public.”
— Martin Seligman, Professor of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania, and author of The Hope Circuit

Help support our mission by ordering directly from the Julian Jaynes Society!

The Julian Jaynes Society is honored to welcome Dr. Clive Svendsen to the Science Advisory Board!

Dr. Clive Svendsen is a neuroscientist and stem cell biologist. He did his predoctoral training at Harvard University. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge in England, where he subsequently became a Welcome Fellow and established a laboratory focusing on stem cell research. He then moved to the University of Wisconsin in 2000 as Professor of Neurology and Anatomy and founded their Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine Center. In 2010, he moved to Los Angeles and founded the Cedars-Sinai Board of Governors Regenerative Medicine Institute (RMI), which currently has 23 faculty members and over 120 staff. Dr. Svendsen has a long-standing interest in Julian Jaynes and began his career looking at post-mortem schizophrenic brain tissue and determining how the left and right hemispheres may drive aspects of the disease. Currently he is transplanting stem cells into the brain and spinal cord of patients with ALS in order to establish how neural transplants may be able to modify neuronal functioning and survival.

Test your knowledge of Julian Jaynes’s theory by taking our new Basic Knowledge, Intermediate Concepts, and Advanced Concepts quizzes. We welcome your feedback!

For many (mis)interpreters of Jaynes, the word consciousness acts as blank canvas upon which they draw and impose their own definitions of what they assume Jaynes meant by this term. The result is serious misunderstanding and a distortion of his arguments. … Read more

New Lecture Previews

New for members! Log in or sign up to check out the latest Member Area updates:

I first encountered Julian Jaynes’s The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind almost 45 years ago. Though the book made sense to me, I could see why people would reject its arguments. Nevertheless I assumed that once carefully explained, people may not agree but would at least be able to discern a certain logic behind Jaynesian psychology. How naïve I was. … Read more >

New Interviews

Pre-Order Conversations on Consciousness and the Bicameral Mind

Be the first to read our latest book on Julian Jaynes’s theory by pre-ordering your copy today! Pre-orders will ship throughout July and early August in the order they were received.

All JJS pre-orders will include two free bonus articles: Brian McVeigh’s “The Psychology of Romanticism & Modern Art: A Jaynesian Interpretation of the Inward Turn” and Ross Maxwell’s “Eternal Rome: Subjective Consciousness and Immortality.” Links will be sent to download the bonus material shortly before the book ships.

View the full table of contents

Advanced Praise for Conversations on Consciousness and the Bicameral Mind

“Julian Jaynes was my teacher in the early 1960s. … Much psychological science since then points to the possibility that he was right. Right about consciousness, right about ancient history, right about evolution, right about language, even right about Homer. This volume begins to close the gap, bringing Jaynes’s brilliance to the attention and appreciation of the contemporary public.”
— Martin Seligman, Professor of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania, and author of The Hope Circuit

“… A marvel of collective scholarship across multiple disciplines. … In this book, you will hear the voices of the most open-minded scholars of our generation.”
— William R. Woodward, Professor Emertius of Psychology, University of New Hampshire, and author of Hermann Lotze: An Intellectual Biography

“Rich with ideas and fertile speculations, this outstanding collection of expert interviews advances the revolutionary work of the psychologist Julian Jaynes.”
— Richard Rhodes, Pulitzer Prize Laureate for The Making of the Atomic Bomb

“… It is time for a new generation of … deep thinkers at the heart of every discipline to rediscover Julian Jaynes’s tantalizing hypotheses concerning the origin and nature of human consciousness. This collection of interviews … will enable contemporary readers to understand why Jaynes’s style of inquiry remains as captivating and compelling as ever — and as provocative and controversial. Reader: take the plunge, and join the conversation!”
— Christian Y. Dupont, Ph.D., Associate University Librarian for Collections and Burns Librarian, Boston College, and author of Phenomenology in French Philosophy

“… Conversations on Consciousness and the Bicameral Mind helps us understand humanity’s development of consciousness over millennia, as well as how we learn it in our first years of life.”
— Loretta Graziano Breuning, Ph.D., author of Habits of a Happy Brain and Status Games

New for members! Log in or sign up to check out the latest Member Area updates:

New Book!
Conversations on Consciousness and the Bicameral Mind

How old is consciousness? What is the relationship of consciousness and language? What is the origin of god beliefs and religion? Why do people hear voices that command their behavior? These are just a few of the fascinating questions posed by Princeton University psychologist Julian Jaynes’s influential and controversial theory and discussed in this book. A treasure trove of provocative ideas, Conversations on Consciousness and the Bicameral Mind explains, extends, clarifies, and presents the latest evidence for Jaynes’s theory in a series of highly engaging interviews with both voice-hearers and leading thinkers on the theory.

