| Stan Gooch | |
| Birth Date: | 1932 6, df=yes |
| Birth Place: | Lewisham, London |
| Death Place: | Swansea, Wales |
| Occupation: | Author |
| Nationality: | English |
| Period: | 1972–2010 |
| Genre: | Non-fiction |
| Notableworks: | The Paranormal |
Stanley Albert Gooch (born 1932 in Lewisham, London, died 13 September 2010)[1] was a British psychologist and author who is probably best known as the proponent of a "hybrid-origin theory" of human evolution.
Gooch's first book Total Man (1972) was an attempt to examine all fields of interest relevant to humans today. On the back cover of the American print of Total Man Stan Gooch states:
"Essentially, the view I have taken of other 'theories of personality', such as those of Marx, Christianity, Freud, Pavlov, Nietzsche and many others, is not that all, or all but one, are wrong, but on the contrary that all are correct. I was, and am still, unable to escape the implications of the fact that each of the theorists in question was, after all, concerned with one and the same human being. Instead of rejecting all such views, I found myself essentially rejecting none. This shift of emphasis is, I believe, crucial. The task is changed from one of selection to one of assembly."
In various chapters of Total Man Gooch outlined what would become the basis of his theories when he showed that phenomena can be divided into two columns, which he titled System A and System B, later associated with Cro-Magnon and Neanderthal lineage, respectively. These could be roughly equated to Freud's Ego and Id, and in some ways Carl Jung's Male and Female principles.
| System A | System B | |
|---|---|---|
| Sun | Moon | |
| Psychosis | Neurosis | |
| Logic | Intuition | |
| Science | Religion | |
| Awake | Dreaming | |
| Adult | Child | |
| Day | Night | |
| God | Devil | |
| Male | Female | |
| Yang | Yin | |
| Fascism | Communism |
Total Man was followed by Personality and Evolution (1973) and The Neanderthal Question (1977).In these books, Gooch develops what would become known as the "hybrid-origin theory". The theory as represented in Guardians of the Ancient Wisdom (1979) can be outlined as follows:
Gooch continued to develop the theory during the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s in Cities of Dreams (1989, 1995),and The Neanderthal Legacy (2008).
In The Paranormal (1978), Gooch reveals that prior to obtaining a degree in psychology, in his mid-twenties, he had been trained as a medium. The book in a first part deals with his own paranormal experiences and those of his acquaintances and in a second part presents a theoretical examination of the paranormal.
In The Double Helix of the Mind (1980), Gooch criticizes the hemisphere model of the human brain.Gooch develops the theory that the cerebellum, rather than the right hemisphere of the brain, is responsible for dreaming, creativity and paranormal experience.
Gooch's theories have generally been dismissed by academia. In his book Right Hand, Left Hand: The Origins of Asymmetry in Brains, Bodies, Atoms and Cultures, Chris McManus, a psychologist at University College London, has described Stan Gooch's ideas about the origins of left-handedness as "myths", stating that they lack any supporting evidence.[2] Thinker and novelist Colin Wilson, on the other hand, argues that Gooch's work forms "one of the most impressive and exciting intellectual structures of the second half of the twentieth century."[3]