Amulets Against the Spirits of the Age

I am speaking of those who cannot tolerate the loss of myth and who can neither find a way to a merely exterior world, to the world as seen by science, nor rest satisfied with an intellectual juggling with words, which has nothing whatsoever to do with wisdom.

The prevailing materialistic culture has created a divided world where the sacred is relegated to churches and temples, the body to the gym, mental health to pills from the pharmacy. Economic growth is pursued as if it had nothing to do with the environment and ignorance, racism, and warfare continue to separate people and nations. These divisions

understand yourself as being exploited or alienated, you have to believe that you have a finite, precious time to live and that your own life is being taken away from you when that time is taken away from you. Accordingly, the cultivation of secular faith is indispensable for progressive politics.

Likewise, people who were not poets tried to make exceptions to the materialism which dominated their epoch. They created enclaves of the beyond, of what did not fit into materialist explanations. These enclaves resembled hiding-places; they were often kept private. Visited at night. Thought of with bated breath. Sometimes transformed into theatres