I'm curious as to what real-world philosophy and literature you find most complimentary to TES. What things do you find act as inspiration to, lead to deeper understanding of, or just generally go well with the themes explored in TES lore?

Provide me a list, for I desire supplementary reading material (pretty please).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hero_with_a_Thousand_Faces, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Invisibles, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Promethea, the Bible, the Koran, though you're probably better of with any book on comparative religion.

Not really relevant but http://www.strangehorizons.com/index.shtml and http://www.everything2.com/index.pl for weird ideas and odd writing forms. Wikipedia and google are a big help too.

I think it was Albides who pointed out that Mircea Eliade's ideas are found in TES, so that's a place to start. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_Return_(Eliade)

Gnosticism has been mentioned as an influence on MK's works.

Grant Morrison's graphic novel "The Invisibles" may have been an influence. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Invisibles

MK seems to be knowledgeable about Eastern religions such as Buddhism and Hinduism, so you could read more about those. He's also mentioned an interest in Christian mysticism.

Vivec is a cultural hero, a Trickster in the tradition of Loki, Coyote, Anansi, and Raven. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trickster

Gene Wolfe's series "The Book of the New Sun" has been said to be an influence on TES. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_the_new_sun
For example, there are guilds such as the Torturers that live in towers that are also ancient starships.

The emperor who came from a hill is in the Greek tradition of the Autochthon. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autochthon_(ancient_Greece)

Heh. Last two I found - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dark_Tower_(series) by Stephen King and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Godmakers_(novel) by Frank Herbert. Yes, it is slightly crazy, I know. Heh.

Many thanks.

Try Descartes.

I'd highly recommend the Dark Tower series. It's an epic example of a complex fantasy, and shares MANY ideas with the mythological backdrop of the TES Universe, including Towers and Stones to name a few.

I'll be keeping an eye on this thread

Quite a few threads have been opened concerning influences from RL philosophy/mythology on ES lore. Maybe it would be useful if there was some source comparing mysticism from different cultures. For example, greek and buddhist philosophy have clearly influenced each other, or they had common ancestors. Many myths from different people are connected somehow, and I think tose who made up the lore canon created their own version based on the fundaments of western and eastern philosophy. So you can go look in plato's work, and discover the similarities with elder scrolls lore. Then some guys at the forums show up and say: Its derived from descartes/heracletus/spinoza/whoever. But I think you are all doing the same thing. The writers were probably well-read, and combined their knowledge into one world.

Don't discount texts on Jung psychology either.

Owh. Forgot a big field. History. Beyond the x did y in year z.

Got no books to reference but anything about beliefs, events and attitudes should go a long way.

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/sbook.html
and the links at the very top in fine print provide this.

Since other modern fiction has been listed, it's impossible not to mention Star Wars. I thought I'd point out the obvious one. Ald Cyrod confirmed Dark Crystal influenced Morrowind, and well, you don't find better world-building than Man of Gold or Flamesong.

I always saw the whole CHIM-Godhead thing as an interesting way to defeat "I think therefore I am". You think you think, but you don't neccessarily exist.

Especially the bolded word, the series is very organic that way. Mythology is always a good way to go because while there are no 1:1 parallels, the archetypes of mythology should be familliar. Someone already said trickster, but there's an untold vastness more.

I read selections of the Ramayana not too long ago and was amazed about the kinds of ideas that got lifted out of it and plopped in here (and by selections, I mean a good 2% of it, by the way. The thing's thicker than War and Peace).