The Mystical Visions of René Descartes

A Christian guide to a reenchanting world.

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On the evening of November 10, 1619, a mercenary got lost in a dream. It was bitterly cold, and the winds were prowling. For several years, our man had studied—engineering first, and military affairs. Then mathematics, at which he excelled. That night, however, he would learn something more. 

His name was René Descartes and he dreamed three dreams. 

In the first he was struck by a powerful wind. In search of refuge he turned toward a church, but  before he could enter, a man called his name. Monsieur N, said the voice, had a gift for Descartes. It was some kind of melon, it seemed. Alas for the philosopher: Before he could see it, he woke to a pain in his side. 

In the second he heard a noise he took to be thunder; when he woke golden sparks flooded the room. 

And then came the third. 

In that dream Descartes approached a table with two books: a dictionary, and an anthology of Latin poetry. Significantly, Descartes could read it. He saw in the anthology the words of Ausonius, “Which way of life should I follow?” As if to answer that question, a man appeared and gave Descartes the title of a poem: “Yes and no.” Descartes turned to that page. No poem was there. At that moment the man and the book disappeared.

Even so, Descartes understood. 

(Note: According to the biographer Adrien Baillet, René Descartes unraveled the dream. “The anthology now means Revelation and Enthusiasm, and the yes and no are those of Pythagoras”…the melon signifies "the charms of solitude"; and the wind, together with the pain in his side, are effects of the "evil Genie" working against the force that had directed him toward the church in the first place. Finally, the terror of the second dream is Descartes's "remorse of conscience"; and the thunder represents "the signal of the Spirit of Truth.” I realize that may be unclear to you and me but most witches would get it (if a man in a dream hands you a book, take care; if you can read it, take extra care) and Descartes got it too.) 

In those dreams he received from something the seeds of Rationalist philosophy, a project that, in putting the reasoning mind at the center of all understanding, would destabilize the Western world. 

Now. 

Why are we talking about Descartes? 

To make a simple point: Even the architects of disenchanted Modernity were not themselves disenchanted people. In fact, Descartes was hardly the last pioneer to receive information from a dream—Mendeleev, Niels Bohr, August Kekulé, and Albert Einstein, to name a few, did too. There are more recent examples. 

And yet the main result of their work was that Late Modernity turned out to be a place of emptiness and alienation, a place that is—in Max Weber’s famous term—disenchanted. There are no gods, no spirits, no God. 

(Note: If you’re the kind of person who would like to know more about “reenchantment” as an idea, I’ve included a discussion in a footnote.)

How are we to resolve this paradox? 

Like so: The disenchantment of Late Modernity—with its attendant scientific materialism—is itself a kind of enchantment. It is, as one missionary put it, a demonic lullaby. Now, that spell seems to be breaking. And the big question is: Will Christians recover their spiritual inheritance in time to be useful? 

We are living in a schizophrenic age. On the one hand Western Christianity is in decline and faith in general is out of style. On the other hand the Western world is reenchanting at a blistering rate. I mean really: There are more witches in the U.S. than there are Presbyterians, therapists are looking to Animism to address intergenerational trauma, and even activists are trying their hand at (very amateur) spells to achieve their goals. As one Wiccan memorably put it: “Anger brings people together in ways hope sometimes can’t.”

This is something more than a pagan revival; it is a full-blown spiritual arms race. How are those of us who are in Christ to navigate times like this? 

In short, by becoming radical disciples.

This is Part Two in a mini-series on three trends in Western Christianity. If you missed part one, you can read that here. In this post I’m going to talk about Christian reenchantment: what it is, why it matters, and how you should respond. 

That you should respond feels self-evident. As Karl Rahner so famously put it, “The Christians of the future will be mystics or they will not be Christians at all.” Or, as Rod Dreher writes in his upcoming book, “If we prefer to rely on the fragility of both secular rationalism and a Christianity whose once-strong God has been reduced to a mere moralist or political activist, or relegated to the status of cosmic butler or genial grandfather, we’re not going to stay Christian. Even worse, if we allow the gods of AI and related technologies to possess us, we will in time cease to be human.” That is strong prose but it is not an exaggeration. 

Buckle up. 

Part I: Disenchanted Faith

In 1963, in an address to Sweet Briar College in Virginia, the literary giant Flannery O’Connor made this crushing remark: “The supernatural is an embarrassment today even to many of the churches.”

That is a fact and the situation did not improve in the following decades. After the 1973 film “The Exorcist” came out one Jesuit priest (a professor at Georgetown University) told Newsweek he didn’t believe demons existed. Famously, it wasn’t until the late 1990s that prominent voices in the Roman Catholic Church said spiritual warfare was something the Church should take seriously; it wasn’t until almost thirty years later that Pope Francis (perhaps surprisingly) agreed. 

