I’ve just been doing my semi-regular roundup of what’s new in the world of woo-woo, so let me fill you in. Grazia has a “$15k an hour intuition coach” teaching A-listers to tap into their sixth sense, which is a little tame, but I struck gold with the Atlantic, which has introduced me to the concept of “subliminals.”
This is properly out there: TikToks or YouTube videos that, the claim goes, can work magic, giving you a smaller nose, making you smell of vanilla (?) or getting your crush to call you “IMMEDIATELY.” They remind me of the slips of paper that used to arrive in our letterbox when I lived in Brussels from local marabouts (sorcerers), promising sexual potency, the removal of curses, weight loss, guaranteed parking spots and more.
It’s another iteration of a wave of magical thinking that shows no sign of weakening. I’ve ticked off manifesting (willing what you want into being), lucky girl syndrome (erm, believing you’re lucky?), ghost, psychics and #witchtok. There are people all over Instagram drawing tarot and offering blessings, spells, virtual aura readings and “cures.”
Photo: EPA-EFE
Astrology never went away, but it’s in rude health: “Chaos awaits as Mercury retrograde spins into Venus,” reads my latest unsolicited e-mail. What next? Perhaps alchemy is due a reboot? God knows we could all do with some free gold.
I’m gripped, for various reasons. First, it’s just deeply, fascinatingly odd. There is also something perverse about how the Internet has become the delivery mechanism for so much that is anti-rational: we took this creation forged from the steeliest rigorous science, sage smudged it and popped a crystal on the top. It’s interesting — perhaps inevitable — that this is happening now Upheaval (violence, plague, a growing sense the world is spinning awry) leads this stuff to re-emerge; when reality is hard to face, people find alternatives.
The current age of superstition feels a bit fin de siecle (the end of the 19th century was convulsed with interest in the occult, magic and mysticism), except this time I suppose it’s more a fin-du-monde vibe. We are drawn to spooky signs and portents — does the reappearance of the giant oarfish signal catastrophe? — when it’s the graphs and climate science that are telling the scariest story.
On an individual level, it’s interesting, too. Is “delulu the solulu” (yes, another TikTokism — damn, it’s catchy, I’ve been muttering it for days) — particularly if you are gen Z? I don’t think people are necessarily taking this stuff seriously. I hope not. Surely no one thinks you can straighten your teeth or get an A-list lifestyle by watching a TikTok or following an Instagram recipe for a positivity potion? In my experience that age group are pretty clear about the grim limitations of life in 2023, so I assume it’s mainly a playful, absurdist refusal of a fairly unpalatable reality.
“In this generation I believe that being delusional is one of the key factors to being happy,” as one TikToker says, before superimposing a cartoon Mario hat and moustache on his face and shouting: “Think positive, mamma mia!”
But are there real believers? Maybe it’s not that unlikely. Even if we leave the small matter of continued survival on this planet aside and confine ourselves to the nearer future, the life young people would like is probably utterly out of reach. A US magazine costed the not especially ridiculous aspirations of young New Yorkers recently (a nice flat, kids, travel), showing just how impossible they were. If what you want doesn’t look accessible through the conventional channels (studying, saving, striving, self-improvement), some will turn to the unconventional, I suppose. Take a bit of life coaching from a rabble of latter-day Madame Arcatis, look for signs that you are on the right path from a random string of “angel” numbers or your train ticket or till receipt; see if you can believe your dreams into existence.
When you feel ordinary stuff — a fulfilling, decently paid job, owning a home, having a family or even a belief in a reasonably secure future — is only accessible through magic, that is properly spooky.
It is barely 10am and the queue outside Onigiri Bongo already stretches around the block. Some of the 30 or so early-bird diners sit on stools, sipping green tea and poring over laminated menus. Further back it is standing-room only. “It’s always like this,” says Yumiko Ukon, who has run this modest rice ball shop and restaurant in the Otsuka neighbourhood of Tokyo for almost half a century. “But we never run out of rice,” she adds, seated in her office near a wall clock in the shape of a rice ball with a bite taken out. Bongo, opened in 1960 by
Common sense is not that common: a recent study from the University of Pennsylvania concludes the concept is “somewhat illusory.” Researchers collected statements from various sources that had been described as “common sense” and put them to test subjects. The mixed bag of results suggested there was “little evidence that more than a small fraction of beliefs is common to more than a small fraction of people.” It’s no surprise that there are few universally shared notions of what stands to reason. People took a horse worming drug to cure COVID! They think low-traffic neighborhoods are a communist plot and call
The sprawling port city of Kaohsiung seldom wins plaudits for its beauty or architectural history. That said, like any other metropolis of its size, it does have a number of strange or striking buildings. This article describes a few such curiosities, all but one of which I stumbled across by accident. BOMBPROOF HANGARS Just north of Kaohsiung International Airport, hidden among houses and small apartment buildings that look as though they were built between 15 and 30 years ago, are two mysterious bunker-like structures that date from the airport’s establishment as a Japanese base during World War II. Each is just about
Taiwan, once relegated to the backwaters of international news media and viewed as a subset topic of “greater China,” is now a hot topic. Words associated with Taiwan include “invasion,” “contingency” and, on the more cheerful side, “semiconductors” and “tourism.” It is worth noting that while Taiwanese companies play important roles in the semiconductor industry, there is no such thing as a “Taiwan semiconductor” or a “Taiwan chip.” If crucial suppliers are included, the supply chain is in the thousands and spans the globe. Both of the variants of the so-called “silicon shield” are pure fantasy. There are four primary drivers