The Re-Mystification of the Cosmos

Our most urgent task is that of reconstructing the mystery of the world. --Dávila 

Our subject is re-enchantment, or rather, post-disenchantment, if such a stance is possible. To repeat:

Today we require a methodical introduction to that vision of the world outside of which religious vocabulary is meaningless. 

A post-disenchanted world would be one in which a "religious vocabulary" is full of genuine meaning -- one in which verticality and transcendence are as real as -- actually, more real than -- immanence and horizontality. If 

The history of philosophy is the language that lets you talk about what is interesting,

then theology and metaphysics are languages that furnish points of reference that allow us to talk about what is the most interesting. For again,

He who speaks of the farthest regions of the soul soon needs a theological vocabulary.

Problem is, for the secular thinker there can be no outer regions of a soul that doesn't exist, i.e., that is ruled out a priori. In Flatland no spheres are allowed, or rather, are reduced to circles. Which is why

Homogeneity drives out God.

Which is to say, reducing the world-hierarchy to a single level and uniform substance. Again, doing so prevents us from talking about what is most interesting, which is why

The modern tragedy is not the tragedy of reason vanquished, but of reason triumphant.

When in reality,

The world is a system of equations that stir winds of poetry.

And  

A voluptuous presence communicates its sensual splendor to everything.

Not to go all animist on you, but 

Feelings are attributes of the object, as are sensations.

Denial of which causes a kind of horizontality-induced asthma:

I do not breathe well in a world that sacred shadows do not cross.

You're always free to confine yourself to some manmode horizontal ideology, but  

He who adopts a system stops perceiving the truths that are within his reach.

These aphorisms are all nice sentiments, but we're looking -- urgently -- for a hardheaded paradigm of post-disenchantment, which I suspect is Hart's goal as well, and are we any closer to it now that we've reached the end of the book?

Throughout human history, most peoples have assumed that, when they gazed out upon the natural world, something looked back and met their gaze with its own, and that between them and that numinous other was a real -- if infinitely incomprehensible -- communion in a realm of spiritual experience (Hart).

That was then, this is now: it's called progress.

Yes, good and hard. It's also called nihilism:

modernity is to a great extent nihilism, in the simplest, most exact sense: a way of seeing the world that acknowledges no truth other than what the human will can impose on things.

We've only got a few paragraphs left in the book. Is there a solution, or just more kvetching?  

Perhaps it can yet be undone. Perhaps an escape from the machine is possible.

Suggestions?

They [humans] might yet learn to know themselves in a new way as spiritual beings immersed in a world of spirit..., and remember that which lies deepest within themselves: living mind, the divine ground of consciousness and life, participating in an infinite act of thought and communication, dwelling in a universe full of gods and full of God.

So, you're telling me there's a chance?

I'm not very hopeful. 

Nor am I, at least on a wholesale basis. But each individual is a unique problem of, and potential path to, that infinite divine ground of consciousness and life. In which case,

The mystic is the only one who is seriously ambitious. 

The book ends with a little friendly advice from one god to another (to the skeptical reductionist):

Devote more time to the contemplation of living things and less to the fabrication of machines. It might change your perspective over time. If not, it would still be good for your... your soul.

Bearing in mind that

The soul is born only to the one who believes in it.

And that

Only the souls that are made fertile by a divine pollen bloom. 

Is that it?

What do you mean?

Seems like a bit of a letdown after 25 posts on a single book.

Eh, that's true of most books, which, in the words of the Aphorist, contain neither a single error nor a single insight (not to say Hart falls into this sterile category). I have a special section of books in my library that are more or less foundational, and to which I return time and again. The rest are... put it this way:

Most philosophies are obstacles to avoid en route but a few are mountain ranges that one is forced to cross.

 At the end of the deity,

Tradition, propaganda, chance, or recommendation chooses our readings. We choose only what we reread.