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I wrote Part One of this piece while I was still inside Jamaica, still dazzled by the coves, the mountains, the rhythmic ‘Yeah Man’ energy of a place that moves entirely on its own clock. I was observing. Absorbing. Cataloguing beauty the way you do when you haven’t yet worked out what something means to you.

I didn’t know then what Jamaica was actually doing to me.

It took leaving to understand it. And it took Germany - cold, efficient, architecturally perfect Germany - to make the contrast so stark it was almost funny.

Let me go back to the beginning of that particular chapter.

By July 2021 I had already lived in Germany and Malaysia since leaving my previous life behind in 2020. Three countries in just over a year. During a global pandemic. With a husband, two children, and the kind of logistical audacity that only makes sense in retrospect.

Jamaica was not the obvious next move. It is, by any conventional measure, a developing country with the infrastructure challenges that come with that - potholes that materialise from nowhere, a public transport system held together largely by optimism and community goodwill, shopping that bears no resemblance to the mall culture I’d left behind in Kuala Lumpur. The crime statistics are real. The safety considerations were real. Getting seriously ill was not an option I could afford - financially or practically.

I arrived wondering, not for the first time, what on earth I had done.

What I didn’t account for was what Jamaica would do to my nervous system.

Germany had been beautiful in its own precise way. Orderly. Dependable. Environmentally conscious in ways that should have felt reassuring. And yet something in me had contracted there - tightened, inflamed, retreated. My body began registering the grey skies and the social distance and the relentless indoor winter as something close to a threat. Allergies I had never experienced appeared. A low-grade sadness settled in that I couldn’t quite name or shake. I was living somewhere objectively comfortable and feeling, paradoxically, unwell.

Jamaica was the opposite of comfortable in almost every measurable way. And yet within weeks, something in me began to exhale.

I have thought about this a great deal since. The science of environment and health - how light affects cortisol, how warmth changes the nervous system, how community literally alters inflammatory markers in the body - was something I hadn’t consciously understood then. I understood it in my body before I understood it in my mind. Jamaica didn’t fix me. But it created the conditions in which I could start to fix myself.

There is a beach I keep returning to in my memory. Not one of the resort beaches of the north coast, magnificent as those are. It was a tiny local cove, the kind that doesn’t appear on any map, the kind that locals know and tourists don’t - where families gathered on weekends without fanfare or Instagram consideration. Children in the shallows. Older women sitting in the shade talking unhurriedly about nothing in particular. Men playing in the water with their children.

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I would sit there and feel something unfamiliar and it took me an embarrassingly long time to identify it.

It was belonging. Not my belonging - I was clearly an outsider and nobody pretended otherwise. But I was sitting inside someone else’s belonging, and they were letting me. That, I came to understand, is what community actually feels like from the outside. It is generous. It does not require you to earn it before you can feel its warmth. From Ms. Jolly, our housing complex’s ever‑cheerful security guard - an endearing, maternal presence who watched over our home and children with genuine affection - to Dr. Mark, my wonderfully understanding and open‑minded GP. From Mr. Anthony, the school’s tireless groundsman and facilities manager - though “Mr. Fix‑It,” “Mr. PA,” or simply “Mr. I‑Can‑Help‑You‑With‑That” might have suited him better - to the delightful team at Starbucks who greeted me by name each day, my order already waiting before I even reached the counter. There are several Starbucks in Kingston, but I mostly found myself at the ones in Liguanea and the AC Hotel. One afternoon, at the Fontana Waterloo Square branch however, I remember feeling flushed from the heat, perspiring, and trying to blink away something caught in my eye. I must have looked a sight - perhaps even as though I’d been crying - because one of the baristas, an extraordinarily kind and gentle soul, came over, placed a reassuring hand on my shoulder, and asked if I was alright or needed help. Mortified by the attention, I quickly assured him I was fine - just overheated and something in my eye. He checked on me once more, making sure I truly was okay, then offered the warmest smile I’d ever seen before turning back to his coffees with quiet grace.

Jamaica taught me that community is not something you build. It is something you surrender to.

The other thing Jamaica dismantled, quietly and without announcement, was my relationship with time.

I am, by nature and by profession, a person who runs on schedules. Curriculum has deadlines. Reports have timelines. Twelve years of international education has trained me to operate within structures that are, by design, relentlessly forward-looking. The next term. The next evaluation. The next country.

Jamaica does not operate this way.

Things happen on Jamaican time - which is to say, they happen when they happen, with a cheerful indifference to the urgency you arrived with. This was, initially, maddening. Then it was merely frustrating. Then, somewhere around the third or fourth month, I stopped fighting it and something remarkable occurred.

I started noticing the present tense.

The colour of the sky at four in the afternoon. The specific quality of evening air after rain that delivered the most stunning rainbows. The sound of the Blue Mountains doing nothing in particular beyond being blue and enormous and permanent. These are not things you notice when you are always oriented toward what comes next. Jamaica removed the next thing from view and left me with only now, and now turned out to be full of things I had been moving too fast to see.

I want to be honest about what Jamaica was not.

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It was not easy. Safety was a genuine and daily consideration - not paranoia, but the practical recalibration that comes with living somewhere where the rules of engagement are different from anywhere you have lived before. There were days when I missed the effortless anonymity of a city that functions. There were weeks when the limitations of island infrastructure felt less charming and more simply limiting.

And there was a specific loneliness - familiar by now, but no less real - that comes with being somewhere beautiful and having nobody from your previous life to share it with. Expat loneliness is its own category. It is not the loneliness of isolation. It is the loneliness of abundance - of having extraordinary experiences that exist only in your own memory and with your immediate family, because the people who would have understood them are five thousand miles away getting on with their ordinary lives.

What I came away with, ultimately, were three things that no curriculum or qualification or beautifully efficient German infrastructure had managed to teach me in the years before.

The first was that health is not the absence of illness. It is an environment. It is light and warmth and the particular quality of air that comes off an ocean. It is having a GP who spends half your appointment talking about music and politics because he understands that the conversation is part of the medicine. Germany nearly convinced me that I needed more systems. Jamaica suggested I needed less - and more sun.

The second was that slowing down is not a reward for finishing. It is a practice. You do not earn the right to breathe by completing enough things. You breathe first, and the rest of it becomes, remarkably, more manageable.

The third was the one I least expected. Resilience - the thing I had been quietly building and quietly proud of through three countries and a global pandemic and more logistics than any reasonable person should voluntarily take on - is not what I thought it was.

I had understood resilience as the capacity to keep moving through difficulty. Jamaica suggested something different. It suggested that resilience is actually the capacity to stop - to let a place and its people work on you, to allow yourself to be changed by where you are rather than simply surviving it.

I arrived in Jamaica wondering what on earth I had done. I left understanding, for the first time, why I keep doing it.

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Every year, I settle in to watch the Eurovision Song Contest with a kind of quiet anticipation, expecting to be entertained, occasionally shocked, and more often than not bewildered by the sheer range of performances that unfold across the stage. It is, in many ways, a ritual of spectacle - sometimes whimsical, sometimes powerful, and at its best, unexpectedly moving.

Yet this year, something far more curious emerged from the winner than just a memorable track or a high-energy performance. What Dara offered was not simply entertainment, but something far less visible and, for that reason, far more compelling- an entire philosophy in motion that, strangely, few have paused to examine more closely.

To begin to understand it, I found myself returning to an unexpected linguistic and cultural thread which is the Jamaican Patois word bangarang. Often used to describe chaos, disruption, or a kind of unruly disorder, bangarang is not merely about noise or rebellion; it gestures toward a deeper kind of creative upheaval, a breaking apart of existing structures that allows something entirely new to emerge in their place. It is disruption with generative potential.

Eurovision has always in some sense rewarded this energy - those moments where genre, identity, and expectation blur into something unclassifiable. But what Dara embodied was not just aesthetic disruption; it was cognitive and emotional bangarang, a refusal to be governed by the very frameworks that typically determine who is “supposed” to win.

In several interviews, she repeated a phrase that, at first hearing, might seem almost flippant:

And yet, the more I sat with it, the more it revealed itself not as a throwaway statement, but as something far more precise, almost instructional in nature. Because within the language of manifestation, particularly in the teachings of Neville Goddard, Joe Dispenza, and Esther Hicks, “delusion” is reframed as a disciplined refusal to accept external reality as final.

Goddard, in particular, writes about the necessity of “assuming the wish fulfilled,” of inhabiting a desired reality so fully that it begins to feel emotionally and sensorially real before any external evidence has appeared. Dispenza extends this into the body, suggesting that our neurological and physiological systems do not meaningfully distinguish between an imagined experience and a lived one, provided the emotional intensity is sufficient.

Seen through this lens, Dara’s words, and more importantly her orientation toward the entire experience, begin to take on a different weight.

When she states, “My job is to be on stage and perform, to open my heart chakra and to shine bright on stage,” she is not describing a task to be completed or an outcome to be hoped for. She is articulating a state of being that has already been assumed, rehearsed internally, and stabilised long before the performance itself takes place. There is no gap, in her language, between intention and embodiment.

This is where the idea of bangarang shifts from performance to consciousness.

Because what truly disrupts established systems is not simply doing something different on the surface, but withdrawing belief from the underlying rules that sustain those systems in the first place. Dara’s assertion that “nobody believed that we can win” points directly to the external metrics - odds, rankings, predictive commentary, the constant hum of social media consensus - that collectively construct what we come to accept as realistic.

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And yet, rather than negotiating with those probabilities or adjusting her expectations to align with them, she appears to have done something far more radical: she opted out of their authority altogether. Instead, she anchored herself in a different organising principle:

What is striking here is not the optimism of the statement, but its coherence. To “feel at one” is not merely poetic language; it suggests a state of internal alignment in which thought, emotion, and bodily sensation are no longer in conflict but are oriented toward a single, stabilised reality. From this place, action does not emerge as effortful striving, but as a natural extension of an already accepted truth.

In this sense, Dara’s Eurovision win becomes less surprising, not more. It ceases to be an improbable upset and instead reads as the externalisation of a reality that had already been constructed, rehearsed, and emotionally inhabited long before the final votes were cast.

What we witnessed on stage, then, was not just talent or charisma, but congruence - a performer whose internal world and external expression had, for a moment, become indistinguishable.

And perhaps this is why her win feels so quietly disruptive.

Because it challenges the assumption that outcomes must first be validated by evidence, probability, or collective belief before they can be realised. Instead, it suggests that belief itself, especially when sustained with enough clarity and emotional consistency, can precede and, in some sense, generate the conditions we later interpret as success.

In this way, Dara’s victory is not simply a cultural moment or a musical achievement, it is a lived example of what happens when the boundaries between imagination and reality begin to soften.

A kind of bangarang at the level of perception.

If there is an invitation embedded within it, it is not simply to admire her confidence or replicate her affirmations, but to examine far more carefully the rules we have internalised about what is possible. And to ask, with some degree of honesty, whether those rules are as fixed as they appear, or whether they are, perhaps, waiting to be disrupted.

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I remember the night I officially became an expat - the word still felt foreign on my tongue. I stood in our new apartment, holding my sixteen‑month‑old baby, staring tearily out into the 2 am Dubai skyline and wondering what I had done.

It was overwhelming. It was confusing. More than anything, it was visceral. The collision of my old life with a new, unrecognisable one that left me shell‑shocked.

We had left Australia for our new lives abroad in August 2013. I had lived interstate before - eleven months in Canberra - but never ventured further afield permanently. I considered myself well‑travelled, adaptable, grounded in common sense. What I wasn’t prepared for was this kind of disorientation: the sudden stripping away of psychological safety when everything familiar disappears overnight.

Our adventure began on a Royal Brunei flight that was thankfully uneventful, except for the endless cycle of settling my youngest into the bassinet only to lift her out again every time the seat‑belt sign lit up. But once we landed in Brunei’s tiny airport, a new reality set in. The terminal was packed; connecting flights were delayed for hours. A single shop and a small café were our only food options, and shelves were nearly bare. I bought a tube of Pringles, silently hoping they would be enough for our two restless children, aged sixteen months and four years.

By the time our connecting flight was finally called, exhaustion had set in. I had never been to Dubai - never to the Middle East - and felt utterly unprepared for the sensory overload waiting on the other side. Immigration was mercifully smooth, and our school’s HR representative greeted us warmly before escorting us to our transport.

Shock number one: it was a bright yellow school bus, not the coach I’d envisioned.
Shock number two: there was no luggage compartment. Four families and several single teachers stood there, heaving suitcases into the aisle, stacking them into a precarious tower of luggage while a few brave men held it in place as we careened through Dubai’s empty streets toward Sharjah. I gazed out the window, cradling my youngest against the searing midnight heat, and thought: What have we stepped into?

When we finally reached our apartment block, the scene hardly eased my nerves. My husband hauled the cases inside as we were told someone would collect us in the morning for an IKEA run. It was 1:30 a.m., 32 degrees outside, and I was desperate for sleep.

But when we opened the apartment door, the heat inside hit like an oven blast. The air‑conditioning was off, the unit uninhabited. I lunged for the console, setting it to sixteen degrees - the lowest possible - and checked the bedrooms. Dust covered the floor where curtain rods had been drilled just days before. No towels, no cleaning gear - nothing. In a half‑panicked state, I soaked a sock and wiped the floors myself.

Half an hour later, the room temperature still read twenty‑eight degrees. The air wasn’t cooling. I turned to the beds - unmade, the linen still sealed in its plastic. As I tore open the packaging, the sharp chemical scent filled the room, and I winced at the thought that we’d have to sleep on it unwashed. There was no time, no way to dry them before morning. I made the beds as quickly as I could; the kids were spent, my husband barely standing. They collapsed into sleep almost instantly. I lay down beside them, convinced exhaustion would knock me out too - but the heat soaked through my shirt, clinging to my skin, and no amount of steady breathing could bring relief.

The air was stifling, unmoving. I wandered to the lounge, hoping for a breeze that didn’t exist. My youngest woke crying - overheated, overtired. I held her, both of us perspiring, unwilling to move lest she stir again.

And there, at 2 am, I broke. Tears streamed unchecked - fear, guilt, anger, exhaustion all blurring together. I looked out at the distant skyline, foreign lights flickering in the haze, and whispered the question that haunted me: What have I done?

Looking back, I understand now that the heat, the dust, and the exhaustion were only the surface.

Physicist David Bohm spoke of an Explicate Order - the world of our plans, our travel schedules, and our physical coordinates. That night, my Explicate Order had completely collapsed. But I realise now that I was experiencing a deeper, Implicate collapse. I had arrived in a place that didn’t just feel different; it felt like it was broadcasting in a frequency my brain hadn’t learned to tune into yet.

Jacobo Grinberg-Zylberbaum, who spent his life researching the “lattice” - the holographic matrix that holds our perceived reality together - might have called this a failure of synchronisation. My brain, hardwired for the Australian landscape, was still trying to sync with a reality that was fundamentally different in its energetic and environmental structure. I wasn’t just adjusting to a new house; I was trying to recalibrate my entire internal interface.

That night stripped me bare. It forced me to stop trying to force the surface to change and accept that my old “map” of reality was no longer functioning.

Was it worth it? Yes. Absolutely. Because every ounce of resilience I possess today was born out of that unbearable, unforgettable heat.

I learned that we aren’t just adapting to new places; we are mapping new fields of information. We are learning how to tune in. And sometimes, to understand the hidden variable of who we are becoming you have to be willing to let the old station go completely silent.

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There are moments when reality stops behaving like a reliable interface. You do what makes sense, you follow the logic, you choose carefully, and still something doesn’t quite land. A situation stalls. The timing shifts. A pattern repeats. Or something in your life begins to feel strangely charged, as though it is pointing to a meaning you can’t quite name yet.

That is what I mean by a 404 moment. Not absence, exactly, but a sign that the usual access point is wrong.

I’ve been thinking about this for a long time, but it came into sharper focus through a track by Korean artist Taeyong called “404 Loading.” What drew me in was not just the title, but the language of the song itself: motion without certainty, gravity without a fixed center, connection without proximity, and a reality that seems to be forming just beneath the surface of what we can immediately see. Taeyong sings of “a hundred miles an hour, driving with no headlights,” of “meet me in a 404,” of “we create zero gravity,” and of “now dream is reality,” and those images felt less like pop flourish than a symbolic description of what it means to move through a layered world. The song does not simply describe movement; it stages the feeling of entering a space - a particular liminal space - where the usual rules no longer apply, and where the visible surface is no longer the whole story.

