An excerpt for From Atlantis to the Sphinx by Colin Wilson that explains why left-brain development, painful as it might seem at times, has enhanced rather than detracted from the simpler right-brained focus of our ancestors. A valuable differentiation for the VF author to keep in mind: We can be sure that our ancestors of…
[Part 3 of 3-part series based on the relationship between Dr. Dean Radin’s Real Magic: Ancient Wisdom, Modern Science, and a Guide to the Secret Power of the Universe and the theory and practice of Visionary Fiction.] The Practice of Real Magic By this point, it should be evident that using real magic in its…
[Part 2 of 3-part series based on the relationship between Dr. Dean Radin’s Real Magic: Ancient Wisdom, Modern Science, and a Guide to the Secret Power of the Universe and the theory and practice of Visionary Fiction.] As do several accomplished modern scientists, especially those involved with quantum theory, Dean Radin separates science as a…
Growth in Consciousness Linked to the Paranormal The defining statement for the Visionary Fiction Alliance, What is Visionary Fiction?, highlights growth in consciousness as central to the development of theme and character in any VF story. That same article notes that VF authors “oftentimes use reincarnation, dreams, visions, paranormal events, psychic abilities, and other metaphysical…
The copious comments and suggestions that greeted my post, “Visionary Fiction for Readers” of December 2, 2018, shows that the suggested sea change of emphasis from authors to readers on the our website is both necessary and welcome at this point in our genre’s evolution. I apologize that I did not follow up with the…
From the first posts on VisionaryFictionAlliance.com in August 2012 until the present, emphasis has been on defining Visionary Fiction and exploring the art and craft of writing it. In the beginning, we were not sure what content rightly belonged in the genre and what writers were actually or potentially producing genuine Visionary Fiction.
[In Part One of this post, we discussed the similarities and differences between theosophy and theology, the two forms of theosophy (Blavatskyian with a capital-T and generic with a small-T), and that the spirituality prescribed by theosophy has the elements of universalism and perennialism in common with the definitions of Visionary Fiction.] Theosophy (Small-t) Proper…
Some months back, John Van de Kamp, a relative of one of our founding members, Margaret Duarte, asked her if she had ever heard of theosophy, suggesting rather grandly, “I believe this concept may be the basis of visionary fiction.” A group of us discussed the idea and concluded that the topic might make for…
Applied Parapsychology: Synchronicity and Super Synchronicity To read or revisit Part One of this series, click HERE. For Part Two, Click HERE. Parapsychology in its various aspects is an enormous field of study and practice both for evolving humans trekking through the maze of physical/mental/spiritual existence and for visionary authors narrating that tortuous saga, aptly…
Undercover Agents of Consciousness To read or revisit Part One of this series, click HERE. Like researchers venturing beyond the known and allowed boundaries of sanctioned science, visionary authors often strike radioactive material that incites incredulity, hostility, and worse. For these, in the words of Carl Jung, “The experience that furnishes the material for artistic…
Introducing Gary E. Schwartz, Ph.D. Parapsychology is a field of study concerned with the investigation of paranormal and psychic phenomena, which include telepathy, precognition, clairvoyance, psychokinesis, near-death experiences, reincarnation, apparitional experiences, and other paranormal claims. It is often identified as pseudoscience…. Parapsychology has been criticized for continuing investigation despite being unable to provide convincing evidence…
The two main players that provide both POD and e-book to self-publishers with most or all the necessary services are IngramSpark and CreateSpace. They may be best used in combination.
Modern technology thrives by improving upon itself, and nowhere is the blizzard of innovation more overwhelming than in the publishing industry. The self-publishing author must be on constant alert for change.
Self-publishing and using the services of a self-publishing company can be vastly different in cost, time, and skill required. The goal is to deliver the book to the reader in a pleasing format at a reasonable price that adequately compensates the writer.
If, to paraphrase Joni Mitchell’s lyrics in “Woodstock,” we are indeed stardust and golden, we’ve got to get ourselves back to the garden. When faced with paradox, which our condition inherently is, we humans tend to jump from one extreme to the other. Only after we get dizzy enough from swinging between either/or does it occur to us try both/and.
We ended Part 1 stuck between the opposites of Matter, represented by the infernal machines, and Spirit, as epitomized by abstract ideals. Transhumanism, by definition, seems positioned in the former category, the Dalai Lama’s “half machine,” and our visionary viewpoint in the latter, what His Holiness calls “a stream of consciousness.” That these two elements, one inanimate and the other animate, might join in some unnatural marriage to rival or supplant the current human model was seen, to put it kindly, as far out.
I can’t totally rule out the possibility that, if all the external conditions and the karmic action were there, a stream of consciousness might actually enter a computer. –His Holiness, the Dalai Lama
This startling statement made by the renowned leader of Tibetan Buddhism knocked me off kilter on first reading it. It had a similar effect on the renowned physicist who reported it.
Multi-faceted visionary craftsman Esme Ellis has been a supporter and contributor to the Visionary Fiction Alliance almost from its inception. She has written four books; Pathway Into Sunrise, Clea and the Fifth Dimension, This Strange and Precious Thing, and Dreaming Worlds Awake. Here are some of her musings amidst samples of her visionary art.
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.
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.
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.
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 .
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.
Art is kind of an innate drive that seizes a human being and makes him its instrument. The artist is not a person endowed with free will who seeks his own ends, but one who allows art to realize its purposes through him. Carl Jung, “Psychology and Literature,” Modern Man in Search of a Soul,…
Exciting news for all Visionary Fiction authors, readers and lurkers:
As of August 2014 a entry entitled “Visionary fiction” has been published on Wikipedia at:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visionary_fiction