Maps of meaning : the architecture of belief / Jordan B. Peterson.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 503-512) and index.

Preface : descensus ad inferos — 1. Maps of Experience: Object and Meaning — 2. Maps of meaning : three levels of analysis — Normal and revolutionary life : two prosaic stories — Neuropsychological function : the nature of the mind — Mythological representation : the constituent elements of experience — 3. Apprenticeship and enculturation: adoption of a shared map — 4. The appearance of anomaly: challenge to the shared map — Introduction : the paradigmatic structure of the known — Particular forms of anomaly — The rise of self-reference, and the permanent contamination of anomaly with death — 5. The hostile brothers : archetypes of response to the unknown — Introduction : the hero and the adversary — The adversary : emergence, development and representation — Heroic adaptation : voluntary reconstruction of the map of meaning — Conclusion : the divinity of interest.

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.