That recognition brought me back to a dream I had a few years ago, when I was living in Jamaica. I found myself sitting beside a pool under warm sunlight, looking out at rolling green hills and a few scattered trees at the edge of the landscape. I knew, somehow, that I was in Italy. I wasn’t certain whether it was Tuscany, only that the place felt unmistakably Italian. The water was cool, the air was warm, and there was a deep calm to the whole scene. Then I jumped into the pool and felt the contrast of sun and water all at once, as if the dream were giving me a physical experience of balance, clarity, and rest.

What stayed with me most was the feeling that this place was real. I distinctly recall knowing that I was dreaming and that lucidity is what made this particular dream all the more impactful.

When I woke up, I couldn’t shake the sensation of recognition. A knowing clawing at me like an inner voice screeching to be heard. I decided that I would paint the pool and rolling hills from memory. It was a rough watercolour image of the pool, the hills, and the trees, and I kept it for a while as a kind of anchor in my work office. It felt like a way of preserving something I didn’t fully understand, but knew I didn’t want to dismiss. Eventually I packed it away and later let it go, satisfied that it had served its purpose. At the time, I was preparing to leave Jamaica and move with my family to Korea, so the dream became one more image I carried with me through transition.

Then, a year or so later, after I had moved again and was living in Germany, I remembered the dream and decided to look for the place. I was certain that it was a physical location so I started searching online for villas with pools in Tuscany and nearby regions in Italy, scrolling through endless photos until one image stopped me completely. It was quite literally the same place I had painted. The same pool, the same hills, the same trees. Even the same angle, the pool in the foreground, hills in the background and trees dotting the left side of the pool. The villa was Casa Olivi, in Treia, in the Marche region of Italy.

I was stunned.

Not because I believed I had predicted the future in any literal sense, but because I had encountered the image first in a dream, then again in paint, and finally in the world itself. It felt like recognition rather than coincidence. As though some part of me had already been in contact with a place I had not yet consciously known.

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Later, in 2026, while listening again to “404 Loading,” I found myself thinking about Casa Olivi and the strange force it still held for me. I couldn’t fathom why it gripped me so much, just that I knew it was a place that I’d visited in a dream that felt too close to reality. Bored one evening, I thought about the meaning of 404, and about the precise coordinates of this place. The coordinates for Casa Olivi are 43.3276° N, 13.2530° E. Nothing spectacular there. Not satisfied with the result, and convinced there was something more here, I began playing with the number 404. I entered 43.404°N and 13.404°E, taking the first digits from the location and replacing the last digits with the number that had become symbolic for me. Quietly hoping the coordinates wouldn’t match I clicked enter. What came up was not the villa itself, but an empty piece of land. But this land was literally about 12 km north east of Casa Olivi. Not far away at all. Close enough to feel uncanny, but not exact. A kind of glitch in the map. In that moment, the concept of linear time felt moot.

That moment mattered to me, not because it proved something, but because it echoed something I had already felt: that there are layers of reality that do not always align in the obvious way. Sometimes the symbolic and the physical brush against each other. Sometimes a dream gives you a form before the world gives you the location. Sometimes a number becomes a marker for a pattern you can feel before you can explain it.

This is what I mean by hidden variables.

I don’t think life is flat. I don’t think every event can be reduced to visible cause and effect. There are moments when something deeper is organising the surface before it can be named, and those moments tend to show up in repeated forms: a dream, a song, a place, a timing window, a body response, a symbolic echo that won’t leave you alone.

Different languages point toward the same thing. In physics, it appears in ideas like the implicate order, where what we observe may be only the unfolded surface of something deeper. In biology, it appears in the way light, rhythm, stress, and environment shape perception and behavior long before conscious thought catches up. In symbolic systems like astrology and tarot, it appears as timing, archetype, and pattern - a way of reading what is active beneath the visible story.

These are not separate categories to me. They are different ways of approaching the same underlying question: what is shaping this moment before it fully arrives?

Most people feel that question before they have words for it. They know when something is off. They know when a project has stalled for reasons they cannot quite name. They know when a relationship begins to feel misaligned before the reasons become obvious. They know when a period of life has entered a different phase, even if nothing external has yet changed.

What I want to do here is give language to that experience.

Not through prediction, and not through abstraction for its own sake, but through pattern recognition. I want to look at the places where the surface stops explaining the system, and help people work with the deeper structure that is already in motion.

That may mean interpreting a cultural text. It may mean tracing a repeating life pattern. It may mean looking at timing, symbolism, or a situation that seems to have become unreadable through ordinary logic alone. And for those who want to go deeper, I’ll also be offering structured deep-dives and private consultations, where we can map a specific situation more closely and translate it into something usable.

If you’ve ever felt that something in your life was already speaking before you had the words for it, then you’re the reader I’m writing for.

The surface is not the whole story.

Sometimes the 404 is the beginning of the real reading.

I’m making a shift in how I use this Substack.

Over time, I’ve realised that the work I’m most drawn to sits at the intersection of culture, symbolism, timing, and the hidden patterns that shape how we move through life. I’ll still be writing about the things that have always interested me, but I’m now organising the page around a clearer central thread: the idea that beneath the visible surface, there are deeper structures at work.

That’s where the idea of Hidden Variables comes in.

I’m interested in the moments when something doesn’t quite add up - when life feels like a 404, when the usual logic fails, when a situation seems blocked, charged, or strangely alive with meaning. Those are often the moments when the deeper pattern becomes most visible.

Going forward, this space will focus more directly on symbolic and cultural analysis, timing and pattern recognition, implicate-order style structures, and the practical ways these ideas can be applied in real life.

I’ll also be opening this up over time into more focused deep-dives and one-to-one consultative work for readers who want help unpacking a specific situation and seeing it more clearly.

The posts ahead will be more focused, more integrated, and more closely aligned with the work I’m here to do.

Thank you for being here.

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In K-pop, legacy labels do not really disappear. They change shape.

Taeyong is a useful case study for what that shift looks like inside SM Entertainment. I came to his work the way many people outside the core fandom probably do, by noticing the build rather than the branding. First through NCT, then through SuperM, then through his solo releases, where the visual language, pacing, and overall presentation began to feel more distinct with each step. Even across his first two EPs, the progression was hard to miss. His recent collaboration with Anderson .Paak adds another layer to that picture. It is not just a feature. It is a notable signal of intent.

For SM Entertainment, 2026 looks less like a crisis and more like a reset. The rollout of SM 3.0, the shift to a multi-production, multi-label structure, and the gradual movement of some legacy artists into more independent setups all point to the same thing. SM is reworking what its core business looks like.

The real question is not whether the company can survive that transition. It already has. The more relevant question is what kind of artist model will define its next phase.

Right now, that answer seems to run through Taeyong.

From volume to value

SM’s 2025 results make the shift fairly clear. In Q4 2025, the company reported consolidated revenue of KRW 319 billion, up 16.6 percent year on year, while operating profit rose 62.2 percent to KRW 54.6 billion. Concert revenue climbed 53.6 percent, with merchandising and licensing also performing strongly.

That matters because it shows where the growth is coming from. Physical albums are no longer the main story. Live performance, merchandise, and IP monetisation are becoming more important to the business.

That is where Taeyong becomes strategically useful. He is not just a solo artist on the roster. He is closer to the kind of artist SM now has an incentive to build around. He has creative input, a stronger authorial identity, and commercial flexibility. His sold-out 2026 TY TRACK - REMASTERED concerts support that case.

SM has always been strongest when it could systemise talent. SM 3.0 formalises that idea further by pushing production into multiple centers and treating IP creation as a core part of the business model.

Taeyong fits that framework because his appeal is not only tied to group identity. He is widely read as an artist with a clearer creative footprint than the average idol soloist, which gives SM a cleaner story to sell in markets where authorship and artistic identity matter more.

That does not make him a savior figure. It does however, make him a very useful test case.

Why legacy artists leave

It is also worth saying plainly that legacy label retention is not only about loyalty. As artists get older, develop stronger personal brands, and want more control over music, scheduling, and revenue, the value of staying inside a large system changes.

In other words, departures are not always about emotion or creative difference. More often, they point to a structural problem. SM 3.0 may have offered a more flexible framework in theory, but flexibility on paper does not automatically solve the deeper issues that push artists and creative staff out. The exits of BoA, Taemin, Baekhyun, and Chen, along with the loss of producers and other key creative figures, suggest a company under strain. The departure of Mark and Ten, both still at the peak of their careers, illustrates this very clearly. When control, compensation, autonomy, and internal trust weaken, even a powerful agency can start to feel less essential to the people working inside it.

That is the real SM question now. It is not only how to keep legacy names, but how to remain valuable to the people who made the system work in the first place. With so many of its older pillars no longer fully anchored inside the company, the weight on what remains, especially Taeyong, aespa, and RIIZE, becomes much more visible.

Could a graduation model work?

This is where the comparison to a graduation model becomes interesting, but also risky.

In theory, a more formal lifecycle system could make sense. Artists could move from group activity into solo work, units, mentoring roles, or other senior stages once they hit their mid-20s or beyond. That would create a cleaner transition than pretending every group should function the same way forever.

In practice, K-pop is probably too attached to fixed member identity for a hard graduation model to work cleanly. Fan loyalty in this market is built heavily on continuity, group chemistry, and long-term attachment. A formal exit system could easily feel like loss rather than evolution.

A softer version is more realistic. Senior members can gradually move into more individual work while the group remains intact, which preserves the brand while acknowledging that careers do not stay in one format forever. But the scale of recent departures from SM suggests something deeper than a simple shift in format. The system that trained these artists, invested in them, and helped build their visibility is now seeing much of that value move elsewhere, often to smaller agencies that offer greater autonomy, more control, and a more favourable split of earnings. That points to a structural weakness, not just a change in preference.

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The Anderson .Paak factor

Taeyong’s collaboration with Anderson .Paak matters because it does more than add a recognisable feature. It places Taeyong inside a mainstream U.S. hip-hop context, which gives SM a clearer bridge into Western markets than a standard K-pop crossover release would.

That matters strategically. .Paak carries real mainstream credibility in the U.S., and his place in the West Coast hip-hop ecosystem and association with heavyweight names such as Dr. Dre give the collaboration cultural weight that travels well beyond the K-pop sphere. For SM, this is the kind of move that can help reposition Taeyong as a solo artist with wider market relevance.

The key point is not that SM is suddenly trying to make Taeyong Western. It is that the company is giving him a cleaner pathway into global pop and hip-hop conversation. If SM wants Taeyong to be part of its next export model, this is one way to do it.

The market SM missed

Historically, SM has been criticised for being Asia-centric. While North America was conquered by the likes of BTS and BLACKPINK, Europe remained a seeming afterthought for the Big 3 pioneer.

Taeyong’s recent trajectory suggests a course correction. His push into instrumentation, self-composition, and English fluency is a direct challenge to the old SM boundaries. By evolving into an artist-idol, Taeyong is being positioned as a prestige product tailored for the European and Western markets, where individuality, live credibility, and authorship matter more. If SM can build real traction there, it will not just be expansion. It will be correction.

That is the bigger point. This is not just about one solo project. It is about whether SM can translate creative credibility into repeatable commercial value.

What this signals

The burden on Taeyong is immense. He is being asked to validate SM 3.0, repair the NCT halo after a period of scandal and internal damage, and diversify revenue from album sales toward touring and higher-end brand partnerships.

SM Entertainment is not just banking on Taeyong to sell records. It is banking on him to prove the company still has institutional relevance. If Taeyong succeeds in this current creative evolution, SM proves it can survive without Lee Soo-man. If he falters, the Neo era may be remembered more for its scandals than its innovations.

For the investors watching the ticker and the readers watching the stage, the message is the same: the future of SM’s legacy is resting on the shoulders of its most resilient leader.

Thus, the real question is not whether Taeyong can carry a solo era on his own. It is whether SM can turn a strong individual artist into a durable part of its next business model without flattening what makes him distinct.

Endnotes

¹ Music Business Worldwide, “SM Entertainment revenues grew 16.6% to record $219m in Q4 driven by concerts and merch”: https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/sm-entertainment-revenues-grew-16-6-to-record-219m-in-q4-driven-by-concerts-and-merch/
² Forbes, “SM Entertainment Unveils Majors Plans With ‘SM NEXT 3.0’ Strategy”: https://www.forbes.com/sites/laurasirikul/2026/01/24/sm-entertainment-unveils-majors-plans-with-sm-next-30-strategy/
³ The Korea Times, “NCT’s Taeyong to drop collaboration single with Anderson .Paak”: https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/entertainment/k-pop/20260413/ncts-taeyong-to-drop-collaboration-single-with-anderson-paak
⁴ SM Entertainment press release, SM 3.0 strategy materials: https://d39f958jwfqxa4.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/09172747/Press-Release-SM-Ushers-in-the-SM-3.0-Period-through-the-Introduction-of-Multi-
⁵ SM Entertainment press release, SM 3.0 IP monetization materials: https://d39f958jwfqxa4.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/09173305/Press-Release-SM-Ent-Announces-SM-3.0-IP-Monetization-
⁶ Dipe, Taeyong concert sellout coverage: https://www.dipe.co.kr/2336873
⁷ Hanteo News, Taeyong concert sellout coverage: https://hanteonews.com/en/article/all/86691
⁸ Korea JoongAng Daily, Taemin departure coverage: https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/news/2026-02-24/entertainment/kpop/SHINees-Taemins-leaves-agency-as-exclusive-contract-ends
⁹ Allkpop, Taemin/Baekhyun departure discussion: https://www.allkpop.com/article/2024/03/industry-insider-says-taemins-decision-to-leave-sm-was-influenced-by-exos-baekhyun
¹⁰ Young Talent Time, background on the graduation-style model: https://www.youngtalenttime.tv/about-the-show
¹¹ MK Korea, Taeyong and Anderson .Paak collaboration coverage: https://www.mk.co.kr/en/musics/12019709

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I originally shared this on LinkedIn for my professional network, but I wanted to share it here with you all because it gets into the 'Internal Physics' of my move to Germany that I think this community will appreciate.

In 2024, after living in Seoul for one year, I left for Munich, Germany. Having already lived in Germany from 2015 -2020, I thought I knew what I was headed for. I imagined a lifestyle upgrade replete with cleaner air, calmer routines, and access to one of the world’s best healthcare systems. After experiencing yellow dust warnings drifting in from China, Germany’s countryside felt like the promise of health itself.

But the reality has been much more complicated.

I live outside Munich, in what should be an idyllic setting: rolling fields, quiet mornings, the hush of nature all around. And yet, life here has felt heavier rather than lighter. Because housing costs pushed us far from the conveniences of everyday life, my days now revolve around logistics - a twenty-minute drive to work, waiting until 5:30 p.m. because the children cannot get home on their own after activities, racing to the supermarket before it closes at eight. By the time dinner begins or the next day is even thought about, the evening has nearly disappeared. And with no Sunday trading to speak of, Saturday becomes a frantic exercise in catch-up, until Sunday arrives already shadowed by exhaustion and the unease of the week ahead.

Back in Seoul, the city air was toxic but daily life ran smoothly. We lived minutes from school; the kids could stay for activities while we ran errands or ordered dinner in. Food delivery was a button away. Even in the chaos, I could squeeze in exercise, social time, and most importantly, rest. Midweek evenings, I could easily catch transport from Sangam (Digital Media City) to Itaewon, go do pilates and get a massage, visit Passion 5 (my favourite bakery) and return home with still enough energy to spare.

Now, surrounded by forest and sky, I have neither time nor energy. My body feels chronically inflamed - allergic reactions, post-nasal drip, fatigue - and I can’t separate the physical symptoms from the constant pressure to keep up. I moved countries to breathe better, but somehow my breath feels shallower than ever.

“In Seoul, the air was polluted but life felt lighter. In Germany, the air is cleaner but life feels heavier.”

And then there’s the other kind of shock - the healthcare system itself.

A close friend here recently faced a terrifying ordeal. She developed swelling in her face, severe abdominal cramping, and signs of anaphylaxis. Despite obvious distress, local hospitals turned her away again and again, saying her condition wasn’t “life-threatening.” Confused by her symptoms, they assumed an allergic reaction to norovirus. Even when her lab results showed acute inflammation and her swelling refusing to subside, she was sent home with medication. It took her sheer insistence - standing her ground, pushing for care in a system where she barely spoke the language - for the university hospital downtown to finally admit her for further tests and observation.

