Fantastic piece! When I found out he was another junkie (just a 'posh' one) who couldn't even detox on his own, his credibility took a hit that proved fatal when he spoke out about everyone just getting vaxxed.
Bjork once said you need to spend your life building your internal Cathedral so you've got somewhere to live when you're old; whenever I hear JBP he doesn't appear at peace with himself at all.
benzodiazepine = XanaX. I know a woman who started taking XanaX in 1980. Now she can't live without it. She has no real sleep, or waking. She trembles and cries, and wonders why. I printed out the hard copy of what XanaX is, what it does, and what the long term effects can be. I read the high points aloud to her because she's unable to concentrate long enough to make sense of anything but labels on drugs and food.
XanaX is effective and cheap for driving unsuspecting high strung people into madness. JBP had his goose cooked by the strange chemistry of XanaX. BigPharma strikes again...
Yeah, Xanax is a common one. So is Klonopin, which Peterson was hooked on (the main difference being the 3x longer half-life window of Klonopin). As "physiologically" addictive/destructive as they are, the distortion of causality over the long term is much, much worse. It fragments the perception of self, wreaks chaos on the kingdom.
Like I said, I don't think the damage is irreversible. Even if it can't be fixed by Man, God will have the final say on the matter.
I'm a doc, and Xanax is the worst. It works very quickly, but much worse, it wears off faster than any drug I have experience with, much faster than common opioids. One minute you're without a care in the world, the next you're right back into reality. Guess what that makes you want to do?
Even as a lowly med student, it was obvious to me that trying to somehow “fine tune” the brain pharmacologically, (at least with the molecules pharma is turning out)like you were tuning up a Ferrari, was patently absurd. It’s like shooting a fly with a cannon. The “biopsych revolution” has been driven by corruption, top to bottom. Turns out Tom Cruise was right…
The soul-deadening powers of psychopharma are terrifying. I've tried quite a few of them out of an overabundance of curiosity. I've tried many other psychotropics too. Even the worst "bad trips" I experienced on street/traditional drugs didn't spook me like the shit pharma routinely shovels into the mouths of unsuspecting men, women and children.
On dissociatives and hallucinogenics you go on a sort of journey for which you're woefully underprepared, through alien landscapes and dark corners of your own mind. This can be interesting, scary, tedious. It can be enlightening or deranging. In retrospect I think it's a bad idea. But your soul, the "you" inside, is present for the trip whether or not it wants to be.
Not so with xanax, aderrall, and several other "legitimate" drugs I've tried. Back up for a sec for context: if you're experienced with drugs, a real psychonaut, you'll have a trained habit of introspecting and considering the experience, as if you were going to make some notes and write a travel journal about your experiences afterward. You might even actually do that, and post it somewhere like erowid. Point is that you're self aware, comparing and contrasting how it feels, what you experience, vs. normal sober life.
So. The pharma shit (ADHD meds, anti-depressants, anti-anxiety drugs) is less like a journey and more like having your soul violently scooped out and placed on a shelf just out of reach. You stop being you. You can't care, and you can't care that you don't care, about anything. As a psychonaut you might make note of this. You might reach out, mentally, to explore the frayed ends where your capacity for reason and observation used to make contact with your personality and passion.
You can tell something horrible has been done to you. But of course you don't care about it because the part that cares about things is missing. The terror comes after, when the drug finally wears off and soul returns to body. Unless of course you re-up before that happens, as prescribed by your doctor.
Yeah, I don't think I've ever met anyone who has taken prescription meds for depression, or any mental issue – that has stayed on them, and gotten better.
Not that I’ve known a terrible amount of people who I *knew* were on prescription meds, but I can’t remember even hearing a story about someone actually getting better.
All I’ve heard about is people taking them, feeling slightly better, sometimes worse, or just had to stop taking them because they never really did anything.
It seems that drinking would be safer than any of the depression meds that are out there!
Not that anyone should take up drinking. But there's a reason why they call it “self medicating."
As for Peterson, I think you’re right. He was always very pro-Christian – but not as a believer. JP was always supportive of Christianity, in the sense that it helps people (kind of like drugs) therefore it’s OK.
What I think is truly odd, was that he was talking about people who came up to him on the street and told him that they became a Christian – because of him. What a seriously strange position for someone like JP to be in. A non-believer bringing people to God. But then, God uses all people right?
"It seems that drinking would be safer than any of the depression meds that are out there!"
Christ himself said so. It's his transmuted blood for a reason.
"What’s I think is truly odd, was that he was talking about people who came up to him on the street and told him that they became a Christian – because of him. What a seriously strange position for someone like JP to be in. A non-believer bringing people to God. But then, God uses all people right?"
Mysterious works, strange agents, crazy ways and means. Ever since I woke up, I guess I've been rooting for guys like him to wake up too. I hate to even say something like "I'll pray for him." It ain't up to me.
I always laugh sarcastically when some atheist says that Christianity is just an opiate or comfort for the masses, while the aforementioned atheists are probably taking real opiates. They instinctively don’t want to look closely at Christianity, or else they do check it out and are very DIS-comforted. Yes, fake Christianity may be a comfort for your boo-boo. But the real thing, which has the power to heal and save you, is not comfortable or easy. However, as the old black preacher said, “The hard way will make you sweat, but the shortcut will make you bleed!” Or as another preacher said, “Sin will take you farther than you want to go and cost more than you want to pay.” Sin is easy to do and the road to hell is wide and well- traveled. The Way to Heaven is narrow and few (choose to) find it.
Like he told the rich man: if nothing else you're doing is bringing you closer to God, then leave it all behind. The rich man couldn't bring himself to do that. Can Jordan?
And so, after all the valuable lessons he learned from his journey through pharmaceutical interventions, doctors and other "experts", what does he then do without any hesitation?
Takes the vaxx.
For those paying attention, Peterson's complete madness, mendacity and narcissism were on display from day one of his becoming a public figure. Vox Day's Jordanetics: A Journey Into the Mind of Humanity's Greatest Thinker was released in November 2018, and detailed a number of the frankly insane things Peterson did, thought and said well before his pharma addiction as well as his general fraudulence and narcissism.
What has "happened" to Peterson is that the spell he wove on people has finally worn off. All of this craziness was there early on for those with eyes to see.
Given the market penetration of SSRIs and benzos for social anxiety, and versions of meth for ADHD, I often wonder how much my interaction with friends and family, old and young, grandmothers to teens, is altered, and not for the better, by their prescriptions. When I'm talking to someone, I don't know whether she is a "little high" or not. I have to assume she is not and go forward in charity, whether the conversation is about the weather, or about suffering. With some there is no common point of reference in a conversation about suffering if the prescriptions were the first line of defense against psychological pain. And the last line of defense. I am put on notice to keep my own house in order.
