Tag Archives: Paulo Coelho

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!