What is Enchantment, and What Follows?

with Patrick Curry

We shall consider the experience of enchantment closely in two ways. One is through some personal accounts of deep wonder. The other is by exploring its chief characteristics, dynamics and conditions. These include relationality, participation, wildness, metaphor and paradox, and ‘concrete magic’ (Max Weber). Although enchantment is a universal human experience it is also a highly distinctive one, so it is important as well to recognise what it is not. That leads us to consider the nature of disenchantment, especially deliberate disenchantment as part of the project of modernity. We shall also think through some challenging implications of taking enchantment seriously for being ‘in the moment’, for Oneness, for contesting materialism, and for progressive programmes of change. Finally, we shall enquire into the possibility of a way of life oriented to wonder.