If we’re going to consider the Lego Movie for it’s gnostic themes, let’s not forget ‘Barbie’.
A society of inferior and anatomically-incorrect male dolls lorded over by strongly-female and wiser (Sophia?) dolls, all of whom live in a goldfish bowl and under the control of the demiurgic Mattel Corporation, starts to unravel when Barbie follows her existential doubts to eventually reunite with her one true maker and to ascend to the highest level of reality; southern California. Gnostic hi-jinx ensue!
In all seriousness, it is quite a beautiful movie.
Another way of reading McGilchrist is that the non-conscious nature of the Body is Master & Language is the Body's Emissary. Hence the invention of language by our speaking species, can be understood as the Demiurge for biologically conceived creatures who experience biologically conceived thoughts, as the electro-chemical process of neuronal communication within our biological brain.
Meaning our linguistic sense-of-reality, our demiurge, is literally "out-of-sync" with our own reality. Just as our words & numbers sense-of-time is out-of-sync with the earth-turning reality of our existence in time. Noticeable, when one rises before dawn & walks in an easterly direction, to experience the way a night-time sky "flows" into a day-time sky, with sound of clocks ticking or words & numbers progressing.
So when you write: "The idea that we can become lost in the distractions of the material world, such that we forget our true nature, resonates with gnosticism. The Gospel of Thomas suggests that the true nature of reality is always just here, right in front of us, but we are so lost in illusion that we miss it:
Know what is in front of your face, and what is hidden from you will be disclosed. There is nothing hidden that will not be disclosed. [1]"
Can you relate this to your Body as Master & Language as its Emissary? By looking at your face in a mirror & asking yourself "will describing what I am seeing with any form of words I care to imagine, change the reality of what I am seeing?"
As you contemplate the existential wisdom of paradox, within the words: "The Gospel of Thomas suggests that the true nature of reality is always just here, right in front of us, but we are so lost in illusion that we miss it?"
And is this because we are lost in language's "illusion of knowing," through conflating the sounds & symbols nature of language, with the substance nature of reality? And although we might know the words: "Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand."
We don't care to understand the pragmatic reason for this profound statement, about socially normal people & our addiction to the sounds & symbols nature of language.
While the philosophic and spiritual observations here are profound, I find McGilchris'ts neurological take on this more and more problematic particularly since his recent MAGA-like turn).
Compare McGilchrist's rather superficial psychologized take on this with the original meaning of "manas" and "buddhi" from the Katha Upanishad (circa 800 BC)
Manas is that which makes many out of One; Buddhi is that which sees the One underlying the many.
Suddenly we're in a radically different territory - rather than psychologizing these functions, they are symbolic of universal processes. The One becoming Many and seeing itself through a particularized view is the pure manas; Krishna, in Chapter 10 of the Gita, teaches Arjuna how to develop the "enlightened" buddhi (which is what makes one a Buddha) by which he can see "Krishna" illumining all things in the universe.
In the Gospel of Thomas, Christ tells us to "split the wood" and find Him. This is essentially a function of the buddhi. In fact, we find this throughout all mystic traditions, western, eastern, indigenous.
But in this dying age, slowly giving birth to a new integral one, we shrink these cosmic functions to individualized, almost solipsistic traits.
The whole world dissolving in war and pollution is already giving way to a shining new infinitely brighter consciousness - "brighter than the light of 1000 suns."
I just wrote a comment for A J Owens' marvelous critique of McGIlchrist, and couldn't find my password for the Wordpress site. It's a bit of a mess (sorry, i wrote it quickly) but miraculously, I decided to copy it before it was deleted.
Meanwhile, I'm VERY much looking forward to your post. If you haven't seen it, check out Matt Segal's comments (sorry, I don't have the URL but I think it should be easy to search on Substack)
Excellent, one of the best (and calmest) critiques of the sad and strange dissolution of Iain's mind.
