Category: Psychology

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The Worst Plot Twist in Human Evolution

In 1995 your author stated,

“Professor Julian Jaynes has written a controversial book called The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. In the book he hypothesizes that consciousness as we know it did not develop in man until about 2000 BC. Until then, we did not think introspectively, he says. In fact, people were probably more like modern-day schizophrenics, in whom there appear to be two minds. One, controlled by the left hemisphere of the brain takes actions, and the other, controlled by the right side, dreams and hears voices. For proof, Mr. Jaynes (he walked away from the title of Ph.D. although fully qualified) looks at ancient books including the Bible. In the Old Testament he says there is no mention of the subjective I, no introspective thinking, no sense of self. But in the later New Testament, the features of modern consciousness take shape.

“How could the pyramids and other construction take place then? Introspective thinking was not necessary, he asserts, just as you can drive a car without theorizing about how the car’s engine works.”

AI research has clarified the original statement about bicameral thinking

Yes, that summary is mostly true, accurately capturing the core premise and unique details of Julian Jaynes’s 1976 book, with a few subtle nuances:

Core Claims (Accurate to the Book)

The Thesis: Jaynes argued that human consciousness (defined specifically as subjective introspective self-awareness) evolved surprisingly late, around 1000–2000 BCE, driven by the collapse of ancient societies and the invention of writing.

The Bicameral Mind: He hypothesized that prior to this, human minds were split. When faced with stress or novel decisions, the brain’s right hemisphere generated auditory hallucinations, which the left hemisphere experienced as the literal “voice of the gods” directing their actions. He directly compared this state to modern auditory hallucinations in schizophrenia.

Textual Evidence: Jaynes analyzed ancient texts to track this shift. For example, he pointed out that the Iliad lacks words for internal mental states, with characters acting purely on impulse or divine command, whereas the Odyssey (written later) shows clear introspective thought and deceit. He drew a similar contrast between older and newer books of the Hebrew Bible.

Non-Conscious Complex Actions: Jaynes argued that complex routines—including architectural engineering, trade, and driving—do not require introspective consciousness, but rather learned habit, visual-spatial skill, and direct execution.

Clarifications & Nuances

Academic Title: Julian Jaynes never formally completed a Ph.D., though he completed the requirements at Yale (he delayed submitting his dissertation). He spent most of his academic career lecturing and researching as a Senior Research Psychologist at Princeton University.

Scientific Status: Jaynes’s theory remains highly controversial and is widely considered speculative within modern neuroscience, cognitive science, and evolutionary psychology, as mainstream science views consciousness as having evolved much earlier.

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Worst Hypnosis

Hypnotized subjects have been made to form blisters on their skin simply from carefully worded suggestions.

Hypnotic Blister Formation: Fact or Fiction?

Verdict: Yes, with important caveats.

While it sounds like an urban legend, hypnotic blister formation—the production of real localized skin blisters or burn-like lesions through verbal suggestion alone—is a well-documented phenomenon in late 19th- and 20th-century psychosomatic research. However, modern science views these historical findings through a lens of strict methodology and skepticism.

What the Historical Cases Showed

Starting in the late 1800s (most notably by French researchers like Focachon and Jules Liégeois) and continuing into mid-20th-century studies, experimenters reported placing an unheated object—such as a coin or a cold piece of metal—on a deeply hypnotized subject’s skin. They would give a specific suggestion: “This object is glowing hot and will burn your skin.”

In documented trials, subjects frequently exhibited:

  • Localized vasodilation (intense redness and localized heat).
  • Localized edema (swelling) and fluid collection beneath the skin.
  • Full bullae (fluid-filled blisters containing sterile serum) that closely mimicked second-degree burns.

How Science Explains the Mechanism

The skin and the central nervous system share a common embryonic origin (the ectoderm) and remain tightly linked through the autonomic nervous system.

When a subject fully accepts a high-intensity hypnotic suggestion, the brain can trigger localized vascular changes. This includes dramatic changes in local blood flow, capillary permeability, and the release of inflammatory mediators (such as histamines, neuropeptides, and kinins). In simple terms, the mind initiates a localized inflammatory response—a severe nocebo effect—causing fluid to leak into the tissue and form a blister, even though no thermal energy touched the skin.

The Caveats and Modern Skepticism

While these experiments are cited in psychosomatic literature, modern researchers point to key limitations:

  1. Lack of Strict Controls (Historical Flaws): A critical review of early studies (such as Gordon L. Paul’s landmark 1963 paper, The Production of Blisters by Hypnotic Suggestion) noted that many early 20th-century trials lacked rigorous surveillance. In some unmonitored cases, subjects intentionally or unconsciously scratched, rubbed, or picked at the area under a bandage to satisfy the experimenter’s expectations.
  2. Variable Reproducibility: Blister formation only occurs in a tiny percentage of highly hypnotizable (“somnambulistic”) individuals. Replicating the effect under modern laboratory controls with continuous video surveillance has proven difficult, as many normal subjects fail to produce structural tissue changes from verbal suggestion alone.
  3. Ethical Constraints: Modern institutional review boards (IRBs) prohibit attempts to induce tissue damage or pain via psychological suggestion, preventing further rigorous trials today.

