A world too empty

The world as we find it is a stage entirely empty, except for us.

And so we people it richly, if not with gods and demons then at least with ghosts, sprites, fairies, and wizards.

A world entirely shorn of the supernatural is too vast a wilderness.

Thinking of Shakespeare, secular history, and secular literature.

And Bulgakov.

Like secular history, secular literature need not be anti-religious, nor is it generally, I suppose, written by atheists.

And as to literature I think there are at least two grades of secularity.

Shakespeare is secular in that God, Christ, devils, angels, gods and demons do not have roles as characters, though ghosts, magicians, fairies, and the like do.

On the other hand, it is normal for nothing supernatural to appear, at all, in euro-white literature written since the 18th Century, unless with tongue in cheek.

And that even when the characters, viewpoint, or author are frankly religious.

Like aliens in science fiction or the fantasies of utopian literature, supernatural beings, like Hercules or Zeus in some Hollywood epic, can appear as characters without prejudice to secularity if understood and presented as fantasy and without belief.