But was this really surprising? Wasn't there always a kind of dualistic rigidity (despite all of his claims to the contrary) i "The Master and His Emissary?"
He never really got over the confusion between, "You don't really need the neuroscience at all, I'm only offering it for this left hemisphere/modernist mindset" and his almost obsession with throwing everything into either the left or right hemisphere pot.
And I don't recall anyone so clearly articulating how he seems to have fallen into "political Left" = left hemisphere and "political Right" = right hemisphere.
There is ONE and only one scientific study of political views I've ever seen that has been successfully replicated over more than 20 years - the association of self described liberals with the personality trait "openness to experience" (an obviously right hemisphere trait) and self described conservatives with the personality trait "conscientiousness" (an obvious left hemisphere trait)
Both, by the way, are very positive, and in their extreme, problematic. In my teens I was probably so extremely "open to experience" I could barely keep any room or my book bag in order, and I had to painfully teach myself conscientiousness through my 20s and into my 30s (and under stress, even 35 years later the conscientiousness can easily fall away)
to get past the political conflict, here's an easy choice which I'm amazed Iain never thought of:
EVERYONE has a mixture of conscientiousness and openness to experience (in the Big 5 Personality Test, which I've administered hundreds of times, there are about 50 gradations of each). Instead of pitting groups against each other, look at the dynamic, ever changing manifestation of these traits (as well as numerous other dimensions, which Iain hardly even touches - but that's for another comment!)
Excellent comment, and I think the article you linked is very astute, as well as the wonderful comment from Matt Segal quoted in it. I think Iain's books are two of the most important I've ever read. I also like him as a personality and I think he is a wonderful writer. But since publishing The Matter With Things he's become increasingly explicit, dogmatic, and particular about how he thinks everyone should behave. The problem is that for whatever belief he has, he always finds a way to bend his hemisphere hypothesis to fit as a justification. Firstly, this often requires some rather extraordinary reaching. Secondly, the hemisphere hypothesis should never be used to justify beliefs, as it's a case of deriving an is from an ought (I realise there are cases where Hume's principle seems far less clear-cut than he thought it to be, but this particular case seems to be one where at the very least the "is" feels like spurious grounds for an "ought"). His utter lack appreciation for the danger posed by certain sections of the reactionary right feels like a classic case of someone who doesn't realise what he doesn't know.
" he always finds a way to bend his hemisphere hypothesis to fit as a justification."
It helps me to remember how much I do this!! (inadvertently, of course;>))
"someone who doesn't realise what he doesn't know."
There's a very (inadvertently) funny youtube ad that keeps popping up in my feed of notoriously atheist/materialist astronomer Neil deGrasse Tyson saying (a bit smugly) "The problem is when you've learned a lot, but not enough to know what you don't know."
I was talking last year to a friend who lives near London. I was amazed she didn't know that we (in the US) have a cup of coffee, but wouldn't know what a "cuppa" is. And when she suggested that "you lot" might enjoy this or that, she had no idea that if she said that in person, I would have looked around to see what "lot" she was talking about.
I LOVE "dodgy" - what a great way to describe someone who is not quite thoroughly bad but somewhat "off."
Please find an Illuminated Understanding of the left vs right (brain) divide via these references:
http://www.consciousnessitself.org Self-Radiant Consciousness as the Master Principle
http://www.daplastique.com/essay/the-maze-of-ecstasy
http://beezone.com/current/whenbodyfulllight.html When the Body is Full of Light
http://beezone.com/current/ewb_pp436-459.html The Enlightenment of the Whole Body
http://beezone.com/baptism-of-immortal-happiness
http://beezone.com/awakenfromword.html Awaken From (the left-brained) Word which in the authors words "are killing us"
http://beezone.com/current/sciencemysticismlove.html
http://beezone.com/current/wholebodysynthesislove.html The Whole Body Synthesis of Evolutionary Love
http://beezone.com/current/stresschemistry.html
http://beezone.com/current/psychosis.html The Psychosis of (left -brained) Doubt
http://www.dabase.org/science-magic.htm Scientism as black magic The Transmission of Doubt
http://beezone.com/adida/quandramamashikhara/thelawofpleasuredomeedit The PLEASURE Dome Law
http://beezone.com/adida/shakti/theshaktiherplaywithadida.html SHAKTI
http://www.integralworld.net/reynolds16.html The Miracle of "Matter" _ Reality As Indivisible Conscious Light
If we’re going to consider the Lego Movie for it’s gnostic themes, let’s not forget ‘Barbie’.
