Iain McGilchrist: How faith can re-enchant a left-brained world 

Iain McGilchrist is a national treasure

Always love listening to Iain McGilchrist, great voice, excellent delivery and invariably, thought provoking.

"Sometimes when we argue, A grain of truth is sown. If we humbly nurture it, We'll bring a harvest home. Thru respect and listening, We finally agree And form a stronger partnership Than one found easily. "We Need Each Other; My way may not do. We were meant to complement And help each other thru. As we grow together, We'll come to understand We need each other, So let me take your hand. --From my song "We Need Each Other." (c) 2000, Dan Eumurian.

As a very left-brained software engineer I am so thankful for this podcast. Thank you for talking about the things that really matter!

As a high school English teacher, this video has me musing on three related dichotomies in whose dissolution our education system languishes. First is that we see the world through the lens of non-fiction and story without seeing the world and all of creation as a poem. Good poetry recreates internal states of mind and heart from the poet in the mind and heart of the reader. Existence is not merely a story, a series of successive events; it is a poem, communicating materially an immaterial mind. More than that, its material gives its “readers” a shared language of sensation by which they communicate their own immaterial selves sensibly to each other for the sake of deep love relationship with each other and with God. Relatedly, our education system is future-oriented, and therefore views all goods as instrumental to purposes which are, definitionally, thrust out of the present. There is little regard for the discipline of poetry which fixes the eyes to see goodness in and into the present. In The Screwtape Letters, Lewis put it this way, “the Future is, of all things, the thing least like eternity. It is the most completely temporal part of time-for the Past is frozen and no longer flows, and the Present is all lit up with eternal rays…Gratitude looks to the past and love to the present.” When we train ourselves to see present goods as contingent upon their relation to the future, those future goods cease to be good when they become present, and thus gladness escapes us ad infinitum. Finally, and again, relatedly, our system of education focuses myopically on analysis, the means of knowing things through taking apart. If the only mode of thinking one has is to disintegrate wholes, one ends up concluding that existence is “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” Meaning is found through synthesis, not through analysis. In our systems of education, synthesis, the thinking which gathers back the pieces which analysis found into an understanding of relationship, has been abandoned, because it is, in the social imaginary, not a reliable means of knowing. Or not even a means of knowing at all.

I appreciate those who stay open like mcGilchrist

This was one of the best interviews with McGilchrist I've yet come across. Many thanks!

So profoundly true and compassionate! Deeply moved my heart. Let’s maybe all try our best to live our flawed lives with the psyche, the nous, the best love we can give, and all under the mercy of God.

Great episode. If I could save just one modern thinker from a terrible global calamity, it would be McGilchrist. There are many people with insightful analysis or good ideas to solve particular problems, but nobody else holds out the hope that a broken world can be made whole again quite the way he does.

Definitely been incorporating some of what I have learned from Ian in my youth ministry. Students need to be “held in the ferment of a story” as Martin Shaw once said.

When I listen to Dr. McGilchrist there is the sense that he is embodying his understanding . I enjoyed it all but was delighted by Dr. McGilchrist’s insightful recognition of the profound truths within myths. My own perspective is that much can be revealed in making the connection between the Garden of Eden myth and the mono myth of the hero’s journey as expressed by Joseph Campbell.

I feel so good listening to all the deep thoughts and emotions I get when Dr Iian McGilchrist is talking. ❤ What a wise man and his voice and his personality are soothing!

As children “Full of wonder and imagination of flowers and puddles to jump in and at best full faith wonder.”

Thank you!!! Dr. McGilchrist is a absolute GEM.🙃🙏💯💕

Wish I'd had a teacher like this when I was at school! Thank you Iain!

Thank you Iain. Your work has helped me enormously to understand myself and many of my interactions. I strongly resonate with the way you describe both ways we perceive the world and more importantly why seemingly fiercely intelligent people do not always see as clearly as I'd like them to. Unfortunately that side of us that sees isn't vocal without the "Emissary" and consequently sharing nuance is the challenge I face due to not developing that side of me. At least I'm aware now of my inabilities...

Thank you. I’ve listed to many interviews with and lectures by Iain McGilchrist. This is in my top 3 favorites. I’ve sent it on to others I know will appreciate it. Again, thank you.

