Residual spontaneous enchantment that can be elicited by religion, and its dwindling
One conceptualization (derived from Barfield and Steiner) that I have found helpful; is that modern Man is emerging from a situation in which we had a significant (and powerful) residuum of spontaneous enchantment, by which our experience was of participation in the world around us - and when this spontaneous tendency lay dormant until triggered by symbols, rituals, and various "spiritual systems".
This was the situation of Men in Classical and Medieval times - the times when institutional and formal religions emerged and dominated spiritual life.
But since around the advent of modernity - perhaps starting some 5000 years ago, but becoming dominant something like 2000 years ago in the Industrial Revolution era; we have been incrementally coming-into a situation when the spiritual systems with their symbols, rituals, texts etc are no longer able to evoke that latent enchantment (hence mass atheism) - or only weakly so (hence the feebleness of current religions - see 2020 for confirmation of this feebleness).
Because formal religions and spiritual systems really did work in the past; then it is usually assumed that they are the only and proper way of evoking enchantment here-and-now...
And then it turns out that they actually don't release our latent capacity for enchantment because that latent capacity to become enchanted by symbol and ritual has dwindled, often to the point of disappearance...
And Here We Are.
The usual inferences are:
1. Give up on religion because it doesn't work.
2. Hold fast to religion, even-though it doesn't work.
But my inference is that religion - no matter how effective it really was at eliciting the experience of enchantment, in some places and times - was itself only ever a spiritual system, and religion never-was the spirit itself.
Our task is to go behind religion and seek the spirit directly - with the expectation that strong, convincing, and motivating enchantment - shall reliably arise from such an encounter.
And this requires faith that personal seeking of direct spiritual experience is indeed what God wants from each of us, here-and-now.
This was the situation of Men in Classical and Medieval times - the times when institutional and formal religions emerged and dominated spiritual life.
But since around the advent of modernity - perhaps starting some 5000 years ago, but becoming dominant something like 2000 years ago in the Industrial Revolution era; we have been incrementally coming-into a situation when the spiritual systems with their symbols, rituals, texts etc are no longer able to evoke that latent enchantment (hence mass atheism) - or only weakly so (hence the feebleness of current religions - see 2020 for confirmation of this feebleness).
Because formal religions and spiritual systems really did work in the past; then it is usually assumed that they are the only and proper way of evoking enchantment here-and-now...
And then it turns out that they actually don't release our latent capacity for enchantment because that latent capacity to become enchanted by symbol and ritual has dwindled, often to the point of disappearance...
And Here We Are.
The usual inferences are:
1. Give up on religion because it doesn't work.
2. Hold fast to religion, even-though it doesn't work.
But my inference is that religion - no matter how effective it really was at eliciting the experience of enchantment, in some places and times - was itself only ever a spiritual system, and religion never-was the spirit itself.
Our task is to go behind religion and seek the spirit directly - with the expectation that strong, convincing, and motivating enchantment - shall reliably arise from such an encounter.
And this requires faith that personal seeking of direct spiritual experience is indeed what God wants from each of us, here-and-now.
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