Consciousness renders the world fixed. Once fixed, evolution slowly moves the old landscapes into the background, where they always remain a force (though we may not be conscious of it – just as we are not terribly conscious of the stars from which we came, or even the mountains off in the distance). But once new qualia comes into our consciousness, perhaps because take the time to notice it, its power begins to have an effect upon us.
Long before we clarify new qualia, before we can define it, before it can render the world fixed for us, it effects us. This is the secret of enchantment, and of myth. New qualia is vague, ineffable, fluid, and changing, but we consciously ritual with it, bringing it into focus — that is recreating the landscape anew. We know its power, but before can understand it, that power is the fuel of myth and magic. Even after the world is fixed, the intangible and un-measurable power continues in religion, in the arts, and even in science.