For me this is a particular point because I don't know how to lead an intellectual life without making at least the assumption of meaning, and eventually (to continue a satisfying and coherent intellectual life) that assumption needs to be examined, like every other core assumption (this is why I find deterministic and atheist philosophies so uninteresting, because they cannot possibly provide a basis for talking about meaning.

Now in the context of my own life and experience, this means thinking about God and my relationship with Him. Of course my characters don't have my background, but they do have to deal with the question of meaning if I'm going to write about them. I mean, I can't have much sympathy for a character to dull or cowardly to live the life of the mind and confront the ultimate questions.

Now, I know that we all come up with our own answers in confronting the nature of meaning (or meaninglessness, in the case of existentialism) and our individual relationship with questions of ultimate meaning (or again, the nature of our existential dispair). And I believe that it is possible to write about existential dispair (though pointers in that direction are welcome), but I am more interested in learning how we (as writers) deal with the spirituality of our characters as well as how we present their relationships with God.

But even though I want to present characters that have what I would consider the full complement of intellectual and spiritual experience, I am put off by the fear that I will be as embarrassingly "devotional", or irreverent as many writers that I have read when they try to portray religious experience (for example, who's read Bujold's Curse of Chalion?).

I'm asking this because I find that in a lot of fantasy and SF the encounter with God is...well, it doesn't intersect with any sort of transcendent experience of deeper meaning. Usually God is either totally absent or represented as a rather dimwitted superpowerful person...or whatever. And the encounter with transcendence is absent in both cases.

I guess that I'm assuming that those of us that have given some serious consideration to the questions of ultimate meaning have had some kind of experience with transcendent meaning other than existential despair or the incohate fury of will to power. Otherwise we would all kill ourselves or everyone around us. Since in either case we would not be writing on this board, the only other alterantive is that some of us simply don't care about such questions.

I have written all three (existential despair, incohate fury, and unthinking evasion of such questions) and I believe that certainly many characters (and people) fit into such catagories. But I certainly don't believe that all people or all characters fit into those catagories, or even most.

So I'm guessing that some people (other than just myself) must have experienced something other than despair, fury, or oblivion. If you haven't, then by no means feel obliged to answer, but if you have, then at some point you must have wondered how to present a character that has had those same experiences or similar ones.

Now I don't mean in the sense of THE truth, I mean in the sense of 'is this character responding to their spiritual experience in a way that somebody REALLY would?'

I think where problems arise in stories becoming 'embarrasingly devotional' AND in becoming irreverent come from:

1) portraying a character as having an overly idealistic spiritual life . . . in the case of the 'embarrasingly devotional' story.

2) the author attempting to be mocking of the belief in any sort of a higher power, or a spiritual life in general - in the case of irreverence.

There's a fine line between irreverence and portraying the normal doubts people have, just as there's a fine line between the 'embarrassing' ideal and the truly pious portrayal of spirituality.

Now, that's a vague answer, but it's also a vague question. So here's some examples of what I'm talking about.

Show me a character that kneels down and prays to their god, whoever it is, about EVERYTHING. But if you do, I want to see one of several things.

1 - I want to see results, intermittent or not, that convince this person that their prayers are useful and are being heard by some higher power, AND ANSWERED. Now this might be a negative result, that could be interesting if everything a person prayed for turned out the opposite way. But I want to see evidence. This evidence doesn't necessarily need to be an 'answer to a prayer', but there needs to be some evidence of the existence of said deity, and that's your job as an author to provide it. The problem is, I think, that your readers won't identify with this type of story as well, because there are not very many obvious answers to prayer, or signes of a benevolent higher power that are clearly , irrefutably such, at least not in our world. However, if your character believes it, and sees the results, we'll at least buy it in the context of the story.

