Myths as Maps: How Ancient Archetypes Teach Us to Recognize Predators, Power, and Deception

For six thousand years, across every civilization, the same warnings emerged: vampires who drain your life force, werewolves who transform when threatened, shapeshifters who become whoever you need them to be. We dismissed these as primitive superstitions. We were wrong.

Modern psychology has rediscovered what ancient cultures never forgot: human predators follow predictable patterns. The myths weren't about supernatural monsters-they were sophisticated warning systems for recognizing dangerous people who look perfectly human. The fortune-telling wasn't magic-it was systematic decision-making under uncertainty. The "superstitions" weren't primitive-they were psychological technologies disguised to survive institutional suppression.

Myths as Maps decodes humanity's earliest threat-detection systems and reveals them for what they truly are: survival manuals for navigating the most dangerous terrain of all-other people.

Drawing on cutting-edge research in neuroscience, evolutionary psychology, and folklore studies, author Samantha Parnham demonstrates how ancient archetypes map directly onto modern predatory behavior. Learn to recognize the vampire's charm trap, the werewolf's rage cycle, the demon's calculated destruction, the shapeshifter's adaptive deception, and the titan's landscape control. Discover how tarot cards were actually character assessment tools, how runes functioned as strategic decision-making frameworks, and how "fortune-telling" was humanity's first risk management system.

In a world where our collective threat-detection abilities have been systematically dismantled, these ancient tools aren't just fascinating-they're essential. Myths as Maps restores the survival intelligence that history tried to erase, teaching you to trust your instincts, recognize patterns of harm, and reclaim the wisdom that once kept entire communities safe.

Perfect for readers of The Gift of Fear, Women Who Run With Wolves, and The Body Keeps the Score-this groundbreaking work bridges psychology, mythology, and practical survival intelligence in an entirely new way