Left in the Dark

Left in the Dark by Tony Wright is one of two books that I have read in the last year that has impacted my life, my way of thinking and my teaching of the Way of the Enlightened Zen Warrior in an enormous way. My first exposure to the book was through an interview with author Tony Wright and a review of the book.

Since then I have devoted more and more time to researching the shared, broad central thesis of both Left in the Dark and The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind: that the human race has experienced a profound neurological shift in its dominant brain hemisphere from right to left causing a massive shift in consciousness that is continuing and being reinforced today. The effects of this are many but not so varied. Essentially this shift in dominant brain hemisphere has caused a crisis in our ability to contact and experience ‘the divine’, has led to us losing a sense of our inner guide or our inner voice, has stifled our emotional development and has caused a decline in various motor skills that would be otherwise enhanced if the left hemisphere was less controlling.

Although The Origin of Consciousness was written at an earlier date it covers a more recent period and begins its investigation with an analysis of the Greek classics. Left in the Dark searches much further into our past to trace the exact origins of this shift in brain hemisphere dominance.

The basic premise of Left in the Dark is that thousand and thousands of years ago our neo-cortex functioned as a single consciousness system with no differentiation between areas of specialization neurologists now identify as existing between our left and right brain hemispheres. Effectively we existed as a species of animal. Culture and technology in even the most rudimentary forms did not exist and could not exist at this stage of our evolution. Then, somehow and in someway, our brains suffered damage and the origins of a distinction in function between the two brain hemispheres was initiated. This damage may have arisen primarily from an altered level of testosterone and this damage was therefore suffered more acutely by males (who produce more testosterone). Of further important note is that the damage done to the brain was not equal: the left hemisphere suffered more severely during this period. At this time though our living conditions in tropical rain forests granted us access to wide varieties of fruits (and plants, but fruits in particular) and the chemicals within those fruits suppressed interference from the more-damaged left hemisphere and allowed the right hemisphere to thrive. To put it more simply, at this stage in our evolution our right brain hemisphere was dominant.

Left in the Dark traces the shift from right hemisphere to left hemisphere dominance back some 200,000 years to a time when humans left the tropical rain forests and, more importantly, the fruit-based diets we were following at the time. Up until this point our brains were developing neurologically from generation to generation both in size and functional ability due to a biochemical positive feedback loop that inhibited certain steroids which in turn suppressed left hemisphere dominance. This loop was created by our fruit-based diet and grounded from our very inception in the womb of a mother awash with the chemicals provided by fruits. When our ancestors left the tropical rain forests our diet changed immediately and, with less fruit in particular being eaten, certain steroids were no longer inhibited and this initiated a decline in the use of our right brain hemisphere and a shift to left hemisphere control, a condition that is prevalent and continually reinforced today.

Left in the Dark notes that the result of this split was the emergence of two different senses of the self, the one arising from the left hemisphere and the other from the right hemisphere. Unfortunately these two selves could not easily co-exist and, as the left hemisphere became more and more dominant through time, it began to suppress the perceptions provided by the right hemisphere. Part of this historical shift in consciousness is covered in great detail in The Origin of Consciousness over a period of a several hundred years. More and more human consciousness became a continuous internal left-hemisphere monologue arising from stress and anxiety caused by a feeling of the loss of wholeness both within the self and with wider society, difficulty in connecting to ‘the divine’, stifled emotions and a reliance on external authorities for guidance. It is also from this period that the overall size of our brains began to shrink (after growing at an unprecedented pace), a fact that continues to haunt us today. It has been estimated that our brain size may have decreased by as much as 5% over the last 10,000 years. Popularly our brains are considered to be in a state of evolution and the development of high technology would seem to support this. But this increased ability to create and use technology has come at the cost of a very obvious decline in our awareness of and contact with the numinous. Science and rationality have not simply destroyed God, they have further stifled the consciousness arising from the right hemisphere and inhibited our ability – even our very desire – to commune with the divine; and those that seek communion suffer frustration in their efforts. So what I would suggest is that while our left hemispheres does in fact continue to become more adept at using technology and solving the problems of technology the overall net effect has been a devolution. While our left hemispheres may have become more complex our right hemispheres have declined in usage and ability to function at a disproportionate pace leading to an overall net decline in brain capacity and function.

So what we are left with today, all these millennium later, is a damaged brain that has forever cut us off from our animal-like existence of yesteryear. Left in the Dark argues that this brain no longer functions as a single unit producing an undifferentiated consciousness but instead generates two forms of often contrasting consciousnesses with the more ‘rational’ and conceptual left hemisphere claiming dominance over the more intuitive and beyond-conceptual right hemisphere. One of the biggest problems that faces us however is that it is this very left hemisphere that suffered the greatest damage when out testosterone level increased and caused the initial left-right hemispherical split. We are living our lives using damaged goods.

Of particular interest and relevance to me is Tony Wright’s recognition that this split into two consciousnesses and the subsequent decline in ability to fully access the consciousness found in our right hemisphere has been described in numerous ancient religious texts as mankind’s ‘fall from grace’. It is this investigation that has consumed my time and attention more and more over the last year as it is central to both my chosen lifestyle and my philosophy of the Way of the Enlightened Zen Warrior. Through my exposure to Japanese martial arts in particular and the philosophies of Zen, Taoism and Confucianism I had become aware of how to contact the right hemisphere and – importantly – how to integrate that fresh (right hemisphere) consciousness into my everyday life; a life that was primarily designed by and for people whose consciousness was forcefully guided by their left hemisphere. Left in the Dark has given me a fresh perspective and a new vocabulary that is less mystical and which allows me to further my understanding and ability to teach people how to live a holistic lifestyle of happiness. Left in the Dark then serves as a fundamental observation and theory in my life philosophy of the Way of the Enlightened Zen Warrior and I will be referring back to this article extensively in the future.

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You can order Left in the Dark from Amazon.

To learn more about Tony Wright and the central thesis of Left in the Dark visit Tony's website.

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The Origin of Consciousness: A Synopsis

Interview with Tony Wright and review of Left in the Dark