Visionary fiction is a fiction genre with New Age or mind, body, spirit themes and perspectives, including consciousness expansion, spirituality, mysticism, and parapsychology. It is classed as a subtype of speculative fiction. Examples include the novels The Celestine Prophecy, The Alchemist, and Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah. The Book Industry Study Group's BISAC subject heading FIC039000 is "FICTION / Visionary & Metaphysical".
Although similar themes and content occur in the literature of numerous cultures in many ages, the term "visionary fiction" was suggested by Renée Weber, professor of philosophy at Rutgers University, and used by John Algeo in a 1982 article describing recent examples and earlier precursors. By the year 2000 it had recognition as a distinct genre. Contemporary authors have formed organizations like the Visionary Fiction Alliance to clearly define what the genre is and what works belong to this category, advocate the use of this term for all fiction of the determined type, and promote authorship and readership of this form of fiction.
Definitions
While the basic definition of visionary fiction—the literary form that illustrates and demonstrates the process of growth in human consciousness—is now generally accepted, it remains an evolving genre with some controversy over what literature it includes. Following are some of the most frequently cited definitions, sometimes at variance with each other, which illustrate the range, historically and ideologically, of the term's usage.
"Visionary"
As a literary term, the word visionary is defined thus: "Visionary writing has the qualities of prophecy—perhaps it is apocalyptic in imagery, or it may be predictive in its insights, or it may contain a core of moral truth. Many of the Romantic poets (especially Blake) have been labeled visionary. Note that in its literary sense, visionary writing need not be religious in nature, though it frequently is."
Carl Jung
In his 1929 lecture, "Psychology and Literature," (also a chapter in Modern Man in Search of a Soul), psychologist Carl Jung divides all works of art into two distinct forms, psychological and visionary. "The psychological work of art always takes its materials from the vast real of conscious human experience—from the vivid foreground of life, we might say." What is currently classified as mainstream or realism. "The latter [visionary] reverses all the conditions of the former [psychological]. The experience that furnishes the material for artistic expression is no longer familiar. It is a strange something that derives its existence from the hinterlands of man's mind—that suggests the abyss of time separating us from pre-human ages, or evokes a superhuman world of contrasting light and darkness." Jung's model would classify all serious imaginative literature, including the classics like Homer, Virgil, and Beowulf, as Visionary Fiction.
Flo Keyes
In The Literature of Hope in the Middle Ages And Today, Flo Keyes endorses Jung's term, visionary fiction, while detailing the medieval romance's impact on modern Fantasy and Science Fiction: "Jung places greater value on what he calls visionary novels, novels in which fundamental human experiences are tapped and shaped and left to the individual to interpret. These visionary works are stories that break the bonds of everyday human experience."
Walidah Imarisha and adrienne maree brown Activists and Authors Walidah Imarisah and adrienne maree brown put together a group of activists to write short stories for Octavia's Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements. In materials for the book they put forward a different definition of visionary fiction "We believe that radical science fiction is actually better termed visionary fiction because it pulls from real life experience, inequalities and movement building to create innovative ways of understanding the world around us, paint visions of new worlds that could be, and teach us new ways of interacting with one another. Visionary fiction engages our imaginations and hearts, and guides our hands as organizers."
Walidah Imarisha further said visionary fiction "allows us to imagine possibilities outside of what exists today. The only way we know we can challenge the divine right of kings is by being able to imagine a world where kings no longer rule us—or do not even exist. Visionary fiction offers social justice movements a process to explore creating those new worlds....This term reminds us to be utterly unrealistic in our organizing, because it is only through imagining the so-called impossible that we can begin to concretely build it. When we free our imaginations, we question everything".
Michael Gurian
American author and social philosopher Michael Gurian, one of the first to promote the genre on the web, wrote: "'Visionary fiction' is fiction in which the expansion of the human mind drives the plot. Where science fiction is characterized by storytelling based in expanded use of science to drive narrative, visionary fiction is characterized by storytelling based in expanded use of mental ability to drive narrative."
Visionary Fiction Alliance
The Visionary Fiction Alliance defines the term thus: "Visionary Fiction embraces spiritual and esoteric wisdom, often from ancient sources, and makes it relevant for our modern life. These gems of wisdom are brought forth in story form and in a way that readers can experience the wisdom from within themselves. It emphasizes and envisions humanity's transition into evolved consciousness. While there is a strong theme, it in no way proselytizes or preaches. Visionary is a tone as well as a genre. The ‘visionary’ element can technically be present in any genre and set in any time."
