Julian Jaynes Society May 2021 Newsletter

We are pleased to announce the release of the revised hardcover edition of The Julian Jaynes Collection in the United States, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and United Kingdom. It will soon be available for order wherever books are sold. This beautifully produced book has the cover art printed right on the case, similar to a textbook, so no dust jacket to lose or get torn. Perfect for Jaynes enthusiasts, collectors, and libraries!

Pretend you’re from another dimension and unfamiliar with cars, planes, trains, and ships. But you quickly notice what they share in common: Motion. You’re interested in discovering exactly how these contraptions work and decide that to understand them you need to investigate motion-ness. So you begin to take them apart, piece by piece, looking for the essence of movement. However, try as you might, you can’t discover the mysterious potency animating the operation of going from point A to point B. But you’re absolutely convinced that motion-ness must exist somewhere in or around anything imbued with the power of mobility … Read more >

Join us for a very special interview followed by a Q&A session with Professor Laurence Sugarman, MD. Attendance is limited so please RSVP:

Professor Laurence Sugarman – Hypnosis, Placebo Effects, and the Bicameral Mind
Thursday, June 17, 2021, 4:30pm Pacific Time/7:30pm Eastern Time
The Julian Jaynes Society Interview Series continues with an interview with Professor Laurence Sugarman, M.D., FAAP, ABMH, Research Professor & Director, Center for Applied Psychophysiology and Self-regulation, Rochester Institute of Technology, on the changing nature of hypnosis, placebo effects, the role of authorization, and hypnosis as a vestige of the bicameral mind. The interview will be followed by Q&A with the event participants. Read Professor Sugarman’s biography below.

The Julian Jaynes Society welcomes Professor Edoardo Casiglia and Professor Laurence Sugarman to the Science Advisory Board. Both have extensive backgrounds in science, medicine, and hypnosis, as well as long-standing interest in Julian Jaynes’s theory, and we are greatly honored to have them.

Edoardo Casiglia, MD is Professor of Internal Medicine at University of Padova. He is a specialist in cardiology, pharmacology, anesthesia and intensive care, a clinical hypertension specialist, and an anthropologist and forensic archeologist. He is also a trained hypnotist, hypnotherapist, hypnosis instructor, and is former Editor in Chief of the Journal Contemporary Hypnosis. He has published 14 books and authored or co-authored over 400 scientific works on a range of diverse subjects such as cardiology, hypertension, hypnosis, hypnotherapy, and consciousness.

Laurence Sugarman, MD is Research Professor and Director of the Center for Applied Psychophysiology and Self-regulation in the College of Health Sciences and Technology at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT); a developmental and behavioral pediatrician at the Easter Seals Diagnostic and Treatment Center in Rochester, New York; and Clinical Professor in Pediatrics at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry. Over two decades of primary care pediatric practice, Dr. Sugarman refined clinical biofeedback and hypnosis strategies that effectively increase resilience and coping skills for young people and families.

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In The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, Julian Jaynes has painted a vivid picture of the collapse of archaic mentality in the Near East and in Ancient Greece, showing how what we in the modern world call “religion” underwent a major transformation. Previous to about the first millennium B.C., he says, humanity was not “conscious,” by which he means people did not have the capacity for introspection, of narratizing about past and future based on a concept of an internal self-existing in a metaphorical “inner space.” Instead, they were guided in unfamiliar situations by the dictates of “gods,” who were hallucinated voices (and sometimes visions) that had evolved as a side effect of language. These voices functioned as repositories of the accumulated wisdom of their societies, but were not cognized as being part of an individual’s psychological makeup; as such a notion was impossible for a pre-conscious mentality. Because these voices seem to have been localized in predominantly one hemisphere of the brain, Jaynes calls this early mentality “bicameral.” … Read more >

Q&A Session Part 2
“Is the theory of panpsychism compatible with Julian Jaynes’s theory?”

Q&A Session Part 3
“Therapy, hypnosis and Julian Jaynes’s theory.”

Q&A Session Part 4
“Are there studies in child development that support or refute Julian Jaynes’s theory?”

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