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S2E30 TRANSCRIPT:

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Mark: Welcome back to the wonder science-based paganism. I'm your host Mark.

Yucca: And I'm Yucca.

Mark: And today we're going to talk about re-enchantment of the world. Of the, the story of our lives. And this is a little complicated. So we're going to describe kind of what the problem is first and then talk about approaches for making that better and why we would choose to do that. 

Yucca: Yes. And there's a lot of layers to this. So we'll try and get into that from the different directions. 

Mark: Yes. One of the things that makes this a little bit challenging to talk about is that we are so accustomed to the way our mainstream culture approaches living That it's hard for us even to imagine that there are other ways to do it. It's sort of this thing that's kind of almost out of your reach and you sort of grasp for it.

And, and we have some examples that'll sort of concretize that for you going forward. But but first let's talk about why, what is this and, and why is it a problem?

Yucca: Yeah, well, we started young. Many of you probably can remember being told as a child. Well, when you get to the real world, Things aren't fun anymore. You think, you know, things are rainbows and butterflies or whatever it is that you were into. Well, that's not like it in the real world. It doesn't matter in the real world, this world of, of taking everything super seriously and doing things that you don't want and kind of the idea that everything sucks.

That was, you know, and I, my parents weren't perfect. Harsh on that, but that was the message that came from everywhere. 

Mark: Sure. Sure. It's important for us to recognize that that's not just a matter of growing up and putting away childish things, although that is, you know, that's, that's in the Bible, they tell you to do that. And and that certainly is a big part of this, but until the Protestant reformation. A lot of this was not true.

I mean, when you, when you look at the written histories under the Roman Catholic church, throughout the middle ages, into the early Renaissance people's descriptions of the life around them was very mystical. They had demons and, and spirits and You know, mystical creatures and, and there are a lot, there's lots of debate about what that actually means, but those people clearly lived in a world that they believed was populated by a lot of, kind of amazing and fantastical stuff.

Yucca: Or at least they saw more personality and things that today we might just ignore, pass off. 

Mark: Yes. 

Yucca: Right there. There, there might be more. Anthropomorphizing of experiences and, and phenomenon like wind or things like that. 

Mark: Sure and events, you know, if you prayed to a particular Saint for a particular thing and it happened well, then there was this mystical component of the world that was causing these, these kind of amazing things. And we're not by any means suggesting that we fall into. You know, and irrational superstition where we're a science-based pagan podcast.

Right. But that doesn't mean that the magical quality of life can't be cultivated and use to sort of reinvigorate our understanding of the enchantment of what it means to be alive. Under the. of Protestant framework that dominates certainly the United States and I, I think many other parts of the English speaking world.

Fun is something that is viewed with deep suspicion. The, you know, the, I don't remember who it was, who said it, it might've been Churchill, but he said something about Protestantism being informed by the deep suspicion that someone somewhere may be having a good time. 

Yucca: Shame on them for that, 

Mark: Shame on them for that, what frivolity and you know, what they should be doing is putting their nose to the grindstone and, you know, working hard for the glory of God.

So. When we were talking before we started recording, wh