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Iain McGilchrist

The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World Paperback – October 9, 2012

by Iain McGilchrist (Author)

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In a book of unprecedented scope--now available in a larger format—Iain McGilchrist presents a fascinating exploration of the differences between the brain’s left and right hemispheres, and how those differences have affected society, history, and culture. McGilchrist draws on a vast body of recent research in neuroscience and psychology to reveal that the difference is profound: the left hemisphere is detail oriented, while the right has greater breadth, flexibility, and generosity. McGilchrist then takes the reader on a journey through the history of Western culture, illustrating the tension between these two worlds as revealed in the thought and belief of thinkers and artists from Aeschylus to Magritte.

"A landmark new book. . . . It tells a story you need to hear, of where we live now."—Bryan Appleyard, Sunday Times

"A very remarkable book. . . . McGilchrist, who is both an experienced psychiatrist and a shrewd philosopher, looks at the relation between our two brain-hemispheres in a new light, not just as an interesting neurological problem but as a crucial shaping factor in our culture . . . splendidly thought-provoking. . . . I couldn't put it down."—Mary Midgley, The Guardian

Named one of the best books of 2010 by The Guardian

Print length

544 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Yale University Press
Publication date

October 9, 2012
Dimensions

5.5 x 1.5 x 8.5 inches
ISBN-10

0300188374
ISBN-13

978-0300188370
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Editorial Reviews

Review

'This is a very remarkable book ... McGilchrist, who is both an experienced psychiatrist and a shrewd philosopher, looks at the relation between our two brain-hemispheres in a new light, not just as an interesting neurological problem but as a crucial shaping factor in our culture ... clear, penetrating, lively, thorough and fascinating ... splendidly thought-provoking ... I couldn't put it down.' -- Professor Mary Midgley, The Guardian

'A beautifully written, erudite, fascinating and adventurous book. It embraces a prodigious range of enquiry, from neurology to psychology, from philosophy to primatology, from myth to history to literature. It goes from the microstructure of the brain to great epochs of Western civilisation, confidently and readably. One turns its five hundred pages - a further hundred are dense with notes and references in tiny print - as if it were an adventure story ... McGilchrist tells us about the rapidly evolving technologies and experimental work in fascinating and lucid detail.' -- Professor AC Grayling, The Literary Review

'It is no exaggeration to say that this quite remarkable book will radically change the way you understand the world and yourself ... Reading this book, to which you will want to return on a regular basis (one reading cannot possibly exhaust its multifaceted insights) will help you better understand reality and the way we experience and represent it. It is a genuine tour de force, a monumental achievement - I can think of no one else who could have conceived, let alone written, a book of such penetrating brilliance.'
-- David Lorimer, Scientific and Medical Network Review

'20 years in gestation, this remarkable survey of the human brain is one of few contemporary works deserving classic status ... [McGilchrist] writes with penetrating authority.' -- Nicholas Shakespeare, The Times

'A fascinating book ... [McGilchrist] is a subtle and clever thinker, and unusually qualified to range with such authority over so many different domains of knowledge.'-- Harry Eyres,Financial Times

'A dazzling masterpiece, hugely ambitious and the most comprehensive, profound book ever written on brain laterality... One puts down this beautifully written, profound, philosophically sophisticated book thinking psychiatrist and former Oxford English professor McGilchrist might just be one of the most learned people in Europe.' Professor Norman Doidge, University of Toronto & Columbia University, NY, and author of The Brain That Changes Itself, 'Book of the Year', writing in Canada's The Globe & Mail

'This book is a wake-up call. In the most comprehensive, and lucid, review to date of findings from research on differences in consciousness, motives and emotions in the two cerebral hemispheres ... Dr McGilchrist, a humanist scholar and psychiatrist, deliberates on their significance for our scientific and philosophical understanding of ourselves, and of our fate in the modern technical world with its complex artificial devices.' -- Professor Colwyn Trevarthen, Professor of Child Psychology and Psychobiology, University of Edinburgh

