The guest
Jordan Peterson: Clinical psychologist, former University of Toronto and Harvard professor, author of 12 Rules for Life and We Who Wrestle with God, and founder of Peterson Academy.
What this episode covers
Peterson frames his new book We Who Wrestle with God around the idea that truthful, upward-aimed language brings order out of chaos, using stories of Moses, Abraham, Adam and Cain to define God psychologically. He and Rogan dig into the role psychedelics may have played in human development, religion, and the 1960s counterculture, and why the 1970 drug laws stunted civilization. Peterson then unveils Peterson Academy, a low-cost online university launching with 20 high-production courses meant to counter ideologically captured institutions. The conversation turns to the decay of universities, Marxism and postmodernism as a resentful Cain-like spirit, and AI's alignment problem. It closes with Peterson's fierce critique of gender-transition medicine for minors and his ongoing fight against Canada's licensing board over forced re-education.
Recommended on this episode
BookRecommendedISBN verified
Beyond Good and Evil
Friedrich Nietzsche
“Beyond Good and Evil is a Cardinal work... brilliant romantic insightful deep psyche shattering dancing bit of literary genius”
“I did a course on n on Beyond Good and Evil... Beyond Good and Evil is a Cardinal work a PR droma to the entire intellectual and political history of the 20th century”— Jordan Peterson
The guest's own work
BookBy the guestISBN verified
We Who Wrestle with God
Jordan Peterson
“iconography um Christian or uh Catholic and Orthodox... that's because I was out on tour with my new book... which is called we who wrestle with God”— Jordan Peterson
BookBy the guestISBN verified
12 Rules for Life
Jordan Peterson
“every time someone comes up to me and tells me that reading say 12 rules for life had help them I ask why”— Jordan Peterson
ProductBy the guest
Peterson Academy
Jordan Peterson
“we're launching Peterson Academy today so online university... we're launching with 20 courses best lectures in the world very very high quality production”— Jordan Peterson
Also referenced (named, not recommended)
BookReferencedISBN verified
The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross
John Marco Allegro
“John Marco algro uh wrote a book called The Sacred mushro the cross yes oh yes yeah yeah yeah I read I read that back oh my God 1974”— Joe Rogan
BookReferencedISBN verified
The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Christian Myth
John Marco Allegro
“because he published another book shortly afterwards that was um the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Christian myth”— Joe Rogan
BookReferenced
Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties
Tom O'Neill
“they went after the hippies with MK Ultra with Tom O'Neal so brilliantly outlines in his book k OS they went after it and they created the Manson family”— Joe Rogan
MediaReferenced
The Hobbit
J.R.R. Tolkien
“hey so I just watched The Hobbit a while back classic adventure story and of course what it's billbo to begin with”— Jordan Peterson
ProductReferenced
LGFG Fashion House suits
LGFG (Dimitri)
“I've got this suit maker lgfg Dimitri the Crazy Russian and he you know pays attention to what I'm doing and makes me the suits”— Jordan Peterson
ProductReferenced
ChatGPT
OpenAI
“I've used chat GPT and Gro... chat GPT and grock were unbelievably useful as research assistants so they're about as smart as high-end undergraduates they lie a lot”— Jordan Peterson
ProductReferenced
Grok
xAI
“chat GPT and grock were unbelievably useful as research assistants so they're about as smart as high-end undergraduates they lie a lot”— Jordan Peterson
Big reveals from this episode
- Peterson announces the launch of Peterson Academy, an online university offering ~20 high-production courses for roughly a twelfth the cost of traditional college.
- Peterson Academy charges $450/year for early adopters specifically so 'skin in the game' keeps the community free of trolls and bots.
- Peterson argues universities are storehouses of value overrun by parasites, mapping it onto the Mesopotamian Enuma Elish myth.
- Peterson says ChatGPT fabricates references, with about a quarter of academic citations it produces not actually existing.
- Peterson reveals he lost his job and clinical practice and has spent about a million dollars in legal fees fighting his licensing board.
- One of the four complaints against Peterson was the entire transcript of his previous conversation with Rogan about climate.
- Peterson cites experts estimating black-market puberty blockers outnumber medically prescribed ones at least 10 to 1.
Worth remembering
- About 40% of Peterson's tour audience now dresses formally, with many young men buying their first suit to attend.
- Israeli scholars hypothesize the Burning Bush was a DMT experience from an acacia tree rich in the compound.
- The Vatican displays an enormous pine cone statue interpreted as a representation of the pineal gland, called the seed of the soul.
- The human brain roughly doubled over two million years, which Terence McKenna linked to psilocybin use as rainforest became grassland.
- Michelangelo carved the Pietà in St. Peter's from a single block of marble at around age 23.
- Spotify and Peterson Academy use AI to translate lectures into other languages using the speaker's own voice and matched mouth movements.
- Postmodernism, defined as skepticism toward meta-narratives, repackaged Marxism's victim-victimizer story into intersectionality.
- Peterson notes antisocial personality is partly heritable and tied to fatherlessness driving boys toward short-horizon gang behavior.
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