A society of inferior and anatomically-incorrect male dolls lorded over by strongly-female and wiser (Sophia?) dolls, all of whom live in a goldfish bowl and under the control of the demiurgic Mattel Corporation, starts to unravel when Barbie follows her existential doubts to eventually reunite with her one true maker and to ascend to the highest level of reality; southern California. Gnostic hi-jinx ensue!
In all seriousness, it is quite a beautiful movie.
Another way of reading McGilchrist is that the non-conscious nature of the Body is Master & Language is the Body's Emissary. Hence the invention of language by our speaking species, can be understood as the Demiurge for biologically conceived creatures who experience biologically conceived thoughts, as the electro-chemical process of neuronal communication within our biological brain.
Meaning our linguistic sense-of-reality, our demiurge, is literally "out-of-sync" with our own reality. Just as our words & numbers sense-of-time is out-of-sync with the earth-turning reality of our existence in time. Noticeable, when one rises before dawn & walks in an easterly direction, to experience the way a night-time sky "flows" into a day-time sky, with sound of clocks ticking or words & numbers progressing.
So when you write: "The idea that we can become lost in the distractions of the material world, such that we forget our true nature, resonates with gnosticism. The Gospel of Thomas suggests that the true nature of reality is always just here, right in front of us, but we are so lost in illusion that we miss it:
Know what is in front of your face, and what is hidden from you will be disclosed. There is nothing hidden that will not be disclosed. [1]"
Can you relate this to your Body as Master & Language as its Emissary? By looking at your face in a mirror & asking yourself "will describing what I am seeing with any form of words I care to imagine, change the reality of what I am seeing?"
As you contemplate the existential wisdom of paradox, within the words: "The Gospel of Thomas suggests that the true nature of reality is always just here, right in front of us, but we are so lost in illusion that we miss it?"
And is this because we are lost in language's "illusion of knowing," through conflating the sounds & symbols nature of language, with the substance nature of reality? And although we might know the words: "Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand."
We don't care to understand the pragmatic reason for this profound statement, about socially normal people & our addiction to the sounds & symbols nature of language.
While the philosophic and spiritual observations here are profound, I find McGilchris'ts neurological take on this more and more problematic particularly since his recent MAGA-like turn).
Compare McGilchrist's rather superficial psychologized take on this with the original meaning of "manas" and "buddhi" from the Katha Upanishad (circa 800 BC)
Manas is that which makes many out of One; Buddhi is that which sees the One underlying the many.
Suddenly we're in a radically different territory - rather than psychologizing these functions, they are symbolic of universal processes. The One becoming Many and seeing itself through a particularized view is the pure manas; Krishna, in Chapter 10 of the Gita, teaches Arjuna how to develop the "enlightened" buddhi (which is what makes one a Buddha) by which he can see "Krishna" illumining all things in the universe.
In the Gospel of Thomas, Christ tells us to "split the wood" and find Him. This is essentially a function of the buddhi. In fact, we find this throughout all mystic traditions, western, eastern, indigenous.
But in this dying age, slowly giving birth to a new integral one, we shrink these cosmic functions to individualized, almost solipsistic traits.
The whole world dissolving in war and pollution is already giving way to a shining new infinitely brighter consciousness - "brighter than the light of 1000 suns."
I completely agree. I actually have a post scheduled about McGilchrist's myopia regarding the current political climate.
