Editing ParaNet BBS/Signs from Heaven (section)

== The Spirit of Science Fiction ==

Historians of science fiction usually trace the origins of this literary form back to the early 19th century. Some prefer to see its beginning in the short stories of Edgar Allen Poe, which combined a persuasive realism in style with a subject matter always tinged with the "mysterious" and occult. Others see the first science fiction writer in Poe’s English contemporary, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (wife of the famous poet); her Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus, combines fantastical science with occultism in a way characteristic of many science fiction stories since then.

The typical science fiction story, however, was to come with the late 19th and early 20th centuries, from Jules Verne and H.G. Wells to our own days. From a largely second rate form of literature in the American periodical "pulps" of the 1930s and 40s, science fiction has come of age and become a respectable international literary form in recent decades. In addition, a number of extremely popular motion pictures have shown how much the spirit of science fiction has captivated the popular imagination. The cheaper and more sensational science fiction movies of the 1950s have given way in the last decade or so to fashionable "idea" movies like 2001: A Space Odyssey, Star Wars, and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, not to mention one of the most popular and long-lived American television series, Star Trek.

The spirit of science fiction is derived from an underlying philosophy or ideology, more often implied than expressed in so many words, which is shared by virtually all those who create in science fiction forms. This philosophy may be summed up in the following main points:

Religion, in the traditional sense, is absent, or else present in a very incidental or artificial way. The literary form itself is obviously a product of the "post-Christian" age (evident already in the stories of Poe and Shelley). The science fiction universe is a totally secular one, although often with "mystical" overtones of an occult or Eastern kind. "God," if mentioned at all, is a vague and impersonal power, not a personal being (for example, the "Force" of Star Wars, a cosmic energy that has its evil as well as good side). The increasing fascination of contemporary man with science fiction themes is a direct reflection of the loss of traditional religious values.

The center of the science fiction universe (in place of the absent God) is man – not usually man as he is now, but man as he will "become" in the future, in accordance with the modern mythology of evolution. Although the heroes of science fiction stories are usually recognizable humans, the story interest often centers about their encounters with various kinds of "supermen" from "highly-evolved" races of the future (or sometimes, the past), or from distant galaxies. The idea of the possibility of "highly-evolved" intelligent life on other planets has become so much a part of the contemporary mentality that even respectable scientific (and semi-scientific) speculations assume it as a matter of course. Thus, one popular series of books (Erich von Daniken, Chariots of the Gods?, Gods From Outer Space) finds supposed evidence of the presence of "extraterrestrial" beings or "gods" in ancient history, who are supposedly responsible for the sudden appearance of intelligence in man, difficult to account for by the usual evolutionary theory. Serious scientists in the Soviet Union speculate that the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah was due to a nuclear explosion, that "extraterrestrial" beings visited earth centuries ago, that Jesus Christ may have been a "cosmonaut," and that today "we may be on the threshold of a ‘second coming’ of intelligent beings from outer space." Equally serious scientists in the West think the existence of "extraterrestrial intelligences" likely enough that for at least 18 years they have been trying to establish contact with them by means of radio telescopes, and currently there are at least six searches being conducted by astronomers around the world for intelligent radio signals from space. Contemporary Protestant and Roman Catholic "theologians" – who have become accustomed to follow wherever "science" seems to be leading – speculate in turn in the new realm of "exotheology" (the "theology of outer space") concerning what nature the "extraterrestrial" races might have (see Time magazine, April 24, 1978). It can hardly be denied that the myth behind science fiction has a powerful fascination even among many learned men of our day.

The future "evolved beings in science fiction literature are invariable seen as having "outgrown" the limitations of present-day humanity, in particular the limitations of "personality." Like the "God" of science fiction, "man" also has become strangely impersonal. In Arthur C. Clarke’s Childhood’s End, the new race of humans has the appearance of children but faces devoid of personality; they are about to be guided into yet higher "evolutionary" transformations, on the way to becoming absorbed in the impersonal "Overmind." In general, the literature of science fiction – in direct contrast to Christianity, but exactly in accordance with some schools of Eastern thought – sees "evolutionary advancement" and "spirituality" in terms of increased impersonality.

The future world and humanity are seen by science fiction ostensibly in terms of "projections" from present-day scientific discoveries; in actuality, however, these "projections" correspond quite remarkably to the everyday reality of occult and overtly demonic experience throughout the ages. Among the characteristics of the "highly evolved" creatures of the future are: communication by mental telepathy, ability to fly, materialize and dematerialize, transform the appearances of things or create illusionary scenes and creatures by "pure thought," travel at speeds far beyond any modern technology, to take possession of the bodies of earthmen; and the expounding of a "spiritual" philosophy which is "beyond all religions" and holds promise of a state where "advanced intelligences" will no longer be dependent on matter. All these are the standard practices and claims of sorcerers and demons. A recent history of science fiction notes that "a persistent aspect of the vision of science fiction is the desire to transcend normal experience…through the presentation of characters and events that transgress the conditions of space and time as we know them." The scripts of "Star Trek" and other science fiction stories, with their futuristic "scientific" devices, read in parts like excerpts from the lives of ancient Orthodox Saints, where the actions of sorcerers are described at a time when sorcery was still a strong part of pagan life. Science fiction in general is usually not very scientific at all, and not really very "futuristic" either; if anything, it is a retreat to the "mystical" origins of modern science – the science before the age of the 17th and 18th century "Enlightenment" which was much closer to occultism. The same history of science fiction remarks that "the roots of science fiction, like the roots of science itself, are in magic and mythology" (Scholes and Rabkin, p. 183). Present-day research and experiments in "parapsychology" point also to a future connection of "science" with occultism – a development with which science fiction literature is in full harmony.

Science fiction in the Soviet Union (where it is just as popular as in the West, although its development has been a little different) has exactly the same themes as Western science fiction. In general, "metaphysical" themes in Soviet science fiction (which labors under the watchful eye of "materialist" censors) come from the influence of Western writers or from direct Hindu influence, as in the case of the writer Ivan Efremov. The reader of Soviet science fiction, according to one critic, "emerges with a vague ability to distinguish the critical demarcations between Science and Magic, between scientist and sorcerer, between future and fantasy." Science fiction both East and West, says the same writer, like other aspects of contemporary culture, "all confirm the fact that the higher stage of humanism is occultism."

Almost by its very nature as "futuristic," science fiction tends to be utopian; few novels or stories actually describe a future perfect society, but most of them deal with the "evolution" of today’s society into something higher, or the encounter with advanced civilization on another planet, with the hope or capability of overcoming today’s problems and mankind’s limitations in general. In Efremov’s and other Soviet science fiction, Communism itself becomes "cosmic" and "begins to acquire non-materialistic qualities," and "the post-industrial civilization will be Hindu-like" (Grebens, pp. 109-110). The "advanced beings" of outer space are often endowed with "savior"-like qualities, and the landings of spacecraft on earth often herald "apocalyptic" events – usually the arrival of benevolent beings to guide men in their "evolutionary advancement."

In a word, the science fiction literature of the 20th century is itself a clear sign of the loss of Christian values and the Christian interpretation of the world; it has become a powerful vehicle for the dissemination of a non-Christian philosophy of life and history, largely under open or concealed occult and Eastern influence; and in a crucial time of crisis and transition in human civilization it has been a prime force in creating the hope for and actual expectation of "visitors from outer space" who will solve mankind’s problems and conduct man to a new "cosmic" age of its history. While appearing to be a scientific and non-religious, science fiction literature is in actuality a leading propagator (in a secular form) of the "new religious consciousness" which is sweeping mankind as Christianity retreats.

All of this is a necessary background for discussing the actual manifestations of "unidentified flying objects," which strangely correspond to the pseudo-religious expectations which have been aroused in "post-Christian" man.