Abstract: Interviewees in the Ancestral Time project reveal a range of beliefs about the enchantment of life on earth and the deep future of life. Some believe that all life forms are enchanted because they are part of a divine eschatology in which ‘all things’ are brought together into an ultimate redemptive future. This redemptive future has elements of immortality in it since it refers in the minds of some to post-mortal human and other than human life. But it also has elements associated with mortality such as diversity of life forms, habitats analogous to presently existing ecosystems, temporal experience, and multi-sensory perception. Others believe the enchantment that matters and motivates the quest for sustainable solutions to things like humanly caused climate change are presently existing human souls who experience or will experience extreme weather, or are or will be environmental refugees. This paper will consider the ethical purchase of different enchantment scenarios.