The irony is that once she got in, the care was superb. Her doctor was compassionate, attentive, and skilled. The problem wasn’t the doctor - it was the system itself: overloaded, procedural, and blind to nuance. For someone new to the country, unfamiliar with the language or bureaucracy, there’s no safety net of comfort or trust. You learn that getting care often depends less on how sick you are, and more on how hard you fight for yourself.

That realisation alone adds an invisible but powerful burden resembling a lingering stress that seeps into everything. It’s hard to fully relax when you don’t quite trust that the system will catch you if you fall.

I came to Germany convinced that health meant clean air, balanced work hours, and structured living. But I’ve learned that true well-being is more subtle and less predictable. It depends on accessibility, cohesion, and community - things that go far beyond healthcare rankings or air quality charts.

In Seoul, I breathed polluted air but lived a life that supported me.

In Germany, I breathe the cleanest air I’ve ever known, but feel chronically unwell. I wake up tired, my allergies constantly active, my body tense from driving and rushing. My days feel longer, my health smaller.

What I’ve come to understand is that health extends far beyond air purity or the promise of a well-ranked healthcare system. It’s rooted in the architecture of our daily lives and in how much freedom, ease, and breathing space the world around us allows. Don’t get me wrong - living in Germany offers extraordinary privileges: spontaneous weekends in Greece, effortless road trips through France, Prague, and Italy. These moments of escape are precious, restorative even. Yet they rarely offset the quiet exhaustion of a life measured to the minute - where every waking hour is carved into rigid segments, and missing one isn’t just inconvenient, but feels like falling out of rhythm with life itself.

Sometimes, “healthier” environments don’t heal you, they simply shift the source of your stress.

If you're on LinkedIn, I'm starting a video series there on Professional Resilience - come join the conversation.

Coming up next: What Jamaica taught me that Germany never could - coming soon

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BTS’s Arirang is not just another comeback album. It is a document of what happens when an artist can no longer be neatly filed under “K‑pop” or “Western pop,” because their lives, language, and loyalties are split across both. In that sense, Arirang is the moment BTS fully become third culture kids in public - musicians whose “home” culture and “host” cultures have fused into a liminal, hybrid musical space.

Arirang and the impossibility of “pure” Korean

The criticism around Arirang has been loud, and in places, vicious. Some fans feel betrayed that an album named for a Korean folk song and heavily trailed with “back to our roots” imagery leans so heavily on English lyrics, Western collaborators, and a sound palette that could sit comfortably on US playlists. Others are wounded by the visual and historical representation around the Howard University imagery and the presence of an American actress in the video, reading those choices as whitewashing or a flattening of Black history and Korean symbolism.

Strip that discourse down to its core and a single anxiety appears: is this still “ours”? Is this still “Korean” in a meaningful way, or have they crossed a line into generic global pop?

But the premise behind that anxiety is already outdated. BTS are Korean, but they are also people who have lived their entire adult lives moving between Seoul and Los Angeles, American talk shows and Korean variety, the Grammys and Gwanghwamun. Their inner landscape is not purely domestic; their sonic references are as much LA studio lore as they are Busan street culture. Expecting a “pure” Korean sound from them at this point is like expecting third culture kids to speak only one language and feel fully at home in a country they left as children. It misreads what they have become.

On Arirang, the global and the Korean are inseparable by design. The album drapes itself in a loaded Korean signifier while using the tools of a global pop machine: bilingual lyrics, American producers, a visual language recognisable to anyone raised on Western music videos. That is not a failure of concept; it is the concept. The “Arirang” here is not the folk song frozen in 1920s wax cylinders - it is what “Arirang” becomes when carried by a group that has quite literally grown up in transit.

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The third culture frame: between, across, beyond

Traditional third culture kids are born into one culture, raised in another (or several others), and end up inhabiting a third, in‑between identity: not quite “from” anywhere, but fluent in many places at once. They are at home in airports, emotionally multilingual, and occasionally estranged from both their passport culture and their host cultures. They are, in the most literal way, liminal.

BTS were not military or corporate kids, but their adulthood has followed a similar track. Their formative years were Korean. Their ascension was global and often routed through American and western institutions. Their friendships and collaborations are now as likely to be with LA producers and international artists as with people they grew up with in Busan. They have testified at the UN, campaigned in the US, and become avatars of Korean soft power abroad, even as they remain subject to Korean military service and domestic expectations at home.

Arirang sounds like that in‑betweenness. The album is steeped in the Korean concept of han - collective sorrow, longing, a sense of unresolved hurt - but it articulates that emotion through trap beats, R&B textures, club‑facing synths, and English hooks. It remembers the folk song, but it also remembers LA traffic, Western studio sessions, and years of seeing their faces on LED billboards in languages they did not grow up speaking.

For a third culture kid, this is instantly legible. The title is what your grandparents would recognise. The sound is what your friends at international school recognise. The combination is what you recognise in yourself.

Why the backlash hits harder than usual

On one level, the backlash to Arirang fits a very old pattern: fans don’t like it when artists change.

Arctic Monkeys took a left turn with Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino, swapping swaggering guitar anthems for loungey, piano‑driven art rock. Many fans, anchored in the world of AM, called it boring, self‑indulgent, or unrecognisable. The band hadn’t stopped being Arctic Monkeys; they had just grown away from the sound that made them a global rock phenomenon.

Tame Impala’s Currents did something similar: it traded psych‑rock guitars for synth‑heavy, R&B‑inflected pop. Some early listeners dismissed it as selling out or chasing mainstream trends, because it no longer sounded like the fuzzy rock band they’d fallen in love with. Years later, Currents is widely hailed as a classic, a visionary shift that other artists now cite as formative.

BTS are moving through a comparable transition, but with extra layers:

• They are not just shifting genres; they are renegotiating the visible balance between Korean identity and global, often Western, sonic codes.

• They carry the weight of representing “Korea” in a way that Arctic Monkeys could never represent “Britain” and Tame Impala could never represent “Australia.”

• Their fanbase is massive, politicised, and deeply invested in questions of representation, race, and cultural power.

So, while Arctic Monkeys and Tame Impala were scolded for “changing the sound,” BTS are being scolded for changing the sound and for changing the perceived ratio of Korean to global in that sound. The critique is not only “this chorus is mid.” It is “this doesn’t sound like the BTS we relied on to stand against Western hegemony.” That is a very different kind of grief.

In other words, BTS are not just being punished for evolving; they are being punished for evolving in a way that reveals just how irreversibly global - and therefore third‑culture - their inner lives have become.

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Respecting the third culture reality

For parents of third culture kids such as myself, this feels familiar in a painfully intimate way. My children left their “home” country at five and two, lived in five different countries, and now struggle to reconcile their “Australian‑ness” with the reality of being global citizens. They may carry an Australian passport, but their memories are threaded through playgrounds in different languages, classrooms with rotating cohorts of international students, and friendships that exist entirely online across time zones.

When someone tells them to “just be Australian” or questions whether they are “really” Australian because they do not fully share the pop culture, slang, or lived experience of children who never left, it misses the point. Their identity is not a failure to belong; it is a new configuration of belonging.

BTS are living that on a planetary stage. Critics who insist that they either stay “properly Korean” (more Korean lyrics, more traditional references, fewer Western collaborators) or go “properly global” (drop the cultural weight, just make hits) are asking them to disassemble a hybrid self that cannot actually be separated. That refusal to see the third culture reality is what makes some of the discourse feel less like music criticism and more like a policing of identity.

Respecting Arirang - even if one doesn’t like every track - means acknowledging that it sounds the way it does because of where BTS actually live now, psychically and geographically. It is the sound of Korean artists who have spent a decade moving through Western institutions, who understand both the burden and the opportunity of carrying “Arirang” into those spaces, and who are trying to write something that feels truthful to that.

A liminal space worth listening to

The liminal space between Korea and the West is not a bug in BTS’s system; it is their operating environment. On Arirang, they no longer pretend otherwise. Collaborations with global artists such as Kevin Parker of Tame Impala, Ryan Tedder of OneRepublic, British singer songwriter Artemas, and producer Diplo are just a few of the many threads woven into Arirang’s rich and varied musical palette.The record does not reconcile the tension between Korean roots and global reach; it inhabits it.

That will always frustrate listeners who want clean categories: “our” music vs “their” music, “authentic” vs “commercial,” “local” vs “global.” But for anyone who has lived in between - my children, international school kids, migrants who left home young - this unresolved, hybrid soundscape feels honest.

Perhaps that is the most generous way to read Arirang: as an album that refuses the fantasy of purity and instead plants a flag in the messy, liminal territory where third culture kids have always quietly lived. It is not a betrayal of who BTS were; it is a declaration of who they are now.

And that, more than any flawless chorus or perfect rollout, is what deserves respect.

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This new year, I visited Australia, the country where I was born and raised. Each visit is both rewarding and deeply reflective. It always leaves me pondering whether as an expat, do I truly want to return? How much longer will I live abroad, wondering if I should have come back to my homeland years ago?

As I wandered through suburbs like Box Hill in Melbourne, now transformed by extraordinary development, it struck me how profoundly Australia has changed. It is no longer the nation of my childhood, cloaked in the warm hues of nostalgia. Melbourne, in particular, has evolved into a vast, ever-expanding metropolis, its population now surpassing what was once Australia’s largest city, Sydney. Conversations about the soaring cost of living, especially housing, dominate every household. In today’s Melbourne, a modest home priced between 1 and 1.4 million Australian dollars (roughly one million US dollars) is considered standard and is often an unrenovated property still awaiting care.

As my family discussed renovations, road conditions, expanding metro lines, and the relentless pace of urban growth, I found myself contemplating what kind of society Australia has become. Who are we now, as a culture? The recent Bondi massacre - a tragedy that tore at the nation’s heart - served as a sobering reminder of fragility and change. I couldn’t help but wonder, what future awaits this Great Southern Land?

I am a child of immigrants. In truth, every Australian grows up with the quiet understanding that unless their roots are Indigenous, they too descend from those who came from elsewhere. My own parents emigrated to Australia in the early 1970s, amid a period of profound political upheaval and national transformation. The collapse of the Vietnam War cast a long shadow across the world, reverberating deeply within Australia. Conscription had torn through the nation’s social fabric, and as the futility of the conflict became apparent - with countless young Australian lives lost - a political reckoning took hold.

In 1972, the Shanghai Communiqué signaled a new era of global diplomacy, normalising relations between the United States and China. For Australia, it marked the tentative opening of doors to broader Asian migration. Simultaneously, the country’s surging economy created an urgent demand for skilled labour - a call that reached across continents. With two-year work visas in hand, my parents, then only in their twenties, left Greece behind and journeyed to this distant land with a simple purpose: to work, to save, and to one day return “home.”

Their story was echoed by countless others from Italy, Spain, Yugoslavia, Poland, Turkey, and Greece - immigrants once deemed “not white enough” to qualify for official visas. Until then, such privileges had been reserved for those from Britain, Scandinavia, or Northern Europe. But necessity reshaped prejudice. The government, facing a glaring shortage of labour, opened its borders wider, and by 1968, Australia began actively recruiting migrants from both Europe and Asia. Initially, Europeans made up over 80% of arrivals. Over time, as Europe’s economic growth waned, increasing numbers of Asians made Australia their destination.

The long-standing “White Australia Policy,” which had institutionalised racial restrictions on immigration, began to unravel in practice under the Holt government in 1966. Ironically, this shift first benefited Southern Europeans, who themselves had been considered insufficiently “white.” By 1973, the Whitlam government formally abolished the policy with the enactment of the Universal Migration Act, a symbolic and practical commitment to multiculturalism.

It is with this historical consciousness - and the quiet weight of inherited experience - that I pursue this line of thought.

What unfolded in Bondi last week was nothing short of a national reckoning. The shockwaves from Australia’s largest terrorist attack - and its deadliest mass shooting since Port Arthur in 1996 - have effectively paralysed the nation. As political pundits rush to apportion blame, toward the media, the government, or university administrators, the Jewish community remains engulfed in grief and disbelief. For years, it had been pleading with authorities to confront the escalation of violent antisemitism, only to be met with indifference and empty assurances.

The entrenched tendency to rationalise this hatred - to recast anti-Jewish sentiment as “anti-Zionist” political expression - has long rested on the pretext of the “Palestinian issue” and the war in Gaza. Yet the grotesque scenes outside the Sydney Opera House on October 9, 2023, just one day after the worst terrorist attacks on Israelis and non-Israelis alike, marked a searing rupture in Australia’s collective psyche. Hearing chants of “gas the Jews” echo across the forecourt, from throngs of men who appeared to be of Middle Eastern background, signified not merely protest but a moral breaking point - a violent unravelling of the social fabric that had bound Australia’s diverse communities together.

For decades, Australia has welcomed migration from the Middle East. Tens of thousands arrived in the wake of Lebanon’s civil war in the early 1980s, forming well-assimilated communities that quietly preserved their culture and faith. Until recently, overt antisemitism was not a visible feature of that landscape. The Palestinian cause lingered at the edges of discourse - present, certainly, but rarely inflamed to the extent of inciting open calls for violence.

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By the early 2000s, a buried yet simmering hostility had begun to surface. The September 11 attacks, and Australia’s steadfast alliance with the United States in the wars that followed in Afghanistan and Iraq, provoked a surge of criticism and unrest. Undeterred, the Howard government maintained its alignment with President Bush, a decision that deepened resentment, particularly within Muslim communities in Australia’s major cities, and most visibly in Sydney.

As the wars dragged on, Australia became a refuge for those displaced by the conflicts. Waves of both legal and illegal migrants arrived on its shores, their desperation compounded by the ruthless opportunism of Indonesian people smugglers who demanded exorbitant sums for perilous sea voyages. Australia’s stance on illegal immigration was uncompromising and widely broadcast. At the time, asylum seekers could legally lodge claims upon arrival at offshore territories such as Christmas Island.

Yet while attention fixated on the maritime routes of illegal entry, a more insidious challenge was emerging much closer to home. In the western Sydney suburbs of Lakemba, Campsie, and Bankstown, a quiet but growing tension began to take root - one that would soon test the nation’s social cohesion far more profoundly than any smuggler’s boat on distant waters.

By the early 2000s, Sydney’s fragile multicultural balance began to fracture further with the emergence of the so‑called “Lebanese rape gangs,” whose crimes provoked national outrage and deepened cultural fault lines. The series of assaults committed by groups of young men, many of Lebanese Muslim background, were not only acts of violence but became symbols of a perceived cultural clash that dominated media discourse. The political and public response often blurred the distinction between individual criminality and collective identity, stoking resentment and fear across communities. This tension reached a violent crescendo in December 2005 with the Cronulla riots. The riots were sparked by a confrontation between surf lifesavers and men of Middle Eastern appearance and inflamed by talkback radio, text messages, and alcohol, erupted into some of the most visible racial violence in the country’s recent history, leaving dozens injured and more than a hundred people arrested. The riots exposed the undercurrents of mistrust and alienation that had long simmered beneath Australia’s multicultural narrative. In the aftermath, political leaders called for unity, yet the damage was done: the notion of harmonious coexistence gave way to a more uneasy awareness of the divides lurking beneath the surface of Australian society.

Sydney rape gangs1

In response, governments intensified counterterrorism powers and community-policing initiatives, while the Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) expanded its surveillance and intervention efforts, including high-profile raids and closer monitoring of certain clerics and community leaders in Sydney’s west. Yet these measures sat uneasily alongside a growing perception among many Australian Muslims that they were being viewed primarily through a security lens. The result was a fraught feedback loop: fear breeding suspicion, suspicion feeding alienation, and alienation in turn creating the conditions in which extremist narratives could more easily take root. In 2012, clashes left six police officers injured when gangs of Muslims violently protested a US made film which “denigrates” the Prophet Mohammed. Muslim leaders pleaded for calm, and expressed that the radical groups were fringe minority voices. However, ordinarily rational Australians posted messages which heavily criticised placards carried by these protestors promoting death as a way of revenge.

“Live in our land and obey our laws. I have never written to express my feelings to your group, but I am so incensed at what I saw on TV and the stupid remarks from some future terrorists.”

