July 10, 2021 On Rod Dreher and 'The Re-Magicking Of The World' In his latest substack offering, Rod Dreher shares reflections on 're-enchantment' as he prepares for his own effort to write a book on the subject.  Among other things, Dreher shares this quote from Jason Crawford's essay in the LA Review of Books; Right away one notices how eager our contemporary writers are to identify all the things we are not asking for when we ask for re-enchantment. Look again at James K. A. Smith’s call for “an account of the world that is enchanted but not magical,” or Joshua Landy and Michael Saler’s call for an enchantment “that does not come at the cost of naïveté, irrationalism, or hypocrisy.” These sorts of exclusions abound in the literature; we’ll have our enchantment without the magic, please, and without too much atavistic instinct or childlike innocence. Indeed, writing about re-enchantment is a great challenge for the modern secularist and the modern Christian alike.  The secular materialist has no room for enchantment in his worldview.  The Christian generally has no room for magic.  Is it possible in the end to have one while denying all space for the other? I believe this is why public figures such as Jordan Peterson, with his interest in psychedelics, and Paul Kingsnorth, whose personal conversion story includes a period living as a Wiccan Priest, might be able to speak to the modern seeker of 're-enchantment' both with more openness and with more resonance.  Kingsnorth in particular--who recently converted to Orthodox Christianity-can say what neither the average conservative christian nor the secular materialist can say.   My coven used to do its rituals in the woods under the full moon. It was fun, and it made things happen. I discovered that magic is real. It works. Who it works for is another question. If Christians want to 're-enchant' the flat modern existence in which we dwell, we are going to have to come to terms with this first--we'll have to re-magic it'. At least, we'll need to adjust our glasses so we can perceive magic again.  As Kingsnorth experienced, magic is real.  It may not be good, but we don't disempower it by saying it isn't so.  Let's acknowledge it.  A good first step might be to stop allowing the technical underpinnings or our technological advances to obscure their magical character.  A glowing television screen carrying live images of people far away has the capacity to entrance us in its glow.  We can "understand" that; to the extent that we are technically literate; with discussions of circuits and satellites, but has this really explained anything away?  It sounds not really so distinct from a discussion of an ancient charm. We combine these elements and these physical components in this way and they produce our desired effect.  Or consider the birth control pill.  We can "understand" it, to the extent that we are biologically literate; with discussion of the reproductive organs, but has this really explained anything away?  It sounds not so distinct from a discussion of an ancient potion.  Barrenness and entrancement, communication across great distances, invisible projectiles, night vision, nuclear bombs, vaccines, voice recordings; The failure to perceive the magical character in all of our limitless modern products is simply blindness.  And if that is so, there may indeed be magic which works on principles which modern man is not so literate about as electronics or biology.   In some sense we don't need to work to bring re-enchantment, but to prepare for it.  We are living through it, even if we call our magic science and our wizards wear lab coats.  There is no telling what nymphs and satyrs we'll loose before we are done.  Reality has a certain inevitability to it.