2 - show me the doubts when this character's prayers AREN'T answered. If there is no tanigble evidence of this higher power they are worshipping, I won't believe their spiritual experience is truthful unless it involves doubting and question. And this goes for experiences/observatsions that COULD be evidence, or COULD be explained away, but aren't absolutely clear. (DAMN science! :-) Does this God really exist? If so, why doesn't he ever show himself? If he does, why doesn't he make it obvious? These are natural, truthful questions to have your character ask. If they aren't asking them . . . we won't believe in the character.

3 - Show me the influences in their lives that led them to this particular spiritual experience. For someone that's excessively cynical, to the point of atheism, show me what kind of environment they've been in that would lead them to such an experience. Have they been manipulated their whole lives in the name of a god? Have their doubts increased to the point where they no longer believe? And the same goes for the overly pious. Why are they so pious? Have they seen irrefutable evidence of a higher power? Just once is all it takes to sustain their beliefs for a lifetime, IF the experience is powerful enough. Or is it all a programmed behavior that has been ingrained into their existence? I've seen many Christians who claimed to 'feel the presence of God' who wouldn't understand the first thing about it. But they had been raised their whole lives shown that the example of a good Christian is one who does A,B,C and receives X,Y,Z intangible or subjective result because of it. These people think they are truly experiencing some sort of spiritual bliss, but it's a defense mechanism. They don't feel anything, but they imagine they do, so that they don't have to face the doubts which would mark them as 'bad' Christians. Show me a history like that in a character, and I'll be truly impressed with such a story.

And basically it all boils down to this. Given the experiences this character has had, can I really believe that they would be having the spiritual experience that they seem to be having? If the answer is yes, then I think that is an acceptable and effective portrayal of a spiritual or religious experience.

Now . . . what constitutes a 'truthful' spitirual experience? Now that's a MUCH harder question.

Being able to fabricate a world and character that has entirely different religious experiences requires a large amount of willpower. You first have to abandon your own faith (from now on when I say faith I'm including the faith that there is nothing to have faith in) and then rebuild it from that character's point of view.

The way I do this is a whole lot of deep thought about how I could be affected by experiences. OSC wrote Bean, an extreme atheist, and he's not an atheist at all. He said that he just pulled on the normal doubts of any religious person and extrapolated them. I've tried to do this with my latest character who is going to be converted from atheist to warrior-monk of an eastern religion; it's hard. One time my girlfriend saw me go into the trance where I was trying to abandon any belief (which meant constructing the entire persons past in my head). She said I looked possessed.

I think that writing a religious experience/character involves a whole lot of the work normally used to write a character.

I might go as far as to say that if you only really know one religion, just use that one and call it that. Building new religions is as hard as or harder than new languages, nations, species, etc. It takes thought and research. If you don't want to do all that, either omit religion, or go with an existing one that you know.

quote:

---

"I'm ten years old, my whole life you've called me Vanya. My name is on the school records, on government papers as Ivan Petrovich Smetski. Now you tell me I'm really Itzak Shlomo. What am I, a Jewish secret agent?"

---

Anyway, I'm not talking about portraying a religious doctrine or theology or community or tradition (I probably think that I know quite well how to do this to my own satisfaction, having lived my life as a sort of alien in the religious tradition I know best, after all), I'm talking about the particular experiences of meaning that underlie the pivotal transitions in a believable POV character's mental and ethical development throughout the narrative.

In other words, POV character encounters element X and becomes aware of a new way of looking at element X such that he undergoes a fundamental shift (or just as important, is prevented from a fundamental shift--belief affirmation is as essential as belief dissociation or negation) in his beliefs, and hence his ethics and values.

I'm hoping this isn't a rhetorical question designed to weed out the intellectuals from the 'wanna-bes'. I'll go ahead and continue under the assumption that it's not.

The problem is, it's a REALLY abstract question. There's no way of knowing whether we're even talking about the same things. It seems like you have a very specific idea in your head, be it a story you've written, or read, or one you want to write, but the topic is still hanging in that abstract philosophical ponderingsmode. Get specific. You'll have better results.

