Patrick Curry (born 1951) is an independent Canadian-born British scholar who has worked and taught on a variety of subjects from cultural astronomy to divination, the ecology movement, and the nature of enchantment.
He appeared in interviews on two of the extended DVDs on Peter Jackson's film trilogy of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings.
He states that he has had "a long relationship with Buddhism (Sōtō Zen)", taught by Kōbun Chino Otogawa.
Caldecott states that Curry both does an excellent job of rebutting "accusations of right-wing or authoritarian conservatism" against Tolkien, and instead "paints him as more of a Green subversive", opposing the global "monoculture" which makes everywhere the same.
In Schwarz's view, "scholarly analysis and political advocacy are distinct discourses", and blending them is unsatisfactory.
Martin admires the way that Curry handles the subject, using his personal experience, collective examples like Princess Diana's funeral, and Tolkien's writings to build a picture of what is wrong with modern society.
They agree that enchantment is not the same as magic, but Shippey finds "wonder" in early science fiction, something that Curry would (he writes) link with modernity; and he disagrees that the world has been disenchanted (in Max Weber's phrase).