The situation was not better in the Protestant stream. I attended two different Christian colleges and I can tell you: If you were the kind of Christian who expected anything spiritual to occur—charismatic phenomena, words of knowledge, faith healings, warfare, or just God speaking—you were such a weirdo. If you were the kind of Christian who expected God to do anything, that was even worse. 

I mean, it’s something of an easy target, but in Brian McLaren’s 2022 book Do I Stay Christian?: A Guide for the Doubters, the Disappointed, and the Disillusioned, McLaren gives ten reasons to stay Christian. Not one of them is because Jesus is Lord and not one of them has anything to do with Christianity being true. 

What we’re talking about here is disenchanted Christianity and that means more than the loss of angels and demons. It is the loss of a meaningful universe. 

Somewhat comically, the philosophers Michiel Meijer and Herbert De Vriese include the following list of “notions which are crucial to human self-understanding but have no place in a scientific worldview” in their introduction to the wonderful book The Philosophy of Reenchantment: “enchantment, strong evaluation, transcendence, resonance, perceptual experience, religious meaning, moral experience, interpretation, attention, and the sacred or reverence-worthy,” as well as “a fundamental existential orientation towards what is seen as meaningful and of value.”

That is a comprehensive list. If Meijer and De Vriese are correct—and I think they are—what’s left for Christians to talk about? Very little. 

How such a weak expression of Christianity came to be acknowledged as Christianity is a long and bizarre story. Part of it has to do with the Modern invention of a purely secular space—no spiritual talk allowed here!—and the corresponding decline in spiritual understanding. But a lot of it has to do with Christian excesses from over a thousand years ago. In his (wonderful!) book on Jesus, Bishop Robert Barron makes this astute observation: 

“...liberal modernity can best be seen as an energetic reaction to a particular and problematic version of nominalist Christianity. Early modernity saw itself as a salutary response to oppressive and obscurantist strains in Christian culture, but since it was reacting to a corruption of true Christianity, it itself became similarly distorted and exaggerated. As a result, the two systems settled into a centuries-long and terribly unproductive warfare. Even when the two attempted a reconciliation (as in all forms of liberal Christianity in the past two centuries), the results were less than satisfactory, precisely because each party was itself a sort of caricature.” 

Do you see his point? Medieval Christianity, though strong in many ways, was also beset by internal corruption and political oppression. Late Modernity overreacted to those elements, and the effect was that most Western Christians slowly became—in Christian Smith’s language—Moral Therapeutic Deists. 

We thought there was a God, somewhere. We thought people should behave. We thought that people should feel better. So we reduced Christianity to those very underwhelming precepts and Christianity became a caricature of itself.

By the way, it is precisely that Christianity—disenchanted, unrooted, undiscipled Christianity—that is in decline.

But that’s not the only thing happening.

Part II: A Reenchanting World 

Join me for a thought experiment: Next year, the Western world decides there are no microorganisms. Washing your hands is superstitious, boiling your water is pre-modern magic, staying away from visibly ill people is ignorant bigotry. “You still believe in bacteria? Incredible!”

This altered worldview would have deadly consequences. Can you imagine how sick people would get? How bad would life have to get before people wondered, “What are we missing?”

The answer is pretty bad because something like that is happening now. 

In his book on wonder, Roman Catholic philosopher Kenneth Schmitz observed, “The expansion of our glance beyond the modern horizon is already under way, not so much through postmodern criticism as through the efficacy of environmental concern…it is in that concern that we hear the voice of nature itself, turning its own weapons upon us. Such an inconceivably immense force cannot be ignored or dominated for long.” 

His point is that under a disenchanted regime the earth itself has suffered. You can find stories like this in almost every discipline: the secular academic Louise Perry wrote The Case Against the Sexual Revolution after discovering how horrible it was for women and children. The secular historian Tom Holland wrote Dominion when he realized that pre-Christian civilization was by definition brutal and coming back. Therapist Resmaa Menakem wrote My Grandmother’s Hands when he realized that undiluted rationality could not solve issues of racism. 

As I’ve read my way through the literature surrounding reenchantment, I am surprised by how often reenchantment comes down to a single catalyst: death. Scientific materialism has produced death at an unprecedented scale, and people are searching for a better way. 

The psychologist M. Scott Peck defined mental health as “commitment to reality at all costs” and it is precisely that commitment that is driving a new interest in all things enchanted. And to be clear, when I say that the world is becoming “reenchanted,” I don’t mean that the world is repopulating with spiritual beings. The world has always been spiritual: What is changing is our vision. We are returning to reality. 

But here’s the thing. People are not, for the most part, looking to Christianity to navigate a reenchanting world. 