Ask for specific perceptions about your story/synopsis/character, I guarantee you'll get a ton of responses. Then, you're free to listen to or ignore any replies you feel are worthwhile or unhelpful, respectively. But right now, you're beating about the bush. Be specific, and you'll get results.

I guess my rant was a little off topic (though I stand by my statements on Enchatment: Ivan's mother is supposed to be sincerely Jewish, yet she worries about "consigning herself to Sheol" by her meddling in black magic -- pure Christianity).

Back on topic, though, I don't think I've had a majorly transforming spiritual moment. I tend to live more logically -- I am transformed either by encountering new ideas that are clearly true, or by encountering evidence falsifying a pre-existing belief. Of course, someone with firmer views on spirituality could ecounter such things in that field. Even so, I've found 'transforming moments' to be rather rare in real life. The Homecoming Series gives a much more believable portrait of human change.

In my own life, I've found that spirituality's main effect on me is to strenghthen me toward what I already believe. Religion is something I call on most in times of trouble, especially assimilitive pressure to abandon my principles (something much too common in my experience). I doubt this is true for everyone, but it's one possibility in writing.

To be more concrete (and more literary), consider a true warrior surrounded by mere soldiers (and accounted no status among them). The commander is planning to burn a village, killing everyone inside (especially women and children). This goes against the ancient warrior code he lives by, and is a terrible offense to his gods. His best chance to stop it is to go down first, alone, and challenge the entire enemy army. If he is victorious, there will be no need to burn the village. However, his chances of victory are about nil. He knows that he is honor bound to make the attempt, but he cannot bring himself to throw his life away. So, with only hours left, he wanders the forest near his camp seeking guidance. At long last, he comes upon a rowan tree, and recalls the legend of the great warrior Sir Rowan, who stood along before an oncoming army because he had no comrades beside him, and he delayed it enough for re-inforcements to arrive, and though he was slain just as the first hoof-beats of his companions were heard, he saved his village and the gods so honored him that they produced an entire species of tree to bear his spirit. He kneels by the tree and prays to Sir Rowan's spirit, then goes down that morning with a clear heart to do what must be done.

TTFN & lol

So, now that we're all on the same page (or Narvi, at any rate), how do you show a POV character experiencing a religious (rather than intellectual or more generally spiritual) epiphany?

By the way, I have to mention here that the reason that I'm asking is that I've found the portrayals of epiphany in the Homecoming series almost comical (okay, not just Homecoming, I think that I've mentioned some other writers that I felt came short of what they were trying for), and I've decided that religious (or existential) experience has to be at the core of my main characters.

I'm not opposed to writing about existential dispair (I mentioned this too, already), but I already know how to do that. I'm asking how to write about religious epiphany for the simple reason that I want my characters to get past existential dispair (and I don't believe that there is any intellectually satisfying answer to existentialism outside of religious {again, refering to the relationship of the individual to God or divinity, even within themselves} experience).

I am fond of those paranthetical comments, though...aren't I?

The reason that I can't be specific about a particular experience (as Narvi so helpfully was and Falken wishes me to be) is that I'm not talking about a single experience, but an element of experience that I want to make an everyday (though far from ordinary or mundane) part of my character's life.

Again, coming back to meaning, I want to write a character that can convincingly ask, "Why the hell should I do this?", "What's the point?" and "So what?" and answer all those questions in his own life.

Of course (as I mentioned), existential dispair is one answer, but I can only do so much with characters that subsist on hatred of their own existance (seeing as I'm to blame for their existing at all, I guess that means that they hate me, too ).

Yes, at one level this is a question about intellectuality. I mean, you can't avoid the question of why if you are devoted to the life of the mind, at least not forever. But I think that it at least can matter even to people that don't care for intellectualism (in fact, I have no use for intellectualism per se, any more than anti intellectualism, racism, sexism or any other -ism's I can think of). And I do find it a part of the mental life of the kind of character I want to write about.

