THE BICAMERAL MIND
Humanity has a destiny of which each of us is an important and integral part. However, the physical and spiritual evolution of human beings is such an incredibly vast and long process that it is difficult for the mind trapped in this fragment of time to comprehend the totality of it. Consciousness, and the manner by which self awareness manifests, is a process of awakening that appears to have a cyclical mechanism of enfoldment. As we move through the ages we are meant to learn the lessons of that particular time frame, so a clear understanding of each period is essential if we are to ascend to higher levels of spiritual awareness. All of evolution has but one purpose and that purpose is to overthrow the shackles of material confinement and awaken to Spirit. We are meant to transcend the world of form through the fragmented self that perpetuates the illusion of separateness. Transcendence is attained by conquering ignorance with the realization that the animating principle of you is connected, and a part of, everything that exists. This Source, which many call God or the Prime Creator or the Universe, cannot actually be named and is impossible to fathom because it literally is the energetic flow that fills the cosmic void. You cannot make it an object. You ARE it. You cannot NAME it. You can only BE it. In fact naming things, as we’ll come to see, creates the separation that perpetuates the illusion. Anything that stands in the way of this truth is simply ignorance. All forms of hatred, racism, domination, and suffering are caused by this ignorance and are usually born out of identification with an egoic mind state that is addicted to the world of form. The ego is the point of separation from the Source. It is the thing that differentiates us. It creates the SELF that is separate. While it may seem trite and simplistic to simply state that All Are One, even if that may be the truth, we should take a closer look at the ego in evolutionary terms so we can come to a deeper awareness of it’s function. The ego has a purpose that needs to be understood in order to be transcended. In a larger context, humanity is coming to the end of a long period where the ego has dominated the collective and caused great destruction and disharmony.
We’ve already looked at how balancing the energies of Lucifer & Ahriman is the key to awaken the Spiritual Principle that lies within each of us in order to attain Christ Consciousness. Now let’s look at these ideas through the lens of Julian Jaynes seminal work The Origin of Consciousness in The Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. It’s an incredibly dense and powerful work that purports a still controversial thesis that “consciousness”, which he exhaustively attempts to define, is a process that is ever evolving in the human being through the separation of the two hemispheres in the brain. According to Jaynes, the early human mind operated in a state whereby one hemisphere of the brain would ‘speak’ to the other via auditory hallucinations. The right hemisphere, for most people, would hear voices that would then be translated to the left hemisphere, which would listen and obey. He cites countless examples throughout historical literature like Homer’s Illiad and Odyssey, as well as much of the Old Testament. Many aspects of early religious doctrine came from men who “heard God talking to them”. The reason for this state of being at this point in history stems from the right hemisphere of the brain being more dominant and the left hemisphere, the area of the brain associated with language and self awareness, being less developed. Before the self awareness aspect of consciousness arose, Bicameral Man was guided by the mental commands of external ‘gods’ who dictated to or admonished the individual. Many of the ancient myths, legends, and religious accounts feature this type of exchange. The breakdown of Bicamerality marks the beginning of introspection, self awareness, and the consciousness we know today.
Scientifically, Jaynes posits that although the left hemisphere is relegated to speech and the written word, both hemispheres understand language. The areas in the right hemisphere that correspond to the left hemisphere’s Wernicke’s area and Broca’s area would organize admonitory experience and code it into 'voices', which were then 'heard' over the anterior commissure by the left or dominant hemisphere. It’s precisely this area of the brain which allowed bicameral man to “hear the gods”. When this area was electrically stimulated in modern experiments, the subjects often reported hearing voices and other types of auditory hallucinations like music. It’s a misconception to assume that the areas of the right hemisphere that correspond to Wernicke’s area lack function. It’s true that in surgical experiments where these areas of brain tissue have been removed the subjects experienced little to no deficit in mental functioning. But, it simply suggests that we live in an age of left brain dominance where our ability to connect to the larger spectrum of experience has been lost or deadened. It’s extremely interesting to consider the idea that language, and writing in particular, corresponds with the emergence of self awareness and a sense of separation. In order to have a “story” one must have a name and a self that exists as a character to be identified with.
The Old Testament is a fascinating glimpse into our Bicameral past. Let’s take the biblical story of Abraham and Issac as an example. According to the verse, God ‘tells’ Abraham to take his only son Issac to the top of a mountain and sacrifice him as a way to show his allegiance and true faith in God. Abraham complies with the directive, marching Issac up Moriah agonizing over what he has been commanded to do. But, right before he is about to commit this act of filicide, a ‘messenger’ intervenes and tells Abraham to spare his son and that his faith had been proven. Many Old Testament stories feature this narrative including God dictating the Ten Commandments to Moses on Mount Sinai.
