A RE-ENCHANTING PROPOSITION : FAITH COMPATIBLE WITH THE FANTASTIC, MOORE ASSERTS.

Byline: Julie Michaud Special to the Daily News

For an author who once studied for the Catholic priesthood and lived a monastic life until he was 25, it would seem that the rules and structures of academia would be a perfect fit. But Thomas Moore, well-known for the best-selling ``Care of the Soul,'' ``Soul Mates'' and, most recently, ``The Re-Enchantment of Everyday Life,'' possessed a streak of individuality that prevented him from joining what author Robert Graves lovingly referred to as ``The Graves of Academe.''

Despite a Ph.D. from Syracuse University, Moore didn't quite fit the mold and was denied tenure, ultimately to his benefit, and as he optimistically puts it:

``I survived it. I got to study things I enjoyed in school - like music - but when it got too academic, I studied something else. I managed to get from it a lot that I needed and wanted, but I never really fit the persona they wanted in the academic writer, so they released me and it was a great freedom. I love being an independent writer. I couldn't ask for a better way of life.''

Looking back, the author admits that if his life has a theme, it has probably been ``Don't Fence Me In.'' He eventually left the monastic order of Servites he belonged to because he felt constrained by the authority of the church. At the time, he was involved in biblical readings that were radically different from the traditional interpretations. It was during the sociopolitical upheaval of the '60s, and, according to him, his interpretations would probably be considered very liberal by today's standards but not that radical.

This tendency to view things from a different perspective carries over into his writing, and with ``The Re-Enchantment of Everyday Life,'' he tries to ``address those issues that go beyond science and technology.'' And while he admits there are books that complain about the negative influence of science and technology on the idea of specialness and magic in the world, he wanted to address the issue from a perspective of how day-to-day living is affected.

For instance, the capacity to wander and the ability not to become too established.

``Everyone complains that there's too much moving around. My point here is both things have a place. And at different points in a person's life it may be time to wander and it may be time to stay home. Some people wander their whole lives and some people like to stay home. I don't like to be moralistic about that and say that one thing is better than another.''

``And I don't approach astrology in the same way you might see it in the newspaper or most popular books on the subject. I read so much literature that was written 500 years ago and more, where people in the European tradition just assumed an astrological way of being in the world. Nobody really thought otherwise. The church got concerned at times because it didn't want to lose free will for human beings. But other than that, people lived very much in an enchanted world partly because they lived in relationship to what was going on in the sky.''

Moore thinks modern man has lost that ability. ``I don't think that most people find any guidance from the natural world, including the sky. Astrology now has become some kind of kooky thing. It's not part of the mainstream at all.''

Like anyone else, Moore says he has to guard against this same phenomenon because he is also heavily influenced by the surrounding culture.

``There's no way to avoid that. I see the struggle within myself of being too busy, trying to get time. When I write, for example, I was in school for such a long time I was quite influenced obviously by the academic methods of writing. And I'm trying to re-enchant my writing - so I think this book probably reads differently than the other ones (``Care of the Soul'' and ``Soul Mates''). I keep trying to be free of the academic requirements.''

The author attributes the recent resurgence of interest in spirituality, evidenced by rising book sales on the subject, to the approaching end of the century and sees it as analogous to an individual turning 40 to 50.

Science and technology, he believes, haven't solved our problems because they really don't address the things that matter most to each person.

``I hear that from my readers all the time,'' he says. ``They don't know what they're looking for, but they know there's something more. That creates a kind of spiritual yearning, and that's not an unusual thing - it's been going on for millennia. If you look at history there has just been one period after another when people have felt a spiritual yearning. I think this is just one more instance of it.''

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Photo: Thomas Moore, author of ``The Re-Enchantment of Everyday Life,'' admits that if his life has a theme, it has probably been ``Don't Fence Me In.''