Zoo City

From a scholarly paper entitled “Masks of Existence: the Demystification of Shadow-Self Absorption”:

The author(s) warn about religious judgments, particularly by religious therapists, against Aposymbiots. Secular Aposymbiots tended to have better therapeutic results than religious Aposymbiots.

The paper describes Aposymbiots as already living in fear of the Undertow, which will take them away when their animal dies. The trauma of Aposymbiotism comes from anticipating the animal’s death, which will preclude their own. Aposymbiots often resign themselves to their fate, engaging in hedonistic or self-harming behavior. Certain cults conduct mass culling of animals to invoke the Undertow because they enjoy the thrill of being in its presence. Overall, “Aposymbiots wish to take charge of their own existence rather than being led like the proverbial lamb […] to the divine slaughter” (188).

The paper points to a scientific hypothesis about the Undertow. According to physicists, it could be a quantum manifestation of nonexistence; i.e., the Undertow is to existence what dark matter is to actual matter. If the Undertow is “a necessary part of the fabric of the physical universe” (189), Aposymbiots can be freed of guilt.