'A wonderful book - broad in scope and full of incisive detail. It should be required reading for any serious student of human psychology. For researchers involved in hemisphere studies, the historical/cultural context.' -- Professor Norman Cook, Professor of Informatics at Kansai University, Osaka, and author of The Brain Code: Mechanisms of Information Transfer and the Corpus Callosum

From the Back Cover

'A seminal book.' -- Professor Ervin László, Huffington Post

'McGilchrist's careful analysis of how brains work is a veritable tour de force,gradually and skilfully revealed. I know of no better exposition of thecurrent state of functional brain neuroscience ...' -- Professor WF Bynum,Times Literary Supplement

Others include:

'A landmark new book ... it tells a story you need to hear, of where we live now.' -- Bryan Appleyard, The Sunday Times

'A remarkable book... Its thesis is profoundly interesting.' -- Professor Adam Zeman, Standpoint Magazine

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Yale University Press; Reprint edition (October 9, 2012)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 544 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0300188374
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0300188370
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.6 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 1.5 x 8.5 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #790,109 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #658 in Neuroscience (Books)
- #1,322 in History of Civilization & Culture
- #2,035 in Cognitive Psychology (Books)

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Iain McGilchrist

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Dr Iain McGilchrist is a psychiatrist, neuroscience researcher, philosopher and literary scholar. He is a Quondam Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, an Associate Fellow of Green Templeton College, Oxford, a Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, and former Consultant Psychiatrist and Clinical Director at the Bethlem Royal & Maudsley Hospital, London.

He has been a Research Fellow in neuroimaging at Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore and a Fellow of the Institute of Advanced Studies in Stellenbosch. He has published original articles and research papers in a wide range of publications on topics in literature, philosophy, medicine and psychiatry.

He is the author of a number of books, but is best-known for The Master and his Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World (Yale 2009).

He lives on the Isle of Skye, has two daughters and a son, and now grandchildren.

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A Must Read Classic

Reviewed in the United States on March 11, 2022

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I just finished this book. It took me about a month to go through it and critique it. I cannot recommend it highly enough. Please do not be mistaken. The book has flaws and I disagree with much of what it claims, but it is simply brilliant. I do a lot of reading in philosophy and this is a truly remarkable book. IMO, only two thinkers in the last 200 years are comparable to Iain, I think Iain is superior to both.

The first is Hegel who wrote the early 1800's. Hegel wrote two major works (The Phenomenology of Spirit and the Science of Logic). While I detest Hegel, he is clearly the most influential thinker in our present culture. Marx is derived from Hegel as are the Post-Moderns and all forms of Critical Theory (Marcuse, Black Lives Matters, Critical Race Theory, et.al.). Iain, by the way, loves Hegel (it is one of the points I think he got wrong!). This book is divided into two Parts. Part 1 sets out the structure of Iain's thought, just as the Science of Logic sets out Hegel's. And, Iain's Part 1 is much easier to read than Hegel's Science of Logic. Iain's Part 2 applies his thought to history; he uses his thought to explain the development of human thought in the West from the ancient Greeks to Post-Modernism. Hegel did the same with his Phenomenology (of course, Hegel stopped his historical analysis much earlier). Once again Iain is much easier to read than Hegel. And, his work, IMO, is superior to Hegel both in content and in presentation. Not only is Iain much easier to read, he presents his thought in the proper order - structure first and then the application of the structure to history. Hegel did it backwards - he applied his structure to history first in the Phenomenology and then explained his structure in his Logic.

