#Seed037: Of Fairies and Dragons
Imagination and the Re-Enchantment of the World
“Who believe in the unseen; keep well the prayer, and of what We have provided them ever expend.” - Qur’an, Chapter of the Cow, Verse 3
Anyone who has grown up with C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien knows the power of imagination. “The mind that thought of light, heavy, grey, yellow, still, swift,” Tolkien writes, “also conceived of magic that would make heavy things light and able to fly, turn grey lead into yellow gold, and the still rock into a swift water.” Imagination enchants the world, without which would lead us to see trees as mere lumber, animals as mere meat, and water as mere hydrogen oxide. Imagination doesn't bring life to the world, but helps us catch a glimpse of the Living Presence of God in the world. Imagination serves as a vital bridge between the seen and unseen, reclaiming a sense of enchantment lost in modernity. Imagination reconnects us to the sacred and the animated cosmos.1
The Crisis of Disenchantment
A common conception is that the post-enlightenment world gave way to the disenchantment of the world. German sociologist Max Weber introduced this idea in his 1917 lecture Science as a Vocation. He argued that modernity, with its emphasis on reason, empiricism, and scientific inquiry, stripped the world of its mysterious, magical, and sacred qualities. In other words, modernity killed fairies. He argued further that this process was facilitated by the Protestant Reformation, which challenged the idea that phenomena may have supernatural or miraculous origins. The bifurcation of the animate and inanimate world is a direct result.
More recently, Catholic theologian and social critic, Eugene McCarraher built on Max Weber’s idea by arguing that modernity hasn't necessarily eradicated enchantment, as previously thought, but rather redirected it. In The Enchantments of Mammon, McCarraher argues that modern capitalism transforms the marketplace into a place of reverence, that consumerism replaces spiritual fulfillment, that work is akin to devotion, and that technology and innovation are treated as salvific forces that can solve all our problems.2 Enchantment has persisted, but we have forgotten about fairies. Where Weber laments modernity’s disenchantment, McCarraher challenges this as a shift in enchantment rather than its loss.
The Animacy of Creation
A redirection of enchantment is necessary to rekindle our kinship with the world. The first step is to recognized that all things are animate by erasing this artificial bifurcation. Ingrid Mattson, in her essay, Rethinking Islam and Animism, illustrates how early orientalists went on a crusade to purify Islam of animism. She explains how this project has had a detriment effect even in the modern Muslim’s self-understanding—one that disenchants the world, and as McCarraher points, enchants Mammon. Mattson writes,
“Traditional Sunni theology holds that all things and all beings are animated by God, and human beings are no exception. In Ashʿarī thought, for example, ‘there is no other real agent than God, and man’s “actions” are His creations’. From this perspective, the division between ‘animate’ and ‘inanimate’ creations is superficial; in reality, all beings are ‘animated’ by God. Further, the Qur’an declares that all of God’s creation – every place, every being and every ‘thing’ (shayʾ) is in a constant state of worship.”3
The recognition of the animacy of all things is the foundation of our belonging to the world. And at this, we are welcomed back to the fairy world’s golden gates.
The reader may retort, why walk through such gates? As Maria Montessori, childhood educator and the originator of the Montessori school, argued that
"the true basis of the imagination is reality, and its perception is related to exactness of observation, it is necessary to prepare children to perceive the things in their environment exactly, in order to secure for them the material required by the imagination.”4 The answer lies in how we understand true reality. “It is an act of faith to assert that our thoughts have any relation to reality at all.”
G.K Chesterton would reply, in Orthodoxy. “If you are merely a sceptic, you must sooner or later ask yourself the question, ‘Why should ANYTHING go right; even observation and deduction?’”5 The skeptic, striving to avoid being misled by illusions, grows doubtful even of the very ground beneath their feet.
