"Living, being in the world, was a much greater and stranger thing than she had ever dreamed."—Ursula K. Le Guin, The Tombs of Atuan
Image credit: Tithi Luadthong Art, Thailand
New Myths
Part 9 in the series, A Literary Search for Meaning by Karen Hughes Joseph Campbell argues that myths offer life models and such models “have to be appropriate to the time in which you are living”; modern life requires mythologies
Spirituality and Speculative Fiction in Australia
Part 5 in the series, A Literary Search for Meaning by Karen Hughes While Australia has strong traditions of Celtic-influenced medieval fantasy set in European locales, gritty science fiction with harsh desert and “cruel bush” settings, and literary realism focused
A New Mythology for our Modern Age
Part 4 in the series, A Literary Search for Meaning by Karen Hughes The growth of the modern seeker movement demonstrates a need for the kind of spiritual, philosophical and psychological connection with the world that, religious historian Mircea Eliade
Spiritual Re-Enchantment through Speculative Fiction
Part 3 in the series, A Literary Search for Meaning by Karen Hughes If the proponents of the secularisation theory were wrong in their predictions and Western culture is now experiencing a spiritual resurgence, how might speculative fiction, as an aspect of
The Quest for Mystical Experiences
Part 2 in the series, A Literary Search for Meaning by Karen Hughes Whether couched in religious or humanist terms, it is the individual journey of the seeker that characterises modern Western spirituality. According to Paul Heelas and Linda Woodhead,
The Rise of Modern Spirituality
Part 1 in the series, A Literary Search for Meaning by Karen Hughes The dramatic rise of individualised Western spirituality in recent times contradicts the theory that urbanisation, rationalisation and modern scientific thinking must naturally result in the end of
Introduction
Introducing the series, A Literary Search for Meaning by Karen Hughes Western society is in the midst of a cultural shift. Despite past arguments that secularisation would erode the social significance of religion and cause the “disenchantment of the world”