THE DIVINE STRUGGLE FOR “I” AND “THOU” IV:
Possession
Through the necessary use of external command, God brought Creation, including humanity, into existence. He then continued the use of command to sustain the universe and to advance life forms, including human beings. By approximately 15,000 BCE (Before the Common Era), God had led mankind to mass migration, the construction of tools, the development of art and ornaments, and the use of language for communication.
Possession and the Bicameral Mind
Then, about 10,000 BCE, God took another extraordinary step in his creative journey. Having already endowed human beings with two brain hemispheres — right and left — he introduced commanding hallucinatory voices into one hemisphere, usually the right side, and the aptitude for obedient, responsive actions into the other hemisphere — usually the left side. Having equipped human beings with this bicameral (two-chambered) brain and its divinely based hallucinatory instructions, God was able to not only protect human beings but also hasten their development. Through the possessive command(s) of the bicameral mind, mankind quickly abandoned food-gathering for an agricultural economy, with the domestication of plants and animals. Human beings further moved to the development of permanent towns and to the advent of written language(s).
Archeologists have found one of the earliest bicameral civilizations “at Eynan near the sea of Galilee which dates back to 9000 B.C. . . . [Here there were] towns of about 50 houses with a population of at least 200 people. . . . At Eynan the king’s tomb contained two skeletons, one male, one female, sitting propped up on a stone pillow [facing Mount Hermon]; the tomb was in a pit and the hearth of the house was then built over the top. The king’s tomb became the god’s house and his voice remained to guide and to advise his people.
“This became the paradigm for what was to happen throughout the Near East for several millennia. With the development of cities of many thousands came the building of huge monumental god-houses which dominated the other buildings and were visible for miles around as hallucinogenic aids to the population. Ur had enormous ziggurats and Egypt its pyramids, whilst the Hittites in an interesting variation used a natural mountain shrine. . . .
“Maintenance of contact with the gods was of paramount importance. Not only did their instructions maintain the social order, but also they could be relied upon for help when the people faced some novel or crisis situation. Unable to project the possible consequences of various actions into future time, the people relied upon hallucinatory voices of the gods for instructions to avert disaster.”1,2
Conclusion
Thus, God’s introduction of possessive commands within the human brain not only protected mankind but greatly hastened human development, beginning about 10,000 BCE. This was another fundamental step in God’s creative journey toward “I–Thou” relationality.