All Shall be Well, & All Manner of Things Are Already Well
On Noticing the Sublime, in Front of Our Faces
Edward Gibbon - pining for the glories of Roman Imperium & Paganism
JMG has been putting on a clinic, in his series on Enchantment (and Dis-enchantment). Here is the latest. Full disclosure, I am a believer (in the Lord), so I do not endorse everything he argues for, obviously. I also think Owen Barfield may have “room” in him for a view much closer to JMG’s.
He is, however, in the main, correct to insist that it is not The World (as in the Cosmos) that has become disenchanted, but our own modern consciousness: dis-enchantment (as he puts it), is just another magic spell, and not one that is doing us much good to cling to, beyond the point that it allowed the development of (say) Science. The world is as enchanted as ever it was, although it may be a bit more quiescent, at the moment, on the surface.
I suppose I would add that there were enormous problems with the old pagan worldview, at least as it had concretely devolved into the horrors of (for instance) human sacrifice and demonolatry (JMG condemns this as equally as any ancient Christian would). Christianity did not destroy Roman paganism and the Empire; it was on its way out. Christianity resacralized Nature, and rebuilt the Empire. We call this The Middle Ages. It was pretty wild and magical.
Was it a perfect job? Of course not. Do we desperately need to learn from it? Obviously, so.
For the same danger and opportunity is confronting us today. Faustian civilization (only nominally “Christian” at this point), is dying. And so is industrial civilization, its kissing cousin. Once again, the old certainties fail, and the “gods” of the modern world are ailing and sick unto death, nigh unto passing away. The signs of their demise are “plenteous”, indeed.
Dr. Spengler diagnosed Faustianism a long time ago.
Let’s peruse the comments section of Ecosophia, which are illuminating this week-
Shallow, dogmatic, black and white thinking, which seems to be the result of a hollowed out society and its civilization, partly from the deliberate efforts of upper levels of society to control and loot everything…A few civilizations or countries succeed in getting through the destructive cycle by changing and adapting to what is happening. But most are stymied by people, usually the leadership, who don’t want change because they want it all to themselves. Much like I see our current situation. I mean disenchantment of our society partly exists because it is nurtured and protected by the elites who are benefiting from it. (#149)
We are going into a “Winter”, and need to think about “getting the seed corn laid by”. What will we re-emerge with, in Spring? What’s more important? Our sacred altars, or our cell phones? It looks to be that kind of devisive and stark choice. Not because cell phones are inherently evil, but just because on a trip like this, as you exit the Titanic, there’s a limit to the extra baggage you can haul on board the vessel. It’s hard to survive a cataclysm, if you have a lot of Stuff, especially gadgets, to try and bring along. Life, says Rosenstock-Huessy, is an emergency. It is, at least, especially so, when one forgets that it can be, collectively. Those who “take holidays from history” (Charles De Gaulle) find out that History made good use of the time to extirpate them by doing its own thing, in the meantime. And Faustian Civilization has been on holiday from history, for some very long time, now. Life has its own current of flow, which may, or may not, accord with “the little systems of our day”, or the normal arrangement of day-to-day life.
Francis Fukuyama said History was over. History hasn’t noticed his thesis yet. Who are you betting on?
Some people, again, are blaming the Christians.
As for how the disenchanted worldview ever came to be, I believe Ecosophy Enjoyer (post #15) nailed it right on the head in crediting Christianity as a major culprit. The late David Ray Griffin examined at length in his Religion and Scientific Naturalism (Chap 5) an interesting phenomenon that arose in Europe during the 16th/17th Centuries: the three-way battle between the worldviews of Aristotelianism, Hermeticism and the ‘Legal-Mechanical’ view, according to which God is totally separated from Nature and all movement and change in Nature are nothing but the mechanical interactions of physical bodies — as opposed to the Hermeticists’ view of things, which was very enchanted indeed and therefore viewed by the Church (sigh) as threatening. After all, the Hermetic vision of God in all things and all things in God would seem to make the Church impertinent. Hence the Church gave its full support to the ‘Legal-Mechanical’ view, which as we’d have guessed won out in the end. (#151)
The Church, of course, bears a portion of blame for how things unfolded. It is quite true that it threw a lot of support to the emerging Scientific view of things. But then, once again, the Church takes an eternal view, & it is just as much the case that the Church battled the new worldview. Has no one ever heard of Galileo? The Church can’t have both killed the old worldview, & killed the new one, & been “heavily involved” with supporting both, at the same time. If this were true, all of history would be a Church Conspiracy - and that would prove too much, or too little, as the case might be. It’s not so simple.
