I hardly ever listen to music when I’m driving. I prefer podcasts, and Ancient Faith Radio’s Lord of Spirits comes up from time to time. Those guys have good material, if you can get past all the chirpy chuckling and their ending of nearly every declaratory sentences with “Right?” For that reason, I have to take long breaks from listening. But in their introductory bit, they always reference the “enchanted world,” and our longing for it. Re-enchantment is a subject that has been widely discussed within American Orthodoxy for a number of years.
The particular terminology seems to have been set in motion with Charles Taylor’s A Secular Age (2007). His is a seminal work, and it is, I might add, one that I have not read. The book is huge and terribly expensive. Like most who are interested in the subject, I approached it through the accessible and affordable How (Not) to be Secular: Reading Charles Taylor by James K. A. Smith. I find it to be one of the most useful books on my shelf.
In Taylor’s telling, the world was once transcendent and Enchanted. As he observed, it would be hard to find someone in 1500 who did not believe, the curiosity about higher things came natural to man. Today, in our flattened, immanent Disenchanted world, believers do so in spite of their doubts, with Faith being one option among many. In the old world, “things” were fraught with meaning. Now individuals, with their personalized subjective opinions, are the center of meaning. Per Pascal, our indifference had to be learned.
I believe Taylor’s theory to be a largely true and accurate explanation of our world; it is the water we swim in and cannot be avoided. This subtraction theory of Disenchantment is simply one way—there are others—in which to view the entire Protestant Reformation/Catholic Counter-Reformation/ Enlightenment/Liberal Democracy/Capitalist/Cult of Progress 500+ year project of deconstruction.
The discussion of Enchantment, Disenchantment and Re-enchantment has been a lively one in American Orthodox circles ever since Taylor’s work was published. So I am not plowing new ground with these thoughts. I understand Rod Dreher’s next book will address the subject. I’m a little apprehensive about this, as he is something of a lightening rod for some (no pun intended), and I hate to see this particular issue become polarizing. And this subject is not confined merely to the Orthodox, Catholic or magisterial Protestants. One of my favorite journals, The Hedgehog Review: Cultural Reflections on Contemporary Culture, devoted their July 2015 issue to the subject of Re-Enchantment. (And I believe this issue can be purchased separately from them.) One of the best pieces in that issue posited that we never really became disenchanted at all, but rather switched our enchantment to Mammon. I would not argue against that proposition.
So for anyone who takes seriously the abject hollowness of our Age and the pervading sense of loss, the question becomes, “How can the world be Re-enchanted?” Well, the short answer is, “It can’t; or at least not by us.” For all the usual reasons, that world has been jettisoned over the last 500 years or so and I do not think we can jump-start it. We cannot re-read Tolkien and suddenly catch glimpses of elves hiding behind trees in the park. And yet, a sober recognition of this reality should not condemn us to a fatalistic and deterministic rejection of the possibility.
My priest and I had a gentlemanly discussion about this the other day at a class after Matins. He believes that the world cannot be re-enchanted for, as he put it, “we know too much.” I think I understand what he was saying: modern man being immersed in knowledge becomes too skeptical to accept Enchantment. He may very well be right, but I hope not, or not exactly. My position is that we cannot engineer our Re-enchantment, but we must still allow for the possibility of it. As Orthodox, when we seek out the Holy places, when we venerate the relics of the saints, when we kiss the icons on our walls, are we not recognizing that very real Enchanted world? Who is to say that one might not perhaps catch a whiff of it now and again. Walker Percy suggested this:
In the old Christendom, every one was a Christian and hardly anyone thought twice about it. But in the present age the survivor of theory and consumption becomes a wayfarer in the desert, like St. Anthony; which is to say, open to signs.”
And I also question our knowing too much. We are not, as we believe, the End of History. Knowledge has been gained, lost, and partially regained time and again. Samo Burja makes an interesting point. We know the names of countless ancient Greek writers, and yet only a miniscule portion of any of their writings survive. He further notes that the odds are that what did survive was not what was considered their highest learning, but rather what was broadly disseminated. We are far from the first knowledgeable Age.
So yes, we live out our lives in the flat materialism of the creation-worshipping world we have fashioned. But I do not quite accept the limitation that denies any possibility of glimpsing the world we rejected and yet yearn for.
My same reaction to the LOS pod... i think we have got to be reenchanted otherwise where is the space for faith??
Great quote by Burja, who I look forward to reading more from after your recommendation. It is somewhat predictable and short-sighted of us to think that the writings and work of the ancients which remain are inherently "the best".
What illuminating texts or ideas were obliterated at Pompeii?
How many books or paintings have been lost to time throughout all history for the crimes of being heretic, sacreligious, or simply offensive to a few. Perhaps cancel culture is simply a recurring theme of civilization.
Was Galileo "cancelled"?
What do you think?