Thank you for this close observation of how Peterson's message changed over time, and relating it to the possibility of a spiritual dis-ease gone untreated.
If anything you are too kind about psychotropics, even the “good” ones (and the benzodiazepines are the worst that are still legal). I put it like this: you are stressed and so you are racing around in your car and spending way too much time in first gear. You are wrecking the engine, using too much fuel and making lots of noise that upsets people around you. You take an antidepressant. You are now stuck in third gear all the time. Your brain is flooded with exogenous “third gear” chemicals in such quantity that it can’t overcome them. Sometimes you need to be in first. Sometimes you need to be in fifth. Too bad, you’re in 3rd gear all the time now. Like a padlock on the gear stick. And if you try to take the padlock off now, you’re likely to drive the car high speed into a brick wall with you and your loved ones still inside it.
Fair enough!! I think it was your description of the effect inside the victim’s brain that seemed too benign. But your description of the overall “social” effect is very apt. It does indeed mass produce zombie slaves. And as you say the creepiest part is, they need to consent first, and they do.
I’m really not being reductionist in that way. I have been arguing strongly against that view for a very long time.
To be clear my view is that neurochemicals are symptomatic effects of cognitive states, not the other way around. The fallacy that causation runs the other way leads to a trillion dollar industry aimed at pumping neurochemicals into brains to affect cognitive states. Now clearly this does work to a significant extent. But is sure as hell is not healthy and not how brains are supposed to work. These drugs are not “healing” anyone. They are clubbing people’s brains into states that very crudely approximate “contentment” but (just as with all the historic banned psychotropics) are really just lobotomising people. The evolution of such drugs is nothing more than a progression of making the lobotomising effect somewhat less glaring.
I describe it as a form of déjà vu hypnosis, conducted down at the biochemical level. We continuously sense changes in our bodies (including minute changes in hormones, neurotransmitters, etc.) which are the product/exhaust of various mental states. By emulating the body conditions the mind associates with past states of happiness or wellbeing, the patient is tricked into recreating the experience. The déjà vu illusion doesn't last long, but the map is slowly being redrawn in inverse fashion.
I suspect that's why the spell also sometimes works in the reverse, because not all people are equally hypnotizable, and some aren't suggestible at all. That's why the side effects for antidepressants, for instance, include symptoms like "worsening depression" and "suicidal thoughts." The mind rebels against the fake reality, but has also been tricked to think the problem is innate.
What a fucked-up, rat-trap racket these assholes have devised. Dante might have wanted to carve another circle in Hell, if he got a load of this crowd.
An excellent and intriguing article, as always. I shared this article with a few close friends, and even some fellow substackers.
A few thoughts if I may, first concerning JBP, then with regards to your correct philosophical analysis about the bankruptcy of modern(ist) psychology.
1. I still remember as a young man when Jordan burst onto the scene. I was a Canadian grad student, about five years post conversion from Christ. Although I felt blessed to be a grad student, I continually felt stifled and suffocated by the constant liberal discourse and 'Foucaultian' substructure which pre-designated what ideas and words were 'proper' or 'allowed' in the Canadian academic space.
When Peterson came out, stuck it to the man (well, women more), refusing to give into their language games, refusing to participate in the sheer reality denial of wokeness (aka Satanism), I, like many other young men, found a small hero. And then he went on GQ magazine, and was ferocious and tough. And his classic interview with the fem-tard on Channel 4 in Britain will live in infamy.
I prayed for him constantly, hoping and praying he would experience the fullness of the terrifying of a holy God. Now, for all of his faults, more than his pseudo-Christianity, his pseudo psychology, or his hesitancy to walk around the God question, the one thing that defined Peterson above anything else, that separated him from others, the reason why myself and many others could overlook his obvious sins and failures was the following:
He seemed to have captured that rare and true authentic Christian dasein of speaking the truth to power, and refusing to submit himself to a bureaucracy that did not rule by truth, but power. Before Peterson got too big, he was just a small ish and unknown Canadian prof. He had everything to lose, and nothing to gain, when he stood up to the entire woke Canadian academy, and said, "No. I will not lie. I will not do this."
That, and that alone, was worthy of honour and praise.
And it is for this reason, more than anything else, he has become so heartbreaking and disappointing to me and so many others. Because he has given up on the one, solitary, sole, praise worthy and inspiring premise that summarized his breakout and character:
The pure courage of an authentic spirit that speaks the truth.
After signing with the Daily Wire, he has become a pure shill for Israel, for the Epstein pedo blackmailers who shill out millions of dollars to control the media and narrative in the West, so that we can fund their wars, death, takeover, and destruction. Although there has been some redemption in his pushback against the Covid death jabs, it was too little, too late.
Every attempt he now makes to speak with authority, to truth, from a genuine authentic spirit, it is tainted, because all of his followers know he can only speak about certain topics. He can only speak within the 'allowed' and 'proper' discourses. He has become and absorbed the very thing he fought so hard against, the thing that made him honourable and worthy of respect.
I haven't given up on JBP. His wife seems to have become a genuine believer, and my brother in law was led to true faith in Christ from a very broken home when he was first introduced to Peterson. But Peterson is losing himself, his credibility, authenticity, and, more important than all of these things, losing his soul.
He needs Jesus, or else his idols will consume him.
"He had everything to lose, and nothing to gain, when he stood up to the entire woke Canadian academy, and said, "No. I will not lie. I will not do this."
"That, and that alone, was worthy of honour and praise."
I agree with this. It took courage, and he had no reason to believe he'd ever be rewarded for it. Quite the contrary, given the fever at the time.
"Every attempt he now makes to speak with authority, to truth, from a genuine authentic spirit, it is tainted, because all of his followers know he can only speak about certain topics. He can only speak within the 'allowed' and 'proper' discourses. He has become and absorbed the very thing he fought so hard against, the thing that made him honourable and worthy of respect."
I think we have all noticed this. It is a reminder that we must always be on guard against evil. The devil's corruption is always lurking, and can seep in from a variety of sources. There isn't an easy way to do this. We need to look at the world with both eyes open, and also keep an eye looking inward. Peterson is therefore still valuable as a cautionary tale.
But, like you, I also haven't given up on Peterson, or on any sinner (including myself). There is still a path home, and he can still take it.
Point number 2 (sorry for the long comments, but it is a great article and deserves further discussion.
2. Your excellent summation about the false undergirding physicalism, and cause and effect nature of modern psychology, spoke to me.
I remember during my grad degree, the Lord was bringing me through a time of deep depression (few Christians want to talk about the real pain and depth God will go to sanctify you and set you free of certain sins/strongholds).
