The Matter With Things

Ten things I learned from a seminar with Dr Iain McGilchrist

I spent this past weekend with Dr Iain McGilchrist. On Friday night he gave the annual Macmanaway lecture at the Arthur Conan Doyle Centre in Edinburgh.

On Saturday, Iain (we’re on first name terms now :P ) hosted a book launch symposium to promote his new book The Matter With Things, and it was an absolute delight!

Dr Iain McGilchrist is a psychiatrist, writer and former Oxford scholar. He writes, primarily, about the two hemispheres of the human brain, why they are asymmetrical, and what that means about being human. He is interested in historical evidence - in art, politics, religion and sciences - that show the prevalence of either the right or left hemisphere at different periods, in a variety of societies.

You may know that Dr McGilchrist is a personal hero of mine. I studied his work extensively while writing my essay for the BICS contest, and his book The Master and his Emissary is among my top two books of all time (it shares the top spot with The Prophet by Khalil Gibran depending on what mood I’m in.)

There comes a moment, at seminars such as this, where I have to make the decision to dignify myself and stifle my natural extroversion and curiosity, or whether to throw caution to the wind and make an enthusiastic, inquisitive, nuisance of myself. On this occasion, I chose the latter.

Because I’ve studied Iain McGilchrist’s work so thoroughly and so recently, and because it moved me so deeply, I came to this event with questions. Many, many questions. I was both shocked and delighted to find I was part of a fairly small audience. I, personally, would have paid five times the price for such an intimate audience with this man!

I asked around six of my (twelve!) questions before lunch. As we broke for lunch, Dr McGilchrist came up to me and asked: ‘Who are you? Are you a therapist?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘I’m a medium and a writer. I write about mediumship and try to put a philosophical and lighthearted spin on things. Your books speak to mediums because your descriptions of the way the right hemisphere sees the world maps directly onto the way mediums see the world. We see relationships before objects, and have a deep compassion and openness for a great many things, so I write about you a lot.’

‘Oh, I’d love to read more about that.’ He said.

The previous night, while packing for my trip, Corbin said, ‘Don’t forget to take a copy of your book for Iain McGilchrist.’ He smiled and I laughed. I popped one in my bag just in case.

At his request to read more about mediumship, I fetched the shiny new copy of my book from my bag.

‘I brought this as a gift for you. Just in case.’ I was shaking.

‘Oh, can I keep this?’ He replied.

‘Of course. It’s yours.’

I smiled and returned to my seat.

A few moments later, I looked up and Dr Iain McGilchrist was standing over me, spectacles perched on the end of his nose, with his copy of The Medium in Manolos open at a blank page.

‘Would you sign it for me please?’ He smiled.

A tall, Irish guy named James was sitting next to me, and he burst out laughing.

‘Who comes to an Iain McGilchrist book launch seminar, and gets Iain to ask if he can have his book signed??!!’

We all laughed together. The moment was so surreal I could barely remember my name, but I got there in the end.

And, of course, I got my enormous copy of Volume 1 of The Matter With Things signed too!

Here are some of the questions I asked:

• Is it accurate to say that there are ‘right hemisphere personalities’ or ‘left hemisphere type people’, where one hemisphere noticeably controls a person’s behaviour over the other? And if so, how can two different hemispheric personalities get along if they are co-habitating?

• Are there any ‘oughts’ or ‘shoulds’ about how to live that we can derive from the hemispheric differences?

• It seems that serotonin mirrors many of the qualities of the right hemisphere, and dopamine correlates with many of the qualities of the left hemisphere. What is the nature of the relationship (if any) between the hemispheres and neurotransmitters?

• What is the evolutionary value of wonder and awe? When did human brains begin to experience awe? Can we train our brains to be more awe-inspired, or is it determined by genetics?

• Your writing is both incredibly lucid and, at times, highly poetic and moving. Can you tell us about your writing process?

• Where is the ‘self’ located? Do you think it is solely an expression of the hemispheres, or could some aspects of consciousness / selfhood be located outside the brain, and even the body?

• Imagine an experiment was conducted to observe the brain activity of mediums. What if a medium was isolated from an unknown sitter, and asked to give a reading, and the medium’s right hemisphere engaged as if it was interacting with a living thing, even though the medium was isolated in an empty room. Would that be unexpected? Could that be preliminary evidence of a spirit communicator?

My questions were answered with great care. Here are ten things I learned from Dr Iain McGilchrist.

1. The most fulfilled people each have three things in common: Connection to nature; connection to community; and connection to the Divine.

2. Dr McGilchrist hates writing and sweats blood to achieve the lucid and fluid ‘feel’ of his writing. He would rather shovel $hit than write, and his work is a mixture of hard work, concepts developed while walking, and being startled awake by an idea at 5am.

3. Both hemispheres of the brain are necessary. The right hemisphere understands the big picture of life, while the left hemisphere is organizational, focused, and bureaucratic. The right looks out for predators, while the left is a predator. The left should work in service to the right. The right comprehends while the left apprehends.

4. Many areas of the brain are inhibitory, they act to say ‘no’ rather than ‘yes’, the way a rock says ‘no’ to a running body of water.

5. Society will be healed when individuals learn to act in a self-disciplined way in service to the whole.

6. The idea that brains / living organisms are analogous to computers or machines is completely wrong in at least 20 ways, including: You can’t switch an organism off and back on again; Machines are closed systems that require an instigating push; Organisms change and yet remain the same organism, but machines have to stay the same to remain the same.

7. Living organisms are processes, not static objects - there are no sharp boundaries between living things and the worlds in which they live.

8. Organisms that seem to be individuals are really ‘outpouchings’ of diversity attached to a single whole. This is how individuality and oneness can exist at the same time.

9. The kind of attention we pay to something changes the meaning of the thing.

10. Plan, organize, and direct yourself towards greater experiences of awe, compassion and humility. This is how the emissary (the left hemisphere) properly serves the master (the right hemisphere).

I’m going to invite Dr McGilchrist to come and talk to us on The Art and Science of Mediumship so we can dive deeper into these ideas!

Now, I’d love to hear from you! Which if the ten points above spoke to you and why? And if you haven’t read The Master and his Emissary, or The Matter With Things, you can get them here.

Each month, a paying subscriber to The Art and Science of Mediumship wins a mediumship sitting with me valued at $300. April’s winner is:

EMILY CROCKER

Congratulations Emily! I’ll email you to arrange your sitting.