Theory & Hero

Somehow, between about 1250 and 500 BC people stopped experiencing their gods as hallucinations. Jaynes calls this period the “breakdown of the bicameral mind.”

The texts and other records from this period are quite poignant. There is much grief over the loss of the gods. Here’s Jaynes, for example, describing a stone altar:

“About 1230 B.C., Tukulti…, tyrant of Assyria, had a stone altar made that is dramatically different from anything that preceded it in the history of the world. In the carving on its face, Tukulti is shown twice, first as he approaches the throne of his god, and then as he kneels before it…. As our eyes descend from the standing king to the kneeling king just in front of him, it is as emphatic as a moving picture, in itself a quite remarkable artistic discovery. But far more remarkable is the fact that the throne before which this first of the cruel Assyrian conquerors grovels is empty.”

Jaynes continues: