10 books like The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind

This will be one of my more controversial picks – there are plenty of people who disagree with Campbell as a folklorist, a mythographer, and with his depiction of the Hero’s Journey. But, what is important about Campbell is his exploration of why the elements that appear in stories have the impact they do on our psyche, and how they fit together. One may not agree with all of Campbell’s conclusions, but I don’t think there’s a writer out there who won’t benefit from his exploration of the subject. I know I did.

Published 1893, Laing considers all kinds of searching questions relating to astronomy, geology, spiritualism, poetry, taxation, finance, and much more. Clearly a possessor of a powerful intelligence, Laing endeavors to make sense of the universe and human life with the limited information he had at his disposal, compared to what we know today. How does the sun burn, he asks? Is it made from coal? A notion he dismisses with rational precision. Later, he considers the arms race from his nineteenth century viewpoint and uncannily predicts a “Great War” that will engulf most of Europe, with “Constantinople” being the likely catalyst of “the blood-rain deluges of the greatest war the world has ever seen”.

The Oxford Companion is an encyclopedia, not a narrative, but I love that it includes stories from the Bible, the Quran, and other sacred texts alongside fantastical legends that span the globe. The line between myth and religion is, after all, largely subjective. King David, the nymph Daphne, and the Dayak myths of Borneo all share the same page. For those of us seeking inspiration in myth, the Oxford Companion offers ideas from Abraham to Ziusudra.

Early in the twentieth century, Marais studied a troop of baboons, studying their behavior, gaining insights into how this primate thinks, and, moreover, drawing conclusions about the development of the human psyche. Marais believed that the human unconscious mind, which he called “the subliminal soul” and which still “shapes our thoughts and actions”, is the ancient animal mentality, submerged beneath the evolution of the conscious mind. Therefore, he postulates, the hereditary mind that belonged to our pre-human ancestors is very much alive and well within us.

After reading Jaynes’ The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, readers often have many questions about the theory. In this volume, Julian Jaynes answers all of the most frequent questions about his origin of consciousness and a previous mentality called the bicameral mind. The Julian Jaynes Collection includes rare and never before seen articles, lectures, interviews, and in-depth discussions that both clear up misconceptions as well as extend Jaynes's theory into new areas such as the nature of the self, dreams, emotions, art, music, therapy, and the consequences and future of consciousness. The Julian Jaynes Collection is guaranteed to greatly increase your understanding of Julian Jaynes’s fascinating theory.

In The Minds of the Bible Rabbi James Cohn takes a deeply thought-provoking look at the Old Testament through the lens of Julian Jaynes’s theory. Rabbi Cohn explains how, when properly dated, the evolution of mental language can be traced through the oldest to the most recent books in the Old Testament, providing a written record of the development of subjective consciousness. Rabbi Cohn also explains how culture and language can have a profound impact on how we think. A gifted writer, Rabbi Cohn’s book is engaging, informative, and easy to understand.

The first new book that was published on Julian Jaynes’s theory in several decades, Reflections on the Dawn of Consciousness reignited the worldwide debate about Jaynes’s controversial theory of the origin of consciousness and a previous mentality called the bicameral mind. This book includes an in-depth biography of Julian Jaynes, essays by Jaynes, and the discussion and analysis of Jaynes's theory from a variety of perspectives such as clinical psychology, philosophy, neuroscience, anthropology, linguistics, and ancient history. Reflections on the Dawn of Consciousness is a must-read for Jaynes enthusiasts or anyone seeking an in-depth understanding of Jaynes’s theory.

In The ‘Other’ Psychology of Julian Jaynes, Brian J. McVeigh —  one of the world’s foremost scholars of Julian Jaynes’s theory — both provide new empirical evidence for the theory, extends Jaynes’s theory into new areas, and explains how Jaynes's thinking actually resonates with a “second” or “other” psychological tradition that explores the cultural-historical evolution of psyche. This thought-provoking book will deepen your understanding of many aspects of Jaynes’s theory, including evidence for the transition from bicamerality to subjective consciousness in ancient history, the surprising ubiquity of hearing voices in modern times (a vestige of the bicameral mind), the transformative power of metaphorical language to shape our thoughts, and much more.

The innovative thinking in this book inspired me to put my original ideas into writing. Here was someone else who was looking into the profound origins of humanity and how the world is made up. It reassured me I was on the right track in associating the Major Arcana of the Tarot with the I-Ching. Michael Hayes goes further in detecting a numerical and musical synthesis between ancient doctrines and current scientific discoveries. It is not a quick read, but a real eye-opener. Whilst not agreeing with all of it, there was so much fascinating information; I had to read it through twice straight off.

This is an easy-to-read book for anyone new to a Buddhist way of thinking. The deceptively simple philosophy put forward by the author is startlingly relevant to all of us in today’s world – a world so obviously in need of restoring balance. Choje Akong Tulku Rinpoche was the founder of the first Tibetan Buddhist Centre in the U.K.