During the height of the Syrian conflict, a small but deeply troubling cohort of young Australian men embraced violent jihadist ideology and left to fight under the banner of the so‑called Islamic State. Many were drawn in through a mix of online propaganda, peer networks, and the influence of radical preachers who framed the Syrian war as a sacred obligation, transforming grievance and alienation into a call to arms. Among the most notorious was Khaled Sharrouf, a convicted terrorist who fled Australia on his brother’s passport in 2013 to join Islamic State in Syria; he later shocked the world when an image emerged of his young son, believed to be seven years old at the time, holding a severed head, accompanied by Sharrouf’s chilling caption on his Twitter post: “That’s my boy.”

His case became emblematic of the grotesque normalisation of violence within extremist circles and the extent to which radicalisation could consume not only individuals, but entire families.

In the wake of the October 7 Hamas attacks, a strain of antisemitism that had long been present in Australia’s undercurrent pushed decisively into the open. Jewish schools, synagogues, and community centres reported bomb threats, harassment, and vandalism, with incidents concentrated in Sydney and Melbourne but also spreading to smaller communities across the country. Firebomb and arson attacks on synagogues such as Melbourne’s Adass Israel Synagogue in Ripponlea, swastikas and “Hitler on top” graffiti at shules like Allawah in Sydney, and threats against worshippers near Chabad North Shore and Kehillat Masada became emblematic of a climate in which visibly Jewish spaces were no longer assumed to be safe.

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Key communal leaders sounded increasingly urgent alarms. The Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) reported “unprecedentedly high levels” of antisemitic incidents, recording 1,654 cases between October 1, 2024, and September 30, 2025 - around five times the pre‑October 7 annual average - and warned that “Jews have legitimate concerns for their physical safety and future in Australia.” Daniel Aghion, a senior communal figure, described the statistics on antisemitic incidents as “unprecedented… levels we have never encountered in over three decades of monitoring,” while the Australian Jewish Association publicly lamented, “How many times did we alert the Government? We have never felt that our concerns were acknowledged.” International voices echoed this alarm with Marina Rosenberg of the ADL cautioning that events in Australia “should be a wake‑up call to communities worldwide,” noting a “dangerous convergence” between neo‑Nazis, the anti‑Israel left and Islamists in “their common hatred of Jews/Zionists.”

Universities became one of the most visible theatres for this shift. Pro‑Palestinian encampments spread across campuses in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth and beyond, framed by organisers as solidarity actions but experienced by many Jewish students as hostile environments where anti‑Israel rhetoric frequently bled into antisemitic tropes, harassment and intimidation. Jewish student leaders, such as those from the Australasian Union of Jewish Students, spoke of feeling unsafe on campus and described some encampments as “eerily reminiscent” of radicalised US campus protests, accusing them of “fomenting extremism,” while political figures including opposition leader Peter Dutton publicly branded certain encampments “racist” and “antisemitic.” Within the wider global context, Australian Jewry’s experience has been framed by international organisations as part of a “tidal wave of hate” unleashed after October 7, with Jewish communities in New York, London, Paris, Berlin, Buenos Aires and Toronto reporting similar surges in harassment, threats and incitement, transforming antisemitism from a marginal prejudice, into a central stress test of liberal democracies themselves.

In this newly charged landscape, figures such as Sydney-based Islamist cleric Wissam Haddad have come to embody the uneasy fault line between protected speech and incitement. Identified for years by counterterrorism experts and former ASIO operatives as a spiritual reference point for pro‑Islamic State circles, Haddad has preached from the Al Madina Dawah Centre in Bankstown and through online platforms, delivering sermons that a Federal Court judge later found to be “racist and antisemitic,” including references to Jews as “vile,” “treacherous,” and “mischievous,” and invoking religious texts that speak of killing Jews. Yet despite his long‑documented role in radical milieus - and his documented connection to at least one Bondi gunman, Naveed Akram, who had been a street preacher for Haddad’s Dawah Van initiative - he has not faced criminal prosecution, with police and prosecutors citing gaps in existing law and, in some accounts, even viewing his centre as a “valuable source of intelligence.” For many Australian Jews, the spectacle of a preacher who openly dehumanises them remaining at liberty, even as Jewish schools adopt security protocols resembling counterterrorism units, has sharpened the sense that the basic meaning of being “Australian” has been quietly, and perhaps perilously, redrawn.

That redefinition was thrown into even sharper relief on the day tens of thousands marched across the Sydney Harbour Bridge under the banner of solidarity with Gaza. Organised by the Palestine Action Group and endorsed by figures such as former New South Wales premier Bob Carr, the event was billed as an “immense march for humanity” demanding sanctions on Israel and an end to what protesters described as genocide in Gaza. Yet the image that lingered for many was not the sea of umbrellas and flags, but a single, radicalised individual climbing atop the bridge’s structure to hoist a black shahada flag, visually indistinguishable to many Australians from the banners associated with Islamic State and jihadist movements worldwide. In that moment, the line between a protest against the Gaza war and a display of allegiance - symbolic or otherwise - to Hamas, and even IS, became dangerously blurred. For a country long accustomed to viewing itself as a bastion of easygoing multiculturalism, the sight of a de facto jihadist emblem crowning its most iconic landmark posed an unsettling question: whose values, and whose vision of Australia, now hold sway in the public square?

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Australia stands at an inflection point after Bondi. Doing nothing now would not be a neutral act, but a tacit endorsement of the trajectory that led to the country’s worst gun massacre since Port Arthur and its largest terrorist attack in history. The question “where to now?” cannot be answered with a single policy tweak or a new taskforce; it demands a reordering of cultural, legal and moral priorities that have been neglected for far too long.

At the heart of this reckoning lies a basic moral baseline that has been steadily eroded. No cause, no grievance, no conflict in Gaza or anywhere else justifies murder in a shopping centre, threats against Jewish schools, or terrorising an already traumatised minority. Yet for years, political, religious and academic elites have indulged in euphemism and equivocation, willing to condemn “all forms of hatred” in the abstract but reluctant to name antisemitism, jihadist rhetoric and the romanticisation of “resistance” when the targets are Jews. Bondi has stripped away the luxury of that ambiguity. What is now required is unapologetic moral clarity, spoken plainly and repeatedly, especially by those who have previously hedged their language for fear of offending constituents or colleagues.

Legally, the massacre has exposed just how much extremist activity has been allowed to fester in the grey zone between protected speech and outright incitement. For years, radical preachers and activists have danced on the line - glorifying “martyrs,” circulating jihadist symbolism, and dehumanising Jews - while authorities insisted their hands were tied. The answer is not to invent new thought crimes, but to enforce existing laws on hate speech, glorification of terrorism and material support for extremist groups with a consistency that has been conspicuously absent when the offenders are charismatic clerics or politically useful activists. The spectacle of figures such as Wissam Haddad, whose sermons have been found “racist and antisemitic” by a federal court, remaining free to preach while Jewish schools operate under near–counterterror security protocols, speaks to a profound imbalance in how risk is understood and managed

Education and civic identity sit at the centre of this crisis. Jewish schools ringed with bollards, guards and surveillance are not just responding to an acute security threat; they are a visible indictment of a society that has failed to sustain a shared sense of who “we” are. Universities, meanwhile, have become staging grounds for imported conflicts, where encampments and protests framed as “solidarity” have too often bled into harassment, exclusion and open antisemitism directed at Jewish students. Administrators who once prided themselves on fostering critical thinking now find themselves presiding over campuses where intimidation is rationalised as activism, and where the language of human rights is deployed selectively - ferocious when aimed at Israel, curiously muted when Jewish students report feeling unsafe simply walking to class.

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Beneath all this lies a conversation Australia has repeatedly postponed: what, precisely, does it mean to be Australian in an era of mass migration and hyper‑globalised identity politics? This is not an argument for fewer migrants; it is an argument for honesty about integration, imported hatreds and the limits of multiculturalism as a feel‑good slogan. For decades, the country has celebrated diversity while averting its gaze from the fact that some arrivals bring with them deeply rooted antisemitism, sectarianism or support for violent “resistance” movements - attitudes that have not been meaningfully challenged, let alone transformed, by the host culture. The march over the Sydney Harbour Bridge, crowned by a lone radical hoisting a black shahada flag visually indistinguishable from the banners of Islamic State, crystallised this unease: was this a protest against the Gaza war, or an in‑your‑face declaration that Australian symbols and spaces are now available as stages for global jihadist theatre?

The pattern from youth gangs, to Cronulla, to Australians fighting in Syria, to Bondi is not fate; it is the accumulated product of countless decisions to minimise, to relativise, to look away. “Where to now?” is therefore less a technocratic question than a test of national character. It asks whether Australia is prepared to protect its Jews, and its broader civic peace, with the same determination it applies to its borders; whether it is willing to assert a shared moral core even when doing so risks accusations of bigotry or “taking sides.”

The Australian government’s knee-jerk response to recent events - introducing new laws to police speech - extends far beyond targeting so-called hateful expression. It casts a wide and indiscriminate net, one that threatens to curtail Australia’s long-held freedoms of speech. Rather than offering a genuine solution, this approach stands as yet another instance of governmental overreach - one that risks conflating legitimate public dissent and political criticism with security threats, thereby silencing the very voices democracy is meant to protect.

The answer to Australia’s malaise will not be found in another inquiry, strategy document, or wide sweeping laws that risk the very fabric of freedom the nation was built on, but in whether the country finally chooses to draw - and defend - lines it should have drawn long ago.

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I recently returned from a visit to Ireland, and what struck me most, beyond the misty coastlines, familiar pubs, and the ever-welcoming people, was something altogether unexpected, and frankly bewildering - the omnipresence of Palestinian flags.

Not just in Dublin or Belfast, where one might expect overt political posturing, but everywhere. From murals in Republican strongholds to graffiti on rural bus stops, from rainbow-Palestinian flag hybrids in cafés to painted windows in small-town community centres. The symbolism was not only widespread but borderline obsessive. It was as if a foreign cause had taken up permanent residence in the Irish psyche, eclipsing even Irishness itself.

And that’s just it - the trip felt like a study in cultural substitution.

Despite being a seasoned traveller, I had somehow never set foot in Ireland until recently. It was a long-overdue visit, one I’d been genuinely looking forward to. Not just for the postcard beauty of its landscapes, but for a kind of cultural immersion I had imagined since childhood. I pictured the lyrical sway of traditional Irish music drifting from pub doorways, the unmistakable warmth and chatter of locals, and a nation still steeped in a culture that, for decades, had quietly enchanted the world.

And to be fair, the Irish lived up to their reputation. They are, without question, among the friendliest people I’ve encountered - open, humorous, and naturally curious. One incident that stands out is when we were in Derry looking a little lost crossing a street near the wall. Just as we were trying to locate where we were on Google Maps, a car suddenly stopped in the middle of the road, and a young fellow popped out to ask, “Do you guys need any help? Can I help you find somewhere”? We were a little startled as he literally stopped his car right there in the middle of the street to assist us - completely unsolicited.

The landscape, too, is undeniably magnificent. The Giant’s Causeway and the Cliffs of Moher don't merely live up to their acclaim, they exceed it.

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Yet, despite all this, something felt off. A certain cultural texture I had anticipated, yearned for even, seemed oddly absent. Perhaps it was my own romantic expectation, shaped by a Catholic education in the '90s, the gritty soul of The Commitments, U2’s Rattle and Hum on loop, and tales from friends who visited in the early 2000s, returning wide-eyed with stories of wild nights and unexpected VIP treatment in Bono’s pub. More recently, Derry Girls had revived that nostalgic vision - clever, raw, and unmistakably Irish.

So yes, perhaps I was asking for too much. But what I didn’t anticipate was not just a dilution of the old Ireland, but its symbolic replacement. Instead of echoes of the Irish Troubles, I encountered murals, flags, and slogans dedicated to foreign conflicts. Alongside places of national memory, I found imported struggles painted onto walls and windows, woven into the civic fabric as though they belonged. The cultural inheritance I had hoped to glimpse wasn’t just fading - it seemed to be actively overwritten.

Ireland has undergone extraordinary change in recent decades. Much of it is well-documented: the decline of the Catholic Church, the Celtic Tiger years, the liberalisation of social policies, and the country’s deepening entwinement with the European Union. But what is harder to quantify, and what I felt viscerally while there, is the spiritual disorientation that seems to have followed this transformation.

There’s a certain unease in the air, a cultural hollowness being papered over with imported ideological wallpaper. Once a nation deeply defined by faith, family, and a certain insular ruggedness, Ireland now finds itself embracing a progressive, globalist identity - often with the zeal of a convert. LGBT flags and Palestinian keffiyehs flutter across towns both large and small, affixed to government buildings and cafés as though they represent the country's core values.

Solidarity is one thing; saturation is another. The sheer volume and visibility of Palestinian symbolism across Ireland defies logic. This is not a marginal show of support - it is, quite literally, the dominant visual language in many parts of the country. The irony, of course, is that it’s a form of identity projection - adopting a foreign struggle in the absence of a coherent native one.

Perhaps that’s the most unsettling part. It feels as though Ireland, no longer sure of what it stands for, is reaching outward to adopt the battles of others - often with more passion than it defends its own heritage.

Take the Gaelic language, for instance. In many areas, it survives only on road signs or tourist merchandise. Traditional Irish music, while present, feels more like performance than lived experience. Meanwhile, modern political discourse centres not on Irish sovereignty or values, but on EU alignment, inclusion rhetoric, and a sort of moral outsourcing to global causes.

Nowhere is this borrowed identity more overt than in Republican parts of Belfast and Derry, where murals of IRA volunteers stand shoulder to shoulder with tributes to Yasser Arafat and Arabic script. This alliance isn’t new - the IRA and the PLO had documented connections in the 70s and 80s, rooted in their shared self-image as anti-colonial resistance movements. Arms training, ideological kinship, even tactics were reportedly exchanged.

Whilst there was still very much an Irish Republican representation, I felt it shared the space with these foreign troubles and left wing revolutionary figures. An entire mural wall is dedicated to Che Guevara in Derry; a mural dedicated to the Tamil Tigers of Sri Lanka in Belfast stands alongside a sizeable mural of Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) militant and plane hijacker Leila Khaled.

Yet today, it feels performative. The Provisional IRA was officially designated a terrorist organisation by the UK in 1974, and yet its symbols still appear on public walls in the Republican north with near-impunity. What would be deemed glorification of terror elsewhere is treated here as historic expression. It’s a strange contradiction: a state that prides itself on human rights and inclusivity still tolerates the open celebration of paramilitary imagery - so long as it's on the “correct” side of the narrative.

What I left with was a sense of malaise - not economic, for the country is thriving on paper - but existential. Ireland seems no longer confident in its story. It is energetically dismantling its past, embracing a future written in someone else's dialect, someone else’s colours. What fills the void is often symbolism with no real cultural roots, celebrated as if the more foreign it is, the more virtuous it must be.

This is not a call for regression. Ireland was right to confront the failures of its institutions and evolve. But there is a cost to shedding too many skins too quickly. When a nation loses the plot of its own story, it becomes vulnerable to nostalgia, to ideological colonisation, or simply to drifting along on borrowed convictions.

The Irish people remain warm, soulful, and sincere. But their national identity now seems to be drifting - less defined by native traditions, and more shaped by global cues and performative politics.

I couldn’t help but wonder: who is Ireland trying to become?

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Manifestation has woven itself deeply into the fabric of the New Age zeitgeist; ever since titles like The Secret and What the Bleep Do We Know broke into the mainstream, it seems as though every scroll on TikTok or YouTube reveals another manifestation guru. The literature on shaping reality is vast - Neville Goddard, Deepak Chopra, Joe Dispenza, Esther Hicks, Bruce Lipton, Wayne Dyer, Bob Proctor, and so many others have all weighed in. I’m familiar with their methods, their philosophies, and the practical steps they advocate. Yet, despite my understanding, my own relationship with manifestation feels strangely intangible. Whenever I’ve tried to consciously manifest something - pouring intention, energy, and focus into the process - the desired outcome seems to drift further from reach. The common refrain among these thinkers is to set the intention, embody the feeling, and then release attachment. I follow these instructions to the letter, or so I believe, but perhaps there’s a hidden tension: a subtle grasping, a quiet desperation for the result, which only amplifies the sense of lack. Curiously, the things I’ve manifested most effortlessly have always been those I’ve thought about only in passing, with no emotional charge or expectation. Almost everything I’ve truly wanted has found its way to me - except for those things I’ve fixated on and tried to summon with deliberate focus. Why is it that the harder I try to manifest something, the more elusive it becomes, while the wishes I entertain lightly, almost absentmindedly, seem to materialise of their own accord?

