HeyJaredConsciousness and the Bicameral Mind - The Julian Jaynes Society Podcast
Listen to "Consciousness and the Bicameral Mind: The Julian Jaynes Society Podcast," where we explore Princeton University psychologist Julian Jaynes's theory of the origin of consciousness and the bicameral mind, as described in his best selling book, "The Origin of…
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- Sep 17, 2026
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45. Language, The Architecture of Consciousness: How Metaphorical Language Creates Your Inner Mind-Space (opens the original)
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"When the hallucinated voices of the gods fell silent in ancient texts, human beings had to construct a new internal world to replace them. But by what exact mechanism did we build the subjective mind that took their place? Modern cognitive psychology often struggles with this question because it routinely conflates innate biological perception with true subjective consciousness. ..." Learn more by reading "Conversations on Consciousness and the Bicameral Mind," currently on sale for a limited t
44. Hardware Religion vs Software Religion: Does Worldwide Spirituality Exhibit Basic Ingredients? (opens the original)
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"It is possible (advisable?) to strip away all the variations, dissimilarities, and kaleidoscopic richness and search for major patterns in world religions? Of course, the question in the social sciences, ever since they took shape since the Enlightenment, has been “are there universal, uniform, and unchangeable deep truths about human nature buried under the messy, unique particulars of place and period?” Each discipline contouring the current intellectual landscape differs depending on how the
43. When Gods Were Voices In Our Heads: The Worldwide Evidence for Bicameral Mentality Explained (opens the original)
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Learn more by reading "Conversations on Consciousness and the Bicameral Mind," currently on sale for a limited time: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1737305534/ https://www.julianjaynes.org/book/conversations-on-consciousness-and-the-bicameral-mind/ Or by becoming a member of the Julian Jaynes Society: https://www.julianjaynes.org/join/ This episode explores one of the most provocative ideas in psychology and history: Julian Jaynes's theory of the bicameral mind. According to this controversial hypoth
42. The Origin of Hearing Voices Explained | How Bicameral Mind Theory Explains Auditory Hallucinations (opens the original)
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"Modern psychiatry treats hearing voices as a rare, severe symptom of a broken mind, associating it almost exclusively with conditions like schizophrenia. In this framework, an unbidden voice is proof of a biological malfunction. However, today, hundreds of recent studies have documented auditory hallucinations across a wide spectrum of perfectly healthy populations. These are people with no history of mental illness, who nonetheless report hearing voices with the same clarity as an external spe
41. The Bicameral Prophet: Muhammad, The Origin of Islam and the Bicameral Mind (opens the original)
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"In 610 CE, isolated in a Mecca mountain cave, and enduring severe fasting, Muhammad experienced a physical encounter with a terrifying, unseen force. Traditionally, history offers us two ways to explain this — either it was a literal visit from an arch-angel, or it was the work of a man suffering from delusions. Yet the records of this event contain specific physical details that don't fit either category. They are too consistent to be dismissed as simple madness, and too clinical to be explain
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