Hal Zina Bennett
Visionary Fiction pioneer, Hal Zina Bennett describes the genre thus: "Visionary fiction often deals with the stuff that happens at the edge between inner and outer, glimpsing those moments when the ‘thin veil’, the boundary between inner and outer worlds, dissolves or is at least briefly drawn away. Every moment of our lives there's some of that interchange between inner and outer, of course. Our ‘visionary fiction’ focuses on that phenomenon itself. Stories written in this genre draw our attention to how our visions inform us and impact our lives... The ‘vision’ part of visionary fiction is the vehicle that carries us to the filmy veil separating our ability to know from what we can't know." Visionary fiction, he concludes, generally acknowledges something bigger, limitless, actually, beyond what Aldous Huxley called the ‘phenomenological’ world.
Edward J. Ahearn
Edward J. Ahearn's definition in Visionary Fictions: Apocalyptic Writing from Blake to the Modern Age, is summarized thus on the book's jacket cover: "Visionary writers seek a personal way to explode the normal experience of the ‘real,’ using prophetic visions, fantastic tales, insane rantings, surrealistic dreams, and drug- or sex-induced dislocations in their work. Their fiction expresses rebellion against all the values of Western civilization—personal, sexual, familial, religious, moral, societal, and political. Yet even though they are anti-realistic, they do react to specific aspects of modern reality, such as the recurring promise and failure of social revolution." To some current VF authors, Ahearn's “shock and awe” definition of VF may be extreme although it does provide an antidote against too saccharine an approach.
Inspirational fiction
The Wikipedia article inspirational fiction mentions Michael Gurian and others as promoting the term visionary fiction and cites it as "possibly a subgenre of inspirational fiction."
Characteristics
An analysis of available sources cites the following characteristics as essential to Visionary Fiction, noting that such elements, like the definition of Visionary Fiction, intentionally remains fluid to accommodate innovation.
Growth in consciousness
The primary characteristic of VF, according to the Visionary Fiction Alliance: "Growth of consciousness is the central theme of the story and drives the protagonist, and/or other important characters." In "The Altered State of Visionary Fiction," Monty Joynes writes: "For me, the Visionary Fiction genre includes novels that deal with shifts in awareness that result in metaphysical understanding by the central characters. The plot of the novel is generally more concerned with internal experiences than with external." Michael Gurian also makes it preeminent: "Visionary fiction is fiction in which the expansion of the human mind drives the plot." All commentators on the basic nature of VF seem to agree that growth in consciousness is the hallmark of Visionary Fiction. In any credible story, the characters must change, but in VF this change is from the inside out rather than from outside in. Growth in consciousness dictates that Visionary Fiction be optimistic. With realism, birth inevitably results in death. In VF, death tends to rebirth at a higher level.
Reader experience
Visionary Fiction author Jodine Turner writes: "Visionary Fiction is like the legendary Celtic Immram (the mythical heroes’ quest). The drama and tension of the characters’ adventures is one layer of the tale. All of the usual elements of suspense, conflict, even romance and mystery, are interwoven in the plot. The other layer, deeper and more archetypal, is that mystical inner journey of spiritual awakening. In Visionary Fiction, esoteric wisdom is embedded in story so that the reader can actually experience it, instead of merely learning about it." And author Margaret Duarte seconds this notion: "What separates VF from other speculative fiction is intention. Besides telling a good story, VF enlightens and encourages readers to expand their awareness of greater possibilities." Visionary Fiction renders the reading experience interactive. Readers have progressed beyond where they can just be told (the authority paradigm); instead, the visionary model gives them the bare essentials and invites them to try it (the Gnostic or experiential model). The best VF is multi-layered to suit readers at different awareness levels.
Spiritual component
The VF Alliance definition states: "[Visionary Fiction] embraces spiritual and esoteric wisdom, often from ancient sources, and makes it relevant for our modern life." Clearly differentiating itself from conventional religion and its associated genre, religious fiction, Visionary Fiction's spirituality is all-inclusive with an appeal that, according to the Visionary Fiction Alliance, "is universal in its worldview and scope." Since it lacks this universal ingredient, spiritually-oriented fiction that highlights a single issue,(recovery, women's’ rights, political reform), is not generally considered Visionary Fiction.
VF's spiritual focus does not require it to have a "feel good" flavor. While Edward Ahearn's dark apocalyptic leaning in his definition may be extreme, it serves to remind that the spiritual conflicts addressed in VF are serious, existential, and often life-threatening in the process of becoming life changing.
Paranormal perceptions