Jordan Peterson: Jacob’s Ladder and the Shaman’s Cosmic Tree

The Serpentine Climb to the Wisdom of the gods

When pagan myths climb Jacob’s Ladder, the gospel itself is at stake. This article exposes how Jordan Peterson’s shamanic reinterpretations distort the true meaning of Scripture and the cross of Christ.

Shamanic Wisdom Denies the Word of God

In We Who Wrestle with God, Jordan Peterson uses the ladder of Jacob’s dream as a central component that ties the Bible to Joseph Campbell’s monomyth. He does this by connecting it to the mythical shaman’s World Tree:

This staff, or rod, that defines the center is another representation of Jacob’s Ladder or the holy mountain that unites heaven and earth. It is the Tree that the ancient shamans climbed in their ritual attempts to attain the wisdom of the gods. It is the cosmic axis that stretches upward to the North Star. … the beanstalk of Jack and the Beanstalk, a pillar that reaches up to the land of the giant where the greatest of all possible treasures is held. It is the ideal around which all perception of all things is organized. … Its importance cannot be overstated: it is the traditional indicator and representative of the cosmic order itself.¹

Mythology regarding this Tree can be found all over the world, even in the remote areas of the frozen north. This can be seen at the online website, Shamanic Circles, where Karen Kelly described a shamanic ceremony conducted by the Gold Eskimos:

The shamanic teacher climbs a birch tree and circles its trunk nine times. As he climbs, the shaman’s soul ascends to the Upper World. Each circling of the Tree marks the passing of the shaman from one world to another.²

It is difficult to imagine anyone not heavily influenced by pagan spiritual ideas proposing that Jacob’s dream at Bethel could be equated with shamanic mythologies.

Yet Peterson’s efforts to impose shamanism on the Bible do not stop there. As we will see in the following article, he at first reverts to his childhood dismissal of the Bible’s clear presentation of the bodily resurrection of Jesus:

Easter Sunday is the appropriate time to be considering both the impossible claim of the bodily resurrection of one man, and the hypothetically cosmic and world-redeeming significance of that event. This is true, despite the fact that no finite conceptual account of the idea of Christ’s death and rebirth can be finally formulated.

After that dismissive broadside, he continues:

The story of the dying and resurrecting God is one of the oldest ideas of mankind. It is expressed in the most ancient shamanic rituals. It finds its echo in the ancient stories of Mesopotamia, Egypt and Greece. It manifests itself in allegorical forms — in the figure of the phoenix, which immolates itself, regains its youthful form and rises from the ashes.

The idea that the Saviour is the figure who dies and resurrects is a representation in dramatic or narrative form of the brute fact that psychological progress — indeed, learning itself — requires continual death and rebirth.

When you’re wrong, when you’ve missed the mark, you must let the part of you that is wrong die. Only then can you allow the new spirit within to spring to life.

Having now completely eviscerated the message of the cross as proclaimed in the gospel of Jesus Christ, Peterson ends the article with this:

It is psychologically true that we should encounter Satan in the desert, understand ourselves as the epicentre of evil as well as good, pick up our tragic burdens and crosses, die, and renew our souls. That is the death and the resurrection, celebrated by Easter, and it is time for us to wake up and recognize it as such.³

That last paragraph is rank heresy, suggesting that the encounter Jesus had with Satan in the desert showed that he, as our example and ultimate representative, was “the epicentre of evil as well as good”! Without this yin/yang duality, shoehorning Jesus into his syncretic belief system would be much more difficult for Jordan Peterson. But now, his demotion of Christ is complete: His sacrifice, which ended all blood sacrifices of the Aaronic priesthood, has been reduced to a psychological metaphor for personal development.

How different this is from the biblical description of the eternal purpose and finality of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ:

By so much was Jesus made a surety of a better testament. And they truly were many priests, because they were not suffered to continue by reason of death: But this man, because he continueth ever, hath an unchangeable priesthood. Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them. For such an high priest became us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens; Who needeth not daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifice, first for his own sins, and then for the people's: for this he did once, when he offered up himself. For the law maketh men high priests which have infirmity; but the word of the oath, which was since the law, maketh the Son, who is consecrated for evermore. (Hebrews 7:22-28)

By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. (Hebrews 10:10)

In Christian orthodoxy, Jesus' death and resurrection are not psychological metaphors but real historical events with eternal significance, through which salvation was secured once and for all for His people.

As is made abundantly clear here, any sacrifice that any of the rest of us makes is not in any way in the same category or of the same significance as that of our Lord’s sacrifice of himself, the sinless Lamb of God offering himself freely in our place for our sins. To claim otherwise is blasphemous.

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Turning Grace Into Works: Jacob’s Ladder Reimagined

Returning to We Who Wrestle with God, we can see how the author layers significance onto the ladder and Jacob’s active role in its use. It is important to note that in the original text, Jacob was given a dream while sleeping. Peterson’s interpretation, derived from pagan mythology, starkly contrasts with the biblical record. The following examples are extracted from the book and juxtaposed with biblical passages:

“The serpent [pagan myth] … said ... Yea, hath God [the Bible] said?” (Genesis 3:1)

Contrast #1: Doubt or Faith?

1a. Pagan Myth (Peterson):

The knowledge of man cannot, in the final analysis, maintain its integrity in the face of everything that is as of yet and possibly even forever unknown. What stops the infinite regress of doubt in the face of genuine ultimate ignorance? To ask why, why, why, why, why—forever. [...]

Peterson describes how, through constant questioning, the "climb" either leads upward or downward into existential despair. This is much ado about nothing! By denying God’s Word, Peterson sees himself as free to teach mythological concepts that entirely ignore divine revelation. He replaces the revealed Christ, who is the true ladder between heaven and earth, with endless questioning.

1b. The Bible: (Hebrews 11:1)

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. (1 Corinthians 13:12)

These passages completely dispense with Peterson’s erudite pedagogy. Faith provides believers with evidence given by God regarding things unknown and unseen. The endless regression of questions has been replaced by the sure knowledge of God’s promises.

In the final analysis, when believers are eternally with God, all things will be revealed.

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Closing Note

My next article will continue through Peterson’s We Who Wrestle with God, offering further side-by-side comparisons between the myths he imposes on the Bible and the actual teaching of Scripture as faithfully understood by believers through the centuries.

Comments are welcome. Because of the feedback I have received regarding the length of my articles, I will try to keep them a bit shorter going forward.
Would you find shorter installments more helpful? Let me know in the comments.

Wrestling for truth matters more than ever. Subscribe to stay with me as we continue exposing myths and standing on the unchanging Word of God.

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Sources:

1. We Who Wrestle with God, Jordan Peterson, p.339, Kindle

2. Shamanic Circles, The World Tree In Classical Shamanism, Karen Kelly, January 1996 link

3. The Sunday Times, Jordan Peterson, April 1, 2018