Maps of Meaning

As Peterson pondered the nature of evil in his research, he turned to the Christian idea of the devil to better understand why people commit evil acts. The archetype of the adversary, or the evil aspect of human behavior, is central to the Christian idea of Satan. However, seeing Satan as “the embodiment of a personal and social process” (311) is more useful than considering him a “stranger,” or the other. By dismissing the idea of the devil as mere superstition, rationalists make the cardinal error of underestimating the power of human evil. “Christian mythology portrays Satan as ‘the highest angel’ in God’s ‘heavenly kingdom.’” (314) Christian mythology associates Satan with higher powers of reason before his fall, which illustrates that even the most intelligent humans are capable of evil. Moreover, reason—“the most exceptional of spirits” (314)—can turn on itself and lead to pride and a fatal belief in its own omniscience. Though this concept is perplexing, presuming omniscience is the opposite of creative exploration. What distinguishes the two is the humility of creative exploration, which acknowledges one’s vulnerability/weakness in the face of the powerful unknown. On the other hand, presuming omniscience implies a desire to control the unknown. This desire for total control is a feature of totalitarian regimes.

To be human is to live with impossibilities. On one hand, one can enjoy individual experience only because of its limits; on the other hand, the prospect of limits is terrifying. The Great Father or tradition may keep the individual safe but “hates innovation” and clamps down on the self-aware, innovative individual; the Great Mother may be the “source of all new knowledge” (325) but has a face that paralyzes. No wonder the individual wants to run away from reality and seek escapist relief.

To escape the terror of existence, humans often seek the comfort of group identity. Group identity is useful as long as it doesn’t reject the unknown, but when it devolves into absolutism, it becomes dangerous, as seen in 20th-century fascist and communist regimes. Such absolutist identity is often based on a lie. For instance, tyrants can falsely claim that the past was perfect and advocate a return to that fictional past. (Myths, however, never present the world only as perfect.) The tyrant lies because he cannot face anxiety-producing anomalies outside his set worldview; thus he “actively suppresses” (328) behaviors and philosophies that threaten his limited knowledge. The tyrant’s followers flock to the lie because it is convenient and helps them avoid anxiety in the short term: “The lie transforms culture into tyranny, change into danger, while sickening and restricting the development and flexibility of adaptive ability itself” (329). Ironically, the chaos that group identity rejects for want of too much security triumphs in the end. The figure of Judas in the Christian tradition exemplifies this process: Judas betrays Christ (who symbolizes creative change) to uphold known, safe tradition but then destroys himself in despair.

The other extreme coping mechanism for existential despair is decadence or hedonism. The decadent individual rejects all tradition, belief, and order to escape reality. In doing so, though, the hedonist also displays rigidity and inflexibility like the tyrant and his follower. The decadent shows same superiority and arrogance as the tyrant, assuming omniscience. Though the two seem different to each other, the tyrant and the decadent “are in actuality two sides of the same bent coin” (335). Because one usually makes mistakes when adhering to a point of view, in declaring themselves free of all points of view, decadents claim they are free from error. Furthermore, the habitual act of rejecting all systems weakens the personality and leads to individuals who are more prone to evil.

People often speak of the 20th century’s terrible events—the Holocaust, the Rwandan genocide of 1994, the atrocities in Stalinist Russia—as inhuman or animalistic occurrences. However, these events are, in fact, all too human. As the survivors of Nazi concentration camps have attested, what marked life in the camps was not wild, unplanned frenzy but systematic, orderly annihilation of human identity. “It was the discipline of the Germans, not their criminality, that made the Nazis fearsome” (347). The concentration camp itself, the site of horrors in Germany, Russia, and Japan, was a uniquely human construct. Soviet and Chinese forces under communist regimes committed crimes because they believed that they were being patriotic. Thus, man chooses evil for the sake of evil rather than to serve social or economic causes. Evil’s emergence is but a symptom of the deep spiritual malaise that has afflicted modern humans. The evil concentration camp guard, “much as the inmate” (349), defines the modern individual.

To successfully adapt to the gravest anomalies, every individual must follow the path of the revolutionary hero, of which the Bible provides one example. For much of Western culture, with its Christian influence, this hero is Jesus. The Old Testament offers group identity as a stable structure to guide the fallen man or the infant, while the New Testament offers the example of a hero by which man may transcend both the fallen state and the confines of group identity. However, the hero’s journey or the “imitation of Christ” (369) as a behavior, not a ritual, is “extremely frightening.” Acting like Jesus in the Bible or other heroes from other belief systems involves embracing the unknown. The kingdom of heaven is a spiritual or psychological state, so to reach it humans must play the revolutionary hero in everyday life. They must pay attention to their own errors and change behavior that produces intolerable consequences, no matter what the cost of that change. None of this is remotely easy, yet humans are capable of infinite change and goodness. The medieval science of alchemy, which Jung studied for decades, provides a template for human transformation.

Jung’s interest in alchemy added to the charge that he was eccentric and not to be taken as seriously as Freud. Unlike Freud, Jung did not see a separation between myth/religion and psychology, which leads many rationalists to consider Jung a mystic. However, Jung was a scientist who used empirical methods to analyze dreams, fantasies, and myths. In his study of alchemy, Jung noticed a parallel with the archetypes of myth and his patient’s dreams. Thus, Jung came to see alchemy as a metaphor for spiritual and individual growth. Peterson illustrates Jung’s thesis by expanding on the four stages of the alchemical process. In the first stage, one dissolves the King of Order (the material one wishes to transform) into the prima materia (the first material, solvent, or ether), which symbolizes the Great Mother. In the second stage, the Negredo, one applies heat to the dissolution, which symbolizes a passionate reunion with the Great Mother. (The term Negredo symbolizes the darkness or fear that meeting the Great Mother generates.) The third stage is peregrination, “a journey to the four corners of the earth” (433) to recognize all aspects of the new substance (symbolically the emergent new being). The final stage, Conjunction, unites opposites and forms new hierarchies. Thus, Peterson views the alchemical process as an allegory for the hero’s journey, of which every human is capable. Alchemists believed that alchemy could transform “base metal into gold” (445). This is a metaphor of matter rising to the level of spirit.

The testimonies of Peterson’s patients and his own life experiences led him to conclude that challenges or limitations offers opportunity for individual growth. Humans flinch the most from change when it is extremely unexpected or threatening in form or when the individual has run away from change and their own errors in the past. While not much can temper the suddenness of catastrophic change, individuals can address their own response to change in day-to-day life. By facing changes openly and changing their behavior in response to their errors, individuals prepare to face larger changes. Instead of reacting to every anomaly with paralysis, individuals in this state learn to recognize “interest,” or potentially beneficial anomalies. Strong individuals obey the call of interest, which heralds spiritual and personal development. They risk their security and follow their heart, in the process making themselves happier and helping the world become a better place. Individual interest is not selfish; it is the “divine individual adaptive path” (467). Abandoning self-interest for safety is mere appeasement of the Great Father and the Great Mother.