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INTRODUCTION

The contemporary study of behavior has been greatly influenced by theprinciples, laws, and theories of behaviorism (Skinner, 1964, 1974; Watson, 1913). Whenever psychologists were interested in studying anaspect of behavior, they generally obeyed certain modes of collecting data,making certain that behavior was observable and, therefore, measurable.

This is not a difficult rule to follow, nor is it necessarily one that we willtry to change. However, in being so rigid, data collection in many psychologyexperiments may be incomplete. If we are concerned only with studying andreporting observable behavior or behavior that can be mutually shared, wemay be sidestepping a great deal of human behavior that obviously is notobservable. For example, should we ignore totally an individuals thoughtsor feelings because they are not directly observable or capable of beingmutually shared? Should we fail to study dreams because we cannot share themwith the dreamer? Should we fail to study hypnosis or meditation becausethese phenomena are not directly measurable in the true behavioristic sense?

The answer to these questions, obviously, is no. Yet psychology hasdownplayed the importance of studying some of these interesting phenomena because of a bias still present, to an extent, among many contemporarypsychologists. We believe that it is time to do away with the philosophicalbiases of behaviorism but not yet time to entirely abandon that school ofthought, science, and methodologyToday, the influence of behaviorism is declining, replaced by an interestin cognitive psychology. Compared to the behaviorists, cognitive psychologists have not been as rigid in defining what is permissible in data collection(Kihlstrom, 1994, 1996). These scientists are recovering the tools of psychology that existed before the advent of behaviorism, albeit at a very slow pace(see Banks, 1993).

Although we are well aware that behaviorism emerged as a reaction to thesloppiness and poor experimental control of such processes as introspection(Hamilton, 1880; Malcolm, 1964), it also did away with other ramifications of

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10 Chapter One

FIGURE 1.1 JaynessGod-RunMan

ness is grounded in the physiology of the brains right and left hemispheres.(We discuss brain laterality and its role in consciousness in Chapter 2).

Three forms of human awareness exist within Jayness theory He refers tothese as the bicameral or god-run man, the modern or problem-solving man, andthe contemporary forms of throzvbacks to bicamerality. The god-run man wascontrolled by and within the right hemisphere, which told the left hemisphere(especially the auditory and speech centers of that hemisphere)what to do andhow to behave (see Figure Li). As civilization became more independent,there was less and less god-run control by the right hemisphere over the lefthemisphere. In becoming more independent, people acquired consciousness.

However, Jaynes stipulates that, on occasions, the god-run manreemerges and exhibits himself in what is referred to as throwbacks to bicamerality. These include such states as hypnotism, schizophrenia, and poeticand religious f renzy. As part of these throwbacks, modem humans relegatetheir consciousness to obey the commands of an individual, group, or higherpower who gains control for a period of time (specified, as in hypnosis, orunspecified, as in schizophrenia).

An examination of Jayness radical theory suggests that all altered statesof consciousness are throwbacks to bicamerality This suggests further thatsuch states temporarily produce a loss ofwakeful and controllable awarenessin an individual, If this is the case, then men or women at least temporarily

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