Painting by Valentin de Boulogne
We can also look at the idea of the Fall of Man through this lens for more context. When Adam and Eve eat of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil and become like the Elohim, the voices of the gods they were previously hearing, they suddenly begin to “see” themselves, which is something that can only happen through subjectivity.
The Expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Paradise by Alexandre Cabanel
Prior to that, Yahweh or “He Who Is”, is the commanding presence and the voice of God. But this “God” of the Old Testament is bizarrely narcissistic, commanding worship and full of wrath and vengeful attitudes. Does this sound like the voice of a loving God or that of a frightened ego? It’s certainly something to contemplate further. When we look at The Old Testament from this perspective we can see it as a symbolic document of the birth pangs of subjective consciousness. With this in mind, the hidden symbolism in Michelangelo’s masterpiece “The Creation of Adam” also becomes illuminated.
The Creation of Adam by Michaelangelo
The loss of this Bicameral function occurred over the course of the first millennium B.C. and more specifically the 3rd and 4th centuries Before Christ. The written accounts of this time period reflect the change from bicameral to subjectivity. Chinese literature jumps into subjectivity with the teachings of Confucius. In India, the Vedas favor a bicameral tone while the Upanishads move towards subjectivity. Greek literature is a series of stepping stones from the Illiad to the Odyssey and across Sappho and Solon into Socrates and Plato. While Egypt is relatively silent, save for the vast collection of pictoral knowledge, The Old Testament is perhaps the greatest evidence documenting this change from bicameral to subjectivity.
The teachings of Jesus of Nazareth can be looked at in a new context given this insight. Before Christ, Bicameral Man was at the mercy of an external voice that guided his actions. As those voices ceased and a subjective self emerged from the void, a new type of spirituality was needed. An entirely new paradigm of religious thought is necessary for a conscious subjective individual. For Bicameral Man, it was enough to engage in ritual sacrifice and community punishment for sin. But now, each individual must be held responsible for his own actions. A psychological deliverance is necessary for redemption of Spirit. Going within for the kingdom of heaven is the teaching rather than blood sacrifice to an external entity. This revelation is perhaps the best evidence that our evolutionary path is part of a spiritual control system.
Jesus Preaching on the Mount by Gustave Doré
One reason for the emergence of this new type of spirituality stems from the rise of treachery. Treachery by definition is a type of deceit that plays out over time and requires the invention of an analog “I” that exists underneath the face one wears outwardly to the object of their deceit. It’s impossible to be treacherous if you do not already possess a sense of self that you can utilize to deceive. This function may have emerged as a survival instinct. When a village was overrun by some invader, a man who obeyed the internal voices might strike out and be killed immediately, whereas one who could mask his hatred behind the face of compliance had the potential to survive. It stands to reason that death would come sooner to those who impulsively lived by their unconscious habits or who could not resist the commandments of their gods. Self awareness then became a desirable trait for natural selection and had to be learned by each new generation. Those biologically most able to learn it would be those most likely to survive. In fact, as Biblical evidence supports, many children who exhibited Bicameral tendencies were simply murdered during this period.
It’s interesting to note that in the Bicameral period there was a visual component to the hallucinated voices. Yahweh was often a visual physical presence, the duplicate of his creation. He’s present at the sacrifice of Abel by his brother Cain and even shuts the door of Noah’s Ark with his own hand. In other instances, ‘He-who-is’ exists as a burning bush, pillars of fire, or black clouds of thunder and lightning. Many of these visions have a correlation to the psychedelic experience, where access to the right brain’s connection to expanded awareness is gained.
Cain and Abel by Giovanni Domenico Ferretti
In the breakdown of these hallucinatory experiences in the Bicameral period, what was once spoken had to be written on tablets and become law, something that was unchanging and universal to all equally. This has great significance to the emergence of subjective consciousness. The commands that were heard are now silent and carved into stone to be taken in visually, shattering the auditory into a fragmented reality. The most famous instance of this being the 10 Commandments. In this example, we can glimpse how language, and more specifically the written word, further locks humanity into left brain dominance and perpetuates the separation of Spirit from all things external. Another fascinating component is the appearance of divination in this period. When the voices ceased, methods of prognostication like drawing lots, tarot, and astrology arose in the absence of an omnipotent voice.