Let me begin with the moment that set everything in motion. In the early 2000s, I was living in Melbourne, teaching - a profession I loved, though it kept my world relatively contained. My sister-in-law, on the other hand, was constantly in motion, based in China and immersed in the business she and her husband were building. Her visits to Melbourne were frequent, often squeezed between trips to Germany, the UK, and the US, where their other offices were scattered. I remember one particular afternoon at a family barbecue, watching her recount her travels, and thinking, almost offhandedly, “I wish I could travel more for work.” It was a passing thought, almost absurd given my circumstances. Teaching in Melbourne rarely lent itself to globe-trotting, especially with the school year so out of sync with the rest of the world and the sheer cost of international travel from Australia.

Yet, that idle wish lingered somewhere in the background, quietly biding its time. Several years later, it resurfaced - not as a wish, but as an open door. Suddenly, the chance to live and work abroad became real. I found myself, with a toddler and a preschooler in tow, and my husband - then a trailing spouse still finishing his degree online - preparing to move to a country I had never set foot in: the United Arab Emirates. It was a leap into the unknown, into a culture, language, and landscape utterly unlike anything I’d known. And all of it, in some mysterious way, traced back to that fleeting, almost forgotten wish at a backyard barbecue in Melbourne.

Living in the UAE definitely opened up the world for me. Every school holiday, we were off somewhere - Greece, the UK, Hong Kong for Christmas one year, Italy the next. Still, as much as I loved those trips, I wasn’t quite “traveling for work” just yet. That piece finally clicked into place in 2015, when we moved to Munich and both started working at an international school. Suddenly, that offhand wish I’d made years earlier was unfolding in real time.

Over the five years we called Munich home, travel became a constant - family trips every summer and winter break to places like the UK, Netherlands, Belgium, France, Hungary, Slovenia, Slovakia, Croatia, Greece and the USA. But now, it was more than just holidays. I was flying to conferences and professional development workshops: Paris, Malmö, London, Dubai and Abu Dhabi (more than once, this time from Europe), Amsterdam, The Hague, Yerevan, Atlanta, Frankfurt, Montreux, Hanover and Berlin.

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The next time I caught myself in the middle of what felt like an unconscious manifestation was in 2023, while I was living in Jamaica and gearing up for my next move. A job popped up at a school in Seoul - a leadership role, not quite what I’d done before, but close enough. I jumped at the chance, eager to be closer to Australia and to experience the energy of Asia. I landed the job. But the real moment of realisation came as I was packing up my house in Kingston and stumbled across an old notebook. Inside were some astrological predictions for my sun and rising sign courtesy of an astrologer friend of my uncle’s. As I flipped through, I found pages of notes - different schools, different jobs, all in my handwriting. I remembered jotting these down back in Germany in 2020, in the madness of Covid as we were mapping out our next possible steps. We’d ended up in Malaysia for a year, then Jamaica for two, but there, circled in my notes, was Dwight Seoul - DP Bus and MYP. They were notes for a possible teaching job there which included teaching International Baccalaureate (IB) Business Management and Middle Years Programme (MYP) Humanities. Underneath, I’d written: no primary but maybe? - a message to myself that there was a possible job for me and possibly one for my husband, a primary school teacher. The notes also stated the location of the school: Digital Media City. I remember how much I’d wanted that job but missed the application date by the time I’d seen the job advertised.

Standing there, reading my own notes from three years earlier, it hit me: I was about to move to Seoul at that exact school for a job. The only thing that had changed was the timing. I actually gasped at how the universe had lined things up - like I’d set the intention and then completely forgotten about it, only for it to find me when the time was right. Another case of manifestation working quietly in the background, whether I realised it or not.

During my stint in Seoul I found myself once again, travelling for work - this time to Daegu to speak at the International Baccalaureate (IB) Annual Conference.

In order to get to Daegu, I found myself living out my own version of Train to Busan - the Korean zombie thriller I’d watched years earlier in Germany, struggling through the dialogue in Korean with only German subtitles to guide me. Now, it was me stepping onto the train bound for Busan, disembarking at Daegu station - the very spot where the film’s chaos reaches its peak, with trains colliding and the virus overtaking the passengers. As I stepped onto the platform, I couldn’t help but laugh at the irony.

Recently, my daughter and I decided to rewatch the film together. Half-joking, we wondered aloud if any scenes had been shot in Sangam, our neighborhood in Seoul’s Digital Media City - a hub for production and broadcasting, where K-dramas are filmed and where we’ve often stumbled upon sets just walking down our street. We’ve even watched car chases being filmed right on our main road, camera crews packed into vehicles, capturing the action as it unfolded. Sure enough, as the movie began, there it was - our area, unmistakable. My daughter shouted, “That’s the road with the wall and the parachute guy mural! Our World Cup Park building is just to the left!”

She was absolutely right. It struck me as another uncanny twist of fate: years ago, in Germany, I’d watched this film - subtitled in German, no less - never imagining that one day I’d be living in the very city, and even the very neighbourhood, where its early scenes were filmed. Sometimes, the universe has a remarkable sense of irony.

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The final story I want to share involves Mitch Horowitz, whose work in the world of the occult and New Thought has long fascinated me. I first encountered him in 2018 through The Miracle Club, a book that instantly captivated me and led me straight into Occult America. I devoured his interviews on Gaia, drawn in by his distinctive narrative style and the clarity of his ideas. At some point, I remember the thought crossing my mind - fleeting, almost weightless - how wonderful it would be to meet him one day, to talk about these subjects that so intrigued me. As quickly as it came, the thought dissolved, drifting back into the ether.

Years later, living in Jamaica and working at a school, I started this Substack. It became my outlet - a space to share ideas, explore curiosities, and introduce others to the people and topics that inspired me. Somewhere along the way, I decided to reach out to Mitch Horowitz himself. I hesitated, of course; my rational mind questioned my audacity. But I sent the message anyway, asking if he’d be open to an interview for my Substack. To my astonishment, he replied almost immediately - yes, he’d be happy to. I was genuinely stunned by how effortless it was, and I couldn’t help but think back to that casual wish years earlier. “Damn you, universe, you did it again,” was all I could think.

I kept writing, even as my readership remained modest but loyal. I wasn’t chasing numbers or recognition - writing was simply something I needed to do, a way to process and share, regardless of who was reading. Then, in February 2025, I glanced at my subscriber list and, almost as an afterthought, wished it would grow. I knew I wasn’t going to hustle or market myself aggressively; between work, motherhood, and writing for my own sense of joy, there just wasn’t room for that. Yet, in a very short amount of time, new subscribers began to appear - one, two, ten, twenty. I was puzzled until I realised that Mitch Horowitz had added my Substack to his recommendations. Suddenly, many of you reading this now found me through him or through Substack’s own suggestions. My small circle had quietly expanded, seemingly overnight and I am truly grateful to you all for sticking around.

Time and again, I find that the things I’ve managed to manifest are those I’ve thought about lightly, almost in passing - never the ones I’ve chased or tried to will into existence. The jobs, the money, the weight loss - all the things I’ve tried to force have remained stubbornly out of reach. Frustratingly so. But the quiet wishes, the ones I let go of almost as soon as they arise, seem to find their own way to me.

Perhaps that’s the lesson: somewhere, the universe - or whatever you want to call it - knows what we truly need, even when we’re not consciously asking.

But I want to give conscious creation one last go. So I am going to attempt Mitch Horowitz’s 30 day mental challenge starting on July 1 2025. If you are curious or keen to implement a focused practice of deliberative thought, I’d recommend letting Mitch be the man to guide you!

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Sometimes, music from distant lands speaks to something deep inside - beyond culture, beyond heritage. When I first heard this blend of traditional Bashkir and Russian sounds, it stirred a part of me I didn’t expect, like an echo buried in my DNA. Ay Yola is most famous through their 2025 song Homay, which went viral internationally, notably in the Turkic states of Kazakhstan, Turkey, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Turkmenistan. Whilst my origins stem from Greece, something about the song gripped me; the blend of traditional throat singing and contemporary indie electronic sounds are mesmerising.

Homay is a living testament to music’s power to dissolve the boundaries of time and space. Just as music can stir deep, inexplicable connections to distant places and epochs, Homay bridges ancient Bashkir mythology and modern global soundscapes, inviting listeners of all backgrounds into a shared emotional vortex. It is sung in Bashkir and draws its narrative from the epic “Ural-Batyr,” centering on the mythical Huma (Homay) bird, a symbol of wisdom, light, and sacred knowledge in Turkic folklore. The song not only honours this legendary figure but also draws a direct line between ancient myth and the contemporary experience of Bashkir women, framing them as bearers of ancestral wisdom.

Homay is a masterclass in cultural fusion. It blends traditional Bashkir instruments such as the kurai (a reed flute), dombra (a long-necked lute), and kobyz (a bowed string instrument) with contemporary electronic production, including synthwave and trap-inspired beats. This juxtaposition creates a soundscape that feels both timeless and immediate, echoing the sensation of existing in multiple realities at once.

Despite being sung in Bashkir - a language unfamiliar to many listeners - the song has resonated internationally, topping charts from Kazakhstan to Germany, and going viral on platforms like TikTok and Shazam. The universality of its melody, rhythm, and mythic themes allows it to transcend linguistic and cultural barriers, much like the way certain melodies can evoke ancestral memory or a sense of home in listeners far removed from the song’s origins. This thematic layering - myth, ancestry, and modern identity - begs the question: how can music connect us to places and eras far removed from our lived experience, stirring something primal and universal within us?

Does music tap into our DNA, or does it allow us to exist in parallel realities beyond our lived dimension? While science is still unraveling the mysteries of music’s impact on memory and identity, Homay shows that certain sounds and stories can resonate across time, geography, and culture, awakening emotions and connections that defy rational explanation.

Some researchers propose that musical sensitivity is tied to gene-culture coevolution. For instance, the AVPR1A gene, linked to auditory processing and social bonding, may influence why certain rhythms or modes feel innate. Yet this theory struggles to explain why someone with no Caucasus ancestry might feel a primal connection to its music.

Carl Jung’s concept of a shared psychic reservoir - a storehouse of archetypes and symbols - offers another lens. Music might tap into this universal library, allowing us to access experiences beyond our personal or ethnic history.

Theoretical physicist Michio Kaku posits that vibrations could exist in multiple dimensions. Music’s mathematical structure (frequencies, ratios) might resonate with these hidden layers, momentarily syncing us with alternate timelines or spaces.

Indigenous cultures, from Aboriginal Australians to the Sami of Scandinavia, view songlines and joiks as conduits to interact with ancestors or parallel realms. Modern science may dismiss this as myth, but neuroimaging shows that music activates brain regions associated with spiritual experiences.

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Suspended between worlds, I have always carried the duality of my Greek heritage and Australian upbringing - the olive groves of ancestral memory set against the eucalyptus-scented suburbs of Melbourne of my youth. Yet nothing could have prepared me for the profound impact of hearing the duduk, that ancient Armenian reed instrument, for the first time. My introduction came through Peter Gabriel’s Passion: The Last Temptation of Christ soundtrack, where the opening track, The Feeling Begins, swept me away to biblical Judea and Galilee. In those moments, I could taste the desert dust, inhale the briny air of the Dead Sea, and feel the relentless sun searing my skin. Gabriel’s collaboration with Armenian musicians Vatche Housepian and Antranik Askarian, particularly their haunting rendition of The Wind Subsides, did more than evoke distant lands - it transported me beyond the boundaries of time and place, into another dimension entirely.

The duduk sound was a hook in my soul: a mournful, woody resonance that felt at once foreign and deeply familiar. How could melodies from the remote Central Caucasus, a region I’d never visited and had no tangible link to, stir such visceral longing? This experience raises a haunting question: Does music act as a key to hidden chambers within our DNA, or does it connect us to realities beyond our three-dimensional existence? When I hear the duduk, am I touching a memory that belongs not to me, but to humanity?

The sound of the duduk really does transcend borders.

This is incredible. So many people from completely different continents say that duduk resonates with their souls... I am from Poland, duduk resonates with my soul also. We all are from ONE source.. one soul? - @Wierka6

I am from Perú and I love my country’s music but this sound is hauntingly beautiful. It resonates in my soul. I am nearly in tears - @cristinamorenolamin3217

Music has an uncanny ability to collapse time - it acts as a temporal bridge. A single phrase can evoke epochs: such as the polyphonic singing of Georgia’s Svaneti region, with its overlapping harmonies, mirrors the same vocal patterns found in 3,000-year-old Mesopotamian hymns. When we hear these sounds, we’re not just listening to notes - we’re hearing the acoustic footprint of human civilisations that shaped our collective psyche.

Studies suggest that auditory memories may persist across generations. For example, trauma survivors’ descendants often show heightened emotional responses to specific sound frequencies linked to their ancestors’ experiences. Could musical preferences be a form of epigenetic inheritance?

Music also defies spatial boundaries. The Caucasus - a mountainous crossroads between Europe and Asia - has produced sounds that feel geographically encoded.

The region’s jagged terrain and echo-prone valleys gave birth to soaring vocal styles (like Azerbaijani mugham) that mimic the landscape’s mountains. These sounds seem to carry the land itself, offering listeners a psychic map of cliffs and glaciers.

Ethnomusicologists note that drone-based melodies such as the Armenian shvi flute appear in disparate cultures, from Scottish bagpipes to Tibetan throat singing. These parallels hint at a shared human sound vocabulary that transcends geography.

And thus, we return to Ay Yola - introduced to me via a viral reel on Instagram. The song was a live performance by the group along with Russian artist and Eurovision winner, Dima Bilan. The live performance was enchanting. Bewitching. And most of all, tapping into a quantum field where I felt connected to every note; every beat. By blending ancient folklore with modern electronic music, Ay Yola has created more than a song; they’ve crafted a portal - a vortex of time and space - that invites each listener to explore the echoes of their own history, real or imagined, and to feel at home in a world of shifting borders and shared myths.

Perhaps DNA and multidimensionality aren’t mutually exclusive explanations. Music may be both a remnant of our biological past and a bridge to realities where time and space are fluid. For those of us straddling cultures, it offers a paradox: the comfort of belonging nowhere and everywhere at once.

As the duduk’s lament fades, I’m left wondering - are we the listeners, or are we the echo?

Have you ever heard an instrument, a song, or a melody that made you feel connected to something or somewhere far removed from your material reality? Feel free to leave a comment below - or just hit reply. I’d love to hear!

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Saint Augustine, in his Confessions (Book XI), famously wrote:

“What then is time? If no one asks me, I know what it is. If I wish to explain it to him who asks, I do not know.”

Augustine’s words capture a universal human experience: we live our lives immersed in time, yet when we try to define or control it, it slips through our fingers. Time is both intimately familiar and profoundly mysterious.

Rammstein’s music video for Zeit (Time) unfolds as a tapestry of symbolism and poetic imagery, capturing the fleeting and profound ways humans experience the passage of time. Renowned for their cinematic music videos - often described as mini-epics, as seen in Deutschland and Adieu - Rammstein elevate the form with meticulous scripting, direction, and production. Zeit stands apart as their opus: a contemplative and emotionally resonant piece, more serene than their signature industrial intensity. Through its evocative visuals and haunting melody, Zeit compels viewers and listeners alike to reflect on the nature of existence and our intimate, inescapable relationship with time itself.

In Zeit, we see moments that feel universal such as birth and death, love and loss and the passage from youth to old age. These are the rhythms of life that everyone knows - our daily experience of time’s flow.

But the music video unsettles this familiarity. By playing life’s moments in reverse with sand flowing upward, people rising from graves and bullets returning to guns, it visually asks: can we really understand or control time? What would it mean to move backward, to undo what has been done?

The result is disorienting, making us question everything we take for granted about the arrow of time.

Throughout the video, sand is a recurring motif. It slips through hands, fills hourglasses, and swirls in storms. No matter how tightly the characters grasp it, it escapes. This is a powerful metaphor for our attempts to “manage” time - through clocks, rituals, or memory. Like sand in a storm, time cannot be contained. The blindfolded band members serve as a powerful metaphor: although time is ever-present, the future remains hidden from our view. Within our dimensional reality, time unfolds in a linear fashion, granting us access only to the past and present, while the mysteries of what lies ahead remain concealed.

However, perhaps time is not fixed in the way we once believed. We might experience time as a sequence of linear events, but according to Einstein’s theory of relativity, time is relative - it can move at different rates depending on the speed and strength of gravity you experience. For example, if you travel at speeds close to the speed of light, time will pass more slowly for you compared to someone who remains stationary. This effect, called time dilation, has been confirmed experimentally, though it only becomes significant at extremely high speeds or in very strong gravitational fields.

From our everyday perspective, time feels regular and unchangeable, but this is only because the differences are imperceptible at the speeds and gravitational forces we typically encounter. In special circumstances - like astronauts traveling at high velocities or in strong gravitational wells - time can actually be bent or manipulated, at least relative to other observers. However, according to physical science, we cannot stop, reverse, or freely control time; we can only experience its relativity as dictated by the laws of physics.

There is also a deeper unresolved question in physics: quantum mechanics treats time as absolute and universal, while general relativity treats it as flexible and dependent on context. This conflict - known as the problem of time - means that our understanding of time is still incomplete at the most fundamental level.

The films Interstellar and Arrival both leave viewers with the sense that time is not simply linear, but something more complex - almost circular or multidimensional. This feeling arises from how both films depict time as something that can be experienced, perceived, or even acted upon in ways that defy our everyday, one-directional understanding.

In Interstellar, time is first shown as relative - different characters experience it at different rates due to gravitational time dilation (for example, on Miller’s planet, where an hour equals seven years on Earth). But the film’s climax takes this further. When Cooper enters the tesseract inside the black hole, he is able to perceive and interact with different moments in his daughter Murph’s bedroom, all at once. This is possible because, within the tesseract - a higher-dimensional space created by advanced beings - time is laid out as a physical dimension, not just a sequence of events.

In the film, the tesseract is depicted as an enormous, grid-like structure built by advanced "bulk beings" to help Cooper communicate across time with his daughter, Murph. Inside the tesseract, Cooper is able to see and access every moment in Murph’s bedroom simultaneously, existing outside of conventional time and space. He can manipulate gravity within this space to send messages to the past, which is how he becomes the “ghost” in Murph’s room that we see at the very beginning of the film.

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Visually, the tesseract is represented as a three-dimensional shadow or projection of a four-dimensional hypercube, unfolded so that a human mind can comprehend it. Within this space, time is not linear but can be navigated like another spatial direction, allowing for communication and influence across different points in time.

The film Arrival on the other hand, achieves a similar effect, but through language and consciousness. The protagonist, Louise, learns the alien language, which rewires her perception so she experiences her life nonlinearly - past, present, and future events are accessible at once. This is a philosophical transcendence of temporality, as she is no longer bound by linear time.

Both films transcend the usual flow of time: Interstellar does it through physics and higher dimensions, suggesting that, from a certain perspective, all moments exist simultaneously and can be navigated. Arrival does it through cognition and language, making time a landscape rather than a path.

This circularity or simultaneity of time is what gives both films their unique emotional and philosophical weight. They invite us to imagine a universe where time is not just a river flowing from past to future, but a terrain that can be explored in multiple directions - a concept rooted in both science (relativity, higher dimensions) and philosophy (eternalism, the block universe).

Interstellar’s depiction of time feels circular, like Arrival’s, because both films ultimately portray time as something that can be transcended or experienced in a non-linear, multidimensional way - whether through advanced physics or altered consciousness. This challenges our everyday intuition and opens up profound questions about fate, choice, and the nature of reality.

Circling back to Rammstein’s depiction of time, there is some beauty in their attempt to visualise what time feels like for a human existence. The video lingers on moments of connection - a kiss, a birth, a farewell. Even as these dissolve, their fleeting nature makes them precious. The struggle to hold onto time, though doomed, gives life meaning and poignancy.

Rammstein’s video, like Augustine’s words, offers no solution to the riddle of time. It embraces it, showing us that our longing to manage time is as futile and as beautiful as trying to catch sand in a storm. There is no way to stop, reverse, or fully comprehend it. Instead, the video invites us to feel the paradox: we know time intimately, yet cannot master it; our efforts to hold onto moments are both tragic and beautiful; the very act of trying - of loving, remembering, hoping - is what makes us human. This is the essence of Augustine’s dilemma - and the timeless truth at the heart of Rammstein’s haunting video.

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My introduction to the Israeli television sensation Fauda (meaning chaos in Arabic) came in 2017, marking the first time I had ever watched an Israeli series. What immediately captivated me was the show’s raw aesthetic, relentless pacing, and its rare, unflinching perspective into the complexities of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I was riveted. The first two seasons passed in a blur, and it was only much later - years after the third season had originally aired - that I finally sat down to watch it.

As I immersed myself in the unfolding narrative, I found myself struck by something uncanny. Having entered the third season with no prior knowledge of its plot, I began to notice unsettling parallels - fundamental echoes - between the show’s dramatised events and the harrowing reality of October 7, 2023 in Israel. The third season, filmed in 2019 and broadcast in 2020, now feels nothing short of prophetic. It is as if the very contours of that tragic day had been sketched with eerie precision in the script years before they came to pass.

How could it be that a television series could anticipate, with such startling accuracy, events that would unfold in real life four years later? The coincidence is both haunting and thought-provoking, challenging the boundary between fiction and reality.

As I watched the show, my mind drifted to the haunting parallels between the sinking of the Titanic in 1912 and the prescient novel Futility, or the Wreck of the Titan, penned by Morgan Robertson in 1898 - a full fourteen years before the real-life disaster. The uncanny similarities between fact and fiction are so striking that they resist easy explanation, often dismissed as mere eerie coincidence.

In Robertson’s tale, the Titan - a colossal British ocean liner and the largest ship ever constructed - meets its doom after colliding with an iceberg in the North Atlantic. Like its real-world counterpart, the fictional Titan was touted as unsinkable, carried insufficient lifeboats, and met its fate in the month of April. Both vessels struck an iceberg on their starboard sides and sank, resulting in the loss of more than half their passengers.

While one might marvel at Robertson’s seemingly divine foresight, another, more mysterious possibility presents itself: perhaps he did not so much invent the Titan as intuit an existing thread of possibility. Could Robertson have tuned into one of countless potential futures, only to describe it in his novel? Might the act of writing have, in some way, collapsed that possibility into reality - a phenomenon that quantum physics might one day help us understand? And if so, could all prophecies be seen as glimpses into realities that have yet to unfold - or, perhaps, realities that have already been written into the fabric of existence?

I find myself wondering if the writers of Fauda’s third season, in crafting their narrative, inadvertently tapped into a universal wellspring of possibilities - possibilities that would, years later, collapse into the stark reality of that fateful October day. The season’s focus on escalating violence, cross-border incursions, and the profound psychological toll exacted on both sides now appears to mirror the real-life tragedy with an unsettling, almost prophetic, precision.

When the third season initially aired, it failed to garner the acclaim of its predecessors. Many critics and viewers found its plot repetitive, and it seemed to drift from the gripping originality that had defined earlier episodes. Yet, in the wake of recent events, this once-overlooked season resonates with a chilling clarity. No longer dismissed as a mere rehashing of familiar themes, it now emerges as a haunting, lucid dream - a nightmare of forewarning rather than another predictable chapter in a long-running series.

Season three thrusts its protagonists into the heart of Gaza, shifting the battleground from the West Bank to the Gaza envelope - a region synonymous with Hamas strongholds and perpetual tension. The elite Israeli undercover unit, led by Doron Kavillio, faces a new threat as Hamas operatives from Gaza infiltrate the West Bank, seeking to establish a foothold and orchestrate attacks. This plotline, involving cross-border operations and the ever-present risk of escalation, eerily prefigures the real-world tactics seen in the October 2023 attacks, where militants breached barriers and launched unprecedented assaults into Israeli territory.

A central thread in season three is the radicalisation of Bashar Hamdan, a young Palestinian boxer manipulated by both sides and ultimately swept into the cycle of violence. His journey from hopeful athlete to unwilling participant in terror echoes the tragic pathways seen in many similar scenarios in real-life, where personal grievances and systemic pressures fuel extremism.

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The show’s depiction of how Israeli operations, intended to neutralise threats, inadvertently sow the seeds for further violence, resonates deeply with the aftermath of October 7, as each act of aggression begets another in a seemingly endless cycle.

Fauda’s third season delves into the use of Gaza’s infamous tunnel networks for smuggling and surprise attacks - an element that became a grim reality during the 2023 conflict, when militants used tunnels to infiltrate Israeli communities. The show also dramatises high-stakes kidnappings, recalling the real-life abductions that have punctuated the conflict, from Gilad Shalit in 2006 to the coordinated kidnappings and killings of October 2023. To this day, Hamas still holds 56 hostages in Gaza, of at least 20 of whom are believed to be still be alive.

The psychological trauma endured by both operatives and civilians is another through-line. The characters in Fauda grapple with guilt, loss, and the corrosive effects of perpetual conflict, mirroring the real-world suffering experienced by countless families on both sides. Over 800 IDF soldiers have been killed thus far, and more than 5000 have been injured. The death toll on the Palestinian side is also sizeable, and every day this conflict drags on, more innocent civilians as well as soldiers and militants are killed and injured.

What makes season three of Fauda particularly haunting is not just its realism, but its prescience. The show’s creators, drawing on firsthand military experience, crafted scenarios that would soon be echoed in headlines: surprise attacks from Gaza, the collapse of perceived security barriers, and the devastating human cost of a conflict with no easy resolution.

Episode one begins with a group of what appear to be Palestinian Hamas operatives traversing through an intricate tunnel system and surfacing fully armed and in civilian attire, into what appears to be an open landscape. The location: the Gaza envelope, Israel.

As life imitates art, the exact same passage was taken by the terrorists that began their brutal slaughter on October 7. They snuck in through the intricate tunnel system, but they also, did something no one was expecting: they merged conventional terror tactics with guerrilla combat strategy. This hybrid operation involved Hamas fusing conventional guerrilla tactics (coordinated ground raids, RPGs, sniper teams) with traditional terror methods (massacres, hostage-taking, indiscriminate civilian killings). The attacks were not just symbolic. Unlike previous suicide bombings or sporadic rocket attacks, this was a multi-pronged, strategic offensive with clear military and psychological goals. Hamas used drones to disable surveillance towers, paragliders to breach defences, and overwhelmed border checkpoints - a level of tactical sophistication not seen from the group before. Hamas also used swarm tactics: hundreds of fighters crossed into Israel in waves, targeting multiple communities. This flood-the-zone tactic was designed to overwhelm Israel's defence and intelligence infrastructure in real time. Attackers also targeted communication towers, further delaying Israeli response times and isolating civilian communities. Hostages were a deliberate, pre-planned element - not just to gain leverage in prisoner negotiations, but also to shape Israel’s military response and create a human shield dilemma. This degree of planning and execution point to a group that has been armed and trained by the world’s best. We know who funds Hamas - Iran and Qatar are its main benefactors. However, the degree of executive strategy required to undertake such an attack point to more sophisticated intelligence and military training.

As the attack unfolded, Israeli actor and musician Idan Amedi, who plays agent Sigi Tzur in the show, was confronted by this bizarre art vs real life overlap. Amedi made a decision to join the IDF after the attacks, and found himself serving in Gaza. Amedi talks about his deployment in Gaza and the infamous tunnels that Hamas terrorists built there.

"What we found there blew us away," says the singer. "The scale and depth of the tunnels, as well as the special ammunition found there, are further proof of the cruelty of our enemies.”

Amedi was the commander of his Combat Engineering Corps and on January 8 2024, an explosion reportedly hit the unit that was working in the tunnels. The blast caused several tunnels to collapse; Amedi has to keep further details secret, but reveals that six Israeli soldiers were killed. Two of them, he says, were his comrades and friends: Gabriel Blum and Akiva Yasinsky. When he mentions their names, Amedi has to pause: "Akiva and I knew each other since he was 19," he stated, close to tears, the signs of physical and mental scars visible.1 His injuries also meant it precluded him from rejoining the cast for Fauda’s fifth season currently being filmed; Amedi instead has chosen to focus on his recovery and musical career instead.

And yet, despite this, season three was received with cynicism, and even outright derision at the time. Orly Noy of the Middle East Eye wrote about the show’s billboard promotions at the time in 2020.2

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However, Noy’s assessment, shaped by years of widespread frustration and hostility toward Netanyahu’s policies, ultimately proved shortsighted. In the wake of October 7, when the determination of Hamas to devastate Israel through ruthless shock tactics was laid bare for the world to see, how could Israelis not harbor a profound sense of fear and vigilance toward Gaza and its militant rulers? The tragic events of that day serve as a stark reminder of the existential threat that many in Israel now feel all too keenly.

The Hamas attack on Israel represents a pivotal moment in the evolution of modern terrorism, akin in impact to the September 11 attacks in the United States and the 1972 Munich massacre. This event not only exposed significant intelligence and policy failures but also signaled a shift in terrorist tactics and regional dynamics. The October 7 Hamas attack signifies a strategic reset in global terrorism, making it somewhat similar to past attacks but with a very contemporary nuance in its nature.

Amir Lupovici and Yoram Schweitzer's study, Redefining Vigilance: Reevaluating the Meaning of Early Warning in Israel’s Security Doctrine, critiques Israel's overreliance on technological intelligence systems. They argue that the failure to anticipate the October 7 attack stemmed from a lack of human intelligence assessment and adaptability to non-state threats. The authors advocate for a revised security doctrine that integrates socio-political understanding with technological capabilities to effectively counter asymmetric warfare.3 Meanwhile, Mark Berlin and Sara Harmouch's article, The Extremist Domino Effect of October 7, explores how the October 7 attack could inspire a cascade of extremist activities globally. They emphasise the importance of understanding the interconnectedness of terrorist organisations and the potential for cooperative strategies among them, necessitating a reevaluation of global counterterrorism approaches.4 This is particularly important given the global spread of seemingly pro Palestinian and by default, pro Hamas sentiment.

Life may have imitated art in the context of Fauda’s third season plot line, however, the entire attacks on October 7, were a coup for the terror group’s media war. Fighters wore body cams and uploaded atrocities to social media in real time. This wasn’t just propaganda - it was psychological terrorism aimed at breaking Israeli morale and igniting global outrage. Clips of paragliders, shootings at festivals, and kidnappings dominated social platforms before governments or news outlets could even respond. This created an information vacuum where the only real time news was essentially being driven by Hamas themselves. Hamas pre-empted Israel's ability to control the narrative by forcing the world’s attention onto its violence. Like 9/11, October 7 was designed to be so grotesquely public that it became impossible to ignore. Western and Arab media alike were caught off guard, initially amplifying the spectacle without full verification or contextual framing. Hamas effectively weaponised Israel’s response. Knowing Israel would retaliate heavily in Gaza, Hamas created a dilemma:

• If Israel did nothing, it appeared weak and invited future attacks.

• If Israel retaliated forcefully, it risked mass civilian casualties - fuelling global accusations of disproportionate force and genocide.

This played into a longer-term narrative war: Hamas framed its violence as part of resistance, while Palestinian suffering under bombardment further polarised international opinion. This attack, not only eerily replicated a fictional plot from a television program four years earlier, but, according to several experts, was designed itself to be a show, for the masses.

Daniel Byman from the Brookings Institution stated that October 7 was as much about provoking a media and psychological crisis as it was about causing tactical damage.

Brian Fishman the former Facebook counterterrorism head described the attack as engineered for virality - it weaponised visibility to reshape the global conversation.

Amos Yadlin the former Israeli intelligence chief called the operation a deliberate reset in the logic of terrorism - not just a strike, but a narrative trap.

Fauda Season 3 stands as a stark reminder of the thin line between fiction and reality in regions defined by conflict. Its narrative, once dismissed as dramatic license, now reads as a grim prelude to real events. The show’s enduring relevance lies in its ability to humanise all sides (despite bitter criticisms of the show’s representation of Palestinians and Israelis) forcing viewers to confront the complexities and consequences of a conflict that, as both art and life have shown, is far from over.

