The last three posts in our ongoing discussion of the history of enchantment have examined the work of three influential writers on the history of consciousness—Ken Wilber, Owen Barfield, and Jean Gebser. All three of them, as we’ve seen, discuss the state of consciousness summed up in the word “enchantment,” the condition in which the…
Tag: disenchantment
Against Enchantment 3: Jean Gebser
In the months just passed I’ve pursued an exploration of the myth of disenchantment—the notion that our civilization, for the first time in human history, has shaken off the comforting daydreams of myth and magic in order to see the universe in all its cold and uncaring reality. So far, in the course of that…
Against Enchantment I: Ken Wilber
Two weeks ago we talked about Max Weber’s claim that the disenchantment of the world is one of the basic elements of modernity, Jason Josephson-Storm’s counterargument that Weber was engaged in an attempt to erase the presence of magic and enchantment in modernity, and the way that Weber’s claim, inaccurate as it is, expresses one…
The Nature of Enchantment
Back in the autumn of 2020, as the Covid virus and the US presidential election monopolized headlines across the corporate media, I made a post here talking about Max Weber’s famous claim that “the disenchantment of the world” was among the core features of modernity, and the then-recent challenge leveled against that claim by Jason…
The Mask of Disenchantment
When I noticed at the beginning of the month that September had five Wednesdays, and I didn’t have anything in mind to post here for the fifth of them, I asked my readers for their suggestions, following an old custom here that I’ve recently revived. As usual, the resulting discussion was lively and quite a…