Ship of Fools is a novel excerpt. The title comes from Plato’s Republic as well as the book Stultifera Navis by Sebastian Brant, published in 1494. There is also a painting by Hieronymus Bosch (c. 1490–1500) with the same name. Influences include Jungian psychology, Joseph Campbell’s “The Masks of God” series, and anthropological studies of Amazonian shamanism.