Descent from Mt Sinai with the 10 Commandments by Ferdinand Bol
Today we can see the vestiges of our bicameral past in misunderstood psychological diagnosis such as schizophrenia. People who are gifted with psychic capabilities and those who are naturally in tune with the subtler vibrations of the universe could also fit into this category. A major factor in triggering hallucinations in schizophrenics is stress just as it was for bicameral man. The decision making process itself could be considered as a contributing cause for the onset of the condition. Great insight into the alien abduction and shamanic experience can be gained by viewing it through this lens as well. This dormant part of the brain appears to be a portal of access to this hidden dimension. Messages that come from other dimensions have long been the ideas that find their way into a religious or spiritual context for the masses over time and are a further indication that material reality is a control system for spiritual enfoldment.
We know from laboratory studies that the right hemisphere processes spatial and pattern information. It’s also better at fitting parts of things into a greater context. It gives us a sense of how we fit into the larger scheme of things, our connection to the All that is, the Source of everything. It sees parts as having meaning only within a larger whole. The left hemisphere separates and codifies things. It looks at the parts themselves. It does this mostly by naming things as a way to gain some type of control over them. Subjective consciousness itself utilizes linguistic metaphors in service of an illusory “I” so that a personal narrative can emerge. It’s the story of you, or me for that matter. This personal history feeds the sense of self and the more identified with it, the stronger the ego, and the more separate from everything one becomes. The ego is actually the voice of this entity that is extremely attached to this sense of separation. This is so significant when it comes to psychology and the healing of trauma. It’s also why meditation and psychedelics are such powerful modalities for curing these mental aberrations.
When we meditate or take a psychedelic, blood flow to key areas of the brain that are involved in critical thinking, our geolocation, and our sense of time are greatly lessened. It dissolves the sense of self, both spatially and temporally, granting us access to the timeless dimension where we are connected to and a part of all that there is. As part of this process, we often come up against, and have to work through, the mental components that are propping up this sense of self in the form of trauma, resentments, and blocked energy. When these erupt, we may experience what some call a bad trip or what’s known as a storm in meditation. This is an important and integral aspect of healing however. By connecting with the stillness within, the silent observer, a certain coherence occurs in the brain between the two hemispheres. Normally, the left hemisphere and the default mode network, has a strangle hold over the rest of the brain and it keeps trauma buried so we can perform our daily responsibilities without being overcome by this energetic disturbance. When we meditate or take a psychedelic, we suddenly have access to this buried information in the form of sensation that turns into emotional content. We can then connect it to the left hemisphere’s “story” about the trauma and that correlation allows us to release it and move towards forgiveness and ultimately healing. It’s why you can be in talk therapy for years intellectualizing about the story that your babysitter molested you without any relief. In fact, repeating the story over and over only strengthens the ego’s sense of self as someone who has been victimized. On top of that, most pharmaceutical drugs only serve to further mask the pain associated with the traumatic event. But, it’s only when the actual pain as a sensory experience can be faced that true healing can occur. In addition, when we relinquish the “story” of our past, we can free ourselves from the restrictions that burden creates. In other words, we must strive towards experiential knowledge of the self in order to taste liberation from it, hence the famous maxim, “Know Thyself”. How can one know oneself unless an analog “I” exists as a narratizing figure to be analyzed? It’s here where we can begin to gain some modicum of insight into the purpose of the ego as a tool towards conscious spiritual awakening in each individual. To “know oneself” is the first step in awakening Spirit through subjectivity.
It is an unfortunate circumstance of this age that the functional purpose of the ego has been greatly distorted. Instead of utilizing the ego as a tool for spiritual growth, we have collectively identified with it to such an extent that we have caused economic and racial inequality as well as environmental collapse. This is clearly the result of an imbalance in the functioning of the hemispheres of the brain. The left hemisphere’s tendency to separate things through language results in the constant attempt to dominate and control everything outside of the fragile ego that exists in a perpetual state of lack and fear. The ego never has enough and it is never in the present moment. It is constantly judging and forever criticizing and categorizing. It’s obsessed with status and hierarchies. It rates others and pigeonholes them in a ridiculous fashion as a way to perpetuate it’s illusory sense of itself. The ego is always looking at other egos as either a threat or a potential to propel itself to higher status. This type of thinking cuts reality into lifeless fragments and only destructive action can result from this distorted view of reality. This imbalance is the plight of our current reality and appears to have taken hold long ago.
