I just purchased the kindle and have watched many of the author's videos on YT. First, I want to call out some of the reviewers that I see below. McGilchrist is an extraordinary humanitarian, philosopher, scientist and healer. Of course, he is a doctor, but here, by healer I mean in the more spiritual broad sense as in Jesus or Quan Yin. He can heal society by bringing forth critical discoveries that will prevent social epidemics brought about by ignorance and corruption. Second, his writing is very clear and so far easy to follow. I have no problem with constructive criticism, but to outright insult someone who has put this much time, energy, thought, emotion, empathy, patience, skill and soul into a brilliant body of work is, frankly, UTTER CRAP on the part of the reviewer. Dr. McGilchrist need not pay any heed to this crap. I'm enjoying this book on many levels: for research for my own book (a holistic approach to economy), as an intellectually curious sort, and as a regular human being who strives to heal herself, loved ones, community and world. The world is simply blessed to have been gifted such a powerful healer. Thank you Doc for this great great gift. ***updated after further contemplation --adding ten more stars and a personal reflection! Regarding McGilchrist’s Master and his Emissary: While it indeed appears that McGilchrist is, overall, correct in his assessment of right brain left brain dynamics as they pertain to the psychology and behavior of both individuals and the collective, my intuition and experience caution me—as I believe McGilchrist would also advise and does point to throughout his brilliant work— to avoid overgeneralizing the idea that “the medium is (necessarily) the message.” Every action a person chooses to execute is motivated by a personal intention, or motivation, attended to in a particular fashion as learned or innovated, and retained in the memory as a potential “habitual” course of action for future similar circumstances. While the artist may be working in right brain spacial mediums such as sculpting or painting, the left brain may be in the drivers seat, motivated by a need for “certainty” to create a piece of artwork that reflects not what truly is, but what he instead wants to represent—his left brained reductionistic ideal world view of what should be. More tragically, a priest may entrance his practitioners with “right brain unifying rituals,” but himself be motivated by a left brain targeted quest for monetary donations and prestige building. It is, then, wise to recognize that each stage of the intention-attention-retention progression of “thinking and doing” can be left-, right-, or whole- brain driven and dominated. Here, we may have to travel below the brain down into the lower regions of the body and assess how—both right and left brain hemispheres—separately or in cahoots—use images, words, rituals, art, music, and other devices to harness the purely bodily sensations into a transfiguration, or mystification, of their ideas and sentiments to their own ends. Here, we arrive at Wilhelm Reich’s wisdom who illustrated just that. If the right brain hemisphere is the Master of its left brain emissary—perhaps it is the body below the brain that should resume its rightful position of the Master of the Master of the Emissary. Plato may have set into motion a left brained dominated world view, but even he encouraged his beloved gymnastics, as the modern Californian, his yoga!