Science Fiction and the Imitation of the Sacred

This book examines science fiction’s relationship to religion and the sacred through the lens of significant books, films and television shows. It provides a clear account of the larger cultural and philosophical significance of science fiction, and explores its potential sacrality in today’s secular world by analyzing material such as Ray Bradbury’s classic novel The Martian Chronicles, films The Abyss and 2001: A Space Odyssey, and also the Star Trek universe. Richard Grigg argues that science fiction is born of nostalgia for a truly ‘Other’ reality that is no longer available to us, and that the most accurate way to see the relationship between science fiction and traditional approaches to the sacred is as an imitation of true sacrality; this, he suggests, is the best option in a secular age. He demonstrates this by setting forth five definitions of the sacred and then, in consecutive chapters, investigating particular works of science fiction and showing just how they incarnate those definitions. Science Fiction and the Imitation of the Sacred also considers the qualifiers that suggest that science fiction can only imitate the sacred, not genuinely replicate it, and assesses the implications of this investigation for our understanding of secularity and science fiction.

In his past work, Grigg has addressed the "new atheism," suggesting pathways to spirituality outside of organized religion and New Age silliness. Here, he looks to the science fiction genre to show how the form, even as its technology promises to overwhelm humanity, also points to the cosmos and untapped human possibility as bridges to the sacred., With characteristic clarity and insight, Richard Grigg has written a fascinating book about human nostalgia for a sacred reality that can no longer be readily experienced in a secular age. He argues that this longing for the sacred, muted elsewhere displays itself in works of science fiction. Scholars and students of religion, as well as fans of science fiction, will find much of interest here., This insightful and probing book offers readers an opportunity to understand and appreciate in new ways what the sacred has meant to human beings in the past, and might mean to us in the future., This book offers a coherent argument about the different ways in which science fiction can simulate the experience of the sacred which is found in all the major world religions. In doing so, it provides an insight into what some readers and viewers may be unconsciously looking for in science fiction.

Richard Grigg is Professor of Theology at Sacred Heart University, USA.