Reclaiming Enchantment in a Cynical Age

Dear Stella,

You won't argue when I say that our disenchanted society is descending into the dystopian, where kindness, understanding, and generosity are cynically lambasted as "woke." Intelligence is met with defiant pseudo-science, which is no substitute for wonder.

Anyway, I've be reading The Enchantment of Modern Life by Jane Bennett.* She says the the problem with our treasured modernity (which has given us reason, freedom, and control since the 17th century) is that we're left disenchanted and alienated from the physical world. We've given up gods, angels, fairies, and a lively relationship with the wisdom of nature for our air-conditioned homes, convenient highways, and short-lived, mass-produced bric-a-brac.

But then she argues that we can re-enchant our lives by deliberately seeking out wonder and re-attaching to a "vibrancy" beyond our puny, grumpy selves.

So what is that feeling of enchantment we should be looking for?

For Bennett, to be enchanted is to be struck and shaken by the extraordinary that lives amid the familiar and the everyday.

Enchantment is a state of wonder. Time and motion are suspended. We are transfixed, spellbound. We experience a "moment of pure presence." All of our senses are alive. We are exhilarated. And yet, we're also a bit scared. We shudder with a sense of strangeness. We experience the uncanny.

Most of her book focuses on examples of enchantment in modern life, but I'm sitting here trying to think up my own. How about these?

😲 Moving from a condo to a log cabin on Lake Ontario is a big one. Thinking we were just "buying a view," I was thrown into the experience of wind, waves, and grounds full of "medicinal herbs." I had no choice but to wholeheartedly throw myself into a new world, both discovering its joys and suffering its power to destroy.

😲 Dollmaking. Yep. Specifically, dolls with human faces that suddenly "come alive," imbued with the capacity to unsettle.

😲 Sometimes cold science is to blame for our disenchantment—everthing is explainable by some smarty-pants who got As in high school physics and can explain why wind roars. But even science is opening windows to the marvelous. Look at the growing knowledge about our own microbiome. The fact that humans live only by the grace of billions of non-human micro-organisms teeming inside us is both wondrous and weird.

😲 Artificial intelligence breakthroughs promise more enchantment. Everyone wants a lovable AI buddy, even as doomers project they will destroy civilization.

I could go on. Aspects of writing novels... family history revelations... collecting artifacts from around the world... travel... all have their epiphanies, their spellbinding "moments of pure presence."

Bennett urges us to flesh out the narratives of these flashes of enchantment to create "alter-tales" that counter the resentment-filled and exhausting disillusionment with contemporary life. The process will nurture our attachment to a livelier universe. This loving attachment will, in turn, encourage us to be more generous and will open our minds to better ethics around caring for the future of our planet.

What do you think?

Write soon, xoxo Susan
29 Mar. 2025

Interesting books on the subject, so far

*Jane Bennett. The Enchantment of Modern Life: Attachments, Crossings, and Ethics (2001). In a disenchanted society, we need to cultivate everyday moments of enchantment. A wondrous attachment to the world helps build a spirit of generosity and a commitment to preservation.

Meghan O'Gieblyn. God, Human, Animal, Machine: Technology, Metaphor, and the Search for Meaning (2021). Increasingly, technology challenges our worldviews. Combining personal anecdotes, history, and philosophy, the author urges us to rethink the core questions of existence—identity, knowledge, the very nature and purpose of life itself.

Erik Davis. TechGnosis: Myth, Magic, and Mysticism in the Age of Information (2015). How does our fascination with technology intersect with the religious imagination? Davis argues that while the realms of the digital and the spiritual may seem worlds apart, esoteric and religious impulses have in fact always permeated (and sometimes inspired) technological communication.

Michael Saler. As If: Modern Enchantment and the Literary Prehistory of Virtual Reality (2012). Once 19th c. science relieved people of the fears of superstition and uncertainty, the imagination was free to invent new worlds, free to be enchanted but not deluded.

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Books from Mad in Pursuit and Susan Barrett Price: KITTY'S PEOPLE: the Irish Family Saga about the Rise of a Generous Woman (2022)| HEADLONG: Over the Edge in Pakistan and China (2018) | THE SUDDEN SILENCE: A Tale of Suspense and Found Treasure (2015) | TRIBE OF THE BREAKAWAY BEADS: Book of Exits and Fresh Starts (2011) | PASSION AND PERIL ON THE SILK ROAD: A Thriller in Pakistan and China (2008). Available at Amazon.