Bibliography

Psychofauna sources & inspirations

Here are things I’ve drawn on for inspiration and ideas. I hope this list will be useful for both mindpunk fiction writers as well as aspiring psychoecologists.

Archetypes & the imaginal

• Fiction

  • “The Helper and His Hero” by Matt Hughs
    (from the collection The Compleat Guth Bandar)

• Nonfiction

  • “Soulmaking Dharma” – Catherine McGee interviewed by Michael Taft

  • “What is Imaginal Literacy?” by River Kenna

  • The ideas of Carl Jung (duh)

• Other

  • The Wild Unknown Archetypes Deck and Guidebook by Kim Krans
    (A list and guide to some of the most powerful archetypes)

Egregores, memetics, group minds

• Fiction

  • “Unstable Orbits in the Space of Lies” by Greg Egan
    (from the collection Axiomatic)

  • Too Like the Lightening by Ada Palmer

  • There Is No Antimemetics Division by qntm

  • Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson

  • The This by Adam Roberts

• Nonfiction

  • “The egregore passes you by” by Erik Hoel

  • “Minimum Viable Superorganism” by Kevin Simler

  • “A Pseudoethnography of Egregores” by Sarah Perry

  • Pierre Teilhard de Chardin’s idea of a noosphere & Omega Point

“Entities”

Psychofauna contains a bunch of beings that live “inside” the minds of humans but which are either not-quite-human themselves or shockingly alien. Here were some inspirations for these beings.

• Fiction

  • Upon the Mirror Sea by @phaseborn

  • Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer

  • Embassytown by China Miéville

  • Daemon by Daniel Suarez

  • Aristoi by Walter Jon Williams

  • Nameless by Grant Morrison

  • A Fire Upon The Deep by Vernor Vinge

  • Scavengers Reign from Joe Bennett & Charles Huettner (TV series)

  • “Jailbreaking Out of the Replicator Matrix: Qualia Computing in the Age of Recreational Metaphysics” by algekalipso

  • Light by M. John Harrison

• Nonfiction

  • Darwin’s theories of evolution

  • “Yidams: a godless approach, naturally!” by David Chapman

  • High Weirdness: Drugs, Esoterica, and Visionary Experience in the Seventies by Erik Davis

  • Neurons Gone Wild by Kevin Simler

Magic systems

• Fiction

  • The Kingkiller Chronicle by Patrick Rothfuss

  • Promethea by Alan Moore

  • The Invisibles by Grant Morrison

• Nonfiction

  • “Dancing with the Gods” by Eric Raymond

Microsolidarity & group minds

• Fiction
  Technically any fiction featuring a tightly knit small group would qualify here, but these are the ones that have especially influenced me:

  • Station Eleven by Emily Mandel

  • Very Yummy Poison by Doctor Zero

  • My Weil by Lars Iyer

  • Saga by Brian K Vaughan & Fiona Staples

• Nonfiction

  • “Courage Before Hope: A Proposal to Weave Emotional and Economic Microsolidarity” by Richard D. Bartlett

  • “Squad Wealth” by Sam Hart, Toby Shorin & Laura Lotti

  • Supernuclear by Phil Levin & Gillian Morris

Mind-wizards & mental hacking

• Fiction

  • “Understand” by Ted Chiang
    (from the wonderful collection Stories of Your Life and Others)

  • The Dune saga & specifically its Bene Gesserit by Frank Herbert

  • The Second Apocalypse saga & specifically its Dûnyain by R Scott Bakker

  • The Foundation saga & specifically the mentallics of the 2nd Foundation by Isaac Asimov

  • Blindsight by Peter Watts

There are also nonfiction sources for this section. I don’t like recommending them. I think we want to be inspiring each other’s minds rather than hacking them. See the Egyptian Book of the Dead instead for a series of blessings that are shocking in their power. (Hacks are to narcissism as blessings are to altruism.)

Neurotelepathy

• The Nexus trilogy by Ramez Naam

• The Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi

• Sense8 from the Wachowski sisters (TV series)

Psychodynamics

• Fiction

  • Anna Karenina by Tolstoy trans. Rosamund Bartlett

• Nonfiction

  • “On Intention Research” by Kerry Vaughan

  • Miya Perry’s models of how the mind works

Spirituality

• Fiction

  • The Neverness saga by David Zindell

• Nonfiction

  • Vividness by David Chapman

• Other

  • Awakening Osiris: A New Translation of the Egyptian Book of the Dead trans. Normandi Ellis

The Technic

• Fiction
  The Technic is everywhere in fiction. You see it whenever a character or group is trying to instrumentalize nature or other human beings. With rare exceptions (eg Asimov’s Foundation) the cultural force of the Technic is on the side of the villains. Here are some examples that stick with me:

  • Toni Erdmann from Maren Ade

  • Accelerando by Charles Stross

  • The Matrix from the Wachowskis (have you heard of it?)

• Nonfiction

  • Technic and Magic: The Reconstruction of Reality by Federico Campagna

  • Superintelligence by Nick Bostrom