"Why? Why me? Why now? Why should I?" Everyone askes these questions sometimes. And the mundane answers to these questions, as widely accepted as they generally are in our own lives, are really not all that intellectually satisfying.

I'm not sure if I follow your religious/intellectual/spiritual distinction, and I'm a little skeptical of its validity. "Religous" is not a very well defined term. Do you mean normative? (fundamental moral principles)

Anyway, some thoughts on epiphanies.

First off, I think epiphanies are overrepresented in fiction. Most real world change is gradual, and nobody's life is expressable as a short list of notable events.

Even so, epiphanies do happen. I would define them as externally induced sudden changes in the beliefs an individual actually believes (not just those he believes he believes). They are usually very directly percieved, and in very sharp contrast to the preceding beliefs.

So, let's play with some examples.

Consider a king. His father was terrible and cruel, and tortured to death anyone who criticized him or disagreed with him. This king tries his best to be different, and probably succeeds, but he can never be sure because he can't know if anyone would really dare to criticize him. He's done some unpleasant things, which he thinks were nessesary for the good of the country, but his father always said the same of his own horrors, and again, there's no reliable outside viewpoint. So the king is consumed by doubt as to his own goodness. Then his kingdom is conquered, and he hides in the hills with a handful of knights. After many days, he comes upon a guerilla army of peasants, ten thousand strong, determined to return him to power. Finally, he knows his people truly love him.

Now, this sort of inner healing looks rather secular at first, and like a rather extraordinary event. But what he discovers is his own worthiness, which is his own divinity, and what he truly claims for himself is the power of free will, that he need not be a slave to descent or upbringing or circumstance. These are surely religious themes. Now it is an extraordinary event, but that could be modified. He could have spent the past weeks searching for this army, of which he had already received word. Maybe he already met with the leaders, who promised him 10000 men, but only when he finally saw a single company of 500 in training manuevers, only then did he truly believe.

Let's try another. Consider a slave trader. As he supervises the loading of slaves onto a boat, a slave child falls into the water. Another slave (kidnapped from a different village) jumps into the water to same the child, but, because he is bound with iron shackles, drowns in the process. Later, he sees a child of his own class drowning, and realizes that, though he is a strong swimmer, his instinct is not to save the child. Combining the two, he begins to see slaves as human -- more human than himself.

I realize this is a bit cliched and overstated; it works here. Again, this seems very secular and empirical, but what he was doing was looking at other humans without seeing the image of God. Many Jewish teachers have identified this as the greatest sin, or perhaps the root of all others. Also, it looks very dramatic, but remember, the epiphany takes place with the second child. That one doesn't have to be dramatic. After a second's pause, he can jump in and save the child. Or the child might not have been drowning, he only imagined that part. Throw in a long time delay between the events (several years) to avoid convenient-coincidence-syndrome, and this becomes a rather internal epiphany.

I hope those are useful. I guess the point is to confront the character with very strong evidence of something very specific. This is sometimes awkward in religious/spiritual issues, which are often rather vague.

Now, as to applying some of this to existential despair. I would say, though without confidence, that existencial despair stems from a sense of falsehood and insignificance to one's surroundings. Sort of a 'none of this means anything.' Probably the strongest antidote to it is true joy. An alternative is true accomplishment. Think of when you first moved from doing things that were 'impressive for someone your age' to things that were simply 'impressive'. I think C.S. Lewis once wrote "Hell is a state of mind -- and any state of mind, alowed to grow inward onto itself, is Hell. But Heaven is reality itself."

Perhaps I use the term epiphany too loosely, but I do apply it to those instances when a deeper meaning becomes irresistably apparent through the medium of our experience and perception.

But of course, what to one person seems like an experience that clearly communicates a greater meaning than mortally apparent seems to another to convey just the opposite. Why should a man be moved, after all, by seeing an intellectually inferior being acting in an irrational and suicidal manner out of some primitive instinct, which he himself has mastered? Does every man that can raise an army justly claim that his cause is blessed and holy?

