PSYCHO-COSMOCIDE: A Theoretical Framework for the Study of the Systematic Destruction of Indigenous Cosmologies, Consciousness, and Metaphysical Order

This paper presents a complete and revised theoretical framework for Psycho-Cosmocide — a term coined to describe the most comprehensive yet structurally invisible form of colonial violence ever perpetrated against Indigenous peoples: the systematic destruction of a people’s entire cosmological framework and their lived relationship with reality. The concept first appeared in Papuan Tragedy: 300 Warnings from the Edge of Extinction, published in June 2025, where it was introduced as a diagnostic framework emerging from the ongoing catastrophe in West Papua. It was subsequently developed and formalised as a standalone theoretical contribution and published on PhilPapers in November 2025. This revised and expanded edition deepens the foundational architecture in response to that reception and to the continuing urgency of the subject matter, and this current revision further extends it with a fully worked ontological architecture of existential captivity, a theory of power, and a substantially developed account of the framework’s antidote. The paper sets out ten key contributions to decolonial and civilisational theory. The twenty foundational reasons establishing the necessity of the concept are organised into five analytical clusters. First, Wone — the primordial Lani cosmological ordering principle — is established as the philosophical basis of the entire framework and situated comparatively alongside the Greek Logos, the Egyptian Maʿat, the Chinese Dao, the Hebrew Dabar, the Polynesian Mana, and the Lakota Wakan Tanka, demonstrating both the universality of the problem the framework addresses and the irreplaceable specificity of its Lani origin. Second, precise definitions are developed for the four terms constituting the framework — Wone, Psyche, Psycho, and Cosmocide — alongside their full etymological genealogy and philosophical positioning. Third, the Seven Existential Cages — the physical, symbolic, metaphysical, and technological cages historically colonisable in specific times and places, together with the Corridor of the Dead, the Cage of Absolute Unknowing, and the Cage of the Irreducible Other, three trans-historical constants the CPCV exploits but did not create — are established as the ontological architecture within which the entire framework operates. Fourth, the Cosmobian and Synthobian modes of being are distinguished not by degree but by generative logic — relationality and reciprocal equilibrium against separation, extraction, production, and consumption — with the Synthobian order shown to possess no independent generative capacity of its own, remaining structurally dependent on the Cosmobian world it converts and consumes. Fifth, the Lani ontological vocabulary — Ap, Ap-ap, Oʼgur, Muʼnggar, Aʼnggena, and Kugi — is presented as a comprehensive philosophical system providing the most granular Indigenous perspective on the destruction caused by Psycho-Cosmocide at the levels of the self, ancestry, shadow, ordering spirit, and community. Sixth, the complete mechanism of the Civilisational Psycho-Cosmocide Virus (CPCV) is set out, including six forms of power the virus captures, its life cycle from exposure to civilisational permanence, its carriers, symptoms, immunity, and historical mutations. Seventh, the Eight Atlases of Human Reality are presented as simultaneous sites of cosmological disruption, together with the ecosystem logic specifying what each atlas requires for human flourishing. Eighth, the Dynamic Atlas Model of civilisation survival and collapse is presented together with the Noah’s Ark function — the minimum survival package required to preserve a cosmological world from destruction. Ninth, the three available paths for individuals living within the CPCV are mapped: compliance, resistance, and Wonesis. Tenth, Wonesis itself is developed into a full architecture of three dimensions — ph