In that time of painful purification and suffering (CS Lewis said every new Christians agree with God when he fixes the leaking faucet, but is surprised when he starts knocking down walls), I wrote a paper on Foucault's 'Birth of a Clinic' and 'Madness and Civilization.'
Long story short, one of my points was how atheistic assumptions live on in modern psychology through discourse and language. For example, there was a paper in 'The Scientific American' that was called, 'The Discovery of Depression.' More or less, in the science journal, the author spoke about how scientists had discovered new neural pathways that allowed or blocked serotonin to the brain during depression. Because of this 'discovery,' big pharma was creating new 'medication' to treat and manage 'depression.'
I used this example of how the words 'discovery' and 'depression' leads to a particular discourse around the metaphysics of these topics. Because, what does it mean that depression was just 'discovered?' Or, as Foucault would say, 'man is a recent invention.'
It means the true understanding of man from a scientific perspective. Because, the very simple truth and reality is that depression is not a new human phenomenon (although in modernity it is the norm, not exception anymore). No, it's not like there hasn't been a single huma being that was depressed in the 6000 years of recorded history.
Ok, so what is meant? Or, what was depression before it was discovered?
The word that was used to describe depression was very, very different, and brought with it an entirely different set of values, beliefs, and worldviews.
The word was despair. For an ancient or medieval, depression was despair. And despair was always and will always be a spiritual practice. To battle despair for the premodern meant changing your attitudes, beliefs, conforming to reality, trusting in hope, singing, community, and much more. But, in modernity, there is no such thing as God or spiritual truth; the only religious truth is materialism. Every malady has a material cause, and therefore a material solution. If a man feels extreme depression after cheating on his wife, he simply has an imbalance in the brain, as compared to a genuine need for repentance and reconciliation.
To summarize my (long) point. After suffering depression for a while, I consulted a doctor, who immediately prescribed brain medication. Two days in, the medication made me so extremely suicidal that i knew, in an instant, that the meds were simply wrong. I threw the whole pack in the ocean, and never took the meds again.
The real source of my depression? The reason why God put me in that state for a total of three years? He was uprooting and highlighting a deeply held and painful secret in my heart; harbouring enmity and a lack of forgiveness to my father.
In order to heal and confront the pain, I needed to reconcile with my dad, and do the extremely hard thing of talking to him, and forgiving him. And, when I did eventually talk to him, two things happened.
1. My three year long depression was healed when I reconciled in love to my earthly father. And, my relationship with my dad was restored, and became better than I ever would have believed.
Drugs did not heal me, the teachings and path of Christ did.
"I used this example of how the words 'discovery' and 'depression' leads to a particular discourse around the metaphysics of these topics. Because, what does it mean that depression was just 'discovered?' Or, as Foucault would say, 'man is a recent invention.'
"It means the true understanding of man from a scientific perspective. Because, the very simple truth and reality is that depression is not a new human phenomenon (although in modernity it is the norm, not exception anymore). No, it's not like there hasn't been a single huma being that was depressed in the 6000 years of recorded history."
Yes, and it's instructive that Focault was dishing out this wisdom in between trips to rape boys in graveyards.
I agree with you. The better word is "despair". And once we face and defeat its true source, we can set foot on the path back into the Light. It is more easily said than done. It means defeating parts of ourselves that we see as integral and invincible, including the darkest parts. Jung and his fellow travelers see it differently, of course, advising that we further integrate these shadows and demons. But, as Peterson himself demonstrates, we can see where that foolish strategy leads.
Thank you for sharing these insightful comments, PJ.
I once came across a website devoted to Catholic conversion stories. One was by the son of a very famous Australian atheist. He stated that the depression which plagued him his entire life unexpectedly vanished once he came to faith in Christ. Cue St. Augustine: "You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You." Can verify.
Yes, I've wondered if the "masters of the universe" (https://thegrayzone.com/2025/04/28/masters-universe-jews-us-senator-israel/) didn't do some MKUltra tinkering with our friend from up north. I don't recall that offering full-throated support for Israel was coupled with making one's bed as advice for young men, when Peterson stepped on stage last decade.
"Peterson has discovered he is Jung at heart, and is now announcing his belief in the objective reality of the voices in his head. With this book he invites his readership to not only listen to them too - but to obey them, following his exampled transcendence of the prison of sanity."
I have noticed this too.
A messianic Jungian would be an excellent example of a false prophet in a time of revelation, don't you think?
Absolutely. As does Mr. Wright who thinks Peterson's role is to lead people from Christian faith into some new-age, split-the-difference-between-all-faiths nonsense. In other words: dissolve Christianity.
We do indeed, Mr. Holiday. And it’s only by the grace and mercy of God that I can finally see it. What a pathetic wretch I was before. I absolutely could have been tricked, as Peterson was tricked. I think that's what helps me sustain the belief that anyone can be saved.
Amen, amen, amen! I was rowing alongside you in the boat to hell. I thank God for opening my eyes. It's a daily struggle, but at least I have a north star to guide me now.
"Carl Gustav Jung was once the future of Freudian psychoanalysis, before his obsession with occult fantasies saw him jettisoned as a crank. By Sigmund Freud. This is like being sacked for theft by Larry Fink."
As someone who is familiar with Orthodox Judaism and has been "behind [the] closed doors," your speculation is really a [small] minority opinion at best. Go to some of the most famous orthodox Rabbis of our time (OvadiaYosef, JonathanSacks, JosephSoloveitchik, etc) and you'll be reading/siphoning through thousands of pages before this topic is even covered. Of course you can find AN (some) orthodox Rabbi(s) that confirm an anti-gentile opinion but even for them this is closer to hot take #200 than opinion #1-10.
Agree re: Israel/J discussion at large it's a FRACTION of the article. Hand up, given my background it naturally perks my ears up and shouldn't, but also felt like that is where I could add to the discussion.
The drug/psychological issue is a lot more pressing and I appreciate you covering it. Was not trying to down play that AT ALL. Tragic what happened to JP from that angle.
I have learned to recognize amphetamine psychosis - to put it simply, it's when you become utterly obsessed with seeing a pattern in something. Think about when you were a kid playing with legos; now crank that up to 11.
Since learning to see that, I've realized that at least one of my ex-girlfriends was deep in amphetamine psychosis from the Vyvanse she took for supposed ADHD. She was constantly running around like a wind-up toy, creating conspiracies in her head about what I was up to, as well as disappearing for extended periods of time when she got obsessed with her career (at which she is very successful).