The second thinker is Charles Darwin. Darwin build an intellectual structure which introduced a new concept into Science. This concept is called "natural selection", which asserts that species are changed as they adapt to different environments. This makes logical sense (after all, as Darwin pointed out, mankind is modifying species all the time - inventing new breeds of dogs and new types of flowers). At this level, Darwin's theory applies only to intra-species adaption, is falsifiable (which Karl Popper correctly IMO established as the hallmark for scientific theories), and was a huge scientific advance. Darwin then conflated his innovative and brilliant scientific theory of intra-species adaption into the "mythos" we know as "Darwinian Creationism". Darwinian Creationism is totally distinct from his intra-species natural selection theory. In traditional philosophical terms, Darwinian intra-species adaption is a "logos" and Dawinian Creationism is a "mythos" Darwinian Creationism claims to explain how all carbon based life on this planet came into existence. It is not falsifiable in the scientific sense (though many (erroneously IMO) claim it is). And it has been severely criticized. A excellent example is Thomas Nagel, who both is an atheist and holds PhD in Philosophy and is the head of the NYU philosophy department who asserts (once again correctly IMO) that Darwinian Creationism (the mythos), not Darwinian intra-species natural selection (the logos) simply cannot be true. But, whatever one thinks of Darwin, he is one of the few thinkers outside of Aristotle, who actually created two distinct and complementary systems of thought that have both been extraordinarily influential.

Like Darwin, Iain has built a scientific theory (based on cognitive science) which explains how the operation of human cognition as a relationship between the two brain hemispheres. This is very much a "logos", just like Darwin created. Just like Darwin, Iain has taken his "logos" and created another far more extensive intellectual structure - one which explains and evaluates how this dual hemispheric structure has impacted human history starting with the ancient Greeks and ending with the post-moderns. This is not a "mythos". It is rather a comprehensive philosophical evaluation "model" - a way of evaluating certain historical periods and systems of thought. For example, Iain evaluates Descartes as compared to Heidegger. Comprehensive evaluation "models" are very rare in the history of human thought. For example, the last comprehensive philosophical evaluation "models" prior to Iain were proposed by David Hume in the early 1700's followed by Hegel in the early 1800's.

Finally, Iain is the first true successor to the great Scottish thinker Thomas Reid (1710 -1796). Reid work was incredibly influential in Great Britain (from about 1750 to about 1820) and in America (from about 1760 to about 1900). In fact, Reid was extremely influential in the founding of America. Robert Curry has recently written two books on the subject. For a variety of reasons, Thomas Reid simply disappeared from the world for thought for nearly a century, but is now being "rediscovered". For example, Nicholas Wolterstorff (a philosophy professor at Yale) has written and excellent book on Reid, comparing his work to that of Ludwig Wittgenstein.

Part of the reason Reid "disappeared" is that he had no worthy successor, until Iain. In fact, Reid was one of the first post-Newtonian cognitive scientists. His contemporary cognitive scientist, who had a drastically different take on the subject, is the better know Scotsman David Hume. Iain does cognitive science in the style of Reid and provides the first positive advancement on that discipline in line with the approach of Thomas Reid and based on the same metaphysical point of view. It was quite exciting for me to encounter it. I can hardly wait to read Iain's second work released in 2021.

Finally, if you have read or been impressed by the New Atheists (Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, et. al.), this book is a must read. Just as Thomas Reid wrote to counter David Hume (and did so with incredible success in Great Britain and the United States), Iain writes to counter the New Atheists (particularly Dawkins). In fact, the relationship between Iain's work that of Richard Dawkins bears a striking resemblance to the relationship between Thomas Reid's work and that of David Hume. Just as Thomas Reid was a theistic counter (based on science) to Hume atheism, Iain is a theistic counter (based on science) to Dawkins' atheism.

Although flawed, it is a remarkable accomplishment and I highly recommend it.

90 people found this helpful

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Richard A. Hilbert

No to Wittgenstein, Yes to Wittgenstein

Reviewed in the United States on May 10, 2022

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This is a ground breaking and shattering book. (Superlatively true of the first half, but the second half is not ground breaking or shattering.)

I am assuming McGilchrist knows what he is talking about and is not giving us a skewed presentation of the material he goes over. If I can count on that, then the material he goes over is astonishing. Most professional reviews are positive.

There are volumes of evidentiary material in the social sciences and especially linguistic philosophy that deserve a second look in light of this book. The author points to some of these, but all kinds of scholars in the subtle arts will see things pertinent to their own fields not touched on in the book. Take note, fine arts specialists and people with a bent for aesthetics.

