The intuitive mind is a sacred gift. The rational mind is a faithful servant
This phrase from Iain McGilchrist captures the essence of his work on “the Divided Brain”. For more on this, as well as links to the film, his interviews in the stunning documentary InnSaei, as well as a wonderful RSA Animate video summary, visit my earlier post: “The Divided Brain“.
I find myself thinking about this and resharing links to Iain’s work following my last post, “Who are you? What do you dream of?“, where I reflected on myself as someone who is both a “romantic idealist and magical dreamer”, but also “someone who creates a real-world balance and counterpoint to this through being grounded and pragmatic.”
Ever since the industrial revolution, for the last two centuries so much of our thinking about the mind and of our identities as human beings is focussed on the “rational mind”, yet of we seek to first find, then understand that we have these two sides to our “divided brain”, we may then consider more deeply both who we are and how we can use the “master and his emissary” (as Iain’s book is called) to find balance.
These are my concise thoughts, please do follow through to the links about Iain’s work, it is incredibly important and a great gift as a foundation to so much of current thinking in this space.