Maps of Meaning

The Architecture of Belief

By: Jordan B. Peterson

Narrated by: Jordan B. Peterson

Jordan B. Peterson's Maps of Meaning is now available for the first time as an audio download!

Why have people from different cultures and eras formulated myths and stories with similar structures? What does this similarity tell us about the mind, morality, and structure of the world itself? From the author of 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos comes a provocative hypothesis that explores the connection between what modern neuropsychology tells us about the brain and what rituals, myths, and religious stories have long narrated. A cutting-edge work that brings together neuropsychology, cognitive science, and Freudian and Jungian approaches to mythology and narrative, Maps of Meaning presents a rich theory that makes the wisdom and meaning of myth accessible to the critical modern mind.

Includes a PDF of Images from the Book.

Life Changing Book

Having read both this and 12 rules for life has been extremely transformative for me. As a 27 year old man, I feel like I now have a path and a guide to lead a meaningful life. I will be listening to this audiobook for many years to come. Also, I am very happy that Peterson decided to do the narration, its like he is talking to me directly. :)

Admirable

It was top of my expectation. Excellent!
Jordan Peterson is the best between in this places.

Concentration required

it needs concentration to internalize the concepts, it doesn't work as background to other activities.

Wrestling with a difficult ideas.

This is an incredibly ambitious book. Peterson is trying to rehabilitate what western society has long deemed discredited; a mythological view of the world. We moderns use the term myth and 'lie' interchangeable, fancifully imposing as we do an empirical filter on history to pan for "the facts". The limitations of empirical history are well-known and tell us little about who we were in the past, which as Peterson points out, means we don't know who we are in the present. All ancient cultures explained their significance through their mythologies because meaning is transmitted through story. Even today, homosexuals transitioned from furtive lives in the shadows to "gay pride" by building their own mythology; mining the past for gay heroes like Leonardo da Vinci. On the darker side, racism is also built on mythologies, as is feminism's dark tale of "the Patriarchy".

Peterson mines every possible source to sustain his postulates include the Bible, ancient myth, Jung, Nietsche, Tolstoy, E.O. Wilson, and on and on.

The book was clearly written for Peterson's academic peers and not for a general audience, however some basic familiarity with psychology and its terms of art (look up "affect") can help you get through it. I suspect most people who read it end up picking up some of the other works he references because Peterson is introducing his audience to a new world and there is a LOT to explore.

As just about every other review mentions, this is not a casual read (or listen), yet Peterson, in spite of his Alberta dialect and alto register, is nevertheless a compelling narrator, largely because of his refreshing authenticity and passion.

Incredible!

This book is an experience! I only wish I had read it in my younger years, (assuming I would have the had faculties to make use of it)

I will have to go through it several more times, and let it grow in my mind.

Thank you for this!