One that is dear and near to me is Wittgenstein's rendering of the meaning of language as tied up with its use. I've held to these understandings for decades, and a lot of my published social theory draws from it. However, now it appears that you can be fully competent at linguistic use (knowing how to get through a conversation and so on) but find the whole idea of it meaning anything baffling OR (depending on which side of the brain has been temporarily turned off) you can perfectly understand meaning and know desperately what you want to say but be frustrated into anxiety by the fact that you don't know how to use language, you don't know any words, you don't know grammar and so on. I imagine the latter to be like a "senior moment" when you're struggling for a familiar word that escapes you for the moment, only here it's the whole language that escapes you. You can "feel" it but be unable to say anything. It's even odder to imagine being able to hear and comprehend what other people are talking about in its course without recognizing a single word.

At the very least, this is challenging to Wittgenstein scholars, and there are many others. (McGilchrist gives an informed and sympathetic reading to major phenomenologists who, he says, were struggling to say why what they were trying to say cannot be said in language but trying to say it in language anyway, a despair-inducing exercise. McGilchrist allows that he also is trapped in that loop of self-defeat, but now he has the evidence.) And while Wittgenstein's use-meaning seems to take a hit, that same hit brings new profundity to "Whereof which we cannot speak, we thereof must remain silent." So at least Wittgenstein comes out clean!

Once your Gestalt has been rocked in part one of this book, however, part two will be disappointing if you know much about historical shifts toward, and away from, subjectively experienced modes of rationality. You may realize that in light of part one you will be able to predict what you'll read in part two relevant to the topics listed. It's pretty obvious. But for over a hundred years there have been better renditions of these historical trends than McGilchrist offers here; what he adds is the Brain. What's shifting here is what kinds of ideational modes we respect more than others. If we respect rationality over intuition (think of all the routines that get "behaviorized" in policy statements at your average American university so that they can be applied "disinterestedly"), this isn't because our brains are changing...even if brain changes can be registered. (Computer games change our brains, but that change didn't cause computer games.) McGilchrist doesn't exactly say it's all happening because of our changing brains, but he does couch it in terms of one side of the brain winning some sort of natural battle with the other side (a battle that is convincing in part one). He doesn't quite come out and say that the victory of bureaucracy and rationality over tradition and sentiment occurs in the brain or that brain-change is an autonomous causal variable where one side just happens to win out over the other, and he is aware of cultural and historical forces at work. But treating the astonishing findings presented in part one as a template for all of these other matters is, I believe, unwarranted. We have enough to handle from part one alone.

23 people found this helpful

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daniel defeo

worth the effort

Reviewed in the United States on September 9, 2023

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A great book! Not an easy read.Every page gives the reader new ideas to ponder.
Take your time. Enjoy it.

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VincentB

Ouvrage exceptionnel sur le sujet de l’hémisphère gauche de l’hémisphère droit chez l’homme

Reviewed in France on February 13, 2023

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Il est impossible de résumer en quelques mots un ouvrage aussi profond et complexe, que l’on ne plus lâcher dès qu’on l’a ouvert.
Je l’ai découvert car je cherchais un ouvrage scientifique récent sur le fonctionnement des deux hémisphères cérébraux complétant le livre génial de Julian Jaynes sur la naissance de la conscience et l’effondrement de l’esprit bicaméral, qui remonte à la fin des années 60.
En fait je suis tombé sur un ouvrage majeur, le plus passionnant que j’ai lu depuis des décennies - et pourtant je lis beaucoup.
L’analyse de l’auteur est très pertinente sur tous les sujets qu’il aborde, que l’on parle de philosophie, de sociologie, de littérature, ou d’art.
Mieux encore, sur des sujets que l’auteur ne connaît pas bien - voire pas du tout, comme la science moderne (mathématiques ou physique théorique), ou les philosophies antiques d’Extrême-Orient ainsi que les littératures asiatiques - le peu qu’il dit fait sens (il ne sombre jamais dans la cuistrerie ni dans l’ultracrépidarisme).
Plus encore, son analyse s’applique très bien, en en les éclairant beaucoup, â ces derniers sujets.
Par contre, pour vraiment tirer partie de l’ouvrage, il faut le lire le crayon à la main, et avoir au préalable une grande culture des philosophies occidentales depuis Héraclite et les éléates jusqu’à Husserl et les phénoménologues… et si possible, en plus de l’allemand et de l’anglais (pour un français), avoir de solides notions du grec ancien et du latin.
Sinon le lecteur risque fort de trouver cet ouvrage indigeste (Cf. les commentaires sur Amazon)… et cela serait bien dommage, car il s’agit là d’un livre exceptionnel et qui enrichit énormément la vue du monde du lecteur

