Enchanted (Post) Modernity

This chapter takes as its starting point present-day sociology and anthropology. It shows that today in neither Europe, nor America, nor the rest of the globe can one find the disenchanted world anticipated by the major theorists of modernity. It then uses sociological data to explore the function of enchantment today. Moreover, it unlinks traditional accounts of secularization and disenchantment to show that in many cases ghost and spirits come to ll the space evacuated by the putative death of God. Significantly, it begins to excavate one of the logics of occult disavowal by showing how belief in one form of enchantment often comes at the cost of another, such that supernatural beliefs can actively function in the service of disenchantment.

Aesthetics · Disenchantment · Epistemology · Function (biology) · Modernity · Paranormal · Political science · Politics · Secularization · Sociology · Space (punctuation) · Law · Medicine · Philosophy · Religion and Society Interactions · Religious studies · Religious Studies and Spiritual Practices