The Bottom Line

The claim is historically and scientifically true in documented instances, serving as an extreme example of the mind-body connection and autonomic nervous system control. However, it is an exceptionally rare response requiring an extraordinarily high level of hypnotic susceptibility, and historical reports likely include a mix of genuine psychogenic tissue changes and uncontrolled mechanical irritation.

Asthma and Hypnosis

For asthma sufferers: Scientists have proven that many sufferers can reduce or eliminate symptoms with self-hypnosis. Try to imagine or actually view a pleasant image, or imagine yourself in a situation where you are enjoying yourself and are symptom-free. It often works.

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Growing Disgust

Infants are born without the emotion of disgust. It does not fully develop until age seven. As everyone knows children at age two will put everything in their mouths. Researchers put grasshoppers into milk glasses and offered them to five-year-olds. The kids took the grasshoppers out and drank the milk. By age seven, the kids understood the concept of contamination, and would not drink the milk.

The foundational research in this area was conducted by psychologist Dr. Paul Rozin and his colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania. Their experiments revealed key patterns in how disgust develops:

Inborn vs. Acquired Responses: Infants are born with a taste rejection for bitter or sour substances (distaste), but they do not have an innate sense of disgust—which is a culturally learned, higher-level cognitive emotion. Infants and young toddlers under age two frequently explore their environment by putting almost anything into their mouths, including insects, animal feces, and non-edible items.

The Contamination Principle: In developmental studies testing the concept of contagion, researchers presented young children with a favorite beverage (such as milk or juice) that had come into brief contact with a disgust-eliciting object (like a grasshopper, comb, or sterile hair).

Age Differences: Children under age five or six routinely removed the insect or object from the drink and happily drank the remaining liquid, seeing it as completely separate. They did not yet grasp the invisible concept of trace contamination (“once in contact, always in contact”).

Development Around Age Seven: It is typically between the ages of 5 and 7 that children fully acquire sensitivity to trace contamination. By around age seven, most children will refuse to drink a beverage if it has touched an offensive object—even after the object is completely removed.

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Worst Affectation

In the late 1500’s, among the people of England, sadness became fashionable. People practiced and preened in the art of acting melancholy. To dress all in black was common.

During the late 16th and early 17th centuries (the late Elizabethan and Jacobean eras), England experienced a distinct cultural phenomenon that historians call “the cult of melancholy” or “fashionable melancholy.”

1. Sadness as an Aesthetic

In Elizabethan society, affectation of sadness was transformed into a sign of intellectual depth, sensitivity, and artistic genius. Inspired by Renaissance philosophy, being “melancholic” meant you were a deep thinker, a poet, a tortured lover, or an introspective scholar—not merely sad. Young men in particular would perform or exaggerate this mood in public spaces, lounging in dramatic poses, sighing, and avoiding cheerful company to appear sophisticated.

2. The Black Wardrobe

Dressing in all black became the ultimate uniform for this trend. Black served a dual purpose:

  • Symbolism: It physically represented the “black bile” (humor) believed to cause melancholia, signaling a somber, brooding interior world.
  • Prestige: Rich, deep black dyes were notoriously difficult and expensive to produce. Wearing high-quality black velvet, silk, or wool was a major status symbol imported from Spanish and Italian court fashions.

3. Pop Culture Echoes

This trend heavily influenced the art and literature of the time:

  • Shakespeare’s Plays: The archetype was satirized and immortalized in characters like Hamlet (who famously wears his “customary suits of solemn black” while moping around court) and Jaques in As You Like It (who boasts about his unique, personal brand of melancholy).
  • Portraits: Figures like the poet John Donne were painted in brooding black outfits with unbuttoned collars, slouched hats, and folded arms to signify their fashionable, melancholy state.
  • Music: Lutenist and composer John Dowland built a wildly successful career writing mournful, sorrowful lute songs (even adopting the motto “Semper Dowland, semper dolens” — Always Dowland, always grieving).
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Worst Imposter

Ferdinand Waldo Demara, Jr., a high-school dropout, posed as a monk, a professor of psychology, a cancer researcher, a penal officer, a teacher, and a surgeon, all without the proper education or certification. As a surgeon he successfully performed amputations and even thoracic surgery.

Ferdinand was portrayed by Tony Curtis in the 1961 movie, “The Great Imposter.”

More about Ferdinand Demara, Jr.

Ferdinand Waldo Demara Jr., famously known as “The Great Impostor,” was one of history’s most prolific and successful con men. Armed with an extraordinary memory and supreme confidence, he took on dozens of high-level professions without credentials.