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Maria João Rodrigues

cerebro

Reviewed in Spain on March 1, 2023

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Muito bom

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Ralph Blumenau

A great achievement

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 1, 2011

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As a student of philosophy I have always been particularly interested in the contrasting attitudes of Romanticism and Rationalism, and it was an absolute revelation to me to read in this book that almost all the perceptions of Romanticism originate in the right hemisphere of the brain while the methods of Rationalism are processed by the left hemisphere. In the first half of his book, McGilchrist shows us in great detail the several ways in which neurological science can demonstrate this, for instance by describing the thought processes when one or the other side of the brain is physically damaged.

The most fundamental difference between the two hemispheres is that the origin of all experience is in the right half. That experience sees everything in its environment, is holistic, intuitive and profound, but it is unfocussed and indistinct. To focus on the details of the experience, to analyze it, is the task of the left. Ideally the detailed picture then returns to the right half, so that the details become integrated with and enrich the wider picture. The traffic between the two hemispheres is principally via the corpus callosum, the tissues which join them at their base.

The left half uses language precisely; the right can see can see layers of meaning, understands metaphors and jokes. The right is responsible for our personal and social relationship with others, for empathy and empathetic imitation, for picking up the meaning of facial expressions, gestures, and tone of voice, for most of our emotional life and for our response to music, poetry, the spiritual dimension of life. It is the locus of moral judgment. It experiences the past, the present and the future as a continuum. The left is instrumental; it organizes, manipulates and controls details for a purpose. It measures, classifies and creates abstractions. It aims for internal consistency. Awareness of new things in the world belong to the right; the left processes and explicates what it receives from the right, and in that sense does not create anything new itself: it only works on what is already known to it.

Without the work of the left, civilization would be impossible; but when the right is neglected, the left becomes detached from everything that is holistic and profound. The left and the right, different and even conflicting though they are, should always complement each other in a creative tension, should have a dialectical relationship with each other like that of thesis, antithesis and synthesis. They achieve this when there is "negative feedback" between them, when they check each other. But the left hemisphere is particularly prone to "positive feedback", is a "hall of mirrors" where its contents reinforce each other and produce a "virtual reality".

Philosophy itself, which is essentially concerned with analysis and close examination, has a strong predisposition to privilege the left, which it takes a stupendous effort by some philosophers like Spinoza, Nietzsche or Heidegger to overcome. Scientists run a similar danger, and even neurologists have until recently described the right hemisphere as "minor", "silent", or "coarse" and the left as "dominant" or "smart". McGilchrist is in no doubt that the right hemisphere should be the Master, the left merely its Emissary, albeit as such a valued one.

