thomassheridan.substack.com In the late Victorian era, H.G. Wells and the Fabian Society used science fiction (Scientific Romances as they were called at the time)âas the earliest technocratic agenda was unfoldingâto ready the population to accept the ‘inevitable’. This form of predictive magic was spawned from, and within, similar social circles which also created the 19th century occult revival.
In 1871, a novel by a Rosicrucian named Edward Bulwer-Lytton entitled, Vril, the Power of the Coming Race, is perhaps the first work of science fiction designed to generate a real sense of expectation within readers. In that the story line itselfâas fantastical as it wasâmight eventually come to pass within the real world. Yet there was something else about this novelâeven beyond its sense of wondermentâwhich set Vril, the Power of the Coming Race apart from say, Jules Verneâs Voyages Extraordinaires of the same period. Bulwer-Lyttonâs Vril seemed strangely plausible. Influential occult figures of the period such as Helena Blavatsky and Rudolf Steiner, along with other Theosophists, claimed that the book’s narrative of a super human race living inside a hollow earthâand who possess the power of an energy form which they called Vrilâwas rooted in fact. Many others believed that the novel was too complex and detailed for it not to be factual….
