Jash Dholani Profile picture
Aug 5, 2023 11 tweets 4 min read Read on X
12 Rules For Life made him the most famous psychologist alive but his forgotten first book, Maps of Meaning, shows you the real Jordan Peterson

Once a brilliant young man, JBP was HAUNTED by an inner voice calling him a liar...

His spiritual transformation (in his own words)👇🏻 https://t.co/KxmISlCSTKtwitter.com/i/web/status/1…
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1/ In Maps Of Meaning, Jordan Peterson writes he'd "always enjoyed engaging in arguments"

Subjects didn't matter

It was all a "game"

But in university, something shifted...

Jordan Peterson: "Suddenly, I couldn’t talk— I couldn’t stand listening to myself talk"

What happened? Image
2/ Peterson, an opinionated man, "started to hear a voice" inside his head

It commented on his opinions. Whenever he said anything, it made "critical" remarks:

"You don’t believe that. That isn’t true."

He wondered: "Which part was ME—the talking part or the criticizing part?" Image
3/ And then Jordan Peterson started having nightmares

He dreamt of nuclear annihilation, dogs butchering humans, mud rain, and "skeletal black ruins"

He became "very depressed and anxious"

He found his very "awareness of things" unbearable

His mood was "apocalyptic" Image
4/ One night, Jordan Peterson returned home drunk

He was "self-disgusted and angry"

Picking up some canvas and paints, he started sketching

It became a "harsh, crude" image of Christ: crucified with a cobra "wrapped around" him

It looked "demonic"

It SHOCKED Peterson Image
5/ In his agony, Peterson tried something new:

"I tried only to say things that my internal reviewer would pass unchallenged. This meant that I spoke much less often, and that I would frequently stop, midway through a sentence, feel embarrassed, and reformulate my thoughts." Image
6/ Jordan Peterson felt much "less agitated" when he said things in line with his inner voice

He realized that most of his ideas were "stolen"

His beliefs were just things that "sounded good, admirable, respectable, courageous"

Cost of such stolen ideas was internal hell
7/ Jordan Peterson gave up religion as an adolescent, deciding it was for the "ignorant, weak, and superstitious." After being tortured by endless nightmares and an identity crisis when he couldn't speak, he came back to God. A study of myths made his "horrible dreams disappear"
8/ JBP says the Devil is the "rejection of the unknown"

When the young Peterson rejected God, he was acting out "Luciferian pride":

"All that I know is all that is necessary to know"

But the truth is "something we cannot see protects us from something we do not understand"
9/ How did JBP go from tormented young man to becoming a father figure to millions today?

He started treating conversations not as meaningless power games but as truth seeking exercises

He started thinking of religion not as superstition but eternal reality described mythically Image
Thank you for reading this thread fren!

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