In the second half of the book McGilchrist analyzes the phases of Western civilization in terms of whether they are right- or left-hemisphere dominated. (He allows for more exceptions than my summary suggests.) He agrees with Nietzsche that left domination began with Socrates and Plato. It was intensified in the Roman Empire. Christendom began with the spiritual insights we associate with the right, but degenerated into abstract theological formulations which imposed uniformity wherever it could. The Renaissance was overwhelmingly right-hemisphere dominated; but then the Reformation reverted to left-hemisphere thought. (McGilchrist's unduly negative attitude to the Reformation strikes me as the weakest part of the book.) The Enlightenment and the French Revolution of course are massively left-oriented; and on several occasions he mentions that Descartes, the founder of the Age of Reason (or rather of the Age of Rationality) exhibited thought processes which have much in common with schizophrenics. In Romanticism we then have a brief period of right-hemisphere dominance. McGilchrist taught English Literature at Oxford before he re-trained as a neurologist; and his analysis (NB) of Romantic Literature is superb and much the best part of this second part. Then, alas, comes the Industrial Revolution with its one-sided materialism and scientism, manipulating life in a way which is the fulfilment of the left-hemisphere's ambitions. And even that was not the end: Modernism comes along, whose characteristics are fragmentation of reality (see Cubism, Surrealism, abstract art etc; dissonance without resolution into harmony in much of modern music, deconstruction in literature) in much the way in which schizophrenics experience fragmented reality, and this bring all sorts of other consequences: a loss of meaning and significance, resulting sometimes in Angst, sometimes in boredom, which in turn requires more and more strident or shocking expression. For the sanity of western civilization, we badly need to restore the primacy of the right-hemisphere, not least by looking at the more holistic attitudes McGilchrist sees in Eastern civilization.

There are suggestive sentences or brilliant formulations on almost every page, although there is also a good deal of repetition in this very long book. Despite McGilchrist's comments that, in its proper role, the left hemisphere does indispensable and valuable work, the tone is constantly negative about it. There is, for example, nothing about the left hemisphere checking rather than supplementing what the right hemisphere may be doing in the way of blind emotion. Dare I say that there is even a left-hemisphere tinge to the overall pattern of McGilchrist's analysis? I was, however, left with my view of the world having been greatly enriched by this learned and immensely stimulating book.

59 people found this helpful

Dominic Stafford Uglow

This is a fascinating book.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 17, 2023

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Much of what McAlpine lays out here is conjecture, but it's fascinating and it does allow us an insight into creativity. It also answers a lot of questions about how we apprehend music and, in particular, the human singing voice, which is how I came to it.

This is not teatime reading; but it's well worth it for those wanting a fairly exhaustive examination of creation and the 'bean'.

One person found this helpful

Franz und Dagmar Richter

Eines der wichtigsten Bücher unserer Zeit: Die Homöostase des Glaubens

Reviewed in Germany on February 18, 2018

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Als vor 4 1/2 Jahren in der ZEIT eine (leider etwas oberflächliche) Besprechung dieses Buches erschienen war, kaufte ich es, und da gerade Sommer war, begann ich im Urlaub mit dem Lesen. Die ersten 100 Seiten gingen relativ schnell, denn sie geben eine solide Bestandsaufnahme der Forschung über die "Lateralität" unseres Gehirns. Und als Biologe (der auch Kath. Theologie) studiert hatte, konnte ich das alles gut nachvollziehen.

Für den Rest des Buches brauchte ich dann aber fast zwei Jahre, und das NICHT, weil das Buch etwa zu langweilig oder weil mir das Englisch zu schwierig gewesen wäre, sondern weil mich das Buch in Denkbereiche führte, die ich erst langsam lebendig werden lassen musste. Ich habe viele Zeilen unterstrichen und Sätze, die über die jeweilige Gehirnhälfte gingen, mit grünem (rechte G.h.) bzw. gelbem (linke G.h.) Markierstift ausgemalt. Schließlich stamme ich aus der Grenzgegend zwischen Bayern und Österreich, aus der das Lied "Stille Nacht" stammt, und in der die rechte Gehirnhälfte zwar noch sehr lebendig ist - aber eine linkshemisphärisch-rationale Beschreibung der Gehirnhälften + Verteidigung der rechten Gehirnhälfte will erst einmal erarbeitet werden.

Zwischendurch habe ich dann auch Ideen des Buches mit anderen Einsichten verglichen, z.B. mit Aspekten aus der Literatur, Religion und persönlichen Erfahrung. So etwa fand ich den Kampf zwischen den beiden Gehirnhälften, den Iain McGilchrist im zweiten Teil des Buches beschreibt, wieder in den indischen Epen Mahabharata und Ramayana. Im Mahabharata-Epos gewinnen die (ganzheitlichen) Pandavas, die sich für Gott (Krishna) und nicht für sein Heer entschieden haben, einen großen Vorteil, weil die gegnerischen Kauravas eine Metapher nicht verstehen. (Die linke Gehirnhälfte versteht keine Metaphern, keine Gleichnisse. Sie ist Wissen, aber nicht "wit".) Im Ramayana-Epos wird die Liebe (Lakshmi) von einem Dämonen in die andere Hemisphäre entführt, die auch noch LANKA heißt. Ist die Liebe der LINKEN Hemisphäre nur eine "gemachte Liebe"?

