Definition of "bicameral"
(mentality) Relating to the functions of the two cerebral hemispheres in the history of human beings ‘hearing’ the speech of gods or idols, according to Julian Jaynes's theory of the bicameral mind.
Quotations
[The Linear B Tablets] were written directly in what I am calling the bicameral period. p.80; / …to have an idea of the nature and range of the bicameral voices heard in the early civilizations. p.88; / …how could [the brain] have been organized so that a bicameral mentality was possible? p.101; / Like the queen in a termite nest or a beehive, the idols of a bicameral world are the carefully tended centers of social control, with auditory hallucinations instead of pheromones. p.144; / …wherever and whenever civilization first began…there was a succession of kingdoms all with similar characteristics that, somewhat prematurely, I shall call bicameral. p.149; / Bicameral gods [of conquering civilizations] are jealous gods. p.156, footnote; / …I suggest that given man, language, and cities organized on a bicameral basis, there are only certain fixed patterns into which history can fit. p.159. / How can we know that…idols ‘spoke’ in the bicameral sense? p.174.
1976, 1990, Julian Jaynes, The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston