The Bicameral Mind Theory, Corroborated at the Crossroads of Pharmacology, Psychiatry, and Psychospiritual Ethnocosmology – With an Unveiling of the Identity and Origin of the Fabled Soma of the Rigveda (Abridged Version)

This article demonstrates that Julian Jaynes’s bicameral mind theory, largely dismissed for decades, gains powerful validation when viewed with the aid of neuroscientific, ethnopharmacological, and historiographical insights. It first describes in detail the pharmacological action of the psychoactive Amazonian plant brew Ayahuasca, and its neural and mental effects. Second, it scaffolds upon this a redefinition of the term “entheogen,” (an alternative term for psychedelic) that means “generator of god within,” to include substances that release and amplify dopamine and norepinephrine levels (including but not exclusive to Ayahuasca), which at high doses cause left-right temporal lobe crosstalk and can lead at high doses to auditory hallucinations, often perceived as the voices of ethereal beings. And third, it exegetically, geographically, ethnopharmacologically, and archaeologically corroborates that the identity of the cryptically fabled Vedic entheogen Soma is most likely the ephedrine-containing (dopamine elevating) plant Ephedra gerardiana, with effects scripturally described as including energization, euphoria, and auditorily hallucinated voices and hymns, effectively redefining Ephedra as an entheogen rather than solely a stimulant. In addition to this, it cogently determines with more synthesized evidence than ever before that the epic flood myth (including the ultimate dominant obtaining of Soma) relates to a siege on dams and forts of a Swat Valley mountain settlement of foreign pastoral tribespeople, corroborating the proposal of early 1900s Rigvedic scholars in contrast to some late 1900s scholars who rather loosely misinterpreted the myth as representative of the monsoon “floods” (diligently outlined in this thesis as being tied to another mythical epic in the Rigveda entirely). Finally, importantly, the experiences of the writers of the sacred text (the “poet-seer” Rishis) are explored in detail, in regards to noetic and presciently “divined” ecological, astrophysical, and psychological understanding, fused with gnostic cosmopsychism and panpsychism. Here is a link to a comprehensive NotebookLM generated podcast for the article @ https://notebooklm.google.com/notebook/503f255d-1a5f-478a-b082-6a1db795ff49?artifactId=336f169c-562b-40e7-8aa0-0acbbe4a3138.