The Role of Imagination in Re-Enchantment
Fairy stories, and consequently, the hagiographic tales of saints and sages, grow the human capacity of imagination while skepticism stunts it. Our modern epistemology is built on the idea of two distinct realms: the world we understand and the world we do not. In contrast, traditional epistemology speaks of the corporeal (perceptible world) and spiritual (unseen realities) realms. While the modern perspective assumes that the unknown might eventually be grasped, the traditional view acknowledges the inherent limits of human empirical knowledge. Imagination is the bridge between these two realms. Regarding this bridge (barzakh, lit. isthmus), William C. Chittick, in his discussion on Ibn ‘Arabi, writes,
“A standard example in the sensory realm is the line that divides shadow from sunlight; though we see the line, it exists as such only in virtue of the two realities it separates. In the same way, imagination separates the spiritual or unseen world from the corporeal or visible world; all of its specific characteristics derive from its intermediate situation.”6
Dreams, for example, are perhaps the most common experience of the imaginal realm. Chittick goes on to explain that Ibn ‘Arabi’s understanding of the cosmos7 is as follows:
Spiritual: that which manifests the Light of Being.
Corporeal: that which displays the darkness of nonexistence.
Imaginal: that which embraces the properties of both.
It’s important to point out that the usage of imaginal is not to be conflated with the subjective imagination of one’s mind. The Imaginal World (ʿĀlam al-Khayāl) is considered to be an objective reality where spiritual truths manifest in perceivable forms. It is a bridge between the corporeal and the spiritual. In his seminal Imaginal Worlds, Chittick continues, “In the narrowest sense of the term, imagination refers to a specific faculty of the soul that brings together sensory things, which have shapes and forms.”8 Imagination, is therefore, a faculty that perceives the imaginal world. Imagination synthesizes sensory inputs into coherent forms. When I observe a tree with my senses, I perceive its tangible attributes (height, color, texture, scent), which help me understand that this shape that I perceive is a tree. Moreover, as I reflect upon this tree, I can begin to envision its symbolism (growth, rootedness) and to contemplate it as a manifestion of God’s Divine Names.
Imagination as a Moral Compass
Imagination brings the spiritual into the corporeal realm, and vice versa. In other words, imagination helps us perceive the Living Presence of God. Which brings us back to fairy stories. Fairy stories, which cultivate the faculty of imagination are not just a tool to teach morals, but rather a doorway to the unseen. They bring about the possibility of the Divine Qualities, namely the Goods, the True, and the Beautiful. They remind us that ethics aren’t just relative, to be harnessed and used by the most powerful, but rather accessible to all, king and pauper.
As Chesterton highlights,
“Fairy tales, then, are not responsible for producing in children fear, or any of the shapes of fear; fairy tales do not give the child the idea of the evil or the ugly; that is in the child already, because it is in the world already. Fairy tales do not give the child his first idea of bogey. What fairy tales give the child is his first clear idea of the possible defeat of bogey. The baby has known the dragon intimately ever since he had an imagination. What the fairy tale provides for him is a St. George to kill the dragon.”9
Imagination plays a vital role in redirecting our enchantment to the world. It is not merely a creative faculty but a moral and spiritual guide, reminding us that the cosmos is alive with meaning. An enchanted world is a better world for all creatures.
My readers might be interested in #Seed013: Bringing Wonder Back to Life, where I discuss some practical strategies educators and parents can use to build our children’s imagination.
McCarraher, Eugene. The Enchantments of Mammon: How Capitalism Became the Religion of Modernity. Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2019.
Mattson, Ingrid. "Rethinking Islam and Animism: Connecting with the Community of Created Beings." In Green Theology: Emerging 21st-Century Muslim and Christian Discourses on Ecology, edited by Lejla Demiri, Mujadad Zaman, and Tim Winter, page range. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2024. p.82
Montessori, Maria. Spontaneous Activity in Education. Translated by Anne E. George. New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company, 1917. p.254
Chesterton, G.K. Orthodoxy. London: John Lane, The Bodley Head, 1908. Accessed January 7, 2025. https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/130/pg130.txt.
Chittick, William C. Death and the World of Imagination: Ibn al-ʿArabi’s Eschatology. p. 53 Accessed January 9, 2025. https://archive.org/details/DeathAndTheWorldOfImaginationIbnAlArabisEschatologyByChittick.
ibid. p.57.
Chittick, William C. Imaginal Worlds: Ibn al-‘Arabi and the Problem of Religious Diversity. State University of New York Press, 1994. p.56
Chesterton, G.K. "The Red Angel" Tremendous Trifles. Accessed January 7, 2025. https://www.online-literature.com/chesterton/tremendous-trifles/17/.
Beautiful.