The landscape of contemporary religious ecology is presented in this article as a variety of responses to disenchantment and what Lynn White identified as the theological roots of environmental ruin (Biblical divine transcendence and human exceptionality). The various positions are mapped in terms of those who deny divine transcendence and make nature, either as actually or only potentially infinite, the highest (pantheists); those who deny divine unicity and return to a pre-Christian, “enchanted” nature (neo-pagans); and those who defend in various ways the ecology of the Biblical account of creation (Jewish, Muslim, and Christian monotheists).

The unstable and unpredictable political environment of the twenty-first century has so far presented opportunities for a surprising ‘re-enchantment of politics’, where ‘magical thinking’ and supernatural responses to and interpretations of political events are increasingly common. It is therefore crucial to understand the role of occult beliefs in the politics of the past. The conclusion identifies eight strands or themes in the history of the entanglement of politics and the occult in Britain: the royal occult adviser, the ruler as benevolent magus, the ruler as witch or bewitched, sorcery as treason, the development of occult weapons of war, occult and political secrecy, occult prophecy and ‘magical saviours’, and ‘magical quietism’ (a reliance on magic and magical thinking that paralyses effective government).

I introduce the main theme of the book: the problem of disenchantment and neo-Aristotelian ethics as a response to this problem. I also describe my central objective of articulating and defending an even fuller kind of re-enchantment than is found in any of the major neo-Aristotelian views on offer and how this is connected to an understanding of human beings as being fundamentally and distinctively the meaning-seeking animal. Additionally, I seek to clarify what is meant by “disenchantment” and “re-enchantment” in order to avoid some possible misunderstandings. Finally, I provide an overview of each of the chapters that follow.