From Enchantment and Modernity
There are the various forms of smoking of tobacco or other plants in which millions indulge. Then there are the middling-strength stimulants, for example the wines, spirits and other drinks. The effects of these have been celebrated for their mind-enhancing qualities very widely. One of my favourite examples is the 'Rubaiyat of Omar Khayam' Much of the poem is a hymn in praise of the wisdom to be found in wine. Here are two verses.
And David's lips are lockt; but in divine
High-piping Pehlevi, with "Wine! Wine! Wine!
Red Wine!" - the Nightingale cries to the Rose
That sallow cheek of hers t' incarnadine.
Come, fill the Cup, and in the first of Spring
Your Winter-garment of Repentance fling:
The Bird of Time has but a little way
To flutter – and the Bird is on the Wing.
Here the experience of in vino veritas (in wine, truth) the gateway to a haven where the oppositions and despondencies and confusions of real life fade away. This effect of wine is memorably described in the second and third verses of John Keats' 'Ode to a Nightingale'.
O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been
Cool'd a long age in the deep-delved earth,
Tasting of Flora and the country green,
Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth!
O for a beaker full of the warm South,
Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,
With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,
And purple-stained mouth;
That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,
And with thee fade away into the forest dim:
Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget
What thou among the leaves hast never known,
The weariness, the fever, and the fret
Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;
Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs,
Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;
Where but to think is to be full of sorrow
And leaden-eyed despairs,
Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,
Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow.
Obviously this restoring, healing, power of alcohol is so attractive that it has become an addiction and a vast medical problem. Yet, in moderation, at the end of a hard day or on a holiday, a celebration with friends, or just as a special additive to a moment of relaxation, the range of drinks provide many with a moment out of space and time. And for the shamans I worked with in Nepal, and for others throughout history, these milder substances can open the door to the spiritual world, a process caught in another of my favourite images – 'For he on honey dew has fed and drunk the milk of paradise' (that milk being allegedly fermented mare's milk).
Combining the enchantments
Each of the technologies of enchantment is powerful in itself. Songs, poems, meals or parades may take the individual into a parallel world. Yet clearly there are many situations where the effect is increased by joining several of them together. A pop concert, with thumping music, alcohol and perhaps other drugs, and the swaying and clapping of the crowds around one, is an example.
Another, from my own experience, brings together nearly all of those I have described in a ritual which I have attended each year in the summer at Cambridge. It shows each 'instrument' in the ritual as part as an 'orchestra' which tries to create 'some enchanted evening', a 'magical' experience as my guests often describe it when they give me their thanks.
This party evening is quite similar, in a less expensive way, to the 'May Balls' for which Oxford and Cambridge Colleges are famous, the ending ritual for students as they leave the university. It is more sedate and is called the 'Summer Supper Party' at King's College. A member of the College, known as a Fellow, is encouraged to invite his or her 'partner', in other words the object of one form of enchantment, romantic love, and also two other 'friends', another form of enchantment.
The evening starts with champagne on the Great Lawn (or, if wet, in the magnificent Chapel). Here the effects of wine, festive costumes, the backdrop of magnificent architecture and the famous artificial nature of 'the Backs', filled with willows and stately trees, water and birds, join together with the re-uniting with friends.
Then you process into the Hall, where, after a long latin grace, a sumptuous feast commences with singing by the famous King's College Choir. The many courses are set around a theme, paired with choice wines and a set of humorous exhibits. The mind is now filled with 'otherness'. The glittering silver and the portraits on the wall and general atmosphere is now known to millions who have watched the feasts set in Christchurch Hall, Oxford, in the films of Harry Potter at Hogwarts. Exploring friendship, sharing love and community and a sense of a privileged club, all add to the warmth.
Afterwards you process to the Back Lawn. Here the eye is ravished by a stupendous firework display, each rocket bursting in the mind and lighting the heavens. Then you wind your way between various hobbies, games, sports and arts. There is an organ recital in the candle-lit Chapel, a dance to a jazz band, a game of 'boules' or roulette, a child's game of egg-and-spoon or sack racing, a display of collected literary treasures and manuscripts in the library, a special ice cream or a walk by the glittering Cam. If this has not given you some sense of magic and enchantment, gained on the back of a huge amount of careful planning, hard work and accumulated wealth, you are indeed hard of heart and mind.
Meanwhile, at the other end and extreme of the world, I have attended more explicitly enchanted and magical events of a similar scale in the foothills of the Himalayas. For three days at a memorial service you mix similar enchanting technologies –music, drumming and singing, dancing, feasting, drinking, friendship and love, and a strong sense of community. This achieves a catharsis and bonding ritual to take the deceased to the land of the dead. It is deeper and longer than the summer supper party yet uses similar technologies of enchantment.