Readings in the Republic: Alethiometers and Neuroscience

 

Greetings Shadow Chasers and Dust Makers. 

After finishing my His Dark Materials audiobooks for a second time - amazing full cast presentations by the way - it occurred to me that the method by which one learns to see their daemon in this world such as Mary Malone did is quite similar to what these fine gentlemen have to say about brain hemispheres. 

This blog has touched upon this sort of thing repeatedly, but to summarize - the popular myths regarding the right and left hemispheres of the brain are grossly oversimplified and pretty flatly wrong. Both hemispheres are involved in everything neurologists once believed to be compartmentalized - for instance, art or emotion or language. However the way in which they process the world is completely dissimilar, and that is where things get truly interesting. 

I first learned of both these incredible works above through an article by Philip Pullman, first printed in the Guardian and first titled "William Blake and Me."  Not only was it one of the best, most lyrical essays on Blake I've ever read, but it also introduced me to a way of thinking and experiencing that, like many people, I had in fact already thought and experienced, yet didn't quite have the vocabulary to express. Much less the neuroscience. 

To translate this into His Dark Materials mythology, falling back into the deep, meditative, gestalt, open, and receptive patterns imprinted by the right hemisphere is what is necessary to see daemons. Or to read the alethiometer. Or to cut windows with the subtle knife. Or for that matter, properly spy Dust with amber spyglasses. The right brain is the home of symbolism, association, connection, context, meaning, and depth, abiding in the broad, living, and - dare I say it - poetic world. 

To highlight the HDM terminology even more, the left brain is going to require volumes of texts and reference books to read any alethiometers one might have lying about. By contrast, the right should be able to interpret them directly, as a bird might fly or a fish might swim - instinctive, intuitive, and graceful. 

The God of the Left Hemisphere can be purchased here, and The Master and His Emissary can be here. 

Both are critical reading if you're majoring in #PullmanStudies like those of us at Building the Republic. 

And as Always 

Stay Dusty My Friends

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