Among its other dubious gifts, the past decade has made the concept of “re-enchantment” inescapable in certain, generally very online, circles. Substack is rife with it. Twitter reeks with it. Now,  Rod Dreher has written a book about it, a book that contributes some much-needed clarity to this slippery concept. 

Dreher has a knack for identifying a niche idea that is about to go mainstream. In Living in Wonder: Finding Mystery and Meaning in a Secular Age, he explores the sense that our world—specifically the modern West—is missing some deep truth about reality. Disenchantment, for Dreher, is a fancy word for materialism, or the belief that the world can be fully understood by human reason. This materialistic view has been dominant in only a handful of cultures (mostly in Europe and the United States) for only a few centuries of human history (since the Enlightenment). Despite the promises of various ideologies over the past few centuries, the more materialistic, rationalistic, and individualistic our existence becomes, the more miserable we are.  

By contrast, Dreher says, throughout human history most people have experienced reality as a vibrant—and often terrifying—composite of spiritual and material truths. Dreher examines the whole scope of efforts to re-enchant the world, from classically Christian practices like iconography to the use of psychedelics, increasing interest in (and evidence of) extraterrestrial intelligence, and the spread of casual and not-so-casual occultism.   

Living in Wonder is aimed at nominally Christian Westerners who, as Dreher says, would “prefer to keep God and his movement in the world safely sequestered within a rationalistic, moralistic framework.” He writes, “Western people are far outliers on the spectrum of human experience. . . . [We] are more individualistic, analytical, impersonal, and much less connected to the natural world than others.”  

This is, in essence, disenchantment: living in the world as if the world were a technology to be used rather than a strange, inexplicable environment to be navigated. The truth, Dreher contends, is that reality is far more bizarre than Westerners are inclined to believe. “The world,” he writes, “is not what we think it is. It is so much weirder. It is so much darker. It is so, so much brighter and more beautiful.”  

The problem, Dreher says, is that deep down we all know that the world is more strange than we acknowledge it to be. For evidence, we can simply look at our contemporary situation, in which a deeply secularized West is becoming home to a whole panoply of occultism, cults, and quasi-religious technocracy. Secularism, it seems, simply doesn’t satisfy. Dreher says that people who are cut off from a true understanding of reality either “fill [their] days with distractions” or “give [themselves] over to false enchantments—the distractions and deceptions of money, power, the occult, sex, drugs, and all the allure of the material world.” Re-enchantment, to Dreher, is less a matter of human flourishing than of human survival.  

Dreher claims re-enchantment isn’t about trying to change the world, because the world is just as enchanted as it has always been. The problem is that we can no longer see it. When someone from a disenchanted culture does brush up against the nonrational, wild, enchanted side of reality, he or she is simply not prepared and can end up in serious trouble. 

Applying his trademark quasi-journalistic style to a wide array of topics, Dreher explores the weird fringes of culture, from the connection between demons and so-called artificial intelligence to the rise of a religious belief in extraterrestrial life among tech gurus. He interviews a faithful Catholic wife and mother who, because of a curse imposed by her occultist grandfather, must battle demonic possession; a disillusioned American whose deep dive into Eastern spirituality leads him to a cave in India, where he has a vision of Christ; and a lawyer whose childhood encounter with UFOs changes his life.   

A book like Living in Wonder runs the risk of becoming a freak show, a circus spectacle that holds the reader’s attention solely because of its shocking content. And there is plenty of truly weird stuff here. I had to read the book slowly because parts of it are difficult to cope with, particularly the chapter titled “Aliens and the Sacred Machine,” which exposes possible links between so-called “alien” encounters and the demonic obsession with technology and domination of nature that grips our world today. But Dreher presents even the strangest material with respect (for both the reader and the subject), and, more importantly, he does not succumb to the temptation to aggrandize the odd.  

His mission is twofold: First, he wants to make clear that the world is strange. The book is full of demons and monsters and aliens and visions and drugs and miracles and exorcisms. But these are not really the point. The point, which Dreher returns to over and over, is Christ. The only way to live a truly human life in our enchanted reality is to cultivate a personal relationship with God through Christ. The entire second half of the book is devoted to describing the ways in which individuals and communities have cultivated that relationship over the centuries.  

It is hard to summarize a book that includes vivid descriptions of LSD trips and alien abductions as well as practical advice on how to cultivate a robust prayer life. But within the world of Living in Wonder, these things sit, if not comfortably, at least inevitably beside one another. Reality is not what it seems. A drug trip is not merely brain stimulation; rather, it can open our souls to dark forces that seek to destroy us. Prayer is not merely the recitation of words; rather, it is an invitation for God to shape our lives around His reality, not our own.  

Living in Wonder is the most engaging book on contemporary spirituality I’ve read since Tara Isabella Burton’s Strange Rites (2020). Burton, a scholar of contemporary religions, pulled back the curtain on the extremely weird religious habits and practices bubbling up on the fringes of society today (including an online cult that worships none other than Severus Snape). Dreher’s book, coming four (wild) years later, documents the growth and possible Christian response to these movements.  

Dreher’s ability to pinpoint and describe amorphous cultural trends is his greatest critical strength, and in Living in Wonder he is at his best. His easy, conversational, almost confessional style makes readers comfortable with following him through some of the strangest subcultures in the West today, and he relies on the testimonies of others to make his point: burgeoning pop occultists, technocratic UFO worshippers, LSD users, and former heroin addicts stand alongside everyday Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox Christians to proclaim that the world is not what we think it is. 

In the “re-enchantment” movement that Dreher has identified, there is just as much darkness as light. Forays into the weird world beyond rationality are, quite simply, risky business. A recent dustup among conservative Catholics over a new book by Sebastian Morello demonstrates the potential difficulties. Morello’s book, published by a popular traditionalist Catholic press, bears the title Mysticism, Magic, and Monasteries and argues that Catholics should be at least open to incorporating the principles of Hermetic magic into their spiritual lives as a way to re-enchant their faith. The book triggered an exposé claiming that conservative Catholic thinkers have gone too far in their search for re-enchantment and are dabbling in the occult (Morello responded to the claims about his book on his Substack, but not all the exposé’s claims about other books, authors, and presses have been rebutted).  

Dreher’s book does not have as much potential for misreading as Morello’s, but it is not for casual reading. “Enchantment,” he warns, “is not about having bespoke mystical experiences.” Those experiences are often deceptive and can lead to “spiritual captivity.” As Dreher emphasizes, the world is much more interconnected than we tend to believe, and ideas like those in Living in Wonder are best explored in a community of trustworthy, scripturally aware people who worship together in an organized way.   

A desire to live in a mysterious, thrilling universe can lead us to forget the Christian teaching that God is not merely one power among many and Christian disciplines like prayer and liturgy are not the same as magic. Dreher seems to know this; the interviews and anecdotes of Living in Wonder consistently illustrate two truths: 1) the world is indeed stranger than we know, and 2) a devout Christian life, built on a relationship with Jesus, is the best pathway through any weirdness we might encounter. Dreher steers clear of the ambiguity that clouds Morello’s book and proves himself an able, charming guide on this “backstage tour” of the universe. But on this trip, no one should go alone.