I cannot wait to listen to this. Another great thinker on this topic is Charles Taylor. His newest book, Cosmic Connections (2024) discusses a reenchantment through the lens of German, English, and French romantic poetry, to connect and reconnect to what we in our modern age have lost. Highly recommended text with an excellent bibliography.

I love the image of the jumped-up functionary! (So many of these around in organisations these days, since meritocracy has been relaxed.)

This was really beautiful to listen to. Thank you so much to all of you!

Such an interesting conversation. Thankyou

This was just beautiful. I feel like a little of my humanity just came back to myself.

I love conversations like this,🥰🥰,and I know so very well that our world/Universe is so much bigger than what we can see in front of us.😊😊 I know this from my own experience,♥️,and now more people have to wake up & remember who they really are!🦋♥️🦋

Beautiful and enchanting. Thank you so much, one and all.

Long suffering with love with patience! Surrounding about mercy and grace!

I can see by the questions the interviewers asked that they hadn't read Ian's books!! Wtf!

I have a question to the Seen & Unseen team, as someone who turned away from Churchianity, and who wrestles with an innate sense, based on personal experience of what we might call the sacred: how do you experience your faith, ie an embodied, visceral, lived phenomenon? I've come across waaaay too many Christians who simply cannot respond to that question in a considered, humble and thoughtful fashion. Please surprise me, as I have deep respect for Iain's take on this matter.🌟

My beautiful will say, for unfamiliar unto many! Who is unconditional LOVE sitteth in the Midst!

Thank you

Thanks for this, guys. I would love to hear Iain further discuss this with Bishop Barron.

Beautiful conversation

Love this !!!

Thank you seen and unseen for this interview. Best interview I have seen with Iain whose intelligence and knowledge can be a bit daunting. I actually understood this one 😱

We need to experience the divine directly. Believing in it hasn't worked out too well...

Nice man, powerful stuff

content is primary❤❤❤

I was taught the mechanistic science view of the World,/Universe, and believed it for many years. I now know it was wrong. I do believe in the Divine. I must have always believed, but kept it suppressed, but it can't be suppressed, because we are all connected to its field.

In the beginning I am that I am Created that which is From that which is not The spirit of I am who I am Moved on the depths Of the formless and void Moving by spirit The essence of pattern The image of existence Onto which all things Kinds and likenesses Are called to map All meaning and purpose I am what I am Spoke in fractal terms The geometric shapes of All things real, material Being the observer Collapsing the wave Of non being function Of all created things Kinds and likenesses of being In the simultaneity of the pattern Of being I am that I am Divided light from darkness A cosmological constant Of darkness moving Faster than light And light moving At least time Through the pattern Now known as the face Of the deep I am that I am Thus created by moving Speaking and observing Calling to meaning Dividing time-space-energy To form the kinds Likenesses and images Of all being

Hello 🤗🤗🤗, Thank you

A thought popped into my head that there is four depths to reality? Word numbers symbols and observer

"Changing course when commanded, When commanded, holding true...." --From my song "Coming Closer to the Wind "

Time from Who am I to "i" AM Beautiful in front of thee!

Thank you, I found a higher Power of my own understanding once I hit a personal bottom. 📘🙏❤️🔥

Good Lord! Bless and keep this Man ❤

You ought to read Owen Barfield, talk to someone who are into his ideas, and relate it to what McGilchrist is saying.

Beautiful honest conversation! Dr McGilchrist is a treasure. Catholic nuns and priests in india are desperately want to prove their own God is not only powerful but will demolish humans who do not obey. India the great leader Dalia lama' his wisdom is displaying historical gains. His believers followers even many catholic nuns and priests all joint showing kindness compassion forgiveness the mystical powers of these powerful and mystical human hopefully spread a pandemic of love and happiness. Witnessed in Sikkim Tashi Namgyal Academy school children teacher s are trained. There is hope with great leaders working honestly and desperately, Thank you. Love and peace to all.