Included are interviews with:

• Sanne Brederoo, Researcher and healthcare psychologist, the Netherlands
• Elisabeth Bell Carroll, Author and voice hearer
• Edoardo Casiglia, Professor of Medicine, University of Padova, Italy
• Rabbi James Cohn, Author and Biblical and Jaynesian scholar
• Dirk Corstens, Psychiatrist working with voice-hearers, the Netherlands
• Boban Dedovic, Interdisciplinary researcher, Department of Humanities, University of Chicago
• Sandra Escher, Mental health advocate and hearing voices researcher, the Netherlands
• Todd Gibson, Scholar of Tibetan Studies
• John Kihlstrom, Professor Emeritus of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley
• Michel Knols, Voice hearer and counselor, the Netherlands
• Marcel Kuijsten, Founder and Executive Director of the Julian Jaynes Society
• Tanya Luhrmann, Professor of Anthropology, Stanford University
• Brian McVeigh, Anthropologist, mental health counselor, and Jaynesian scholar
• Ted Remington, Professor, speaker, and rhetorician
• Marius Romme, Psychiatrist and founder of the Hearing Voices Movement, the Netherlands
• Bill Rowe, Researcher, speaker, and Jaynesian scholar
• Jan Sleutels, Professor of Philosophy, University of Leiden, the Netherlands
• Iris Sommer, Professor of Psychiatry, University Medical Center Groningen
• Laurence Sugarman, Research Professor & Director, Rochester Institute of Technology

View the full table of contents

Advanced Praise for Conversations on Consciousness and the Bicameral Mind

“Julian Jaynes was my teacher in the early 1960s. … Much psychological science since then points to the possibility that he was right. Right about consciousness, right about ancient history, right about evolution, right about language, even right about Homer. This volume begins to close the gap, bringing Jaynes’s brilliance to the attention and appreciation of the contemporary public.”
— Martin Seligman, Professor of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania, and author of The Hope Circuit

“… A marvel of collective scholarship across multiple disciplines. … In this book, you will hear the voices of the most open-minded scholars of our generation.”
— William R. Woodward, Professor Emertius of Psychology, The University of New Hampshire, and author of Hermann Lotze: An Intellectual Biography

“Rich with ideas and fertile speculations, this outstanding collection of expert interviews advances the revolutionary work of the psychologist Julian Jaynes.”
— Richard Rhodes, Pulitzer Prize Laureate for The Making of the Atomic Bomb

“… It is time for a new generation of … deep thinkers at the heart of every discipline to rediscover Julian Jaynes’s tantalizing hypotheses concerning the origin and nature of human consciousness. This collection of interviews … will enable contemporary readers to understand why Jaynes’s style of inquiry remains as captivating and compelling as ever — and as provocative and controversial. Reader: take the plunge, and join the conversation!”
— Christian Y. Dupont, Ph.D., Associate University Librarian for Collections and Burns Librarian, Boston College, and author of Phenomenology in French Philosophy: Early Encounters

“… Conversations on Consciousness and the Bicameral Mind helps us understand humanity’s development of consciousness over millennia, as well as how we learn it in our first years of life.”
— Loretta Graziano Breuning, Ph.D., author of Habits of a Happy Brain and Status Games

Science makes progress when it differentiates, discriminates, and separates out from the messy stuff we call reality what we can carefully classify, categorize, and singularize. If our taxonomy is not clear knowledge does not advance since the defining qualities of different properties, processes, and behaviors become confused. Consider psychology’s idiom that does not always distinguish between visual perceptual experiences and mental images. The latter can be defined as introspectable, conscious representations of things that are not actually present. … Read more >

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New Interviews on Julian Jaynes’s Theory

Watch two new interviews on Jaynes’s theory with Brian J. McVeigh:

Dr. Brian McVeigh on Julian Jaynes

Applications of Jaynesian Theory to Psychology and the Origin of Religion

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