Instead, I find well-meaning people looking to shamanism, druidism, (certain elements of) Buddhism, and so on. This isn’t tourism; it is sophisticated spiritual reengagement, as well as an attempt to heal the wounds of modernity. And you know what? It works. It does something. I heard one former Satanist explain that he was drawn into Satanism through effective healing magic. When the aforementioned Resmaa Menakem teaches his clients how to summon a deceased ancestor I’ll bet an ancestor will show.

(Note: In another post, I wrote on My Grandmother’s Hands, in which the brilliant therapist Menakem leads his readers through an exercise to engage an ancestor. But here’s another example: The following paper from the IFS Institute on Ancestral Lineage Repair, which displays a keen and effective spiritual understanding:

“Animism provides the foundational operating perspective that frames this work. The idea that other than human intelligences exist and are an integral part of the field of energy in which humans operate, is the overarching perspective. Earth-honoring traditions that include ancestral reverence as an important spiritual practice are not new. The work proceeds from this understanding. 

Four Assumptions of Ancestral Lineage Repair: 

1. Consciousness continues after death. 

2. Not all of the dead are equally well. 

3. The living and the dead can communicate. 

4. The living and the dead can strongly affect one another.”

You know what’s interesting about that? How accurate it is. If you’re at all familiar with the Spiritual Works of Mercy from the Roman Catholic tradition you’ll know that the last item on the list is to pray for the living and the dead; if you’ve ever read a book by a well-trained and intelligent exorcist, you’ll know that dealing with the unwell dead is part of the job.)

You see the point: In most cases Christianity isn’t even on the table. 

There will be consequences. I’ve said it before, but the pagan world is not a nice place. Not all of the inhabitants of the unseen realm are friendly. I’m concerned about the damage reenchantment apart from Christ may do to people, and I’m concerned about the damage it may do to love. 

Because here’s the thing—reenchantment will not in itself produce love for Jesus. It may create a culture in which it’s easier to see his appeal: Jesus is greater than the other spirits; in fact, he made them. But then it may simply create (and history testifies to this) a ferocious and skilled opposition to Christianity. As one great writer (ok—it was Tolkien) put it: “There is such a thing as malice and revenge.” 

Some of that depends upon how quickly Christians take hold of their own inheritance, especially in terms of enchantment, deep discipleship, and a strong sense of history and tradition. 

I don’t know which way this one will go. 

The good news is Christians are not absent from the conversation. Rod Dreher has a book coming out on Christian reenchantment; Martin Shaw is working on one as well; Jamie Smith is writing a book on the Christian mystical tradition in the middle ages; my dad has his own (excellent and very practical) book on ordinary Christian mystics coming out in a few months. If Michael Heiser had released The Unseen Realm now—and not in 2015—I don’t think so many people would have labeled him a polytheistic heretic. But then it’s never been easy to go first. 

Also, there are good podcasts: The Lord of Spirits is making quite a splash, the Naked Bible was very good, the folks at The Bible Project have put out some wonderful shows that relate to reenchantment. There are others; Pints With Aquinas, this one episode of The Exorcist Files (trust me, the other episodes are too freaky), and of course everything Justin Brierley does (still waiting for my call, Justin).

The bad news is that in general Western Christians have been very slow on the uptake. I say this as a matter of experience, by the way, and not as a judgment. 

Allow me a recent example. There’s a new book out called How To Think Impossibly. In it the scholar Jeffrey Kripal demonstrates how easy it is to prove—prove!—our prevailing Late Modern materialist worldview wrong. Supernatural stuff happens, argues the avowedly non-Christian Kripal; we should talk about it. It’s an interesting book. But I was even more intrigued by historian Francis Young’s review of the book in First Things, in which Young admits:

“...it is undeniable that historians of religion with a personal faith (and I include myself in this) seldom do a better job of wrestling with the reality of supernatural phenomena than secular materialists. It is all too easy for believers to become apologetic for the impossible truths that, in theory, they ought to be defending—eager as they are to be received as “normal” members of society, and of the academy. If Kripal is right that reality is not as secular materialism tells us it is (and I suspect he is) then religious believers ought to be the first to offer an alternative outlook, rather than providing cover for the materialists by shepherding any dissent from secular orthodoxies into the realm of personal religious belief. If the spiritual world is truly real, that matters—with all the disturbing consequences that follow.”

That’s incisive writing and it’s true. Like I said before: For a long time Christians have downplayed the sheer non-Western, non-materialist, non-Modern elements of their completely non-secular worldview! Christians have avoided talking about these things. 

The result of all that downplaying is that Christians—especially Christians with a strong sense of theology and discipleship—have failed to appropriate, live into, and transmit their worldview. In fact, I heard the historian Tom Holland recently say that most people don’t understand Christianity well enough to be against it. 

