The psychosis of magic and mysticism.

Be it the Resurrection of Jesus or the giants of Atlantis, what is the use of fantastical thinking? Is it madness? Or an addictive pick me up, like cocaine for the soul?

Oh God, what’s she doing now? The Woo Correspondent embedded here with Fire Ceremony attendees in Shepherds Bush

I am not allowed to tell you what these things in my hand are specifically because it might offend the spirit of fire. It’s a secret. But no one said it’s off the record so I will tell you, some tobacco, a twig, a resin and a little bit of leaf

Last year I wrote a story about people who have faith and belief that you can access other realms at multiple locations on both the island of Malta and its neighbouring island, Gozo. Malta is a weird place with a peculiar atmosphere - or “energy” if you prefer the parlance, Gozo even weirder, a tiny green island with Catholic churches everywhere, some huge churches, more churches per capita than anywhere else on earth and yet everyone I met kept talking about Atlantis, a place that exists only in mythology. They were fantasists. Although you could say all religions rely on fantastical nonsense, I find non-specific, religious non-aligned spirituality, relies very heavily on conspiracy thinking style nonsense.

It’s a batshit fantasists dream. Or are these people just alive with spirit? Be it a counterculture wizard with a raw milk ‘n’ Ivermectin habit or a nice tea drinking little old lady sat in the pew at a country church in the shires, spirituality often looks a bit like madness or denial or at the very least, silliness.

People there kept saying, “What do the churches hide? What are ‘they’ trying to control?” Clue here is the word, “They,” the mysterious ‘they’ are always doing iffy things, “built the churches over these portals because they are powerful places.”

And there are subterranean tunnels from Malta to the Vatican. Of course there are. 600 miles under sea, Sicily and mainland Italy. Goes without saying. Malta is full of “What they don’t want you to know,” detail. It should be called conspiracy island.

The subject of this Substack (the usual barely contained thought process that is only half going somewhere) is the madness of magic, mystery and spirit and how addictive it is.

Research suggests profound spiritual states, the sort brought on by meditation and prayer, activate the limbic system, that’s the paleomammalian bit of brain, I think, that evolved beyond the fucking and fighting instincts of dinosaurs.

But what about the copious fantastical myths of organised religion and its sky gods with scratchy beards. It’s Passover this week for Jews, when they celebrate the Exodus story, when, among other things, …the Lord said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand over the sea, that the waters may come back upon the Egyptians, on their chariots, and on their horsemen.”

For Christians, miracles and magic are big too: Jesus feeding five thousand with a few loaves and fishes, turning water into wine, raising poor Lazarus. Right now, the Passion of Christ is incoming - all that suffering, torture and a crucifixion - the gorefest of Easter, which in turn becomes a more romantic ghostly Resurrection. The old suffering and magic combo is an absolute classic. After Easter we get weeks of the Ascension, with ghost Jesus popping up everywhere in a kind of Magic is Real tour of the Mediterranean Middle East. I mean. Religion really does ask a lot of its believers.

Easter is really gory. Jesus had to suffer quite a lot more than losing a two bedroom flat in Notting HIll

So when the going gets tough, and the tough start calling their psychics and healers is it really so risible? Is Easter any different to believing in Atlantis? Jesus according to one of the gospels, cast demons out of Mary Magdalene. Was this a metaphor for depression? Or was Jesus an actual exorcist? When my relationship was turning really deeply bad last summer, a little ayahuasca drinking masseuse pixie in a wellness clinic in Barnes ended my supposedly relaxing hour’s massage by saying, “Are you OK because I don’t want to alarm you but you have a demon attached to you”. And she meant a demon, it was not a metaphor because we had to sit and discuss how to manage it.

I mean, I find all this stuff utterly charming within the humdrum suffering of an ordinary life and mild episodes of misery.

Be it organised religion or full out there full wiggy new age stuff, what is the use of fantastical thinking? Is it madness? Is it a sort of pick me up, like spiritual cocaine? Or an elevated state of consciousness? Is being “hardwired for God” a help, or a hindrance, or a mental health issue? I ask, of course, for a friend. In times of hard things and disappointment, I often find myself traipsing back to spiritual nonsense in some form. In my own very very very teeny tiny I’ve only lost my home in Notting Hill sort of torturous way, I have been crucified and I am looking for the light and the heavenly rewards.

Malta, looking from Barbara Bastion over the grand harbour at the three cities

When I was researching this Malta story for the Sunday Times, it was usual for these Malta dwellers to take me to and put me above these portals to the underworld, other realms, that kind of stuff. I was taken to two or three and pointed towards another ten. Chez portal, I would politely hover feeling not much to nothing at all, but both times it was asked that I get involved. Righty ho, I’ll close my eyes.

One was under a park bench at the end of Barbara Bastion, one of the nicest and most expensive streets in downtown Valetta (the walled capital built by the Knights of St John - which is better than built by Redrow or Wimpy or whatever. Malta is dead historic).

Valletta. It’s not Milton Keynes or Las Vegas.

Another was in Cittadella, the C15th ish city of Gozo. On both occasions when we got to these places I dug into the feelings and gave it all a go.

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I had my sage-burning period that had started around 2018 and lasted a solid five years. It wasn’t an everyday thing, I wasn’t seeing dead people all the time, but there were pockets of time in these years when I acquired crystals, saw glitter in the air, found hidden meanings in things and experienced intense animist feelings around things like standing stones, full moons, my dog, and walking barefoot in the countryside and, this was enhanced, unsurprisingly, by…