These drugs increase sex drive, and suppress introspective negative emotions. The meth-heads are extreme cases, where it becomes destructive to their social lives, but the Ritalin and Vyvanse allows you to be effective career-wise, while utterly undermining your ability to have healthy emotional relationships.
Medical supervision indeed.
I've read a different story of someone taking Special K while under medical supervision, and having an extended visit to Hell. And yet, those who use it recreationally - or those who use it illicitly but for spiritual purposes, at home on their own time - seem to enjoy the results. Who'd have thunk it!
"I've read a different story of someone taking Special K while under medical supervision, and having an extended visit to Hell. And yet, those who use it recreationally - or those who use it illicitly but for spiritual purposes, at home on their own time - seem to enjoy the results. Who'd have thunk it!"
I would have thunk that too, Leo.
Leaving aside quality considerations of the substances themselves (e.g. practically every street powder might be "augmented" with Fentanyl these days), the recreational/non-medical *usage* of drugs is far, far, far less dangerous to the perception of being than the prescription form. The latter turns the victim into a (often permanent) patient, who comes to see himself as fundamentally broken, and a non-agent in his own experience of life. Voluntarily getting blitzed on molly or diving into a K-hole isn't necessarily a great idea either, but it is way less dangerous compared to the Pharma houngans who want to blind your soul by convincing you it doesn't exist, and trapping you in little pill bottles.
Exactly. It is appropriate for the young to be guided by elders, to be obedient and follow the rules, to build good habits. But all of this should only be put in place to prepare them to soar freely. Psychedelics are to be undertaken with adventurous trepidation and exciting, sometimes with a mentor, but never with an authority.
"This information comes from IQVia (formerly IMS Health), the largest vendor of U.S. physician prescribing data. The data below was taken from the IQVia Total Patient Tracker Database for 2020, extracted January 2021."
Seventy-six million Americans use psychiatric drugs, and breaks it down by age for different types of drugs. If correct, that's about one in four Americans.
I don’t think it’s quite fair to Peterson to say he gets the causation totally wrong , or that he reduces religious experience to brain chemicals. What I hear him saying is that the two phenomena correlate, and the physical correlation should persuade us to take the qualia more seriously, and at minimum assume good faith. Similar with medical psychotropics. As you suggest, I don’t think we witnessed the scientific error of Peterson the prescribing psychiatrist, as much as we witnessed the sordid sins of Peterson the man, which he is clumsily trying to obscure.
I have seen Peterson talk about these “God drug” experiences many times but I still don’t think he is saying “there is no God, only neuron bursts”. I think he is primarily saying “people who report religious experiences are definitely not lying”. I see him as agnostic not atheist. (I am neither by the way).
I almost quoted/linked to the part in the Rogan discussion where they advance the idea that the burning bush is the (DMT rich) acacia bush. He has toyed with this and similar ideas before.
"As you suggest, I don’t think we witnessed the scientific error of Peterson the prescribing psychiatrist, as much as we witnessed the sordid sins of Peterson the man, which he is clumsily trying to obscure."
But the primary error is still causal and pseudoscientific (e.g. correlation ≠ causation). Moreso than the physiological havoc it wreaks (which is plenty) it is profoundly damaging to the true picture of consciousness as the mover/animator. Reinforcing the false order can and does drive people to insanity and death (while also extracting a lot of their money in the meantime).
I guess what I’m saying is he knows as a psychiatrist that benzodiazepines in particular are really, really not a good intervention, so by taking them he was committing something like a sin of hubris or wilful blindness or just plain weakness.
In defense of the Daily Wire, they have plenty of content creators who are anti "ZOG"/giving Israel money but are either agnostic or tacitly pro-Israel when it comes to the ethno-religious conflict versus the Muslims so long as America isn't writing the checks. Maybe Peterson just feels gratitude towards having the Jews/Zionists/whatever (not the content creators many of which are believing Christians) who manage the DailyWire for hiring him after he was at such a low point?
Jews (certainly not orthodox Jews like Ben Shapiro) do not believe in evangelizing non-Jews. I bet if you asked him he would also wish for Jordan Peterson to become a more religious Christian. Ultimately, though, Peterson's faith is up to him.
Last, only a very small fraction of Peterson's work focuses on Israel. The vast majority of his DailyWire content has literally nothing to do with everyone's "Favorite Middle Eastern Democracy." Throwing dirt on a guy because you disagree with his 8th? 12th? most prominent issue is making the perfect the enemy of the good. Peterson has done a lot of good for people and I pray he finds peace from the demons of SSRIs, Benzos, etc.
"In defense of the Daily Wire, they have plenty of content creators who are anti "ZOG"/giving Israel money but are either agnostic or tacitly pro-Israel when it comes to the ethno-religious conflict versus the Muslims so long as America isn't writing the checks."
Maybe you didn't notice, but I included exactly this in the footnotes, linking to Matt Walsh's conversation with Tucker Carlson. As for Jordan feeling gratitude for his new employers, and the gratitude influencing certain of his opinions, that might very well be the case. As for Ben Shapiro's true opinions about the spiritual journeys of the Christians around him, I won't speculate. But I have read enough of orthodox Jewish opinions on the topic of gentiles to know that what is said in public and what's uttered behind closed doors might be very different.
"Last, only a very small fraction of Peterson's work focuses on Israel. The vast majority of his DailyWire content has literally nothing to do with everyone's "Favorite Middle Eastern Democracy." Throwing dirt on a guy because you disagree with his 8th? 12th? most prominent issue is making the perfect the enemy of the good. Peterson has done a lot of good for people and I pray he finds peace from the demons of SSRIs, Benzos, etc."
Likewise, only a very small fraction of this essay focuses on Israel. And I don't believe I've thrown dirt on Jordan Peterson at all. Rather, I've described him as a tragic victim of the psychopharmaceuticals industry, and of the psychological/causal models that undergird it. If you can show me otherwise, I'd happy to take it into consideration. But it was certainly not my intent to smear him.
Fantastic piece! When I found out he was another junkie (just a 'posh' one) who couldn't even detox on his own, his credibility took a hit that proved fatal when he spoke out about everyone just getting vaxxed.
Bjork once said you need to spend your life building your internal Cathedral so you've got somewhere to live when you're old; whenever I hear JBP he doesn't appear at peace with himself at all.
"you need to spend your life building your internal Cathedral so you've got somewhere to live when you're old"
Perfect, thank you.
benzodiazepine = XanaX. I know a woman who started taking XanaX in 1980. Now she can't live without it. She has no real sleep, or waking. She trembles and cries, and wonders why. I printed out the hard copy of what XanaX is, what it does, and what the long term effects can be. I read the high points aloud to her because she's unable to concentrate long enough to make sense of anything but labels on drugs and food.