  1. He Performed Successful Surgeries at Sea with Zero Medical Training
    During the Korean War, Demara posed as Dr. Joseph Cyr, a trauma surgeon aboard the Royal Canadian Navy destroyer HMCS Cayuga. When wounded soldiers were brought aboard, Demara ducked into his cabin, speed-read a medical textbook on the required procedures, and performed multiple surgeries—including extracting a bullet lodged near a patient’s heart and amputating a foot. Every single one of his patients survived.
  2. His Heroic Fame Was His Own Undoing
    Demara’s flawless surgical work on the Cayuga was so impressive that it attracted news coverage. The real Dr. Joseph Cyr’s mother read a newspaper account of her son’s “heroic” actions aboard a navy vessel in Korea and knew something was wrong, as her actual son was practicing medicine in New Brunswick, exposing the fraud.
  3. He Served as the Dean of Philosophy at a College
    Posing as “Dr. Robert Linton French,” a religiously oriented psychologist, Demara landed a position at Gannon College in Erie, Pennsylvania. He wasn’t just a lecturer; he was made Dean of the School of Philosophy and taught courses in general, industrial, and abnormal psychology—even authoring a booklet titled How to Bring Up Your Child.
  4. He Possessed a Photographic Memory
    Demara lacked formal higher education, having run away from home as a teenager, but he possessed an extraordinarily high IQ and a photographic memory. This allowed him to absorb textbooks rapidly, memorize technical jargon, and pass himself off as an authority on nearly any subject overnight.
  5. He Faked His Own Suicide to Escape the Military
    After going AWOL from the U.S. Army during World War II, Demara joined the U.S. Navy under a stolen name. When he failed to get the naval assignment he wanted, he staged his own suicide by leaving his clothes and a suicide note on a beach before slipping away under another new identity.
  6. He Ran a Maximum-Security Prison Section
    Demara assumed the identity of Dr. Ben W. Jones and secured a position as an assistant warden at a maximum-security prison in Texas. He successfully instituted prison reform policies and gained the trust of inmates and guards alike before a prisoner recognized his face from a news article and turned him in.
  7. He Co-Founded a Catholic College
    Demara spent significant time trying to become a monk, joining various religious orders throughout his life. Under the alias Brother John Payne, he helped found LaMennais College (now Walsh University) in Alfred, Maine, where he served as a chancellor.
  8. He Was Played by Tony Curtis in a Hollywood Film
    His exploits inspired a best-selling 1959 biography, The Great Impostor by Robert Crichton, which was adapted into a 1961 feature film starring Tony Curtis. Demara was also cast in a small role as a hospital surgeon in the 1960 horror film The Hypnotic Eye, where ironically, observers noted he was terrible at scripted acting.
  9. He Claimed His Primary Motive Was “Pure Rascality”
    Unlike most con artists, Demara rarely stole money or sought great personal wealth. He was primarily motivated by prestige, the challenge of slipping into high-status roles, and the opportunity to do good. When asked about his motivation, he famously cited “Rascality, pure rascality”.
  10. He Ended His Life as a Legitimate Hospital Chaplain
    In his later years, after his fame made it impossible to adopt new fake personas, Demara went back to serving others legitimately under his real name. He became an ordained minister and worked as a hospital chaplain in Anaheim, California, until his death in 1982.


Perhaps more famous was Frank Abagnale Jr., the real person portrayed in the move “Catch Me If You Can,” Starring Leonardo DiCaprio



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Worst Superstitions

There are some old superstitions that were quite seriously heeded in their time. Among them: Never eat a dinner with 13 people seated at the table. Never cut off both ends of a loaf of bread – because the Devil will jump from the bread and ‘fly all over the house.’

Other old superstitions: Do not wear red and green at the same time.

People with red hair bring about unlucky circumstances.

Always pick up a comb from a table with its teeth facing away from your body.

Never watch a child sleep or you will be risking the death of that child.

If you are a male, and you wish to be irresistible to females, tie the udder of a hyena around your left arm. So says a custom from ancient Greece.

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Worst Embarrassment for Soldiers

General John Burgoyne who participated on the British side of the American Revolutionary War, had great respect and obedience from his soldiers. His method of punishment was different. If a soldier misbehaved, he had the man wear his coat inside out.

Deeper Dive:

General John Burgoyne—nicknamed “Gentleman Johnny” by his men—was uniquely progressive for an 18th-century British commander. During an era when the British Army routinely relied on harsh corporal punishment, flogging, and strict subordination to enforce discipline, Burgoyne took the rare approach of treating his soldiers as thinking human beings rather than mere automatons.
Burgoyne’s Reformist Code

In 1759, when Burgoyne raised and commanded the 16th Light Dragoons, he issued a famed code of instructions to his officers:

Humiliation Over Brutality: Burgoyne strongly discouraged physical flogging, arguing that it degraded a soldier’s dignity and destroyed his self-respect.

The “Inside-Out Coat” Punishment: Instead of the whip, Burgoyne used public shame as a corrective measure. If a soldier misbehaved or showed poor conduct, he was ordered to wear his uniform coat turned inside out to visibly mark him as an example of bad behavior and dishonor to his comrades.

Encouraging Initiative: Burgoyne encouraged his soldiers to exercise independent judgment on the field—a revolutionary concept at the time.

Because he treated his soldiers with fairness, respect, and restraint, Burgoyne earned the immense devotion and obedience of his troops throughout his campaigns.


General John Burgoyne
General John Burgoyne(1722 – 1792)