Über all diese Dinge musste meine rechte Gehirnhälfte also nachdenken. Und über die Kulturgeschichte der Menschheit. Für mich ist die kulturgeschichtliche Entwicklung, die zur Vorherrschaft der linken Gehirnhälfte führte und die McGilchrist mit der Reformation und der Aufklärung beginnen lässt, Teil von größeren Zyklen, die immer wieder stattfinden, etwa vom Hinduismus mit seiner Freude an "Gestalt" zum abstrakten Buddhismus mit seinem Nirwana (und in Indien dann wieder zurück zum Hinduismus). Oder vom Christentum mit seinen Heiligen hin zur Buchreligion des Islam (und dann bei den Schiiten wieder zu den Heiligen).

Für das Wieder-Zusammenkommen der beiden Gehirnhälften (das nur unter der Führung der ganzheiltichen rechten Hemisphäre möglich ist), das im letzten Teil des Buches als historisch dringend erforderlich und als überlebensnotwendig beschrieben wird, fand ich in einem Kinderbuch von Astrid Lindgren bessere Lösungen als Iain McGilchrist selbst in seinem Buch anbieten kann (was er auch zugibt). In ihrem Buch "Ronja Räubertochter" wird bei Ronjas Geburt die Burg, in der ihre Eltern mit einer Räuberbande leben, in zwei Hälften gespalten. Nur Ronja und ihr Freund Birk aus der anderen Hemisphäre können die Kluft, die beide Hemisphären trennen, mit einem beherzten Sprung überwinden, und als auch das nicht mehr möglich ist, treffen sie sich in der Tiefe der Burg, sozusagen im Hirnstamm. Durch ihre Liebe, ihre Flucht und durch die Notwendigkeiten des Lebens werden die verfeindeten Hemisphären am Ende wieder zusammengebracht.

McGilchrist sieht das pessimistischer, denn er sieht keine Anzeichen dafür, dass die linke Gehirnhälfte ihre Macht freiwillig abgeben würde. Er wird in dieser Frage fast prophetisch-alttestamentarisch, wenn er mit Heraklit andeutet, dass der "Krieg der Vater aller Dinge" sei. (Im Alten Testament gibt es eine Grundlinie, die man "Homöostase des Glaubens" nennen kann, Wenn der Glaube - nach McGilchrist in der rechten Gehirnhälfte - verloren geht, schickt der "Ich-bin-der-Ich-bin", Jahwe, erst Propheten und dann Katastrophen, um den Zyklus wieder zur Umkehr zu bringen.)

Genial finde ich übrigens den Titel des Buches. In keinem anderen Buch habe ich bisher den Inhalt im Titel so konzentriert zusammengefasst gefunden. Und hier mein Geheimtipp für Theologen: Der MEISTER und der GESANDTE könnten durchaus etwas mit dem VATER und dem SOHN zu tun haben. Dann wäre es der GEIST, der sie wieder zusammenbringt, wenn der Sohn sagt "Mein Gott, mein Gott, warum hast du mich verlassen?". Aber vielleicht traue ich hier den Theologen zu viel zu, und außer einigen Jesuiten wird das Buch sowieso keiner von ihnen lesen.

Und die Dunkelheit (der schizoiden bzw. autistischen linken Gehirnhälfte) wird sowieso nicht beendet, indem man die Dunkelheit bekämpft, sondern indem man Licht macht. (Für mich hat das längst mein indischer Meister getan, und Künstler wie die Beatles oder David Lynch haben ihm gehofen, das Licht anzumachen.)

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