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I remember when I first heard this song. I’ve been a long time fan of Roisin Murphy’s - first with her group Moloko, and then with her solo creations. She’s an extraordinary artist and blends an eclectic mix of art, fashion and music to create authentic experiences. So when I first heard her song Evil Eyes, I was instantly drawn to it - not just audibly, but lyrically as well.

Evil eyes are something deeply embedded in my Greek cultural heritage. Murphy is a proud Irish woman however, even for her, there was something mystical and powerful about this symbol.

The evil eye - known as μάτι (mati) in Greek - is one of the most enduring symbols of folk belief, superstition, and spiritual protection in Mediterranean and Middle Eastern cultures. Deeply embedded in Greek culture, the concept of the evil eye reflects a complex interplay of mythology, religion, history, and everyday social customs. Though often dismissed as superstition, its symbolic power and continued presence in daily Greek life speak to a much older, and more universal, human concern: the vulnerability of good fortune to envy.

Growing up in a Greek family, the mati was more than folklore though; it was part of the air we breathed. It hung above our doorways, stitched into the blue-threaded komboskini (prayer bracelets) blessed by monks, and clinked softly against baptismal crosses at every baby’s christening. When a new child was born, a mati was often the first gift they received - an unspoken way of saying, “You are loved, but let’s keep envy at bay.” Even now, if someone compliments a baby without saying “ftou sou” (a protective spit-like phrase), the older women in the room will exchange knowing glances and gently whisper a prayer to lift any unintended curse.

I remember the first time I placed my daughter’s mati on her - the smallest of pins held the little blue eye together and it was fastened onto her singlet. There was also another one pinned beneath her pillow as she got a little older. Whilst not overtly religious in any way, I somehow felt this was an important talisman. This sounds superstitious of course, but for many Greeks, this is part and parcel of Greek life.

The origins of the evil eye trace back to ancient Greece, where early philosophical and literary sources reference a malevolent force transmitted through the gaze. The pre-Socratic philosopher Empedocles, for instance, proposed that the eyes emitted invisible rays that could influence the world - a concept that laid early groundwork for understanding how the gaze might harm or protect.

In classical Greek literature, the idea of the evil eye appears in the works of Plutarch and Hesiod, among others. Hesiod alluded to the envy of the gods toward mortals who prospered, suggesting that misfortune was often divine punishment or a cosmic correction for excessive fortune. Plutarch, in particular, explored the idea that the eyes could be sources of harmful emanations, especially when charged with envy or malice. Plutarch writes about a conversation where Mestrius Florus is discussing the evil eye. It begins with a group of educated thinkers dismissing the evil eye as superstition, unworthy of serious debate. However, Florus challenges this view, calling for a thoughtful discussion grounded in observable evidence, or at least what was considered such at the time. He introduces a number of documented cases and encourages the group to explore rational explanations for the phenomenon, giving us a rare insight into how people in antiquity tried to make sense of the evil eye using logic and philosophy. Early in the dialogue, attention turns to the physical nature of the eye itself. Drawing from the extramission theory - the idea that the eyes emit particles or rays - Plutarch builds a case for the eye as a powerful transmitter. He argues that all human bodies give off subtle emissions through scent, breath, and sound, but the eyes, he claims, are the most active of these channels. Through vision, we don’t just see; we feel, react, and are emotionally moved. The pleasure lovers experience when gazing at each other is used as an example of how the eyes can influence others. If we can be affected through what we see, then it follows that we can also affect others through our gaze. The discussion then shifts from the physical to the emotional dimension. Plutarch suggests that strong emotions - especially envy - have tangible effects on the body. Intense jealousy can alter a person’s appearance and well-being. In this view, envy builds up internally, particularly in the mind, and because of the mind’s close connection to the eyes, it can be unleashed simply through a glance. The evil eye, then, becomes a projection of inner turmoil - an outward expression of hidden envy, made dangerous through sight.

The mythological Gorgon Medusa - whose gaze turned men to stone - embodies the destructive power of sight. Her eyes became symbolic of a gaze so potent that it could bring instant ruin, offering an early archetype of the evil eye’s danger. Ironically, her severed head later became a talisman for protection, often engraved on shields or doorways to ward off evil - an early iteration of protective symbolism.

Though the evil eye is rooted in pre-Christian traditions, it was seamlessly absorbed into Orthodox Christianity in the Greek world. Rather than dismiss it as pagan, the Church contextualised the evil eye as a manifestation of envy - a deadly sin - and prescribed prayers and blessings (xematiasma) to counteract its effects. To this day, Greek Orthodox priests or devout elders may perform these rituals to lift the curse of the evil eye. So many times I was ‘de-eyed’ - with elders using olive oil, prayer and some rather bizarre rituals. If anyone found themselves yawning and sleepy despite ample rest and sleep, suffering from intense headaches or migraines, or just feeling down and out, the blame squarely lay on the eye - someone had definitely eyed you or you were matiasmeni.

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It is thought that the eye motif was first introduced by the renowned Ancient Greek vase painter Exekias, and his infamous Dionysus cup. The primary function of the painted eyes was of course apotropaic; as the drinker raised the vessel the exaggerated eyes would protect them from evil spirits, and also perhaps from the envious gaze of other guests. Eye-cups were not just protective talismans however, as they transformed into a mask when the drinker raised it to his lips, keeping guard over the drinker even when their vision became impaired.

This same reverence for the eye as a conduit of unseen forces can be seen across ancient wisdom traditions: the Eye of Horus in Egyptian mythology symbolised protection, health, and divine insight. In Hermetic thought, the eye often symbolises higher awareness, divine vision, and the inner illumination of truth. This is closely connected to the idea of the third eye - a metaphysical concept representing inner sight or spiritual insight. To “see” in Hermetic terms is to perceive not only the physical world but also the hidden principles behind it, the patterns of nature, and the divine order that governs all things.

The All-Seeing Eye, for example, a motif found in Hermetic texts and later adapted into Western esoteric and Masonic traditions, represents the universal mind or Nous - a divine intelligence that observes and governs creation. This idea parallels the Egyptian Eye of Horus, which symbolised healing, protection, and cosmic insight.

Within this philosophical framework, the eye is not merely symbolic - it is a vehicle of intention and energy. Hermeticism teaches that all things in the universe are connected through vibrations and mental energy (The All is Mind being a core tenet). This gives the gaze, especially when charged with intense emotions like envy or malice, the potential to act as a transmitter of harmful vibrations.

This is where the idea of the evil eye finds resonance. While Hermetic texts don’t directly discuss casting spells through jealousy-laden glances, they do affirm that mental and emotional states can manifest physically and spiritually. A gaze filled with envy, then, may disrupt the balance of energies in another person, especially if that person is spiritually vulnerable or energetically receptive. In this way, the folk understanding of the evil eye aligns with Hermetic principles: thoughts and intentions- especially negative ones - are not inert. They move, they influence, and they shape the world.

While the evil eye is rooted in folk belief, Hermetic philosophy provides a deeper metaphysical framework that helps explain why this concept has endured across time and culture. It treats the eye not just as a physical organ, but as a bridge between inner consciousness and outer influence - a channel through which both enlightenment and harm can pass. In this light, the evil eye becomes not merely superstition, but a reminder of the power of thought, intention, and the unseen forces that shape our lives.

In modern Greece, the evil eye remains a potent force in everyday life. Blue glass amulets - called "matakia" - are commonly worn as jewellery or hung in homes, cars, or businesses to absorb or deflect envious energy. The colour blue, historically associated with spiritual purity and divine favour, is believed to be particularly effective against malevolent forces.

Modern thinkers like Dr. Jack Kruse echo this ancient understanding, though in scientific language. His work emphasises how light entering the eye - specifically natural sunlight - plays a critical role in regulating our biology. He highlights how our eyes are not just passive receptors but active gateways, allowing sunlight to reset circadian rhythms, fuel mitochondrial function, and even influence hormonal cascades. According to Kruse, artificial blue light, especially without the balancing presence of red or infrared light, disrupts these vital processes and can cause systemic biological damage, particularly through the destruction of a photoreceptor protein called melanopsin found in the retina and skin.

This intersection is fascinating: ancient cultures perceived the eye as a powerful transmitter and receiver of energy - capable of bestowing harm or healing - while modern science is uncovering that the eye indeed plays a pivotal role in the body’s energy regulation. The evil eye, then, may have been an early, intuitive understanding of how profoundly light and gaze affect us. Whether through the esoteric language of the third eye or the biological language of light and mitochondria, the message is clear: the eyes are sacred, powerful instruments - bridges between the external world and the inner workings of our body and soul.

The evil eye is everywhere in Greek life - a thread woven through faith, family, and history. It’s in the bracelets tied by monks, in the keychains of taxis, in the corners of kitchens. But why do we still hold on to it so tightly? Maybe it’s because the mati offers something ancient and comforting: the belief that in a world full of unseen forces - jealousy, admiration, chance - we have at least one symbol to keep us grounded and protected. It’s more than a charm; it’s a piece of who we are.

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If I were to tell you that the blue light at night streaming from our laptops, phones, TVs, and LED lights were not only aging us, but shortening our life span and contributing to a plethora of physical and psychological illnesses, would you stop and wonder why?

What if the real secret to health isn’t found in a diligent diet, workout routine, muscle strength and supplement use, but in the light streaming through our windows each morning?

That’s the provocative argument from Dr. Jack Kruse, a neurosurgeon who’s become a leading voice in the world of quantum biology and circadian health. Kruse doesn’t just want us to eat better or move more - he wants us to rethink our relationship with sunlight, our screens, and even the very bulbs lighting our homes. His message is both unsettling and hopeful: if we get light wrong, we risk our health and autonomy; if we get it right, we can reclaim both.

Kruse is no stranger to controversy. His unapologetically blunt, often combative delivery has left many - podcasters and listeners alike - both captivated and confounded. His presence tends to provoke strong reactions, as witnessed most notably in his exchange with Calley Means, a former lobbyist now working with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, during an appearance on The Danny Jones Podcast. Means appeared visibly stunned as he found himself on the receiving end of Kruse’s uncompromising rhetoric.

But Kruse is unconcerned with whether he is perceived as a maverick or a menace. His mission overrides social niceties: it is to proclaim, with unwavering certainty, that sunlight is the original and most essential source of energy and biological information for all life on Earth, humans included. In his view, to ignore this truth is to fundamentally misunderstand what it means to be alive.

Our cells, are like intricate wiring diagrams designed over millions of years to run on the full spectrum of natural light. When we step outside at sunrise or sunset, we’re not just soaking up vitamin D - we’re charging the very batteries of our biology, tuning our mitochondria, and setting our internal clocks.

But what happens when we swap the sun for screens and LED bulbs? Kruse warns that artificial blue light - now everywhere from our phones to our offices - is fundamentally scrambling two of our most important brain chemicals: dopamine and melatonin. Blue light lowers dopamine, sapping our motivation and making us easier to manipulate. It also destroys melatonin, the hormone that not only helps us sleep, but repairs our mitochondria and keeps our cells humming. The result? Poorer decisions, higher disease risk, and a subtle erosion of our independence.

Benefits of Sunlight

The best-known benefit of sunlight is its role in producing vitamin D, an essential hormone that your body can’t make on its own without the sun’s help. Just 5 to 15 minutes of direct sunlight on your skin a few times a week can generate enough vitamin D to support strong bones, healthy teeth, and a robust immune system. This is crucial, because vitamin D regulates over 1,000 genes in your body, affecting everything from calcium metabolism to how your muscles and nerves function.

However sunlight’s magic doesn’t stop at vitamin D. Research shows that sunlight exposure can lower blood pressure, improve cholesterol levels, and even reduce the risk of chronic diseases like heart disease and certain cancers. In fact, people who get more sunlight early in life have been shown to have a dramatically lower risk of breast cancer - by as much as 69% in some studies.

While vitamin D often steals the spotlight, sunlight triggers a cascade of other health-promoting effects. For example, sunlight stimulates the production of nitric oxide, which helps relax blood vessels and lower blood pressure. It also boosts the number of white blood cells, enhancing your immune defense against infections. Sunlight even acts as a natural stress reliever.

We evolved in sync with the sun, and our bodies are wired to respond to its cycles. Sunlight helps regulate your circadian rhythms - the internal clock that governs sleep, hormone production, and metabolism. When you get enough natural light during the day, especially in the morning, you sleep better at night and feel more energized during the day. Despite all these benefits, modern life often keeps us indoors and behind screens. Most vitamin D deficiencies today are due to lack of sunlight, not diet.

Blue Light, Mitochondria and Metabolic Disorders

At the heart of Kruse’s argument is a deep dive into mitochondria, melatonin, and dopamine. Melatonin isn’t just for sleep - it’s a powerful antioxidant that keeps our cellular engines running smoothly. Dopamine, shaped by natural light, fuels our motivation and resilience. Artificial light disrupts this delicate balance, with ripple effects on everything from our mood to our risk of chronic disease.

In Kruse’s view, the modern epidemic of blue light isn’t just a health issue - it’s a challenge to our very autonomy. His advice is radical in its simplicity: let the sun, not your screen, set the rhythm of your life.

“Blue light dumbs us down by altering dopamine and melatonin. The most valuable asset that a living creature has is time. When you’re addicted to blue light technologies, they are actually stealing your time.” — Dr. Jack Kruse

So what exactly is the issue with our mitochondria? Kruse posits that excessive exposure to artificial blue light, especially from screens and indoor lighting, disrupts the function of melanopsin - a photopigment in the retina sensitive to blue light wavelengths (~480 nm). This disruption impairs the synchronisation of the body's circadian rhythms, leading to hormonal imbalances and metabolic issues.

He argues that blue light exposure adversely affects mitochondrial function by slowing electron flow in the electron transport chain, particularly at cytochrome c. This deceleration leads to increased production of reactive oxygen species (ROS), contributing to oxidative stress and cellular aging. Interestingly, Kruse also asserts that whilst diet is important to overall health and longevity, it isn’t the primary mechanism driving our metabolism - light is. Blue light is also linked to leptin resistance - a condition where the body fails to respond adequately to the hormone leptin, which regulates hunger and energy balance. He suggests that blue light-induced melanopsin dysfunction disrupts leptin signaling, promoting weight gain and metabolic disorders.

A 2017 study published in Nature asserts that misalignment of circadian rhythmicity is observed in numerous conditions, including aging, and is thought to be involved in the development of age-related disorders, such as depression, diabetes, hypertension, obesity, and cancer. The appropriate regulation of circadian rhythmicity by proper lighting is therefore essential. This perspective introduces the potential risks of excessive blue light for human health through circadian rhythm disruption and sleep deprivation. Despite this, limited research exists which enthusiastically embraces Kruse’s assumptions and hypotheses. Moreover, several studies point to little overall impact of blue light on health, however do admit there is some possible impact on the retina. The research team in the Department of Optometry and Vision Sciences at the University of Melbourne have recently stated that the amount of blue light emitted from computer and phone screens is low – very low. In fact, they produce around one-tenth the amount of the blue light you get from natural daylight on a cloudy winter’s day. The blue light produced by digital screens is typically less than 0.4 per cent of the long-term viewing safety standard that could potentially cause damage to the retina. While there is a general acknowledgment that excessive exposure to blue light - particularly from digital devices - may contribute to eye strain and altered retinal function, the deeper physiological implications remain insufficiently explored. Research into the long-term effects of circadian disruption caused by artificial blue light exposure has stalled, leaving critical questions unanswered. Despite mounting evidence of potential harm, especially to our hormonal and mitochondrial systems, the full alarm over blue light’s impact on human health has yet to sound.

Why might this be? Kruse suspects something a little more nefarious may be at play.

Blue light toxicity by design?

To drive his point home, Kruse borrows from Pink Floyd’s iconic “Dark Side of the Moon” album cover: sunlight, like that famous prism, contains every colour - especially the healing reds and purples. But our modern lights and devices strip out these vital frequencies, leaving us awash in blue. Kruse even suggests this isn’t just an accident of technology, but a deliberate choice by powerful interests.

Kruse traces the deliberate use of blue light as a behavioural control tool back to mid-20th century Las Vegas, where organised crime figures like Bugsy Siegel, Meyer Lansky, and Moe Dalitz pioneered environmental manipulation in casinos. Dalitz, a key architect of Las Vegas’ gambling culture, discovered that blocking natural light and flooding spaces with artificial blue-rich lighting - combined with slot machines, alcohol, and sensory distractions - could addict patrons and suppress critical thinking. By eliminating circadian cues, these environments kept people compliant and spending impulsively.