XanaX is effective and cheap for driving unsuspecting high strung people into madness. JBP had his goose cooked by the strange chemistry of XanaX. BigPharma strikes again...
Yeah, Xanax is a common one. So is Klonopin, which Peterson was hooked on (the main difference being the 3x longer half-life window of Klonopin). As "physiologically" addictive/destructive as they are, the distortion of causality over the long term is much, much worse. It fragments the perception of self, wreaks chaos on the kingdom.
Like I said, I don't think the damage is irreversible. Even if it can't be fixed by Man, God will have the final say on the matter.
Stevie Nicks was on Klonopin and gained a bunch of weight and felt like shit. She was scathing in her criticism of it.
I'm a doc, and Xanax is the worst. It works very quickly, but much worse, it wears off faster than any drug I have experience with, much faster than common opioids. One minute you're without a care in the world, the next you're right back into reality. Guess what that makes you want to do?
The carnage runs in all directions, including SSRIs and antipsychotics as well. There will be a great reckoning some day.
Even as a lowly med student, it was obvious to me that trying to somehow “fine tune” the brain pharmacologically, (at least with the molecules pharma is turning out)like you were tuning up a Ferrari, was patently absurd. It’s like shooting a fly with a cannon. The “biopsych revolution” has been driven by corruption, top to bottom. Turns out Tom Cruise was right…
The soul-deadening powers of psychopharma are terrifying. I've tried quite a few of them out of an overabundance of curiosity. I've tried many other psychotropics too. Even the worst "bad trips" I experienced on street/traditional drugs didn't spook me like the shit pharma routinely shovels into the mouths of unsuspecting men, women and children.
On dissociatives and hallucinogenics you go on a sort of journey for which you're woefully underprepared, through alien landscapes and dark corners of your own mind. This can be interesting, scary, tedious. It can be enlightening or deranging. In retrospect I think it's a bad idea. But your soul, the "you" inside, is present for the trip whether or not it wants to be.
Not so with xanax, aderrall, and several other "legitimate" drugs I've tried. Back up for a sec for context: if you're experienced with drugs, a real psychonaut, you'll have a trained habit of introspecting and considering the experience, as if you were going to make some notes and write a travel journal about your experiences afterward. You might even actually do that, and post it somewhere like erowid. Point is that you're self aware, comparing and contrasting how it feels, what you experience, vs. normal sober life.
So. The pharma shit (ADHD meds, anti-depressants, anti-anxiety drugs) is less like a journey and more like having your soul violently scooped out and placed on a shelf just out of reach. You stop being you. You can't care, and you can't care that you don't care, about anything. As a psychonaut you might make note of this. You might reach out, mentally, to explore the frayed ends where your capacity for reason and observation used to make contact with your personality and passion.
You can tell something horrible has been done to you. But of course you don't care about it because the part that cares about things is missing. The terror comes after, when the drug finally wears off and soul returns to body. Unless of course you re-up before that happens, as prescribed by your doctor.
Great piece!
Yeah, I don't think I've ever met anyone who has taken prescription meds for depression, or any mental issue – that has stayed on them, and gotten better.
Not that I’ve known a terrible amount of people who I *knew* were on prescription meds, but I can’t remember even hearing a story about someone actually getting better.
All I’ve heard about is people taking them, feeling slightly better, sometimes worse, or just had to stop taking them because they never really did anything.
It seems that drinking would be safer than any of the depression meds that are out there!
Not that anyone should take up drinking. But there's a reason why they call it “self medicating."
As for Peterson, I think you’re right. He was always very pro-Christian – but not as a believer. JP was always supportive of Christianity, in the sense that it helps people (kind of like drugs) therefore it’s OK.
What I think is truly odd, was that he was talking about people who came up to him on the street and told him that they became a Christian – because of him. What a seriously strange position for someone like JP to be in. A non-believer bringing people to God. But then, God uses all people right?
Hopefully JP can get things sorted out some day.
"It seems that drinking would be safer than any of the depression meds that are out there!"
Christ himself said so. It's his transmuted blood for a reason.
"What’s I think is truly odd, was that he was talking about people who came up to him on the street and told him that they became a Christian – because of him. What a seriously strange position for someone like JP to be in. A non-believer bringing people to God. But then, God uses all people right?"
Mysterious works, strange agents, crazy ways and means. Ever since I woke up, I guess I've been rooting for guys like him to wake up too. I hate to even say something like "I'll pray for him." It ain't up to me.
Thanks for this, OGRE.
I always laugh sarcastically when some atheist says that Christianity is just an opiate or comfort for the masses, while the aforementioned atheists are probably taking real opiates. They instinctively don’t want to look closely at Christianity, or else they do check it out and are very DIS-comforted. Yes, fake Christianity may be a comfort for your boo-boo. But the real thing, which has the power to heal and save you, is not comfortable or easy. However, as the old black preacher said, “The hard way will make you sweat, but the shortcut will make you bleed!” Or as another preacher said, “Sin will take you farther than you want to go and cost more than you want to pay.” Sin is easy to do and the road to hell is wide and well- traveled. The Way to Heaven is narrow and few (choose to) find it.
For one to embrace the Word of Truth their own word of truth must be crucified.
Like he told the rich man: if nothing else you're doing is bringing you closer to God, then leave it all behind. The rich man couldn't bring himself to do that. Can Jordan?
And so, after all the valuable lessons he learned from his journey through pharmaceutical interventions, doctors and other "experts", what does he then do without any hesitation?
Takes the vaxx.
For those paying attention, Peterson's complete madness, mendacity and narcissism were on display from day one of his becoming a public figure. Vox Day's Jordanetics: A Journey Into the Mind of Humanity's Greatest Thinker was released in November 2018, and detailed a number of the frankly insane things Peterson did, thought and said well before his pharma addiction as well as his general fraudulence and narcissism.
What has "happened" to Peterson is that the spell he wove on people has finally worn off. All of this craziness was there early on for those with eyes to see.
Given the market penetration of SSRIs and benzos for social anxiety, and versions of meth for ADHD, I often wonder how much my interaction with friends and family, old and young, grandmothers to teens, is altered, and not for the better, by their prescriptions. When I'm talking to someone, I don't know whether she is a "little high" or not. I have to assume she is not and go forward in charity, whether the conversation is about the weather, or about suffering. With some there is no common point of reference in a conversation about suffering if the prescriptions were the first line of defense against psychological pain. And the last line of defense. I am put on notice to keep my own house in order.
Thank you for this close observation of how Peterson's message changed over time, and relating it to the possibility of a spiritual dis-ease gone untreated.