That’s true, and includes many Christians. 

We could be seriously caught on our heels here.

III: Navigating the Spiritual Arms Race

And yet Aslan is on the move. 

That is the important thing. 

Jesus is Lord of Heaven and Earth and he has a dog in the fight. Jesus wants you to thrive and he wants to see salvation extended to the world. Christians are talking about their supernatural worldview; we are speedily excavating our enchanted faith; all of that is the result of the Spirit moving. 

But still, what do we actually do? 

We embrace robust discipleship. 

Which leads us, quite naturally, to the next trend in Western Christianity, and our next post. 

In the meantime, I’ll leave you with an old Irish prayer from Alexander Carmichael’s Carmina Gadelica. It seems right for the Church in a reenchanting time:

Holy Spirit

O Holy Spirit of greatest power,

Come down upon us and subdue us;

From Thy glorious mansion in the heavens, 

Thy light effulgent shed on us.

Father beloved of every naked one,

From Whom all gifts and goodness come,

Our hearts illumine with Thy mercy, 

In Thy mercy shield us from all harm.

Without Thy divinity there is nothing 

In man that can earn esteem;

Without Thyself, O King of kings,

Sinless man can never be.

In succour Thou art of all the best

Against the soul of wildest speech;

Food art thou sweeter than all;

Sustain and guide us at every time.

The knee that is stiff, O Healer, make pliant,

The heart that is hard make warm beneath Thy wing;

The soul that is wandering from Thy path,

Grasp Thou his helm and he shall not die.

Each thing that is foul cleanse Thou early,

Each thing that is hard soften Thou with Thy grace, 

Each wound that is working us pain, 

O Best of healers, make Thou whole!

Give Thou to Thy people to be diligent 

To put their trust in Thee as God, 

That Thou mayest help them in every hour 

With thy sevenfold gift, O Holy Spirit generous!

…

Footnote: The Language of reenchantment

Look up “reenchantment” and you will find a bewildering array of concerns. There are theistic perspectives (as in Justin Brierley’s work), humanistic manifestos (pretty much everything Jamie Wheal does), and real nonsense (ditto). In other words some people want to talk about angels and demons, other people want to talk about beauty, meaning, and value, while still others want an optimistic, endorphin-filled version of the same old scientism (as though breath work could somehow shore up a meaningless existence). As the philosophers Michiel Meijer and Herbert De Vriese point out in their introduction to the wonderful book The Philosophy of Reenchantment—“the current philosophical debate over reenchantment is far from being a coherent and well-organized discussion.”

The idea starts with a famous assertion from Max Weber, who was (or was not, depending on who you ask) a pioneer in the realm of sociology. He studied secularization, industrialization, and modernity in general. His assertion? The modern world was disenchanted, “entzauberung,” in German. De-magic’d. The spell was broken.   

Many people wish he had spent more time defining that term. In the end, two options emerge. It is a description of Modernity as either (in the scholar Jane Bennett’s language) “a place of dearth and alienation (when compared to a golden age of community and cosmological coherency) or a place of reason, freedom, and control (when compared to a dark and confused premodernity)." 

Of course the two go together. Modernity is both a place of alienation and (perceived) control. As Meijer and De Vriese explain:

“Our concern here is not whether disenchantment is a laudable or a regrettable historical development. Rather, the assumption is that "disenchantment" is a fairly recognizable condition in which experience and understanding in present-day liberal society takes place, and as such provides the implicit background of the more explicit beliefs and sensibilities of the majority of its members.”

That puts it pretty well—most of us feel we’re living in a disenchanted world even if we can’t say why (or even what that means). In the West, fewer people profess belief in God. At the same time, people in the West seem to have lost their interest in flight, sex, motorcycles and driving, generally. We’re a bit like the psychiatrist Martin Dysart in Peter Shaffer’s play Equus, who stares at pictures of ancient temples and can’t understand why life feels so empty. 

As I noted before, Michiel Meijer and Herbert De Vriese include the following list of “notions which are crucial to human self-understanding but have no place in a scientific worldview” in their volume on reenchantment: “enchantment, strong evaluation, transcendence, resonance, perceptual experience, religious meaning, moral experience, interpretation, attention, and the sacred or reverence-worthy,” as well as “a fundamental existential orientation towards what is seen as meaningful and of value.”

That is a hefty list. And the thing is, they’re right: Reenchantment touches on all those things. In the end, what we are talking about here is a meaningful universe: a universe with goodness and truth and beauty and a God who defines them. It has also turned out to be a universe with unseen creatures and unseen forces and an impending afterlife. 

For that reason, reenchantment describes a rich ontology replacing a poor ontology, a thick worldview supplanting a thin worldview, a deep metaphysics striking back at a shallow metaphysics.