Julian Jaynes (February 27, 1920 – November 21, 1997) was an American ps ychologis t, bes t known for his book The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind (1976), in which he argued that ancient peoples acted by means of automatic, non-conscious habit. When habit did not suffice and stress rose at the moment of a decis ion, behavior was directed by auditory verbal hallucinations , which were heard as the voice of a chieftain or god and immediately obeyed.
Jaynes argued that the change from this mode of thinking (which he called the bicameral mind) to {modern}consciousness occurred over a period of centuries about three thousand years ago and was based on the development of special types of linguistic cognition and the emergence of writing as an alternative means of social control.
Jaynes 's theory has been influential to philosophers , psychologists , and psychiatrists and has been cited in hundreds of scientific and popular books . It was a nominee for the National Book Award in 1978. In the late 1990s , Jaynes 's ideas received renewed attention as brain imaging technology confirmed many of his early predictions .
Unfortunately, neither Jaynes nor Jung ever extended their studies into the Mother Goddess period that dominated all preliterate cultures until the advent of writing and the subsequent rise of the Male Gods.
A wider, more scientific door into the Mother Goddess cultures was opened by two women, Riane Eisler and Marija Gimbutas, in their groundbreaking
The premise of The Chalice and the Blade is that a transition from a partnership society (Mother Goddess Cultures) to a male dominated society (Male Gods) took place approximately 6,0000 years ago.
Riane Eisler describes how preliterate cultures (hunter/gatherer and early agricultural) were by their nature sharing. Those sharing cultures, which lasted for tens of thousands of years, survived, though barely, into historical times (around 4,000 B.C.)
These cultures were characterized by a worship of the divine feminine (Mother Goddess), the Mother being represented by the Chalice.
Around 4,000 B.C. (which is also about the time writing first appeared) those cultures were replaced with the beginnings of the patriarchy in which we live today. (See Julian Jaynes for a related look at this change.) According to Eisler the forces that overthrew the Mother Goddess cultures worshipped not life and creativity, but death and destruction; in short, the Blade.
Click here for Wikipedia on Eisler.
A very early, celebrated thinker on the Mother Goddess Period is Marija Gimbutas.
MORE SOURCES
Here are some links to good, reliable web pages and YOUTUBE videos on various alternative subjects that I have found to be both useful and informative.
Whitley Strieber isn't really concerned with preliterate cultures, but his weekly web radio show (DREAMTIME) features a variety of speakers who sometimes have an understanding of preliterate cultures but most often do not. The result is exactly the type of confusion and misinformation that catogorizes most alternative thinking.
A YOUTUBE playlist of Whitley Streiber Broadcasts and Videos.
Whitley Strieber's Unknown Country/Dreamland web page where audio and video broadcasts back to 2002 can be accessed.
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