If anything you are too kind about psychotropics, even the “good” ones (and the benzodiazepines are the worst that are still legal). I put it like this: you are stressed and so you are racing around in your car and spending way too much time in first gear. You are wrecking the engine, using too much fuel and making lots of noise that upsets people around you. You take an antidepressant. You are now stuck in third gear all the time. Your brain is flooded with exogenous “third gear” chemicals in such quantity that it can’t overcome them. Sometimes you need to be in first. Sometimes you need to be in fifth. Too bad, you’re in 3rd gear all the time now. Like a padlock on the gear stick. And if you try to take the padlock off now, you’re likely to drive the car high speed into a brick wall with you and your loved ones still inside it.
“If anything you are too kind about psychotropics…”
Was I? After all, I did compare them to the potions of demon-worshipping witch doctors trying to turn people into mindless slaves for profit.
Your analogy is interesting. Though I would point out — in a friendly way — that it once again reduces the mind to mechanism.
Fair enough!! I think it was your description of the effect inside the victim’s brain that seemed too benign. But your description of the overall “social” effect is very apt. It does indeed mass produce zombie slaves. And as you say the creepiest part is, they need to consent first, and they do.
I’m really not being reductionist in that way. I have been arguing strongly against that view for a very long time.
To be clear my view is that neurochemicals are symptomatic effects of cognitive states, not the other way around. The fallacy that causation runs the other way leads to a trillion dollar industry aimed at pumping neurochemicals into brains to affect cognitive states. Now clearly this does work to a significant extent. But is sure as hell is not healthy and not how brains are supposed to work. These drugs are not “healing” anyone. They are clubbing people’s brains into states that very crudely approximate “contentment” but (just as with all the historic banned psychotropics) are really just lobotomising people. The evolution of such drugs is nothing more than a progression of making the lobotomising effect somewhat less glaring.
I describe it as a form of déjà vu hypnosis, conducted down at the biochemical level. We continuously sense changes in our bodies (including minute changes in hormones, neurotransmitters, etc.) which are the product/exhaust of various mental states. By emulating the body conditions the mind associates with past states of happiness or wellbeing, the patient is tricked into recreating the experience. The déjà vu illusion doesn't last long, but the map is slowly being redrawn in inverse fashion.
I suspect that's why the spell also sometimes works in the reverse, because not all people are equally hypnotizable, and some aren't suggestible at all. That's why the side effects for antidepressants, for instance, include symptoms like "worsening depression" and "suicidal thoughts." The mind rebels against the fake reality, but has also been tricked to think the problem is innate.
What a fucked-up, rat-trap racket these assholes have devised. Dante might have wanted to carve another circle in Hell, if he got a load of this crowd.
Indeed!
Mark,
An excellent and intriguing article, as always. I shared this article with a few close friends, and even some fellow substackers.
A few thoughts if I may, first concerning JBP, then with regards to your correct philosophical analysis about the bankruptcy of modern(ist) psychology.
1. I still remember as a young man when Jordan burst onto the scene. I was a Canadian grad student, about five years post conversion from Christ. Although I felt blessed to be a grad student, I continually felt stifled and suffocated by the constant liberal discourse and 'Foucaultian' substructure which pre-designated what ideas and words were 'proper' or 'allowed' in the Canadian academic space.
When Peterson came out, stuck it to the man (well, women more), refusing to give into their language games, refusing to participate in the sheer reality denial of wokeness (aka Satanism), I, like many other young men, found a small hero. And then he went on GQ magazine, and was ferocious and tough. And his classic interview with the fem-tard on Channel 4 in Britain will live in infamy.
I prayed for him constantly, hoping and praying he would experience the fullness of the terrifying of a holy God. Now, for all of his faults, more than his pseudo-Christianity, his pseudo psychology, or his hesitancy to walk around the God question, the one thing that defined Peterson above anything else, that separated him from others, the reason why myself and many others could overlook his obvious sins and failures was the following:
He seemed to have captured that rare and true authentic Christian dasein of speaking the truth to power, and refusing to submit himself to a bureaucracy that did not rule by truth, but power. Before Peterson got too big, he was just a small ish and unknown Canadian prof. He had everything to lose, and nothing to gain, when he stood up to the entire woke Canadian academy, and said, "No. I will not lie. I will not do this."
That, and that alone, was worthy of honour and praise.
And it is for this reason, more than anything else, he has become so heartbreaking and disappointing to me and so many others. Because he has given up on the one, solitary, sole, praise worthy and inspiring premise that summarized his breakout and character:
The pure courage of an authentic spirit that speaks the truth.
After signing with the Daily Wire, he has become a pure shill for Israel, for the Epstein pedo blackmailers who shill out millions of dollars to control the media and narrative in the West, so that we can fund their wars, death, takeover, and destruction. Although there has been some redemption in his pushback against the Covid death jabs, it was too little, too late.
Every attempt he now makes to speak with authority, to truth, from a genuine authentic spirit, it is tainted, because all of his followers know he can only speak about certain topics. He can only speak within the 'allowed' and 'proper' discourses. He has become and absorbed the very thing he fought so hard against, the thing that made him honourable and worthy of respect.
I haven't given up on JBP. His wife seems to have become a genuine believer, and my brother in law was led to true faith in Christ from a very broken home when he was first introduced to Peterson. But Peterson is losing himself, his credibility, authenticity, and, more important than all of these things, losing his soul.
He needs Jesus, or else his idols will consume him.
"He had everything to lose, and nothing to gain, when he stood up to the entire woke Canadian academy, and said, "No. I will not lie. I will not do this."
"That, and that alone, was worthy of honour and praise."
I agree with this. It took courage, and he had no reason to believe he'd ever be rewarded for it. Quite the contrary, given the fever at the time.
"Every attempt he now makes to speak with authority, to truth, from a genuine authentic spirit, it is tainted, because all of his followers know he can only speak about certain topics. He can only speak within the 'allowed' and 'proper' discourses. He has become and absorbed the very thing he fought so hard against, the thing that made him honourable and worthy of respect."
I think we have all noticed this. It is a reminder that we must always be on guard against evil. The devil's corruption is always lurking, and can seep in from a variety of sources. There isn't an easy way to do this. We need to look at the world with both eyes open, and also keep an eye looking inward. Peterson is therefore still valuable as a cautionary tale.
But, like you, I also haven't given up on Peterson, or on any sinner (including myself). There is still a path home, and he can still take it.
Point number 2 (sorry for the long comments, but it is a great article and deserves further discussion.
2. Your excellent summation about the false undergirding physicalism, and cause and effect nature of modern psychology, spoke to me.
I remember during my grad degree, the Lord was bringing me through a time of deep depression (few Christians want to talk about the real pain and depth God will go to sanctify you and set you free of certain sins/strongholds).