It seems that during the breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, where self awareness begins to arise and a new form of spirituality erupts, an Institution of oppression also emerged. This institution suppressed the Sacred Feminine causing women to be reduced to child bearers and the property of men. The feminine principle was once revered and respected, especially in the Pagan traditions where human beings were seen as a part of and in harmony with nature. During the formation of the Roman Catholic Church and especially during the Inquisition, these ancient wisdom teachings were considered demonic and their symbols subjugated and encoded into the new paradigm in a distorted manner. It was enough for a woman to be seen walking in nature, showing a love for animals, and using plants and herbs in a medicinal fashion to be branded a witch and burned at the stake. This is the reason why the Mystery Schools remained in secret and the teachings only available to dedicated initiates. Up to the present, the suppressed sacred feminine has become internalized and is felt by many women as emotional pain. Eckart Tolle refers to it as the pain-body. The accumulation of this torture and enslavement of women manifests as a collective female pain-body, which surfaces during menstruation and in the suffering of child birth. Women who identify with the pain-body can succumb to the trap of becoming locked in their ego through identification with the suffering but as a result of their connection to the body, they also have a greater potential to awaken because of it. Men tend to be more mind identified than women and therefore find it more challenging to transcend it. The left hemisphere is more masculine and governs our cognitive processes while the right hemisphere is feminine and connected to our feeling nature. In the same way that it’s necessary to balance Eastern and Western philosophical ideas, and keep the energies of Lucifer & Ahriman in equipoise, so too must we find the balance between the hemispheres of the brain and the expressions of gender. Men must awaken to the Feminine Principle inside themselves and connect with their feeling nature and by the same token, women must transcend the collective pain-body and connect with the outward directed Masculine energy inside. Both of these energies have become greatly distorted and misunderstood at present. Until the feminine is brought back into balance, we’re in danger of global catastrophe.
Just as the Bronze Age collapse of the 2nd Century B.C. caused mass migrations and unexpected stresses that led to the breakdown of Bicamerality into subjective consciousness as we know it, so too are we at a tipping point of historical significance in our modern history. We are entering a new phase of evolution that is crying out for a revolution in conscious awareness and a new type of spiritual awakening must emerge if we are to survive. We are standing at the precipice of a New Age. The shift from Pisces into Aquarius. It’s time for each of us to rediscover the Divine Mother within. The wisdom of the Sacred Feminine must be brought back into balance, yet we also have to ensure the pendulum doesn’t swing too far in the other direction. It’s imperative that we always strive for equilibrium. Resistance against an opposing force will always serve to strengthen its response. This is why each individual must awaken to their own spirit. By uncovering the hidden aspects of ourselves, we can begin to heal our own trauma and bring into balance the Masculine and Feminine energies that exist in every individual. Each of us must work out our own salvation. As we do this, the collective shadow will emerge and it will be ugly and unpleasant to behold but we must embrace it as part of ourselves. It’s part of this egoic delusion. We must ask ourselves with each action we take if we are bringing healing into the world or perpetuating pain. If we sort out our inner worlds first, the outer world will magically shift. It’s the law of nature. An awakened populace would never create an economic system of oppression and racism. An awakened populace would never poison their environment and enslave, torture, and murder animals and other human beings. This is all a product of the sickness of separation. Billions of shattered and frightened egos that must dominate and control nature as a way to protect the illusion. It’s apparent in our destructive forms of agriculture and industrialized slaughterhouses as well as in the technology we create in order to clean up the mess of a previous technological advancement. The chaos and disorder of the present moment can bring on collapse and destruction or birth an awakening into a New Earth. Of course it’s possible that both will occur. But, true spiritual awakening will not come from technological salvation. Nor will it come from a violent over throw of the government or from a disproportionate swing of political ideology. These are traps that will bring about a polarity shift to the opposite side of the spectrum and continue to serve unconscious egoic delusion. You can’t argue with the unconscious ego. Doing so will only serve to strengthen it. We have to awaken by our own volition, one by one. A shift in consciousness that integrates the hemispheres of the brain and balances the masculine and feminine polarities in each individual is the only way to create a sudden and massive spiritual awakening on a global scale. We need an awakening that integrates the realm of Spirit through the lens of the material to take us beyond binary concepts of all kinds. It’s time to acknowledge The Infinite Waters from which all things flow. If we can see this as the closing of an Age, one that has been filled with ignorance and darkness, then we can activate our enormous potential and move on to the next phase of our evolutionary journey. If we continue to stay locked in the identification with form identity, we risk annihilation. The choice is ours. Yours and Mine.
