Resources for people exploring Iain McGilchrist’s work

Sections

Books

Against Criticism

Faber & Faber, 1982. Out of print.

Jonathan Bate reviews Against Criticism: Iain McGilchrist and the Dilemma of Right Brain Romanticism

The Divided Brain and the Search for Meaning (Kindle Edition)

A 10,000-word essay written to complement The Master and His Emissary.

Order from Amazon UK

The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World

The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World is a 2009 book written by psychiatrist Iain McGilchrist that deals with the specialist hemispheric functioning of the brain. The differing world views of the right and left brain (the “Master” and “Emissary” in the title, respectively) have, according to the author, shaped Western culture since the time of the ancient Greek philosopher Plato, and the growing conflict between these views has implications for the way the modern world is changing. In part, McGilchrist’s book, which is the product of twenty years of research, reviews the evidence of previous related research and theories, and based on this and cultural evidence, the author arrives at his own conclusions.

Wikipedia — The Master and His Emissary

Read a summary by Jes Oliphant

Download Preface to Second Edition (2019)

Selected videos about The Master and His Emissary

The Divided Brain — Animated video

Narrated by Iain McGilchrist | Sponsored by RSA

Running time 11:47

Watch the lecture that provided the audio track for the animated video

Running time 32:11

Download transcript from RSA website (pdf)

The Master and his Emissary

Iain McGilchrist in conversation with Charles Eisenstein

Running time 1:28:05

The Master and his Emissary

Why is the brain so clearly and profoundly divided? The difference between right and left hemispheres has been puzzled over for centuries. We now know the left hemisphere is detail-oriented, prefers mechanisms to living things, and is inclined to self-interest, where the right hemisphere has greater breadth, flexibility and generosity. And yet, despite the left hemisphere’s inferior grasp of reality, why is it increasingly taking precedence in the modern world, with potentially disastrous consequences?

Running time 3:44

Order The Master and His Emissary from Amazon UK

The Matter with Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions, and the Unmaking of the World

Volume I: The Ways To Truth
Volume 2: What Then Is True?

In The Matter with Things, Iain McGilchrist tackles the big questions: Who are we? What is the world? How can we understand consciousness, matter, space and time? What happens if we neglect the sacred and divine? He argues that we have become enslaved to an account of things dominated by a partial view dominated by the brain’s left hemisphere, one that blinds us to an awe-inspiring reality that is all around us, had we but eyes to see it. He suggests that in order to understand ourselves and the world we need science and intuition, reason and imagination, not just one or two. When we do, we tap into an understanding that is both profound and beautiful, in line with the deepest traditions of human wisdom. Dr Iain McGilchrist is a psychiatrist, philosopher and literary scholar. He is a Quondam Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, a Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists and of the Royal Society of Arts, as well as a former Clinical Director of the Bethlem Royal & Maudsley Hospital, London. With a gift for synthesising neuroscience, culture and philosophy, his thought has provided essential frames for making sense of the times we live in and proved particularly influential on Rebel Wisdom over the years.

David Fuller, co-founder of Rebel Wisdom (now closed)

Summaries and reviews

Critical Notice: Iain McGilchrist, The Matter With Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions, and the Unmaking of the World (pdf), by Rupert Read PhD, Emeritus Associate Professor of Philosophy at School of Politics, Philosophy, Language and Communication, University of East Anglia

Summary of Volume 1 by Jes Oliphant

The Matter with Things (pdf) | Jane Clark and Richard Gault from Beshara Magazine discuss The Matter with Things with Iain McGilchrist

Iain McGilchrist reads the introduction from The Matter with Things

PART 1

Running time 31:26

PART 2

Running time 30:42

Understanding The Matter with Things: Dialogues

A 29-episode video collection in which Iain McGilchrist and Àlex Gómez-Marín discuss The Matter with Things chapter by chapter.

Go to Understanding The Matter with Things: Dialogues located elsewhere on this website

Order The Matter with Things from Amazon UK

Ways of Attending: How our Divided Brain Constructs the World

Attention is not just receptive, but actively creative of the world we inhabit. How we attend makes all the difference to the world we experience. And nowadays in the West we generally attend in a rather unusual way: governed by the narrowly focussed, target-driven left hemisphere of the brain. Forget everything you thought you knew about the difference between the hemispheres, because it will be largely wrong. It is not what each hemisphere does – they are both involved in everything – but how it does it, that matters. And the prime difference between the brain hemispheres is the manner in which they attend. For reasons of survival we need one hemisphere (in humans and many animals, the left) to pay narrow attention to detail, to grab hold of things we need, while the other, the right, keeps an eye out for everything else. The result is that one hemisphere is good at utilising the world, the other better at understanding it. Absent, present, detached, engaged, alienated, empathic, broad or narrow, sustained or piecemeal, attention has the power to alter whatever it meets. The play of attention can both create and destroy, but it never leaves its object unchanged. How you attend to something – or don’t attend to it – matters a very great deal. This book helps you to see what it is you may have been trained by our very unusual culture not to see.