In that time of painful purification and suffering (CS Lewis said every new Christians agree with God when he fixes the leaking faucet, but is surprised when he starts knocking down walls), I wrote a paper on Foucault's 'Birth of a Clinic' and 'Madness and Civilization.'
Long story short, one of my points was how atheistic assumptions live on in modern psychology through discourse and language. For example, there was a paper in 'The Scientific American' that was called, 'The Discovery of Depression.' More or less, in the science journal, the author spoke about how scientists had discovered new neural pathways that allowed or blocked serotonin to the brain during depression. Because of this 'discovery,' big pharma was creating new 'medication' to treat and manage 'depression.'
I used this example of how the words 'discovery' and 'depression' leads to a particular discourse around the metaphysics of these topics. Because, what does it mean that depression was just 'discovered?' Or, as Foucault would say, 'man is a recent invention.'
It means the true understanding of man from a scientific perspective. Because, the very simple truth and reality is that depression is not a new human phenomenon (although in modernity it is the norm, not exception anymore). No, it's not like there hasn't been a single huma being that was depressed in the 6000 years of recorded history.
Ok, so what is meant? Or, what was depression before it was discovered?
The word that was used to describe depression was very, very different, and brought with it an entirely different set of values, beliefs, and worldviews.
The word was despair. For an ancient or medieval, depression was despair. And despair was always and will always be a spiritual practice. To battle despair for the premodern meant changing your attitudes, beliefs, conforming to reality, trusting in hope, singing, community, and much more. But, in modernity, there is no such thing as God or spiritual truth; the only religious truth is materialism. Every malady has a material cause, and therefore a material solution. If a man feels extreme depression after cheating on his wife, he simply has an imbalance in the brain, as compared to a genuine need for repentance and reconciliation.
To summarize my (long) point. After suffering depression for a while, I consulted a doctor, who immediately prescribed brain medication. Two days in, the medication made me so extremely suicidal that i knew, in an instant, that the meds were simply wrong. I threw the whole pack in the ocean, and never took the meds again.
The real source of my depression? The reason why God put me in that state for a total of three years? He was uprooting and highlighting a deeply held and painful secret in my heart; harbouring enmity and a lack of forgiveness to my father.
In order to heal and confront the pain, I needed to reconcile with my dad, and do the extremely hard thing of talking to him, and forgiving him. And, when I did eventually talk to him, two things happened.
1. My three year long depression was healed when I reconciled in love to my earthly father. And, my relationship with my dad was restored, and became better than I ever would have believed.
Drugs did not heal me, the teachings and path of Christ did.
Thank you for this article, Mark, and your time.
"I used this example of how the words 'discovery' and 'depression' leads to a particular discourse around the metaphysics of these topics. Because, what does it mean that depression was just 'discovered?' Or, as Foucault would say, 'man is a recent invention.'
"It means the true understanding of man from a scientific perspective. Because, the very simple truth and reality is that depression is not a new human phenomenon (although in modernity it is the norm, not exception anymore). No, it's not like there hasn't been a single huma being that was depressed in the 6000 years of recorded history."
Yes, and it's instructive that Focault was dishing out this wisdom in between trips to rape boys in graveyards.
I agree with you. The better word is "despair". And once we face and defeat its true source, we can set foot on the path back into the Light. It is more easily said than done. It means defeating parts of ourselves that we see as integral and invincible, including the darkest parts. Jung and his fellow travelers see it differently, of course, advising that we further integrate these shadows and demons. But, as Peterson himself demonstrates, we can see where that foolish strategy leads.
Thank you for sharing these insightful comments, PJ.
Amen.
I once came across a website devoted to Catholic conversion stories. One was by the son of a very famous Australian atheist. He stated that the depression which plagued him his entire life unexpectedly vanished once he came to faith in Christ. Cue St. Augustine: "You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You." Can verify.
Yes, I've wondered if the "masters of the universe" (https://thegrayzone.com/2025/04/28/masters-universe-jews-us-senator-israel/) didn't do some MKUltra tinkering with our friend from up north. I don't recall that offering full-throated support for Israel was coupled with making one's bed as advice for young men, when Peterson stepped on stage last decade.
Here's an good take on Peterson by a writer I think you'd find interesting:https://frankwright.substack.com/p/jordan-peterson-canadian-psycho
"Peterson has discovered he is Jung at heart, and is now announcing his belief in the objective reality of the voices in his head. With this book he invites his readership to not only listen to them too - but to obey them, following his exampled transcendence of the prison of sanity."
I have noticed this too.
A messianic Jungian would be an excellent example of a false prophet in a time of revelation, don't you think?
Absolutely. As does Mr. Wright who thinks Peterson's role is to lead people from Christian faith into some new-age, split-the-difference-between-all-faiths nonsense. In other words: dissolve Christianity.
We live in very interesting times, MB.
We do indeed, Mr. Holiday. And it’s only by the grace and mercy of God that I can finally see it. What a pathetic wretch I was before. I absolutely could have been tricked, as Peterson was tricked. I think that's what helps me sustain the belief that anyone can be saved.
Amen, amen, amen! I was rowing alongside you in the boat to hell. I thank God for opening my eyes. It's a daily struggle, but at least I have a north star to guide me now.
"Carl Gustav Jung was once the future of Freudian psychoanalysis, before his obsession with occult fantasies saw him jettisoned as a crank. By Sigmund Freud. This is like being sacked for theft by Larry Fink."
LMAO!
Frank Wright is hilarious. He does great serious reporting for Lifesitenews.com.
Interesting too that Mr. Wright calls JBP a "latter-day witch doctor", whereas I see him as the zombie.
You're both on the same page.
I missed the Matt Walsh footnote. My bad.
As someone who is familiar with Orthodox Judaism and has been "behind [the] closed doors," your speculation is really a [small] minority opinion at best. Go to some of the most famous orthodox Rabbis of our time (OvadiaYosef, JonathanSacks, JosephSoloveitchik, etc) and you'll be reading/siphoning through thousands of pages before this topic is even covered. Of course you can find AN (some) orthodox Rabbi(s) that confirm an anti-gentile opinion but even for them this is closer to hot take #200 than opinion #1-10.
Agree re: Israel/J discussion at large it's a FRACTION of the article. Hand up, given my background it naturally perks my ears up and shouldn't, but also felt like that is where I could add to the discussion.
The drug/psychological issue is a lot more pressing and I appreciate you covering it. Was not trying to down play that AT ALL. Tragic what happened to JP from that angle.
Thanks for the article. Very good one.
This is good stuff. The way that you explain antidepressants is helpful.