So how far do we go in allowing ourselves to portray the experience of transcendent meaning that necessarily validates or refutes the interpretation we place on experience?

In "Enchantment", Card limits himself to the experience of meaning as it comes to us (humans) in the experience of romantic love, particularly the experience of falling in love. I personally and intellectually regard this particular form of "meaning" to be highly suspect, having been in love a number of times (sometimes quite deeply) and finding no evidence in that experience that falling in love is anything more than a neuro-chemical cascade consistent with the reproductive instinct. Which is one reason that I don't imagine I'll ever be much for romance novel writing. But....

I realize that I'm not helping to elicit the information that I'm asking for. Perhaps I should ask a different question.

What are some specific examples of literature in which you (any of you) have found the portrayal of transcendent experience to be powerful and convincing?

How was that meaning conveyed (what elements of the narrative or portrayal were most effective, and where there elements that detracted from the effect)?

1) The author didn't interrupt to say "This epiphany has been brought to you by . . . " We just saw the pieces fall toghether in Blackthorne's head, then saw a very subtle change in his thought pattern for the rest of the story. Not a big change . . . he still seems like a foreigner, but after that scene, you can tell he has at least SOME sort of understanding of what drives the people around him. But other than Blackthorne reflecting on his own thoughts, the author doesn't interrupt to tell us 'He's had an epiphany'. It's all Blackthorne thinking "I'm seeing things differently." At least, that's how I remember it.

2) The characters around him IMMEDIATELY noticed a difference. The change that had taken place within him was SO distinct that everybody in his immediate vicinity felt the impact of the change as surely as he did, if not as intensely. This is important. If we're going to believe that this change is so dramatic, we have to see evidence of it. but the narrator is simply telling us, and we need somebody else . . . a character in the story . . . to corroborate this evidence you're giving us.

3) While the actions of the character may not immediately change, the way they perceive their own actions, and those of others MUST. Such as with the slaver who, though he may (or may not) jump in to save slaves from drowning, begins to be genuinely disgusted with himself for just letting them die. Those new emotions CAN be strong enough to motivate new behavior patterns instantly, or it may take a LONG time of those emotions building up before any behavioral changes are exhibited.

4) The altered state of mind. Such an abrupt change of belief as the epiphany necessarily results in an altered state of mind. When your perception of the world you live in is changed so drastically, is MUST be disorienting, or you haven't really had that big of a change. It's as disorienting as if somebody put glasses on you that made the whole world look completely up-side down. This experiment has actually been done. Imagine what that's like, how strange that would be.
However, the OTHER essential part of this equation is that the altered state wears off, and your character settles back down into a regular existence with this new perception. Return to the experiment with the glasses. After a relatively short period of time, the wearer of the up-side-down-making glasses actually starts seeing the world right-side-up again, while the glasses are on. If your character doesn't ever come to accept this newfound insight as a normal fact of life, doesn't ever adjust to it, we won't adjust to it either.

So . . . that's one example and the reasons why I think it was effective. How about a few more. Give me a moment here . . .

It's not literature . . . but American Beauty . . . Lester's surreal 'experience' with the blonde cheerleader at the start of the movie. That one has all four of those same elements.

Look at Starship Troopers (THE BOOK, the movie was a piece of crap) when Johnny Rico passes his 'hump' in Basic Training. The same four markers are there, though they are VERY subtle . . . one of the reasons I think that book was so good.

Another one I can think of is an Andrew Greely novel I read a while back, though I don't remember which one. (can't stand Greely, yuck!) The main char has an 'encounter' which changes his life immediately, and the rest of the book is about the fallout from that. This one IS put to the reader as a spiritual epiphany, and is the only instance I can think of in modern writing where that is the case. Although, if I remember correctly, SEVERAL Greely novels do soething like that.

