ABSTRACT

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.

chapter |18 pages

Maps of Experience

Object and Meaning

chapter |199 pages

Maps of Meaning

Three Levels of Analysis

chapter |17 pages

Apprenticeship and Enculturation

Adoption of a Shared Map

chapter |77 pages

The Appearance of Anomaly

Challenge to the Shared Map

chapter |172 pages

The Hostile Brothers

Archetypes of Response to the Unknown