I have learned to recognize amphetamine psychosis - to put it simply, it's when you become utterly obsessed with seeing a pattern in something. Think about when you were a kid playing with legos; now crank that up to 11.
Since learning to see that, I've realized that at least one of my ex-girlfriends was deep in amphetamine psychosis from the Vyvanse she took for supposed ADHD. She was constantly running around like a wind-up toy, creating conspiracies in her head about what I was up to, as well as disappearing for extended periods of time when she got obsessed with her career (at which she is very successful).
These drugs increase sex drive, and suppress introspective negative emotions. The meth-heads are extreme cases, where it becomes destructive to their social lives, but the Ritalin and Vyvanse allows you to be effective career-wise, while utterly undermining your ability to have healthy emotional relationships.
Medical supervision indeed.
I've read a different story of someone taking Special K while under medical supervision, and having an extended visit to Hell. And yet, those who use it recreationally - or those who use it illicitly but for spiritual purposes, at home on their own time - seem to enjoy the results. Who'd have thunk it!
"I've read a different story of someone taking Special K while under medical supervision, and having an extended visit to Hell. And yet, those who use it recreationally - or those who use it illicitly but for spiritual purposes, at home on their own time - seem to enjoy the results. Who'd have thunk it!"
I would have thunk that too, Leo.
Leaving aside quality considerations of the substances themselves (e.g. practically every street powder might be "augmented" with Fentanyl these days), the recreational/non-medical *usage* of drugs is far, far, far less dangerous to the perception of being than the prescription form. The latter turns the victim into a (often permanent) patient, who comes to see himself as fundamentally broken, and a non-agent in his own experience of life. Voluntarily getting blitzed on molly or diving into a K-hole isn't necessarily a great idea either, but it is way less dangerous compared to the Pharma houngans who want to blind your soul by convincing you it doesn't exist, and trapping you in little pill bottles.
Exactly. It is appropriate for the young to be guided by elders, to be obedient and follow the rules, to build good habits. But all of this should only be put in place to prepare them to soar freely. Psychedelics are to be undertaken with adventurous trepidation and exciting, sometimes with a mentor, but never with an authority.
According to this website Dr Peterson is in good company:
https://www.cchrint.org/psychiatric-drugs/people-taking-psychiatric-drugs/
"This information comes from IQVia (formerly IMS Health), the largest vendor of U.S. physician prescribing data. The data below was taken from the IQVia Total Patient Tracker Database for 2020, extracted January 2021."
Seventy-six million Americans use psychiatric drugs, and breaks it down by age for different types of drugs. If correct, that's about one in four Americans.
Thank you, Alexsyd. Yes, it is insane. An industrial zombie factory.
I don’t think it’s quite fair to Peterson to say he gets the causation totally wrong , or that he reduces religious experience to brain chemicals. What I hear him saying is that the two phenomena correlate, and the physical correlation should persuade us to take the qualia more seriously, and at minimum assume good faith. Similar with medical psychotropics. As you suggest, I don’t think we witnessed the scientific error of Peterson the prescribing psychiatrist, as much as we witnessed the sordid sins of Peterson the man, which he is clumsily trying to obscure.
I have seen Peterson talk about these “God drug” experiences many times but I still don’t think he is saying “there is no God, only neuron bursts”. I think he is primarily saying “people who report religious experiences are definitely not lying”. I see him as agnostic not atheist. (I am neither by the way).
I almost quoted/linked to the part in the Rogan discussion where they advance the idea that the burning bush is the (DMT rich) acacia bush. He has toyed with this and similar ideas before.
"As you suggest, I don’t think we witnessed the scientific error of Peterson the prescribing psychiatrist, as much as we witnessed the sordid sins of Peterson the man, which he is clumsily trying to obscure."
But the primary error is still causal and pseudoscientific (e.g. correlation ≠ causation). Moreso than the physiological havoc it wreaks (which is plenty) it is profoundly damaging to the true picture of consciousness as the mover/animator. Reinforcing the false order can and does drive people to insanity and death (while also extracting a lot of their money in the meantime).
I guess what I’m saying is he knows as a psychiatrist that benzodiazepines in particular are really, really not a good intervention, so by taking them he was committing something like a sin of hubris or wilful blindness or just plain weakness.
In defense of the Daily Wire, they have plenty of content creators who are anti "ZOG"/giving Israel money but are either agnostic or tacitly pro-Israel when it comes to the ethno-religious conflict versus the Muslims so long as America isn't writing the checks. Maybe Peterson just feels gratitude towards having the Jews/Zionists/whatever (not the content creators many of which are believing Christians) who manage the DailyWire for hiring him after he was at such a low point?
Jews (certainly not orthodox Jews like Ben Shapiro) do not believe in evangelizing non-Jews. I bet if you asked him he would also wish for Jordan Peterson to become a more religious Christian. Ultimately, though, Peterson's faith is up to him.
Last, only a very small fraction of Peterson's work focuses on Israel. The vast majority of his DailyWire content has literally nothing to do with everyone's "Favorite Middle Eastern Democracy." Throwing dirt on a guy because you disagree with his 8th? 12th? most prominent issue is making the perfect the enemy of the good. Peterson has done a lot of good for people and I pray he finds peace from the demons of SSRIs, Benzos, etc.
"In defense of the Daily Wire, they have plenty of content creators who are anti "ZOG"/giving Israel money but are either agnostic or tacitly pro-Israel when it comes to the ethno-religious conflict versus the Muslims so long as America isn't writing the checks."
Maybe you didn't notice, but I included exactly this in the footnotes, linking to Matt Walsh's conversation with Tucker Carlson. As for Jordan feeling gratitude for his new employers, and the gratitude influencing certain of his opinions, that might very well be the case. As for Ben Shapiro's true opinions about the spiritual journeys of the Christians around him, I won't speculate. But I have read enough of orthodox Jewish opinions on the topic of gentiles to know that what is said in public and what's uttered behind closed doors might be very different.
"Last, only a very small fraction of Peterson's work focuses on Israel. The vast majority of his DailyWire content has literally nothing to do with everyone's "Favorite Middle Eastern Democracy." Throwing dirt on a guy because you disagree with his 8th? 12th? most prominent issue is making the perfect the enemy of the good. Peterson has done a lot of good for people and I pray he finds peace from the demons of SSRIs, Benzos, etc."
Likewise, only a very small fraction of this essay focuses on Israel. And I don't believe I've thrown dirt on Jordan Peterson at all. Rather, I've described him as a tragic victim of the psychopharmaceuticals industry, and of the psychological/causal models that undergird it. If you can show me otherwise, I'd happy to take it into consideration. But it was certainly not my intent to smear him.