In reading A Secular Age
Spirits, angels, and demons (as well as God) provided the source of much of this enchantment. In Pope Benedict recently wrote in his recent encyciclical about a verse from Paul (Hebrews 11:1)
Faith is the hypostasis of things hoped for; the proof of things not seen.
where he left the word “hypostasis” untranslated from the Greek. Metropolitan John Zizoulas in his two books Being as Communion and Communion and Otherness writes a bit about the evolution of the word hypostasis in the thought of the Eastern Fathers especially the Cappadocian faithers (see this initial essay of mine on that). The point being is that hypostasis came to mean person in the modern sense.
What might come about if we take this notion literally. In reading the early fathers collected in the Philokalia, there is a strong psychological aspect to the discussion of demons. That is that the notion of demons and the means to combat them are psychological as well as spiritual, and from in a mechanistic humanistic standpoint prayer is akin to meditiation and woudl be viewed primarily from a psychological standpoint.
So what if we take these notions on their face value. That is to extend this notion and suggest that Mr Dawkins genetic analogy in the intellectual context, the meme could be considered to posses a hypostasis, which is endowed with will and perhaps even intelligence. Putting a name to such things wouldn’t we term them, demons, spirits, and angels? Carl Jung wrote about research given credence to the idea that a collective unconscious might be real. Could one consider that a consequence of the unity of self of the hypostasis of memetic psychological aspects of self?
It is not unuseful for persons today to regard aspects of themselves, such as additictions, as exterior to self. A thing outside self, yet inside the body, that needs to be combatted. It seems plausible to also consider these aspects as intelligent, and in the case of addictions as malevolent. Additionally those memes in our world, if one is to interact with them, to aid or combat or otherwise engage them, one might ask if considering the meme intelligent albeit of a different nature than human intelligence might not be useful?
The question however remains, is this a useful avenue of thought in which a post-modernist person might take to find re-enchantment?
Fwiw, there’s a Jewish view that each of the utterances of God during creation (“let there be …”) created an angel (or became an angel, I’m a little unclear on that) with its message.
In which case, you’d have to wonder if good ol’ Serpent’s sayings (worthlessness, rage, distrust, status envy, accusation) are “demons”.
Not sure on re-enchanting the modern world …
Take care & God bless
Anne / WF