What Is Visionary Fiction?

Dion Fortune: an early proponent of Visionary Fiction

Stone the crows! I read this, What Is Visionary Fiction? and apparently I’ve just discovered that I’ve been writing in the Visionary Fiction genre all along! Actually, from the description of Visionary Fiction, I believe it is a new name for something which has antecedents going back at least a hundred years or more. Visionary Fiction is here defined as:

Characteristic Features of Visionary Fiction:

Growth of consciousness is the central theme of the story and drives the protagonist, and/or other important characters.

Oftentimes uses reincarnation, dreams, visions, paranormal, psychic abilities, and other metaphysical plot devices.

Is universal in its worldview and scope.

This pretty much describes all of the occult literature of Dion Fortune (e.g. The Winged Bull, The Sea Priestess, Moon Magic, etc) and arguably works like Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist. It also describes my own humble efforts with The Magus and its sequels (particularly in the character development of Nichola, the central character). Now it appears that there are an increasing number of emerging authors who specifically identify themselves under the “Visionary Fiction” banner. Let us hope that it is not too long before one of them (us) achieves major cross-over success!

7 responses to “What Is Visionary Fiction?”

magicalfantasyauthor

August 7, 2012 at 9:32 pm

Alex,
I, too, got much inspiration for my Visionary Fiction writing (among other things) and my Goddess of the Stars and the Sea novels from Dion Fortune. I am one of the founding members of the Visionary Fiction Alliance, and helped pen the definition.

I invite you – would you like to join the Visionary Fiction Alliance? Our goal is to increase awareness of this ancient and new writing genre. Here is the link if you are drawn to do this, we’d love to have you there!
http://visionaryfictionalliance.wordpress.com/join-the-vfa/

~Jodine Turner

- alexsumner
  
  August 7, 2012 at 10:58 pm
  
  Jodine, I’d love to. I did actually fill out the Join the VFA form earlier today. 🙂
  
margaretduarte

August 8, 2012 at 5:45 pm

Welcome to the Visionary Fiction Alliance, Alex. I look forward to getting to know you and your work. Here’s to the success to all VFA members.

- alexsumner
  
  August 8, 2012 at 6:08 pm
  
  Thanks a lot! 🙂
  
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Suecae

August 12, 2012 at 4:32 pm

Herman Hesse comes to mind, he won the literature price to Alfred Nobel’s memory too. Coelho who clearly draws inspiration from both alchemy and western mystery tradition is hugely popular. So I’d say that regardless which name we use this genre is alive and thriving.