Authors writing in the realm of Visionary Fiction are tremendously privileged in that they are only limited by the scope of their own creativity – or by their ability to connect with a source of inspiration beyond themselves. They also have a tremendous responsibility, for our shifting world desperately needs their unfettered vision and the…
(Read Part 1 of Rory Mackey’s The Visionary Fiction Revolution here)We tell stories for a reason Mythology, which is storytelling at its most essential level, was not purposeless. It played an important role in shaping and sustaining society and, according to Campbell, had four primary functions. The first was to open the eyes of the…
It’s estimated that nearly 130 million books have been published in modern history. 28 million books are currently in print in English alone. When contemplating writing a book, I can’t help but reflect on these staggering statistics, as indeed I think all authors should. Does the world really need another book to add to those…
There is sufficient evidence to hypothesize that reincarnation is real—whether one believes in it or not. In other words, once we enter the human zone between the material and spiritual universes, we don’t get to exit without a diploma. It’s either mastery of the human condition or repeat until you get it right.
The stranglehold that Justinian’s Council of Constantinople placed on the concept of reincarnation and the Gnostic approach to truth through personal experience held fast for about a millennium. But there’s an odd thing about truth, especially those dealing with fundamental principles. It is resilient; it keeps coming back until it is recognized as valid. And so it happened with the doctrine of reincarnation.
This 3-part series focuses on the role of reincarnation, one of the more complex of the paranormal phenomena encountered in the visionary environment. With it as an example, I hope to illustrate that the various psychic elements are actual features in the visionary realm we inhabit, just as stars, planets, mountains and oceans are part of our physical environment.
Part II: The Purer Archetype and the Warrior KingThe second part of this blog explores the warrior king as the Jungian purer archetype with regard to the Qabalistic understanding of the scabbard and sword and its political application. Most of us know King Arthur as the courageous “once and future king” destined to unite Great Britain…
Part I: The Sacred Warrior KingThe first part of this blog discusses Arthur, the sacred warrior king, as the archetypal hero of British legend and his relationship within the Celtic mythological narrative. More than any other works of fiction, except for fairy tales and mythological narratives, Visionary Fiction makes use of spiritual and psychological archetypes,…
Jodine Turner’s Visionary Fiction series traces the reincarnations of a priestess specially called to do the work of the Goddess of the Stars and the Sea, an Ancient One who reawakens when humanity is ready for a dramatic shift in consciousness. The first novel in the series shows us the fall of Atlantis and the…
Well, to answer the last part of the question, writers need to care where their books fit on bookstore shelves, and in our case the virtual bookshelf. Gary and I, writing together as Phoenix, are genre rebels, writing what we want to write, but when it comes to having people find our stuff, well then…
Around the turn of the millennium, several of us authors-without-a-genre had a vision that we framed into words on the then-Yahoo Visionary Literature Forum.
Let’s suppose, as projected in Part 1 of this series, “The Bucket,” that Visionary Fiction has become as prominent a genre label as Science Fiction or Mystery. Now let’s consider the ingredients writers must put into a work to have it qualify for the Visionary Fiction bucket and what experiences or benefits readers can expect in a work pulled out of that bucket.
Read Part 1 and Part 2 of Theresa Crater’s review of Dion Fortune’s Visionary Fiction novels. “The Mystical Qabalah gives the theory, but the novels give the practice . . . [T]hose who study The Mystical Qabalah with the help of the novels get the keys of the Temple put into their hands.” ~ from…
By Victor E. Smith
“We tried mightily to get the retailing powers to start a visionary fiction shelf. We came close with Walden, but the suits at B&N, alas, took the position of ‘no one is coming into the store asking for visionary fiction’,” said editor Bob Friedman of the situation as he saw it at Hampton Roads Publishing some years ago.
Where sex and spirituality meet is in the experience of dropping boundaries, of feeling expansion, dissolution, limitlessness. In both, we can have the experience of dissolving into a larger existence, joining a great ocean of being. Where sex-and-spirituality fits well is in the world of Visionary Fiction, which allows the reader to feel the experience…
(You can read Part 1 of Theresa Crater’s series on Visionary Fiction author Dion Fortune here.) “He thought less of death than most people think of emigration; in fact, he seemed to regard it in exactly that light.” In The Secrets of Dr. Taverner, Dion Fortune’s short story collection featuring the magical adept and psychiatrist by the same…
Genre is a subjective marketing category that often misleads rather than informs. Some books defy classification, especially books by Dean Koontz. How do you pin down stories that fit at least a dozen marketing labels, including: Action, Adventure, Crime, Horror, Humor, Mystery, Philosophical, Science Fiction, Speculative, Thriller, Urban, and, yes, Visionary Fiction? No one could…
Dean Koontz prefers to avoid genre labels. By his own admission, he writes “cross-genre novels in a mainstream style, with elements of comedy and social commentary and philosophical speculation.” That said, I hold firm to my conviction that much of Dean Koontz’s work contains elements of visionary fiction as detailed in the Wikipedia article written by our…
Editor’s note: One of our Visionary Fiction Alliance founding members, Margaret Duarte, wrote a review of Rea Martin Nolan’s latest book, Mystic Tea. You can read the review here. We were so pleased with how Rea represented Visionary Fiction that we asked her to share her perspective on what is important in writing Visionary Fiction, and…
Many people are familiar with Dion Fortune as a spiritual teacher in the Western Metaphysical Tradition, the founder of Fraternity of the Inner Light (later re-named the Society of the Inner Light). She was born Violet Mary Firth in Wales in December of 1890. Dion Fortune showed psychic abilities as a child, and later reported…
Have you ever thought about the power of place, of setting, in writing your novel? The setting in most novels is nonspecific. Meaning that, while setting itself is important, the specificity of the setting is oftentimes not. The high school romance between Bella and Edward in Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight could have begun in any modern…
Flybys are not flukes. At first they may seem to appear by accident, luck or chance, which, if true, would make them a dastardly unpredictable source for a visionary story or anything else of worth. While keeping aside the worthy argument that nothing is truly accidental, let’s look at ways to increase the odds of returning from the hunt laden with healthy flybys .
Part Two You can view Part One of this intriguing exploration by guest author Stephen Weinstock here. In Part One, I outlined the parallels between Arabic fiction’s uphill battle for acceptance in the first centuries of Islam. I believe the criticism and slow acceptance of Visionary Fiction goes back to the same kind of interdiction…
Part One In researching Book Three of my series 1001: The Reincarnation Chronicles, I read a great deal about the history of Arabic Literature. I am no Arabic scholar, but I had to learn about medieval Persian and Arabic culture. My characters, in their past lives in 10th century Baghdad, collaborate on a special version…
Where do the ideas and visions that eventually become complex cities and timeless books come from? I don’t know actually—how to blunt a piece from the get-go! However, I do know that they first show up as blip of light barely large and lasting enough to evoke a “What the heck was that?” It gets a smidge of our attention before it flicks on by.
Visionary fiction is not metaphysical fiction. Visionary fiction is not magical realism. Visionary fiction is not religious fiction or sci-fi or fantasy. What will it take for traditional publishers to make room on the shelf for fiction that “speaks the language of the soul and offers a vision of humanity as we dream it could…
Editor’s Note: We are happy to offer popular and respected Visionary Fiction author Peggy Payne’s latest thoughts on Visionary Fiction and the novels she writes. Last night, as guest speaker at a book club in Holly Springs, North Carolina, I talked my way to a new understanding of what kind of novel I’m in the midst…