FT272



Before he passed away in 2010, maverick psychologist Stan Gooch sent us one of his final articles, which we're pleased to publish for the first time. Labour voters in particular may not enjoy what follows...



There are two reasons why humanity is so deeply divided into permanently opposed and constantly conflicting groups with very different views on life and its meaning. The first of these reas­ons is that we are hybrids, a cross between two very different species: Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon. I made this claim many, many years ago in my early books; it was, however, always totally denied by the scientific establishment. But recent fossil finds in Portugal and elsewhere have now forced the establishment to agree that Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon did interbreed.

There are two major consequences when widely separated species are interbred, as we know from professional animal breeders. One of these consequences is that the new hybrid species poss­esses totally new abilities shown by neither parent. So Darwin got it completely wrong when he said natura non facit saltum. Evol­ution does proceed by sudden and dramatic leaps.

And this is why in Europe some 30,000–40,000 years ago, when Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon met up and interbred, we had a sudden explosion of new tools, the sudden emergence from nowhere – in other words, with no gradual historical development – of detailed cave paintings, and so on. Modern civilisation begins suddenly at this point. Prior to this time, neither Neanderthal nor Cro-Magnon tools had shown any advances or changes for tens upon tens of thousands of years. Both species had been completely static.

But aside from this positive aspect, there is another equally important one. The offspring of crossbreeding between two widely separated species often display two sets of opposing instincts, with which the offspring struggles (often in vain) to come to terms.

An actual example: the peach-faced lovebird carries its nesting material in its beak.

Fischer’s Lovebird carries its nesting mat­erial tucked into its rump feathers. The crossbred offspring of these two different species, when it reaches the point of wanting to build a nest, holds the nesting material in its beak and gets ready to fly.

But then its Fischer instinct says, hang on, you’re supposed to have the material tucked into your rump feathers. The bird now tucks the material into its rump and gets ready to fly; at which point the peach-faced instinct says, no, the material is supposed to be in your beak. Once again the bird takes the material into its beak and gets ready to fly. But again the other instinct says, no. Again and again and again the hybrid offspring changes the location of the nest materials, but all in vain. It struggles to reach a final decision, but cannot.

Does this remind us of anyone?

The reason why modern humanity has two opposing political views – left-wing against right-wing – is certainly due to our dual ancestry. But nobody ever asks why we as humans should have two such dramatically and diametrically opposed sets of political views. For, surely, if elephants evolved into intelligent beings there would be just one party – the elephant party. All elephants would agree on how their society should run. Why are humans different?

Let’s now take a look at some of my detailed claims on the nature of Neanderthal society. I say that Neanderthal society was matriarchal, nocturnal, worshipped the Moon, and practised totally promiscuous sex (with no pair-bonding whatsoever) including lesbianism, homosexuality and pædophilia. Now guess what? The recently discovered bonobo chimpanzees are led by the females and practise totally promiscuous sex (with no pair-bonding), including lesbianism, homosexuality and pædophilia. I also claimed that Neanderthals were left-handed, were gatherers rather than hunters (and, in fact, mainly vegetarian). My claim that left-handedness would be more common among lesbians, homosexuals and pædophiles has also now been verified statistically. And we also know that Neanderthals were short in height, were barrel-bodied (the pyknic type), had a big toe shorter than the second toe, a recessive forehead and chin, a jutting mouth and so on.

Now if my claims are correct, then politic­ally left-wing movements are expressions of our Neanderthal instincts, and members of the Labour Party when compared with members of the Conservative party would show (and this is not a complete list):

(a) higher incidence of left-handedness
(b) shorter average height
(c) greater incidence of big toe being shorter than the other toes
(d) less male pattern baldness (it’s a fact that left-handed men almost never go bald)
(e) better night vision
(f) more short-sightedness
(g) more vegetarianism
(h) more sexual activity and promiscuity
(i) more lesbianism, homosexuality and pædophilia
(j) greater incidence of the pyknic body type
(k) greater incidence of the recessive chin and sloping forehead
(l) more time spent dreaming when asleep
(m) a larger cerebellum (see below)

Actually, there already exists tangential evidence for some of these claims. For example, left-handedness among Arts graduates is 15 per cent, among Science graduates only four per cent, and arts graduates tend to be more left-wing in their views. More specifically still, all Welsh members of the London Parliament are Labour, and the domin­ant party in the Welsh Assembly is Labour. And Wales just happens to have double the left-handedness found in England. Also left-handedness among Chinese is double that found in Europe; and China just happens to be a Communist state! (Also, take a look at Chinese chins and foreheads).

