Enchantment and Disenchantment: Science, Magic, and the Continuum of Wonder

Abstract

Is science the disenchantment of the world, or its re-enchantment in new disguise? This paper explores that question through a narrative thought experiment: walking with an imagined ancestor, Bernie, from the past into the present. What Bernie calls sorcery, we call science. Particle accelerators, genetic editing, artificial intelligence, and space exploration appear as rituals of a new age, raising the possibility that explanation has not destroyed wonder but relocated it.

I redefine “magic” not as illusion but as a language of the unexplained, the extraordinary, and the transformative. Tracing history, I show how practices once labeled magical, like alchemy, astrology, healing rites, and agricultural ceremonies, matured into chemistry, astronomy, medicine, and environmental sciences. Science did not erase these impulses; it translated them into new vocabularies of instruments and methods. In turn, contemporary science generates its own enchantments, from AI’s oracular voices to cosmic imagery that evokes myth.

Engaging both sides of the debate, I outline Weber and Taylor’s accounts of disenchantment alongside Josephson-Storm, Principe, Chopra, and others who argue for enduring or resurgent enchantment. I conclude that science and magic are not adversaries but companions on a continuum of wonder. To live with science is not to banish magic, but to inhabit its latest form.