In 1871 an English writer call Edward Bulwer-Lytton published a novel called “The Coming Race“, or “Vril, The Power of the Coming Race”

In the story an adventurer accidentally discovers an entrance to the subterranean world of an advanced race of humans called the Vril-ya. This is a race that fled the surface of the Earth thousands of years ago to avoid a great flood.

Over the centuries they have developed advanced technology and powers. Their powers come from the ability to control vril.

“…an explanation of which I understood very little, for there is no word in any language I know which is an exact synonym for vril. I should call it electricity, except that it comprehends in its manifold branches other forces of nature, to which,in our scientific nomenclature, differing names are assigned, such as magnetism, galvanism, etc. These people consider that in vril they have arrived at the unity in natural energetic agencies”

Vril was essentially a universal force that permeates, or is the underlying source of, all matter and energy. In the novel the author references the contemporary scientist Faraday and his work on electromagnetism as a primitive first step towards understanding the nature of vril.

Shortly after the novel was published a meat extract drink was created. To emphasise it’s health and energy giving nature it’s name combined the words Bovine and vril – Bovril.

The hollow earth dwellers, the  Vril-ya,  could control vril. This force could be used as a power source or a destructive force. It could heal and it could destroy. Vril could be controlled directly by individuals to varying degrees or through the use of a tool called a vril staff.

In the novel Bulwer-Lytton explores the society created by this technology. It is not a Victorian society by any stretch of the imagination. Women are equal to men and are the pursuers in romantic matters. Couples will typically only be married for three years after which they would have further romances but seldom remarry. Class has largely disappeared and there is no social unrest or conflict.

Bulwer-Lytton was writing in an age of great scientific discovery and social unrest. It was the era of Charles Darwin and Karl Marx. In his novel, he reconciles supernatural power with science. Vril is very much like “The Force” in Star Wars.

He also explores the impact of technology on society. Other hollow earth dwellers without access to vril live violent and dangerous lives. Scarcity leads to conflict but the free and unlimited supply of vril removes social unrest. The hero of the novel is endangered because he falls in love with the wrong person. In the land of the Vril-ya, a land of plenty, conflict is personal not political.

Although a bit of turgid read at times, this novel has so many links to modern concerns and trends it is still worth a look.

Not convinced? The book was so popular that many believed that the hollow earth and vril was real. Coming out of that belief is a whole subculture around the Vril Society, Nazi occultists, UFOs, and of course who could forget the secret reptilian race of Vril that has ruled society through the ages.