And finally, take a look at some of C.S. Lewis' writing. Specifically, the Chronicles of Narnia. If you don't want to read the whole series, then just look in 'Prince Caspian' at the scene where Lucy wakes up, finds Aslan and convinces the rest of the group to follow her. For that matter, almost ANY encounter Lucy (or anybody) ever has with Aslan is a great example. And Lewis is great at putting VERY abstract spiritual/theological ideas into a concrete form in the stories he writes. Try reading the Narnia series, the Perelandra (sp?) series and 'The Screwtape Letters' and you'll get a VERY concrete picture of what are normally VERY ethereal theological/spiritual principles.

Now, those four 'marks' of a good epiphany are not meant to be gospel truth, or anything like that, but that's what I've noticed makes a good, truthful, powerful 'transcendant experience' in the stories I've read. I hope they're helpful in at least sparking useful discussion.

-Nate

First, the fact that transcendant experience isn't nescessarily an instantaneous epiphany. In fact it very rarely is. I actually wrote a short article about an experience I had (it's being published in a magazine called "spiritual awakenings" this summer. Woot!). At the very beginning of the article I summed up my thoughts on transcendant experiences. I said, "this isn't a story of one experience that changed my perception of the world. Those are just the stories that easiest to make interesting." or something along those lines. If you can make it gradual then it's just as good (the article talks about how last summer I had a "spiritual awakening" and then at the end of the fall semester I realized that with some practice I'd be able to share that same feeling with other people). Wow, I babbled really bad.

Next, that feeling you get when people stop saying, "that's good for someone your age" and start just saying "that's good/great/awesome." It's a great feeling. People have been telling me for a while that my writing is blatantly awesome (don't worry it hasn't gone to my head. I think they're just trying to earn brownie points.) There is something that meant more to me than even my parents, girlfriend, and some of my best friends telling me that my writing was awesome. It was people on this board tell me that my writing is merely good, because nobody knows how old I am or who I am. When somebody on the internet tells me that my writing is good it means that they like my writing, not that they like me in particular. (Oh yeah, having someone buy something I wrote was also a boost)

Now I'm thinking that what C.S. Lewis has Screwtape call "The Law of Undulation" is actually a very good way to illustrate that experience, having a character that varies over time between two worldviews....

Ok now you have gone and done it. You guys have just pushed all my hot buttons.

On the topic of religion in SF. I think that it is way underrepresented in the genre. 85% or so of the population profess some belief in a higher power and yet we rarely see religious experience portrayed in SF, unless it is some mystical made up religion e.g. Dune, or religious people are portrayed as fanatics (examples too numerous to mention). A good editorial on the subject appeared in Analog April, 2001. Also try to read the letters to the editor, the Brass Tacks column in subsequent issues. If you want to get anything religious published in Analog it might be helpful to know Mr. Schmidt?s opinion on such matters.

On epiphanies in general. Do some research. Look up the trial transcript of Joan of Arc. She lays out some pretty graphic details of what it was like to her to see saints and angels. If you have never had this kind of experience yourself talk to people who have. There are a lot of people to talk to. Check out Pentecostals and Mormons. Some charismatic Catholics may be some help. Do some research on bipolar disorder, especially mania. Speaking from personal experience as a practicing bipolar and devout Christian, mania is a lot like epiphany.

Get into the head and heart of the character and be honest. Don?t worry about being "devotional" just don?t preach. If the character is real and the setting and situation are real then you will convey the emotion that you want to.

Sam Ham, the 'environmental interpretation' guru, recently talked about a study at Idaho University looking at 'life-changing' experiences with nature. What were common factors associated with those changes and how they changed people -- they're hoping to find ways to recreate those experiences in others or at least create the opportunity for those experiences to occur.

Here is a link, it might be helpful, it is about amazing experiences with nature.

http://memory.loc.gov/learn/lessons/00/nature/overview.html

Oh and this is cool too: