The New Edition of Hunting Magic Eels

Part 4, The Primacy of the Invisible

The third new chapter in the paperback edition of Hunting Magic Eels is entitled "The Primacy of the Invisible" and comes at the end of Part 3 "Enchanted Christianities." 

In "Enchanted Christianities" I share chapters about four streams within Christianity where we encounter enchantment. Chapters are devoted to "Liturgical Enchantments," "Contemplative Enchantments," Charismatic Enchantments," and "Celtic Enchantments." I mine these traditions to describe practices that can help us re-enchant our faith. I talk about prayer beads, the liturgical calendar, contemplative prayer, the importance of emotions, poetry, nature and how all these, and more, help us overcome disenchantment.

The new chapter "The Primacy of the Invisible" comes as a coda at the end my tour of "enchanted Christianities" to describe what these assorted practices are up to. Specifically, all of these practices are helping us recover "the primacy of the invisible." That phrase comes from Joseph Ratzinger's book Introduction to Christianity. 

What do we mean by "the primacy of the invisible"? Simply put, the most important things about our lives are invisible. I demonstrate that this is true--and not just true, but obviously true--in the chapter. The point is important because the pervasive materialism of our post-Christian culture has caused, as I describe earlier in the book, "attention blindness." Obvious truths, staring us in the face, go unseen. Materialism and scientism have caused many of us to believe that visible things are primary and that invisible things are fictitious and imaginary. This widespread assumption needs to be debunked. 

This new chapter also allowed me to bring Hartmut Rosa's work on "resonance" into the book. What we describe as "enchantment" is, according to Rosa, a "resonant" relationship with the world. I also bring in Martin Buber's distinction between I/Thou and I/It relations with the world to describe both enchantment and resonance. Thanks to my friends Mark Sampson and Ron Wright who brought these connections to my attention right after the publication of Hunting Magic Eels. I was delighted I had the opportunity to bring both Rosa and Buber into the book with the paperback edition.

Finally, this new chapter, using some insights from Matthew Crawford and Iris Murdoch, underline the importance of attention in facilitating enchantment. Following Crawford and Murdoch, enchantment can't be conjured up with "a jump of the will." We can't make ourselves believe things we find unbelievable. But we can be pulled "into the world beyond our heads" (Crawford) by "acquiring new objects of attention" (Murdoch). The practices I describe in Part 4 "Enchanted Christianities" share a bunch of such practices, practices that bring "the primacy of the invisible" into view.