I just wrote a comment for A J Owens' marvelous critique of McGIlchrist, and couldn't find my password for the Wordpress site. It's a bit of a mess (sorry, i wrote it quickly) but miraculously, I decided to copy it before it was deleted.
Meanwhile, I'm VERY much looking forward to your post. If you haven't seen it, check out Matt Segal's comments (sorry, I don't have the URL but I think it should be easy to search on Substack)
https://staggeringimplications.wordpress.com/2026/03/28/planet-jung-part-ii-war-of-the-brain-hemispheres/
Excellent, one of the best (and calmest) critiques of the sad and strange dissolution of Iain's mind.
But was this really surprising? Wasn't there always a kind of dualistic rigidity (despite all of his claims to the contrary) i "The Master and His Emissary?"
He never really got over the confusion between, "You don't really need the neuroscience at all, I'm only offering it for this left hemisphere/modernist mindset" and his almost obsession with throwing everything into either the left or right hemisphere pot.
And I don't recall anyone so clearly articulating how he seems to have fallen into "political Left" = left hemisphere and "political Right" = right hemisphere.
There is ONE and only one scientific study of political views I've ever seen that has been successfully replicated over more than 20 years - the association of self described liberals with the personality trait "openness to experience" (an obviously right hemisphere trait) and self described conservatives with the personality trait "conscientiousness" (an obvious left hemisphere trait)
Both, by the way, are very positive, and in their extreme, problematic. In my teens I was probably so extremely "open to experience" I could barely keep any room or my book bag in order, and I had to painfully teach myself conscientiousness through my 20s and into my 30s (and under stress, even 35 years later the conscientiousness can easily fall away)
to get past the political conflict, here's an easy choice which I'm amazed Iain never thought of:
EVERYONE has a mixture of conscientiousness and openness to experience (in the Big 5 Personality Test, which I've administered hundreds of times, there are about 50 gradations of each). Instead of pitting groups against each other, look at the dynamic, ever changing manifestation of these traits (as well as numerous other dimensions, which Iain hardly even touches - but that's for another comment!)
Excellent comment, and I think the article you linked is very astute, as well as the wonderful comment from Matt Segal quoted in it. I think Iain's books are two of the most important I've ever read. I also like him as a personality and I think he is a wonderful writer. But since publishing The Matter With Things he's become increasingly explicit, dogmatic, and particular about how he thinks everyone should behave. The problem is that for whatever belief he has, he always finds a way to bend his hemisphere hypothesis to fit as a justification. Firstly, this often requires some rather extraordinary reaching. Secondly, the hemisphere hypothesis should never be used to justify beliefs, as it's a case of deriving an is from an ought (I realise there are cases where Hume's principle seems far less clear-cut than he thought it to be, but this particular case seems to be one where at the very least the "is" feels like spurious grounds for an "ought"). His utter lack appreciation for the danger posed by certain sections of the reactionary right feels like a classic case of someone who doesn't realise what he doesn't know.
" he always finds a way to bend his hemisphere hypothesis to fit as a justification."
It helps me to remember how much I do this!! (inadvertently, of course;>))
"someone who doesn't realise what he doesn't know."
There's a very (inadvertently) funny youtube ad that keeps popping up in my feed of notoriously atheist/materialist astronomer Neil deGrasse Tyson saying (a bit smugly) "The problem is when you've learned a lot, but not enough to know what you don't know."
Pot meet kettle!!
Hah! I can't stand NDT. Not just an arrogant bore, but seems a rather dodgy character
Ok, you win "Britishism" of the day.
I was talking last year to a friend who lives near London. I was amazed she didn't know that we (in the US) have a cup of coffee, but wouldn't know what a "cuppa" is. And when she suggested that "you lot" might enjoy this or that, she had no idea that if she said that in person, I would have looked around to see what "lot" she was talking about.
I LOVE "dodgy" - what a great way to describe someone who is not quite thoroughly bad but somewhat "off."