[the_old_crowd] Re: Religious Practice & Fantasy: Goat's Law

[Aberforths Goat / Mike Gray]

Rita wrote,

> According to me, that is not true of fantasy authors who are
> Wiccans and similar kinds of Neopagan. 

Thanks, Rita. The only books you mention that I've read are the Avalon
series - and that was a long time back, so I don' have it clearly in
mind.

However, what you say makes sense. I have a hunch that earth religions
are particularly amenable to phantasy. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I
have the impression that Neo-pagan movements think want us to see our
own primary world as much personal and spiritual and powerful and
magical than we think. As such, a Neo-pagan could write fantasy that is
meant to be taken as more or less factual description of the way the
world really is. 

Presumably, the magic involved would be a bit toned down - not over the
top stuff that everyone agrees is impossible (to wit, Hogwarts style
magic) but forms of magic that a Neopagan considers to be part of the
natural order of things.

If I'm flaunting my ignorance, feel free to whack me over the snout with
a newspaper.

But if I'm at least going in the right direction, here's a parallel: The
Left Behind books, by Lahye and Jenkins. (For the record, I think
they're awful.) They give a fictionalized account of the end of the
world as a specific group of Christians - they're called
pre-tribulational dispensationalists - expect it to happen. They (think
they) hold to an extremely literal interpretation of the most esoteric
texts in books like Daniel, Ezechiel and Revelation - so if the Good
Book says the seas will be turned to blood, that's exactly what's going
to happen. 

At the level of plot, these books read like some of the most outlandish
fantasy fiction you've ever seen - only they're not meant that way.
They're mean to be a pretty close foretelling of things that are going
to be happening fairly soon.

It's hard to say whether they should be classified as a sort of fantasy
fiction. Their quthors don't actually think they're writing non-fiction;
it would be something more like carefully researched historical fiction
that happens to be set in the future.

I wonder if the situation is analogous.

Baaaaaa!

Aberforth's Goat (a.k.a. Mike Gray) 
_______________________

"Of course, I'm not entirely sure he can read, 
so that may not have been bravery...."