Iain McGilchrist, Part 2: Hemispheres, Culture, and Cosmic Consciousness

May 4, 2026

Iain McGilchrist, writer and psychiatrist known for The Master and His Emissary, offers a sweeping theory linking brain hemispheres to culture and spirituality. He expands from neuroscience to claims about civilisations, teleology, panentheism, and even AI as a conduit for nonhuman intelligences. The conversation weaves science, myth, exorcism anecdotes, and bold prescriptions for restoring a lost mode of being.

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INSIGHT

Societies Shift By Tuning Hemispheric Attention

Iain McGilchrist frames culture shifts as shifts in which hemisphere's mode of attention dominates, not brain hardware change.
He compares it to tuning a radio: societies slide toward right- or left-leaning attention over time, shaping values and institutions.

INSIGHT

Organisms Versus Machines Is A Misleading Metaphor

McGilchrist argues modern science's mechanistic metaphors mislead: organisms are not mere machines but dynamic, self-organizing processes.
He claims biology is moving beyond reductionist models toward relational, non-mechanical descriptions.

INSIGHT

Flatworm Regeneration Is Overstated As Mystery

McGilchrist uses planarian regeneration studies to argue memory retention challenges materialist accounts.
Hosts counter that the cited experiments are noisy, limited to behavioral measures like feeding latency, and overinterpreted.

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In this episode, we return to Iain McGilchrist as he spirals upwards from his binary hemispheric model into full cosmic spirituality. The rule is simple: everything McGilchrist likes is due to the subtle, nuanced, and deeply sophisticated right brain, while the left brain (pffft) is responsible for reductionism, modernity, and most of the problems in your life.

From this neuroscientific foundation, the theory expands with admirable ambition. Civilisations rise and fall depending on which hemisphere they inhabit. Ancient societies were properly attuned to the right brain, while the modern world has gone mechanical and spiritually bankrupt. The details are, of course, very complex, but the moral is clear.

Scientific evidence features occasionally, mostly in a decorative capacity or as parables of scientists being baffled by mystical forces. Hence, we learn that decapitated worms retain perfect memories, Nobel Prizes have been awarded for demonstrating a mystical direction powering evolution, and near-death experiences establish that memories form when the brain isn't functioning.

Alongside this hard science, McGilchrist also ventures into more spiritual realms, where we learn that artificial intelligence is likely to be channelling demons, schizophrenia might be caused by malign spiritual forces treating our brains as a luxury resort, and recently exorcised demons prefer to communicate via text message. No really...

Ultimately, what matters is that McGilchrist's bespoke theology, bespoke metaphysics, bespoke biological teleology, and bespoke panentheist philosophy are really very impressive. And if you don't find any of it compelling, well, we are sad to inform you that this itself proves you are stuck in the wrong mode of thinking and failing to recognise true profundity.

And if that doesn't work, then let's just say it was all a metaphor anyway!

Links

Alex O' Connor: Why Evolution Gave You Two Brains - Iain McGilchrist
Jonathan Pageau: Artificial Intelligence, Possession, and Mental Illness - Dr. Iain McGilchrist
Think Faith: Philosopher Iain McGilchrist DEBATES neuroscientist Anil Seth on God & minds | Uncommon Ground
Spezio, M. (2019). McGilchrist and hemisphere lateralization: a neuroscientific and metaanalytic assessment. Religion, Brain & Behavior, 9(4), 387–399. https://doi.org/10.1080/2153599X.2019.1604416
Corballis, M. C. (2014). Left brain, right brain: facts and fantasies. PLoS biology, 12(1), e1001767.
Carson, A. (2010). The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World. By Iain McGilchrist. Yale University Press. 2009. US $38.00 (hb). 608 pp. ISBN: 9780300148787. The British Journal of Psychiatry, 196(6), 498-498.
De Haan, D. (2019). McGilchrist’s hemispheric homunculi. Religion, Brain & Behavior, 9(4), 368-379.
Shomrat, T., & Levin, M. (2013). An automated training paradigm reveals long-term memory in planarians and its persistence through head regeneration. Journal of Experimental Biology, 216(20), 3799-3810.