I started a three day fast this morning. Thank you for this message.i'm 47yrs old $73,000 biweekly and I'm retired, this video have inspired me greatly in many ways!!!!❤❤

What is striking me at the halfway mark in the conversation is how the emotions of anger, disgust and self-righteousness are tells of left hemispheric dominance. (I would add frustration - which often triggers anger - to that, and that as the left becomes frustrated in attempting to solve a problem in its very algorithmic and hyper-logical way that it frequenly enters "Basil Faulty" mode, and without the restraint - and humour of the right interjecting to make light of it - it has a freak-out. Perhaps, this accounts for the more challenging a view is to the established truth of the left, the more those left emotions come to dominate. This makes for lots of sound and fury signfiying that Basil is in command and causing chaos - yet again. This would all be very funny if it did not have horrific real world effects that drive us into very dangerous behaviours.) One thing - as a mystical atheist, and yes there is such a thing as contrarian as that sounds - I value many of the artefacts of religion while finding belief to have a left hemispheric quality. Belief to me is reductionist, whereas the unknowns require a more open and less defined approach. (The joy of the unknowns is that they engage us without demanding that we come to a definite conclusion. They inspire contemplation and reflection, and indirectly appreciation since to sit and engage with the unknowns - playfully and imaginatively - is one of the most satisfying of things to do.) Of course, the left hemisphere usually has to have done its Basil thing and stompted off in a huff, or the right has to have become practiced in the art of mental aikido such as engaging in a walk in nature or listening to something like Vaughan WIlliams' "Lark Ascending", or the adagietto out of Mahler's fifth symphony. Overwhelming beauty and feelings of sympathy, sorrow and love drive out left dominant behaviour. Something as simple as a butterfly floating past has quite the disarming affect on me, as does the right introducing an absurd observation about whatever the thing that has my left so excited. Now don't get me wrong, when doing my day job - data pattern specialist - the left's extreme focus is essential, but wider deeper patterns often are more intuitive, and those are a specialty of the right. Thanks for interviewing Iain, and now I will get back to it. (One last thing, writing haiku is a wonderful way to disarm the the left hemisphere.)

In biblical exegesis the first and only rule is: context, context, context. This is saying “right brain first”.

I think it is worth remembering in the context of this discussion that the Churches have always held on to the notion of mystery in belief systems.

My beautiful what is "i" AM?

What is writing? Using your imagination to construct a thought through words or images is not real to the world in a physical sense until it is scribed onto a form of shared material designated by symbols that have shared meaning. Does that mean that imagination isn't real? Or is it more than real? Is reality only a single state of being and why is it considered by some to be the most important? Is the hypothesis in the scientific method any more or less important than the conclusion?

The Enlightenment vs Romanticism. Might want to read Goethes “Faust”

This is what drove Nietzsche crazy. He was a right brain philosopher trapped in a left brain world of philologists who carried on like the "bean counters" of language. He published Birth of Tragety in order to try to present a larger, more complete, artistic picture of life versus the typical academic treatises that he considered "dry as chalk dust". He engendered very negative reviews along the lines that his work wasn't "scientific" enough. He lost respect among his collegues, and for all intents and purposes this eventually ended his academic career. Nietzsche said that the goal of the Birth of Tragedy was to "see science under the lens of the artist, and art under the lens of life". In retrospect, using Dr. McGilchrist's perspective, Nietzsche was attempting to use his right hemisphere (as well as the left) in a strictly left brained German academic millieu.

What is right and left? Who sitteth in the Midst will say?

Beloved what is a BODY?

Hume firmly believed that evil and suffering offered evidence that God didn’t exist. The argument as follows, led him to state that it was not reasonable to believe in God’s existence: If God is omniscient then He must know about all the suffering, so why doesn’t He help? If God is omnipresent then He must see all the suffering, so why doesn’t He want to help people? If God is omnipotent then He must be powerful enough to stop the suffering, so why does He continue to let it happen? If God is omnibenevolent, He must love everyone enough to stop all the suffering, surely a loving God wouldn’t want to see people suffering?

Yes creation!

59:50 it's so interesting that Ian goes "completely left brain" when asked if he believes in Christianity. It really is curious that he asks for *certainty* all of a sudden. I also think he might benefit from talking to John Lennox, I feel that Lennox has a better definition of faith than the more left-brained one that Ian put forth. Faith is to trust, or have confidence in, given the evidence, and all we can hope for is evidence, but we cannot get *proof* in the meaning of incontrovertible, mathematical proof, or something in s petri dish.

I have become aware of the contributions of each hemisphere after reading (well I'm MOSTLY through it) The Master and His Emissary .... I notice it when I'm drawn to do things a certain way, or when I'm drawn to reject a certain way ... weirdly, this often happens while jogging and listening to music. I think that's because my right brain has largely taken over during that activity, and it notices ... well ... it becomes aware of more of what's going on, including the babbling of the left hemisphere. It doesn't object to the left. It just notices and oddly enough, I think it makes the left hemisphere a little self-aware .... ("ah, you got me! That is indeed what I'm doing!") because they're still communicating with each other. I think, interestingly enough, if the left hemisphere gets enough information about the view of the right, it can construct a bit of a looser structure that allows for its own self-awareness ... we can build a self-critical construct -- in the left hemisphere, that can help keep it more honest and more flexible than it otherwise would be.

Best answer from McGilchrist about whether he's a Christian. i.e Of course he is, just don't tell him what that must mean according to your left hemisphere.

So, is it my left or right hemisphere that keeps running this back in my brain?

My beautiful will say, what is long suffering?

🎯

Is like why call thee my beautiful?

Likewise thank you my BEAUTIFUL able to tame my Heart and Mind.

Only way for HIS VISITATION!

For Angels who persevere and heard the WORD and HOSTS shared "i" AM knows? And our Beautiful!

Now I understand why malnutrition may lead to challenges to creative action. Look at the way some prominent politicians in the parliament of the RSA reason. Their public shared theories and rhetoric defeats logic.

Dammit, Iain, I wanted a little "Rosetta Soundbite!!!!" :-D

Thank you for such an inspirational exchange of ideas. Jesus seemed to use the "mythosphere" and "logosphere" in balance. He expressed truth both in puzzling parables and verifiable facts! I've renamed the corpus callosum the Corpus Christi...

A recent pop singer asked, "When did we stop believing in magic." We love magic fiction but compartmentalise it away from reality, but I discovered magic through science. Once upon a time there was nothing and the nothing Somethinged, then there was something and then the something became aware of itself. A to Z Nothing is now something that is aware of itself. So the Nothing at the beginning had consciousness and decided to be something to be aware of. This is my God, and he's my magic 😃

At 39:10 - a loss to the monastic life…

Is possible zo believe in two kinds of truth that sometimes are in opposite directions, for example: is "truth of fact" that the universe is a dominó effect of cause and effect, so no free will possible, but is "truth of meaning" that the whole society and human interaction are based on free will. That may hurt both atheist and religious people but god and mith are "truth of meaning" and that is more important than "truth of fact" that may point civilization to nihilism...

What is GOOD and EVIL? Who sitteth in the Midst will say?

Dear Sir, isn’t beliefs in religion deemed more related to left temporal lobe and religion is dogma and can’t be from a brain that looks at the big picture and when we did use our imagination we used to have multiple deities rather than mystic divine of the ONE??

Pop so for all going towards...Given ABLE to experience

We are never 100% sure about anything yet we move towards things and act on things daily as if we were. I think Iain is letting his left brain get the best of him by thinking (likely subconsciously) that he needs to be 100% “sure” about Christ’s resurrection in order to say he’s a Christian when in reality he’ll work that out as he walks with the Holy Spirit towards Christ. It sounds like he maybe on the journey already. God bless you Iain!

If people need to believe in the divine, something needs to switch on the ability to believe it. For some people, they don't believe because they can't get their minds to think in such a way. It's like trying to believe 2+2=3.

These points apply to all religious faith, not only Christianity. What you don’t mention though is that faith is a faculty of the human soul, which interacts with the brain but is not physical, so is not either hemisphere of the brain, but it is our true self.

4:46 “the romantics” He needs to add Hamann and Bavinck to this list!

I appreciate nature but have no connection to divinity. I gave up any beliefs in magic when I was 11.

