Exegesis Volume 07 Issue #026 In This Issue: From: Patrice Guinard Subject: [e] Re: Julian Jaynes
Exegesis Digest Sat, 16 Feb 2002

Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2002 17:37:09 +0100
From: Patrice Guinard
Subject: [e] Re: Julian Jaynes

I've found on the Net an extract of an article by this JULIAN JAYNES of whom I was not aware. Sorry!

"CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE VOICES OF THE MIND" by JULIAN JAYNES in Canadian Psychology, April 1986, Vol. 27 (2).

.../ And then the method of divination that is still around, astrology. It is remarkable to go back and read the cuneiform letters of kings to their astrolo-gers and diviners of around 1000 B.C. (Pfeiffer, 1935). These cruel Assyrian tyrants, who are depicted in their bas-reliefs as grap-pling with lions and engaging in fierce lion hunts, are, in their letters, meek and fright-ened people. They don’t know what to do. Astrologers tell them, "You cannot move out of your house for five days;" "You must not eat this;" "You should not wear clothes to-day"— extraordinary strictures that official diviners would interpret as what the gods meant. It is interesting to note that not only has astrology lasted, but it is being followed by more people at present than ever before. /...

After reading some of these papers, I'm not convinced that the "bicameral mind" hypothesis is of any use to astrology. And I suggest that astrologers must give up all these "postmodern" hypotheses & return to common reason to converse with skeptics.

- Astrology isn't a science.
- OK: we all agree.

- Astrology is in no way a matter of knowledge .
- Then what is it?

- Astrologers are mere believers.
- Then is it a religion? With no credits, no church ...

- Astrology isn't a religion, but mere superstition.
- Then a superstition accredited or "believed" in some manner or other by half the population of all industrial civilized nations (see the sociological investigations). Why then aren't these astrological believers mentioned in any atlas of faith and religion? And why today has a mere superstition captured more believers than any State religions, a superstition without any church, and one that is continually reproved by authoritative ideological discourses (scientists, rationalists, and other Christians, etc) ?

What is astrology then? There is no serious response from his opponents. Why is astrology alive in modern consciousness? No more answer.

Patrice Guinard

End of exegesis Digest V7 #26

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