The question I have is: was Jaynes a closet anthroposophist, or is "bicameral mind" an independent corroboration?
If we look at this evolution from the far-distant past, when the ego was hidden within its sheaths as though in the darkness of a mother's womb, we find that although the ego had no knowledge of itself, it was all the closer to those spiritual beings who worked on our bodily vehicles and were related to the human ego, but of incomparably greater perfection. Clairvoyant insight thus looks back to a far-distant past when man had not yet acquired ego-consciousness, for he was embedded in spiritual life itself, and when his soul-life, too, was different, for it was much closer to the soul-forces from which the ego has emerged. In those times, also, we find in man a primal clairvoyant consciousness which functioned dimly and dreamily, for it was not illumined by the light of an ego; and it was from this mode of consciousness that the ego first came forth. The faculty that man in the future will acquire with his ego was present in the primeval past without the ego. Clairvoyant consciousness entails that spiritual beings and spiritual facts are seen in the environment, and this applies to early man, although his clairvoyance was dreamlike and he beheld the spiritual world as though in a dream. Since he was not yet shone through by an ego, he was not obliged to remain within himself when he wished to behold the spiritual. He beheld the spiritual around him and looked on himself as part of the spiritual world; and whatever he did was imbued, for him, with a spiritual character. When he thought of something, he could not have said to himself, “I am thinking”, as a man might do today; his thought stood before his clairvoyant vision. And to experience a feeling he had no need to look into himself; his feeling radiated from him and united him with his whole spiritual environment.
> is "bicameral mind" an independent corroboration?
Fascinating as it is, Jaynes' Bicameral Mind cannot be a corroboration of anything. The book posits and theorizes, but it doesn't really show, much less demonstrate. I loved reading it, but it's more a (pseudoscientific) theory in search of confirmation, rather than confirmation itself.
> [Steiner's paragraph you quoted]
Aside from key words of ego and consciousness, why do you think it relates to Jaynes? Steiner seems to take the spiritual seriously, at least in this paragraph, but to Jaynes religion and spirituality were an hallucination, and artifact of biological processes with the brain. There were was nothing supernatural about it; there were no actual gods or higher powers involved, just a trick of the brain.
According to my Webster's, the mere strengthening of an argument counts as corroboration. Jaynes cites research in neurology & surgery--such as the wada test & commissurotomy--as possible biological explanations for what he perceived in ancient literature. I think that counts as a strengthening of his argument (as well as Steiner's).
> Aside from key words of ego and consciousness, why do you think it relates to Jaynes? Steiner seems to take the spiritual seriously, at least in this paragraph, but to Jaynes religion and spirituality were an hallucination..
To-may-toe, To-mah-toe. Jaynes & Steiner are explaining the same situation (i.e. lack or diminution of the "inner voice" ("the ego had no knowledge of itself"), direction coming externally rather than from within ("it was all the closer to those spiritual beings who worked on our bodily vehicles and were related to the human ego, but of incomparably greater perfection"). That Jaynes attributes it to a lesser-integration of the hemispheres, while Steiner attributes it to different stages of development in the physical/etheric/astral bodies, is a minor detail compared to the world-shaking idea that human consciousness may have been remarkably different just a few thousand years ago.
Steiner: "man had not yet acquired ego-consciousness, for he was embedded in spiritual life itself" and "his clairvoyance was dreamlike and he beheld the spiritual world as though in a dream"
Jaynes: "Volition, planning, initiative is organized with no consciousness whatever and then 'told' to the individual in his familiar language, sometimes with the visual aura of a familiar friend or authority figure or 'god', or sometimes as a voice alone. The individual obeyed these hallucinated voices because he could not 'see' what to do by himself."
Different terminologies describing the same situation. We have a Yale psychology professor digging up biological explanations for a theory that originates in 60+ year old crypto-masonic hoo-doo (the + since a lot of what Steiner wrote is a riff on what Blavatsky wrote in 1888, which was probably just soft disclosure of anglo-american masonic ideas going back who knows how many years?). And I am not knocking Jaynes or Steiner or crypto-masonic hoo-doo, because it's all interesting, but it is also very suspicious.
I think that dismissal of a key aspect in the comparison is really stretching it. Steiner was spiritual; Jaynes was "disproving" the spiritual, in a sense.
> That Jaynes attributes it to a lesser-integration of the hemispheres, while Steiner attributes it to different stages of development in the physical/etheric/astral bodies, is a minor detail
This difference alone is huge. You cannot say they are related because of the flimsiest of coincidences that both discuss the ego and religion.
Nothing else matches. I'd say your question, "was Jaynes a closet anthroposophist?" can be answered with a "no".
On the contrary, or that's the vibe I got (since we're speculating now). He tries really hard to scientifically answer all sorts of mysticism surrounding hypnosis, hallucinations, "the soul", ancient humans etc.
If we look at this evolution from the far-distant past, when the ego was hidden within its sheaths as though in the darkness of a mother's womb, we find that although the ego had no knowledge of itself, it was all the closer to those spiritual beings who worked on our bodily vehicles and were related to the human ego, but of incomparably greater perfection. Clairvoyant insight thus looks back to a far-distant past when man had not yet acquired ego-consciousness, for he was embedded in spiritual life itself, and when his soul-life, too, was different, for it was much closer to the soul-forces from which the ego has emerged. In those times, also, we find in man a primal clairvoyant consciousness which functioned dimly and dreamily, for it was not illumined by the light of an ego; and it was from this mode of consciousness that the ego first came forth. The faculty that man in the future will acquire with his ego was present in the primeval past without the ego. Clairvoyant consciousness entails that spiritual beings and spiritual facts are seen in the environment, and this applies to early man, although his clairvoyance was dreamlike and he beheld the spiritual world as though in a dream. Since he was not yet shone through by an ego, he was not obliged to remain within himself when he wished to behold the spiritual. He beheld the spiritual around him and looked on himself as part of the spiritual world; and whatever he did was imbued, for him, with a spiritual character. When he thought of something, he could not have said to himself, “I am thinking”, as a man might do today; his thought stood before his clairvoyant vision. And to experience a feeling he had no need to look into himself; his feeling radiated from him and united him with his whole spiritual environment.
- Rudolf Steiner, May 1910
https://rsarchive.org/Medicine/GA059/English/RSP1983/1910050...