Source: ResearchGate

Order from Amazon UK

Papers and articles — general

Connecting the Brain’s Missing Links: My Talk with Iain McGilchrist

by Nilantha Ilangamuwa, on Sri Lanka Guardian website

Context is everything, because nothing is what it is without a context

by Hannah Gal

Hannah Gal is a London-based journalist, researcher and award winning documentary filmmaker. Her work has appeared in The Spectator US, The Guardian, Quillette, The Jerusalem Post, UnHerd, and elsewhere.

Iain McGilchrist’s Naturalized Metaphysics

by Rogério Severo, on Philosophy Now website

A Landscape of Consciousness: Toward a Taxonomy of Explanations and Implications

by Robert Lawrence Kuhn | First published on ScienceDirect

Robert Lawrence Kuhn is the creator, executive producer, writer, and host of Closer To Truth, the PBS / public television series on cosmos, life, consciousness and meaning that presents leading scientists, philosophers, and creative thinkers discussing fundamental questions.

© 2024 Robert Lawrence Kuhn | Download zip file with high resolution image

Raging against the machine

Abigail Frymann Rouch interviews Iain McGilchrist for The Tablet website.

“… the ever-proliferating crises facing the world can be traced back to society’s loss of a sense of humility and an obsession with hubristic individualism.”

What are the downsides of digital?

Iain McGilchrist talks to Fraser Battye, head of policy at The Strategy Unit.

Videos

This website

Understanding The Matter with Things: Dialogues
A set of 29 videos in which Iain McGilchrist discusses his book The Matter of Things with Àlex Gómez-Marín.

Videos and podcasts featuring Iain McGilchrist and his work
Recordings released during the past six months.

Elsewhere

Channel McGilchrist — free-to-view videos

Iain McGilchrist’s YouTube channel

Note that the two sources overlap to a great extent.

Transcripts

Buddha at the Gas Pump — Iain McGilchrist in conversation with Rick Archer

Topics discussed

Introduction Dr Iain McGilchrist has a background in literature, philosophy, and psychiatry, and is known for his book “The Master and His Emissary.”

Isle of Skye McGilchrist expresses his passion for living on the Isle of Skye, which is depicted as a beautiful place.

Brain Hemispheres The conversation delves into the roles of the left and right hemispheres of the brain, challenging simplistic views and highlighting their complex differences.

Spiritual Insight They discuss how spiritual insights and administrative tasks are often separated, leading to a loss of the original spirit in organized religion.

Education and Knowledge The conversation highlights concerns about the current state of education, where history and the humanities are not being taught properly, leading to a loss of cultural heritage and critical thinking skills.

Right-Brain Curriculum It explores the idea of a “right-brain” school curriculum that focuses on personal inner knowledge and creativity, rather than rote learning and regurgitation of information.

Teaching Approach The importance of inspired teaching is emphasized, comparing a teacher’s role to that of a gardener who nurtures and allows a child’s inherent qualities to flourish.

Political Perspectives The dialogue touches on the relationship between brain hemispheres and political orientations, suggesting that both left-wing and right-wing politics can be approached from either a left-brained or right-brained perspective. It advocates for a more nuanced and less dogmatic approach to politics.

New Venture The speaker mentions a new venture [Channel McGilchrist] that has been operational for about a month and is gaining interest with many joining in.

View transcript

The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World

A talk given by Iain McGilchrist at Royal Society for Arts (RSA) on 22 Nov 2010.

Watch the video located earlier on this page

Download transcript (pdf)

Divided Brain, Divided World

Iain McGilchrist in conversation with Jonathan Rowson, co-founder and director of Perspectiva and former director of The Social Brain Centre at RSA. Document includes Preface and Introduction.

Download transcript (pdf)

Iain McGilchrist on The Matter with Things

Iain McGilchrist in conversation with Jim Rutt.

View transcript

The Psychological Drivers of the Metacrisis

A conversation between Iain McGilchrist, John Vervaeke and Daniel Schmachtenberger at Merton College, Oxford, UK in September 2023.

Download transcript (pdf)

Wisdom, Nature and the Brain

Iain McGilchrist in conversation with Nate Hagens.

Download transcript (pdf)

Events

None scheduled.

Channel McGilchrist

Channel McGilchrist is a membership platform established by Iain McGilchrist and Mary Attwood, enabling its members to explore, discuss and expand on McGilchrist’s theory of the differences between the left and right hemispheres of the brain and their impact on our perception of and interaction with the world.

Benefits of Channel McGilchrist membership

The Library Gain access to members-only content in the form of recorded interviews, discussions and lectures; essays; and articles.

Q&A with Iain Take part in the quarterly Q&A sessions with Iain McGilchrist. You can submit a question in advance or ask it on the evening.

Community Connect with other members and discuss your ideas and thoughts in online forums and groups. If you wish, you can set up your own private group and invite other members to join it.

Things that Matter View a gallery of art, literature and music recommended by Iain McGilchrist.

Discounts Get discounted or free access to live online events hosted by Channel McGilchrist, such as The Future of Humanity conference mentioned earlier.

Go to Channel McGilchrist and consider membership options

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Iain McGilchrist and his hypothesis of brain hemisphere differences

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