The border of life and death, the latent powers of the human mind
Forbidden knowledge hidden and disguised
not what we usually think of as science, but still the basis for some great sci-fi
Over the next few episodes I want to dive into some truly weird sci-fi
but to truly understand it you have to understand where it's coming from
And to understand that you have to understand the scientific environment of the late 19th and early 20th Century
the turn of the 20th century was the last true golden age of the occult
Everyday science was revealing new wonders about our world
and allowing people to do so many things that might before have been considered Magic
it seemed like there was no limit on the possible
at the rate We were discovering new things it seemed like anything might be real
which led to an era of authors Exploring the fantastic
some of it was a response to 19th century rationalism
some of it was a holdover from the Romantic movement, Wanting to put some magic back into the world
some of it was just an earnest exploration of avenues of existence, science had previously overlooked
Some of it was hucksters looking to part fools from their money and
some of it was bored rich people just looking for something that
Felt exciting dangerous and transgressive to do on a Saturday night
but wherever it came from this was an era in which the occult started adopting the trappings of science and
science in turn began exploring the possibilities of the occult and the
Occult became enormously popular
it was so popular that people ranging from Abraham Lincoln to Arthur Conan Doyle attended séances and
notable scientists and engineers like Thomas Edison took a serious look at the
scientific basis for a supernatural phenomenon
telepathy, astral projection, communing with the dead through seances and
other occult practices had not yet been totally dismissed as unscientific
and as such they became hip in a counterculture way
these Occultist things were edgy and full of mystique
so science fiction writers always on the edge of that fringe took these ideas Ran with them
after all, the occult seemed to provide such great answers for many of the problems We face in science fiction
you want to travel around the universe at incredible speed well Just do it as an astral projection
you want to have faster than light communication
silent communication
communication between species that don't speak the same language
great, telepathy makes all of that possible or
Maybe you're just looking to throw in some really scary critters that know your every thought
I mean telepathy is great for that too
Have you written yourself into a corner and
need your heroes to have answers. There is no way They'd have access to
just have them commune with the dead
You want to make your character exotic and powerful
just throw all of the occult stuff at them And your readers will eat it up
This was a frequent go-to for a lot of bad sci-fi
a lot of the early pulp Sci-fi to come out was rife with this stuff
and often these ideas would even be treated like scientifically proven fact
Just so the work could maintain that essential sci-fi dictum of feeling like it's possible
But these ideas weren't only used for bad sci-fi
There was a lot of good science fiction - or at least important science fiction
that really picked up on the underlying element going on with all that occult phenomena
the idea that we live in a world we fundamentally can't control
the idea that there's more to this world then even science tells us
and that's important because At this point in history, the world was getting smaller
Science was shattering many of the world's old mysteries and
shining a light on many of the dark recesses of human ideas
and at the same time
Exploration and communication were rapidly removing all those places on the map marked here there be dragons
By the time you get to Lovecraft
If you want monsters on earth that any readers will believe might exist you've got to go to the Arctic or bury them at sea
Today we can't even do that
So why did so many of these sci-fi authors play with the occult?
Well because the ability to speak with the dead, to project out over time and space,
to manipulate reality through a powerful enough mind
these are Terrifying concepts
they hint at a world behind ours
They tell us that all the comfort and security our Science has given us is but a veneer
and that there are much more terrifying things out there
just past the boundary of this tiny circle of light science has created and
Horror writers like Lovecraft used this to terrify
But other authors like Hodgson, Lindsay and Stapleton came to a different realization
they realized that the bizarre reality of the occult can be used to blast away our preconceived notions
and set up a Fundamentally unsettling space where we simply can't know what's meant to be real
these authors would establish science fiction's Flirtation with the occult
and the ability of later works like dune to justify
Nearly occult powers within a work of science fiction through a combination of genetics training and drugs
Which incidentally I am sure we will talk about later when we get to the time period where
psychedelics were readily available
And questions of the latent abilities of the mind once again enter the public consciousness
and are being explored at least semi scientifically
but for right now
We're gonna march boldly on to the Forgotten foundations of sci-fi
Those novels that were too weird or obscure or difficult to ever get much notice outside of Syfy's most committed students
the works Which owed their weirdness to this turn-of-the-century world where
pseudoscience was often seen as being the cutting edge of science itself and
While it is true that the bizarro works that spill out of the strange romance between
Sci-fi and the occult were a bit too much for most audiences
you want to know who did study them?
Devoured them ate them up
It was many of the best-selling best-known names in science fiction
because for a while there if you had already read
Fernand Wells and were still hungry for more science fiction that wasn't just a Western in space
These works are where you would end up
And we will look a little closer at them next week to see their impact on the history of science fiction