Overview

The God of the Left Hemisphere explores the remarkable connections between the activities and functions of the human brain that writer William Blake termed 'Urizen' and the powerful complex of rationalising and ordering processes which modern neuroscience identifies as 'left hemisphere' brain activity. The book argues that Blake's profound understanding of the human brain is finding surprising corroboration in recent neuroscientific discoveries, such as those of the influential Harvard neuro-anatomist Jill Bolte Taylor, and it explores Blake's provocative supposition that the emergence of these rationalising, law-making, and 'limiting' activities within the human brain has been recorded in the earliest Creation texts, such as the Hebrew Bible, Plato's Timaeus, and the Norse sagas. Blake's prescient insight into the nature and origins of this dominant force within the brain allows him to radically reinterpret the psychological basis of the entity usually referred to in these texts as 'God'. The book draws in particular on the work of Bolte Taylor, whose study in this area is having a profound impact on how we understand mental activity and processes.

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9780367101404

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Reviews

Absolutely fascinating - in fact both revelatory and thrilling. --Philip Pullman, author of His Dark Materials and President of the Blake Society A fascinating book, which unearths amazing parallels between the poetry of William Blake and modern neuroscience. This book shows that Blake's poetry was even more insightful and prophetic than previously thought. At the same time, the book is a very enlightening examination of the pathology of the human psyche, and the pathological culture it has given rise to, offering urgent suggestions on how a new self--and a new world--may come into being. --Steve Taylor, author of The Fall: The Insanity of the Ego in Human History and the Dawning of a New Era and Back to Sanity: Healing the Madness of our Minds Blake's thought cries out to be understood in the light of cerebral asymmetry. This is a highly original and stimulating book, the best I have read on one of the greatest of English poets. --Iain McGilchrist, author of The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World

Blake's thought cries out to be understood in the light of cerebral asymmetry. This is a highly original and stimulating book, the best I have read on one of the greatest of English poets. --Iain McGilchrist, author of The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World A fascinating book, which unearths amazing parallels between the poetry of William Blake and modern neuroscience. This book shows that Blake's poetry was even more insightful and prophetic than previously thought. At the same time, the book is a very enlightening examination of the pathology of the human psyche, and the pathological culture it has given rise to, offering urgent suggestions on how a new self--and a new world--may come into being. --Steve Taylor, author of The Fall: The Insanity of the Ego in Human History and the Dawning of a New Era and Back to Sanity: Healing the Madness of our Minds Absolutely fascinating - in fact both revelatory and thrilling. --Philip Pullman, author of His Dark Materials and President of the Blake Society

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Roderick Tweedy

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