The right hand is not just a physical object but also has a deep psychological and spiritual significance in many cultures. From Iain McGilchrist’s perspective, the right hand symbolises the power of instinctive action, which is expressible in the immediacy and spontaneity of our responses to the world. It represents the irrational and intuitive side of human nature, with its emphasis on risk-taking and creativity. The right hand represents dynamism, rooted not in conscious reasoning, but in bodily feeling and direct experience. Its intuitive insight allows us to access deeper knowledge and understandings of the world, and its flexibility and agility allows us to quickly shift direction and react with speed to changes in our environment. In McGilchrist’s view, it thus opens up a realm of possibility beyond the strictly rational world of the left hand.

See also: right hemisphere, left hemisphere, corpus callosum, split brain, right brain