A more salient commentator gets to the real nub of things, illustrating (as we at The Squire would heartily approve) from Fantasy:
“There is a very interesting debate raging at the moment about the nature of sin, for example.”
“And what do they think? Against it, are they?”
“It’s not a simple as that. It’s not a black and white issue. There are so many shades of gray.”
“Nope.”
“Pardon?”
“There’s no grays, only white that’s got grubby. I’m surprised you don’t know that. And sin, young man, is when you treat people as things. Including yourself. That’s what sin is.”
“It’s a lot more complicated than that–”
“No. It ain’t. When people say things are a lot more complicated than that, they means they’re getting worried that they won’t like the truth. People as things, that’s where it starts.”
“Oh, I’m sure there are worse crimes–”
“But they STARTS with thinking about people as things.”The Quite Reverend Mightily Oats and the inimitable Granny Weatherwax discoursing in “Carpe Jugulum”, by Terry Pratchett. A wise man, was Sir Terry. (#85)
It starts by regarding People as It, as “Things”, including one’s Self.
Is this the way you see yourself? ie – as a being whose instinctual activity is more complex than might be thought, yet is wholly circumscribed by your physical characteristics, including genetics/epigenetics? (#110& 121)
This is no different than Yuval Harari’s official worldview, he-of-Soros’-right-hand-court-jester:
“Sapiens – A Brief History of Humankind” by Yuval Noah Harari. He is quite insistent: “There are no gods in the universe… outside the common imagination of human beings” (p. 28), (#88)
This is the Official Orthodoxy. If there are no gods, no invisible world, no World of Fairy, it’s a very short step from that to saying, There is no God.
For though there be that are called gods, whether in heaven or in earth, (as there be gods many, and lords many,) But to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him. - I Corinthians 8:5-6
It’s a difficult verse. but it’s hard to see how Christ is the Lord of Lords, if there aren’t lords. How can the Logos be the Logos, without the Logoi? Henotheism and Panentheism, in short, may be more Christian than disenchanted monotheism, which tends to become outright Deistic, no matter what you do to prevent that.
Saint Maximus the Confessor offers a curious reassurance to the reader of his Ambigua to John. In his description, deification, the “state [when] nothing will appear apart from God,” is the eschatological unity we hope for in Christ. The Confessor addresses the reader directly: “Let not these words disturb you, for I am not implying the destruction of our power of self-determination (αὐτεξουσίου).”[1] Maximus holds in tension obedience and freedom—of conforming our lives to Christ and retaining our own identity.
Luckily, the Reign of Quantity (far removed from Christ’s Kingdom) is coming to an end.
The Collapse and Apocalypse and Cataclysm and Revolution Was. It already Was. Wait till the Ukrainian War Distraction finally winds down (as it must). Wait till Joe Biden is out of office (finally). Banana Republics, even Banana Empires and Banana Civilizations, can’t last forever. Eventually, it’s all rotten bananas and tarantulas.
What to make of it? Banana republics of all stripes have several common denominators: They have a corrupt political class, including both ‘elected’ officials and unelected agency bureaucrats, who lie, cheat, and steal to consolidate power and concentrate wealth. They have a corrupt debt-based currency, run massive deficits, and resort to the printing press to scam the populace. All public restrooms are corrupted with carved graffiti and missing toilet seats. In good time, as a nation’s corruption spreads and becomes more pervasive it bleeds all private wealth from its citizens. Lastly, you know utopia’s been reached when the powerless majority are all equally poor. Link
When all of that finally goes up in a Poof, No Eyebrows moment, and we sober up at the cold, cold break of a steely dawn, it will be a lot easier to sense that the “Magic” is gone, specifically, the Black Magic that has enabled the Modern World to exist is a kind of simulacrum of Reality, suspended between Heaven and Hell, without having to commit to either. The death of the American Empire, will be the death knell of Modernity, although some shambling zombie successor Empire will no doubt hold sway, briefly, in a brave and shadowy imitation of Pax Americana.
The Spell of Dis-Enchantment is what is ending. Sauron was blown away in the Wind. And the New Wind is coming.
Secular Humanism is about to throw the Almightiest blood thrombus, in the History of Ever. Pop the Popcorn and enjoy the show. You will see them hoisted on their own petard. And, in the long run, people are going to be much, much happier than they are now.
There is a Wedding to attend: Arwen and Aragorn! And the Grail to discuss…
And the Shire to scour…
Things are still getting interesting.