How to describe the appeal of Fantasy

I'm looking for a word to describe the appeal of Fantasy.  I want to try to avoid any words that directly correlate to magic, as there are definitely fantasies that don't use magic, but it's difficult.  The non-literally-magical meanings of enchantment work very well, but again, there's a fairly strong correlation to magic.

I found this in "The Outlandish Companion" by Diana Gabaldon, which is a companion volume to her Outlander series.

"The processes of the body are both intensely personal and highly cryptic, which gives us the sense of significance and mystery that we call "magic."  This same mixture of significance and mystery underlies religious feeling and is it no coincidence that most healers in primitive societies are also priests. Religion and science lie at opposite ends of the spectrum of rationality, with medicine balanced somewhere in the middle. The important thing to note is that it is a spectrum; ergo, the elements of it are all connected, even though the extremities may seem so different as to bear no relation to each other."

Claire, one of the main characters in the "Outlander" series, is a healer.  She's a surgeon in the 20th century, and something a bit less sophisticated in the 18th.  So how magic is viewed is very important to the series.  (Gabaldon is serious about her research and her accuracy.  I highly recommend her books.)

It seems to me that the bit about significance and mystery might be very helpful in my search for a way to talk about Fantasy.  Also perhaps important when discussing SF & Fantasy.

"The Man on the Ceiling" by Steve and Melanie Tem

Just started "The Man on the Ceiling" by Steve and Melanie Tem and so far I want to donate to every children's charity I've ever run across.  "Sometimes I wonder if we will be judged on how we've cared for all our unwanted children and it makes me shudder." (P.14)  Indeed. 

Very interesting ideas about imagination and reality, and I can already tell the storytelling is going to be amazing.  I'm also liking what they have to say about created families being created out of faith and imagination, not blood.  I'm from a blended family, and that is so true. 

Adding Sarah Monette (the last author to leave me actively angry I had to put my book down and go back to work after lunch) and P.C. Hodgell (for whom I waited through a 20 year(?) hiatus for the rest of the story) to my list of books for my talk.  Ooh! Ooh! And Lois McMaster Bujold!