Julian Jaynes Society November/December 2022 Newsletter

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

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