more on enchantment

In response to my recent post, Brad East defines enchantment as:

a true apprehension of reality as it actually is: the fallen but good handiwork of a loving Creator; the recipient of his lasting care and unfailing providence; the medium of astonishing beauty; the impress of his grace; the theater of glory as well as of suffering; the audience of the incarnation; the vehicle for the eventual final epiphany of God become flesh. Here, in this cosmos of the Spirit, truth is discovered and disclosed, communication lies at the heart of things, and the grain of reality is compassion and mercy, not brute violence. The numinous is not psychotic, it is to be expected — if not to be sought, since this world is the haunt not only of angels but also of demons. You and I live our small and out of the way lives as bit parts in the grand drama of a cosmic struggle between good and evil, the triumph of the former secured but not yet manifest. Join which side you will.

But this is to say that “enchantment” is merely another name for Christianity. If that’s what enchantment means, then of course I am all for it.

But that’s not what “enchantment” means; it has never meant that. There are ten thousand ways of rejecting the idea of “the world as fundamentally meaningless, chaotic, and godless, and therefore inert or plastic before the constructions and manipulations of rational man,” and Christianity is only one of them. You can also believe that the sun is angry with us and demands sacrifices; that our ancestors hover about us and plead for (or demand) our honor; that witches steal men’s penises; that this amulet wards off evil spirits; that God does not yet exist but is emerging through the dialectical process of history; that you have a lucky number that will enable you to win a pile in Vegas; that you are well on your way to becoming an operating Thetan. And as I keep saying — though to no avail — in relation to many or all of these beliefs Judaism and Christianity are disenchanting.

(Also, I didn’t know that Rod had written a book on this subject, or I probably wouldn’t have made my original comment. I think Rod some time ago took a disastrous turn in his thinking, but I wish him well and don’t want to say anything against him. My post was prompted by the new DBH book, Paul Kingsnorth’s many posts on holy wells in Ireland, and a lot of the people Tara Isabella Burton writes about.)