Experiences of the Ineffable and the Numinous in Speculative Fiction Stories

Abstract

Speculative Fiction offers us stories which deal with themes and issues that are often daunting, and go far beyond our current understanding of 'reality'. The plots of such works have filled the pages of many books with bizarre contraptions, unimagined possibilities, and astonishing worlds and future lifestyles far beyond our sense of the possible. They strain and stimulate both the scientific and the mythic imagination, and our ability to conceptualise. While the scientific imagination may seek to grasp and describe the infinite Cosmos through equations and hypotheses, the mythic imagination - in contrast - tends to ponder in awe, and total humility, upon the beyond. It might well be said that Speculative Fiction appears to create a space in which the ineffable or the numinous may be experienced by its readers. Paradoxically, this transcendent possibility is often to be found in the more apparently scientific works of the genre. It even occurs in moments that seek to glorify worldly - or other-worldly - technological achievement.