You can get a bit of a feel for the inhibitory tug of war going on between the right and left hemispheres when you look at optical illusions. Is it a duck, no it's a rabbit. no it's a duck. First we apprehend and propose a theory, then we comprehend as we assess the theory in context.

People should try to see the contradictory parts of themselves. If one assumes that one can distinguish the absolute then one cannot embrace the relative. The reality is. Attitudes and religious faith do not change reality. These things only help keep what we fear under apparent control. It is very important to be aware of the things that make us very afraid. Maybe that will allow us to get out of the fantasy and be adult men and women.

Nor how much more time given ye need?

Contain.

Well actually praying in tongues or yhe rosary is right hemisphere or meditation ..

How do we believe in the Divine? Because a shift from prior, cognitive non-belief to belief will not work in and of itself...there must be an active component.

Tick - think deep - and find the Divine State - in everything and always. Especially - within the heart. Real Being .... in absolute subtlety and purity. Fare thee well - in life's journey

It seems AI is the ultimate example of the left brain qualities and it even hallucinates in the same ways

This is wonderful! About the net analogy: isn't that what quantum physics is pointing to? In the end, a complete absence of 'things' when you try to pin them down - you have to consider the context. Also: everything contains the seeds of its opposite: very much the Eastern concept of yin/yang ☯️. Politically, it's quite bizarre that 'communist' countries quite often resemble fascist dictatorships - surely this wasn't the goal of socialism!

.. they find it all but impossible to believe the unfamiliar when the familiar is before their eyes. Your affectionate uncle SCREWTAPE. With apologies to C.S. Lewis

Oh no I am manual braining now

The Pirahã people seem to do very well without religion. Especially without Christendom. They generally have no mental health problems. To such a degree that they fail to fathom why anyone at all would ever think to consider suicide. But i suspect that perhaps it might make less financial sense to be seen to be endorsing the Pirahã peoples naturalist style of spiritualism than it would to be publically seen to be endorsing Christendom . Especially on youtube channels like this one

Belle is so cute

Ha! No one ever expects the gremlin on the billiard table!

Be all in for christ and his gospel

Some will say, seems like the creation has a mind? Representing Who?

A simple idea would just be to look for the Sacred in the Left Hemisphere. Math, Logic, etc is all a sacred language [timeless] which expresses the Nature of Creation. The beauty sensed, to me, is of a transcending sacred nature.

FAITH can become an obstacle to KNOWING. Karl Jung was asked did he have faith? He replied no, because "I know now". To have faith or believe is okay as long as you continue to seek the truth. The problem is that most people don't actively seek it. They hand their faith over to a church of dogma that does not "know" the truth. And if you think I'm wrong then why do they use the words "have faith"? Surely they must KNOW , and if the don't KNOW what gives them the right to stand in front of you? The truth is that you can't be shown it, you must seek it, and seen long enough earnestly and it will become obvious and you will literally begin to become truth, but it's your path, your truth in your way. It is a personal journey that only you can find KNOWING. And knowing comes from seeking which comes from knowledge and feeling. The Gospel of Thomas' testimony of Jeshua ( Jesus or Isa as the Indian culture knew him) states in the second verse " Jesus said, "Let him who seeks continue seeking until he finds. When he finds, he will become troubled. When he becomes troubled, he will be astonished, and he will rule over the All.". Because you will learn that the kingdom of heaven is within, because you are the kingdom, in the kingdom, of the kingdom. God is not a personified individual, God is ALL and everything. Literally every single atom that makes every single thing. We are a sea of atoms. Imagine we are a drop of water, part of a great ocean. The other drops are everyone and everything else....what is the point of being annoyed at angry or destructive people, they are simply drops of water caught in stormy seas that do not yet know they are also like you. Jesus said did he not " love your neighbour as yourself". Once you see that we are exactly the same from an ocean of god you see your true connection to everything. All of life's experiences are gifts to teach us for it is only in the darkness we strive for the light and love. Once you realise you are an immortal soul having a human experience and you never die what is there to be afraid of? Jesus also said "Whoever finds the interpretation of these sayings will not experience death". Because you realise you are eternal. Go start your seeking in all things...in science as proofs of scripture. Hermeticism, Hindu. Did you ever wonder where Jesus went from the age of 12 to 28 ?