Again, most working-class people in Britain would tend to vote Labour, while most of the upper classes would vote Tory. And, of course, working class individuals are on average shorter in height than upper-class individuals (the Welsh are also on average shorter than the English; the Chinese are on average shorter than Europeans).

We come now to the second reason why humanity is so deeply divided. This is because we have two brains: the cerebrum (the front brain) and the cerebellum (the back brain). The ancestor of all mammals had two pairs of eyes – one pair on top of the head and connected to the cerebellum. The second pair was in the front of the head and conn­ected to the cerebrum. Originally, the cere­bellum was the main brain. But in the course of time the pair of eyes on top of the head fused together and sank down into the skull to form what is today called the pineal gland, which is still actually light sensitive (of course the pineal gland is the ‘third eye’ of ancient Hindu mysticism). Now the cerebrum and its pair of front eyes became the main brain. But when did you ever hear these astonishing evolutionary facts discussed?

The cerebellum appears today to be much smaller than the cerebrum. But in fact, due to its deeply convoluted structure, the surface area – that’s the cortex – of the cerebellum is almost equal to that of the apparently larger cerebrum. Moreover, the cerebellum makes more inner inter-cell connections than the cerebrum – it is more complex. And also, the cerebellum has full access to all the inform­ation contained in the cerebrum.

The cerebellum is the source of dreaming. It is also, I claim, the source of neurotic con­ditions such as multiple personality disorder and the source of all psychic phenomena, such as the ability to foresee the future or access the lost past. It is the source of the ability of an individual, in trance, to produce complex and serious wounds in the body in the space of a few minutes (a process which has been recorded on camera, and is gradually being admitted to and discussed by scientists). It is the source of poltergeist phenomena, the ability to cause objects to move without actually being touched. It is the source of ‘spirits’, the other personalities which speak through a medium in trance.

The cerebellum is also the source of automatic writing. Some people write two complex messages/narratives using both hands simultaneously while, for instance, reading aloud from a newspaper at the same time. Sometimes the words and sentences are written backwards and as mirror images! This is the work of the so-called ‘unconscious’ – our alternative consciousness.

I have reported on all these matters in detail in my various books. And, just in case you think dreaming in unimportant, several scientists have made major advances by seeing them in dreams. The cerebellum is also the source of religious beliefs. Religion is effectively a form of dreaming. (This is why there are so many different religions and sub-religions, but only one science, one chemistry, one mathematics and so on).

Other major relevant points: Neanderthal had a much larger cerebellum than Cro-Magnon; women have a larger cerebellum than men. And this is why more women are psychic mediums than men (and in fact better psychic mediums than men). Women also hypnotise more readily than men, and so on. Hypnosis is of course another cerebellar manifestation.

Yet – despite all of the foregoing – guess what? The cerebellum is almost totally excluded from the physiological textbooks used in our universities. That’s physiological psychology, never mind ordinary psychology textbooks. I did a survey of physiological psychology textbooks used in universities some years ago. The ‘winner’ – the one with most mentions of the cerebellum – had only 15 pages out of a total of 750 devoted to the subject.

One last point. It’s possible that a strong/dominant cerebellum is actually responsible for left-handedness. A right-handed person who has either the right or the left cerebral hemisphere removed for medical reasons nevertheless remains right-handed.

A left-handed person who has either of the cerebral hemispheres removed nevertheless remains left-handed. So, the cerebrum has nothing to with handedness.

Furthermore, connections from the right cerebral hemisphere go to the left cerebellar hemisphere. And connections from the left cerebral hemisphere go to the right cerebellar hemisphere. So the cerebellum is reverse handed – left-handed, vis-a-vis the cerebrum, just like our own mirror image.

So each of us is really two people – the cerebral person and the cerebellar person. The majority of us opt for one and exclude the other. And so science denies religion, while religion excludes science, left fights right, and so on. So the cerebrum/cerebellum relationship is the second source of human division and conflict, in addition to our dual Neanderthal/Cro-Magnon ancestry with its two sets of instincts. With these two major sources of human conflict, it’s something of a miracle that humanity – fond though it is of mass slaughter – has survived at all.

And the situation seems to be getting worse rather than better. We urgently need to face up to our duality – to our double duality in fact – and take both sides of our personalities on board, on their own terms.



We appreciate that the highly speculative and ‘challenging’ nature of Stan Gooch’s ideas usually elicits a robust response from readers; but before putting pen to paper, please refer to “Sinister rejoinders (FT202:73) for objections already raised to Stan’s letter in FT199 on the subject of Neanderthal/Cro-Magnon hybrids, left-handedness and the origin of the terms ‘left’ and ‘right’ in political discourse.