How Religion Evolved ─ Explaining the Living Dead, Talking Idols, and Mesmerizing Monuments

The author traces the origins of religion through common historical paths in China, classical-period Greece, India, Israel, Egypt, Mesoamerica, and Mesopatamia, as well as examples from Anatolia, Persia, Minoan, Mycenaean Greece, North America, South America, and Syria-Canaan. He applies a psychological interpretation of the work of Julian Jaynes to explain why the ancients believed that gods visited and spoke with humans, why they departed, and why the self replaced the gods in spiritual experience, a trend occurring over centuries. He explains how religion is an adaptation to changing social circumstances and discusses conceptual tools to understand the origins of religion, particularly Jaynes' theory of bicameralism, which proposes that self-talk is rooted in the brain's two hemispheres, and as language developed, the right hemisphere began to speak to the left. As people built larger settlements, improved social control methods were needed, and the voices from the right hemisphere became gods and ancestors. The author argues that this explains why ancient civilizations have similar traits like the living dead, idols that speak, and houses of gods; why individuals like Zoroaster, Moses, and Old Testament prophets claim they were instructed by divine voices; and behaviors like spirit possession, channeling, speaking in tongues, and automatic writing. Annotation ©2016 Ringgold, Inc., Portland, OR (protoview.com)