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Kruse contends that blue light is intentionally deployed as a tool to shape people's perceptions and beliefs, making them more compliant and easier to govern. Lower dopamine levels reduce motivation and critical thinking, while suppressed melatonin disrupts cellular repair and circadian rhythms. Kruse argues this neurochemical manipulation leads to a population that is less questioning and more pliable, a state that benefits centralised systems of control. Just as casinos weaponised light to exploit addiction, today’s devices emit blue light to inducing complacency and impair crucial cellular repair. He notes that default screen settings omit restorative red/purple frequencies intentionally, ensuring dependency on platforms that steal time and sovereignty. This continuity, from Dalitz’s casinos to Silicon Valley’s design choices, reveals a sustained strategy to control behaviour through light. He points out that major technology companies such as Apple, Microsoft, Google, and Meta, design their devices to default to blue light, deliberately omitting restorative red and purple frequencies. This, he claims, is not accidental but rooted in transferred DARPA patents, ensuring that users remain addicted and their time is effectively "stolen" by these technologies.

Kruse further connects this strategy to historical intelligence operations, such as the CIA’s MK-Ultra program, which explored how environmental factors like light could be used to influence behaviour and beliefs. He describes blue light as the “light of the transhumanist globalist,” engineered to “dumb us down” and make us more susceptible to programming such as trusting centralised health narratives without question. By immersing society in artificial blue light, Kruse believes that technocratic and corporate interests have found a subtle but powerful way to erode personal agency and sovereignty, shifting people away from nature and independent thought, and toward greater obedience and conformity.

While Kruse's theories are provocative, they are deemed largely speculative and not widely supported by empirical scientific research. The mainstream scientific community acknowledges that excessive exposure to blue light, especially during nighttime, can affect circadian rhythms and sleep quality. However, the assertion that blue light is being systematically used by agencies like DARPA for population-level behavioural control lacks substantiated evidence.

Given what history has shown us however, it would be naïve to assume that systems designed to manipulate biology or behaviour have ever been accompanied by transparent, substantiated evidence. Rarely, if ever, have such mechanisms been publicly acknowledged in real time. It took over half a century for fragments of truth surrounding the assassination of President Kennedy to surface. Today, scientific institutions are still entangled in debate over the safety and efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines - while anecdotal evidence continues to challenge official narratives.

In this context, the skepticism voiced by Dr. Jack Kruse deserves thoughtful attention rather than reflexive dismissal. As a practicing neurosurgeon with a deep understanding of both clinical medicine and quantum biology, Dr. Kruse has demonstrated a rare ability to synthesise complex and often overlooked scientific domains into coherent, provocative insights. Whether or not one agrees with all of his conclusions, the questions he raises about blue light, circadian disruption, and mitochondrial health are rooted in emerging biological science.

At a deeper level, many of us intuitively recognise that we are not mechanical beings operating in isolation, but intricate, responsive organisms deeply connected to the rhythms of the natural world. We know - without needing peer-reviewed validation - that sunlight restores us. We feel it. Perhaps it's time we listen more closely to that innate intelligence and follow Kruse’s advice to:

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I’ve always been fascinated by consciousness and reality - both conceptually and practically. I’m the first to admit I’m no scientist as I haven’t studied physics or any of the natural/experimental disciplines in science. Despite this though, I’ve always had this gnawing existential curiosity. It’s led me down some rather unusual paths - toward theories about space-time, perception, and the actual fabric of the universe.

I’ve read a plethora of new age books on the nature of reality, consciousness, the biofield, and more. Whilst a hardcore scientific rationalist might roll their eyes at them, that doesn’t mean they don’t contain flashes of insight - or even potential breakthroughs.

Take Malaysia Airlines flight MH370. When it vanished, the world flooded with speculation. Millions of dollars and countless hours went into the search. Officially? Nothing’s been found. For most people, that’s the end of the story. The plane disappeared somewhere over the Indian Ocean - case closed.

For me, that’s where things start to get interesting.

Planes don’t just vanish without a trace. Debris turned up near Madagascar, but even that wasn’t confirmed to be explicitly from MH370 - just a plane with similar markings. So what really happened? Why did it suddenly veer off course? Why drop off radar? And where did all those people go?

One man has tried to answer these questions. Ashton Forbes, a self-described citizen journalist, has offered a bold - and controversial - theory. Central to his claim is a video that appears to show MH370 being surrounded by three glowing orbs, then vanishing into what looks like a wormhole.

Forbes says the video is real and asserts that it was leaked from classified sources. In it, the orbs move in perfect coordination around the aircraft before it disappears entirely. To him, it’s evidence of teleportation - maybe even an abduction by advanced tech, possibly extraterrestrial.

He’s shared his ideas on various podcasts, including the Danny Jones Podcast, arguing that the footage suggests a manipulation of space-time. A deliberate act. Maybe military-grade cloaking. Maybe unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP) tech.

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The broader community of aviation experts, skeptics, and researchers have largely dismissed Forbes's theory and the apparent satellite video showing the orbs has been debunked. Despite this however, I still believe there may be some merit to Forbes’ theory which rests on three key ideas: the concept of UAP illustrated in the video showing three orbs surrounding the aircraft moments before its disappearance; teleportation via a wormhole or manipulation of space-time and military grade cloaking or advanced physics being used by the US or other entities to manipulate space time.

As fringe as these ideas might seem, emergent ideas of physics and consciousness studies are showing that they aren’t beyond the possibility of plausibility.

In the murky intersection between physics and consciousness studies, few figures stand out as boldly as David Bohm and Jacobo Grinberg-Zylberbaum. Though from different disciplines and continents, both thinkers proposed radical models of reality grounded in non-locality, interconnectedness, and a hidden order underpinning our perceived world. Their work challenges traditional materialist assumptions, offering a vision of reality where consciousness is not a by-product of the brain, but a fundamental feature of existence itself.

Could this possibly help explain what happened to MH370?

David Bohm and the Implicate Order

David Bohm, a theoretical physicist and former protégé of Albert Einstein, was best known for his interpretation of quantum mechanics and his concept of the Implicate Order. In his seminal book Wholeness and the Implicate Order(1980), Bohm critiqued the fragmentation of modern science and offered an alternative worldview: that what we perceive as isolated events and objects is just the surface - beneath it lies a deeper, enfolded reality.

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Everything we experience unfolds from this deeper realm of the Implicate Order - a continuously flowing and interconnected field in which all information is embedded. The "explicate" world - the one of space, time, and matter - is just a projection. Everything in this explicate world emerges from, and returns to, this underlying order through a process Bohm referred to as holomovement. Non-locality, that quantum feature where particles seem to communicate instantly, isn’t a scientific quirk - it’s a core feature of this hidden architecture.

Jacobo Grinberg and the Syntergic Theory

On the other side of the spectrum, both geographically and professionally, stood Jacobo Grinberg-Zylberbaum, a Mexican neurophysiologist and psychologist whose work also grappled with the nature of consciousness. His ambitious Syntergic Theory attempted to unify neuroscience, mysticism, and quantum ideas into a single model of perception and reality.

Grinberg’s Syntergic Theory posits the existence of a universal energetic field he called the lattice - a kind of holographic matrix storing the entire informational structure of reality.

According to Grinberg, our brains don’t just receive information - they interact with the lattice, creating perception. Consciousness isn’t trapped in the skull. It’s a field phenomenon, tapping into this universal blueprint. Variations in brain coherence and individual neurological structure account for different subjective realities.

He tested this idea in radical experiments. In the 1980s, he placed pairs of people in Faraday cages to block electromagnetic signals. When one person was shown images, EEG changes were detected in the other - despite total isolation. It was primitive, but it hinted at telepathy through non-local resonance.

Grinberg believed telepathy could be explained by two minds syncing to the same section of the lattice - tuning in, like radios on the same frequency.

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These findings, while never widely replicated or accepted by mainstream science, pointed to the possibility of non-local information transfer between minds - a radical challenge to the notion that consciousness is entirely brain-bound.

His collaboration with Mexican shamans and indigenous healers, particularly his studies of the healer known as Pachita, involved demonstrations of psychic surgery and anomalous healing phenomena that he attempted to document scientifically. Oaxacan shaman Barbara Guerrero (Pachita) is best known for her psychic healing and mystical healing and Grinberg’s accounts provide a rare scholarly perspective on the mystic healer, offering both a critical examination and an acknowledgment of events he struggled to explain through conventional scientific paradigms.

Then, on December 8, 1994, he disappeared. No trace. His lab was dismantled, research wiped clean. Mexican police investigated coming up with little to explain his apparent vanishing. Some say he joined a secret spiritual sect. Others believe intelligence agencies like the CIA got involved. After all, his work touched on areas the U.S. had explored under MKUltra and Project Stargate - remote viewing, mind control, and more. There’s no hard proof of CIA involvement. But his disappearance is one of the strangest in the scientific world.

A Unified Vision of Reality

Bohm and Grinberg’s ideas converge in wild, compelling ways. Both believed in a hidden field beneath visible reality. Both saw consciousness as a fundamental force. Both were ignored - or rejected - by mainstream science.

Could their ideas explain MH370?

Possibly. If consciousness is non-local, and the lattice is real, could a plane and its passengers be shifted - or tuned - to another layer of reality? If some external force (like the orbs in the video) manipulated the local fabric of space-time, is it so impossible to imagine they exited our frequency altogether?

MH370 vanished. Grinberg vanished. Both left gaps in the data. Both involved missing records, erased files, suppressed knowledge.

We might never know the truth. But if Bohm was right about the Implicate Order, and if Grinberg’s lattice exists, and if Ashton Forbes’ video is authentic, then maybe - just maybe - these mysteries are connected. Not by chance, but by design.

A lattice. A field. A hidden structure.

Not just holding information - but holding us.

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My first encounter with the concept of demonic possession was a large Reader’s Digest hardcover book my mother had received unwittingly as part of her subscription - I assume it was a gift received for her diligent contributions to the organisation. The book, Mysteries of the Unexplained, opened an entire new world for me - a world filled with disappearances, strange demonic possessions and prophecies. It was thick and colourful, and provided a curious child such as myself, a plethora of uncanny tales of ordinary people experiencing the extraordinary.

One story which stood out to me more than any other, was the story of Anneliese Michel from Bavaria, Germany. Michel, a devout Catholic, was said to have been possessed by demons and after an attempted 67 exorcisms, died from malnutrition and dehydration. The young woman, who died at 23, had suffered years of epileptic psychosis and had received extensive psychiatric treatment. However, after several conventional treatment failures, the family began to presume possession as the cause of her deteriorating psychological condition.

I recall seeing the image of this young woman - her eyes bright, her smile infectious. However, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something sinister lurked behind her piercing eyes. Why was Anneliese’s story so alluring yet terrifying to me? I was highly imaginative as a child and forever sought answers to the unknown - much to the chagrin of my parents. My mother, equally curious but driven by fear, was drawn to the occult but always hesitant to take her knowledge to the next level. For me, these boundaries were obscure as a child; I found myself drawn deeper into stories and movies that encouraged this almost unorthodox enthusiasm in existential exploration.

Anneliese’s story went on to become the Hollywood success The Exorcism of Emily Rose, a film very much inspired by the real life events that plagued the Michel family in the 1970s. Whilst I was an adult by the time the film crossed by path, the storyline immediately took me back to that cursed face I recalled seeing when I was a child - that of Anneliese Michel in that big book of strange and scary events.

My next brush with the occult came one languid afternoon in a secondhand bookshop, when I was still in early adolescence. There was a peculiar comfort in running my fingers along the spines of battered volumes, each one softened by the hands of previous owners, their edges frayed and their pages imbued with that unmistakable scent of aged paper and dust. Among the teetering stacks, one book seemed to call out to me - The Amityville Horror by Jay Anson.

At the time, the legend of Amityville had already carved out a place in the collective imagination of my friends. The film adaptation had circulated through our conversations like a ghost story told around a campfire, leaving many of my peers visibly shaken by its imagery and jarring soundscape. Curiously, I had never seen the film myself. Instead, like so many of my Gen X cohort, I was often left to my own devices, wandering the aisles of the local video store with my cousin, both of us drawn inexorably to the most menacing covers we could find, as if daring ourselves to confront the darkness within. That was where we stumbled on the second instalment of the franchise; Amityville II - The Possession. The film serves as a prequel, delving into the harrowing experiences of the family who lived at 112 Ocean Avenue before the infamous haunting. It recounts a grim saga of possession, centering on the eldest son, who, compelled by a sinister voice, murdered his entire family in cold blood. What remains astonishing is that, despite the film’s unflinching depiction of incest, domestic violence, and child abuse, it was the element of demonic possession that most captivated - and unsettled -me, especially given the film’s persistent claim to be rooted in true events. The blurring of fact and supernatural fiction only intensified the sense of unease, making the horror feel all the more immediate and inescapable.

The movie, based on the non fiction book Murder in Amityville by Hans Holzer, explains the real life November 13, 1974 murders of an entire family in their home by their son and brother - the then 23-year old Ronald DeFeo Jr. DeFeo shot and killed all six members of his family at 112 Ocean Avenue, a large Dutch Colonial house situated in a suburban neighbourhood in Amityville, on the south shore of Long Island, New York.

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It was here in the second hand book store armed with knowledge of the prequel but not having yet watched the first film that I decided to buy the book - its silvery cover frayed and preloved (or loathed). Reading the title, I felt compelled to read further despite the terror the front cover instilled in me.

As I began to read the book, I felt a real sense of unease - it’s as if an evil presence lurked behind each dusty page. The first chapter showed the childish scribbles of five year old Missy Lutz, the youngest Lutz family member, who’d moved into the property with her family after the De Feo murders. Progressively, we discover that “Jodie” is most likely a demonic pig that had attached itself onto Missy. The image below is supposedly the real image of Jodie drawn by Missy herself. Seeing this image published in the book, made the entire story feel even more authentic and amplified my fear as I traced the outline of Missy’s drawings with my fingertips.

The matter of fact, journalistic tone of the book used to describe the strange phenomena occurring in the house, relied on the belief that the story was real. Events were reported rather than explained or plotted. This made it all the more terrifying. A few chapters in, I was unable to continue; I was so determined to rid myself of the book, I gave it to a friend of mine. After a few days, she replied:

I was shocked but also relieved that it wasn’t just me who felt this way about a book - a book that clearly was not true but written in a manner that convinced me it was. The book was returned to me and I subsequently binned it. Literally. It ended up amongst the food scraps and waste. I was relieved it was out of my possession.

My experience with Sam Raimi’s The Evil Dead (1981) - a film I once proudly owned on DVD - unfolded with peculiar intensity. Compelled by an inexplicable urge to acquire it for my horror collection, I revisited the film one Saturday evening alongside my then-partner, only to confront a visceral reaction I hadn’t anticipated. Within moments, the screen’s grotesque imagery churned my stomach and set my pulse racing uncontrollably. Though I’d viewed it multiple times before, this encounter felt disturbingly alien: a revulsion surged through me, demanding I expel the disc from my possession. Without hesitation, I ejected the DVD, sealed it in its case, and threw it into the rubbish bin - as though I was purging an object tainted by some malevolent force. Even then, the irrational conviction lingered: that this innocuous disc harboured a sinister presence, whispering malice into the static between frames.

Horror films and books centered on demonic possession and the occult, such as The Exorcist, Rosemary’s Baby, The Amityville Horror and The Conjuring, have captivated audiences for decades. These narratives tap into primal fears of the unknown, the supernatural, and the erosion of control, offering a paradoxical blend of terror and fascination. To understand why these themes resonate so deeply, I wanted to explore the psychological foundations of horror movie interest - particularly how occult and possession stories reflect broader human anxieties, personality traits, and cognitive mechanisms.

The Neuroscience of Fear and Enjoyment

Horror movies activate the brain’s threat-response systems, triggering the sympathetic nervous system to increase heart rate, shallow breathing, and heighten alertness. Scenes depicting possession or supernatural terror strongly engage the amygdala (responsible for fear processing) and the anterior cingulate cortex (involved in emotional regulation). For some viewers, this physiological arousal is exhilarating rather than distressing. Sensation-seeking individuals, who crave novel and intense experiences, are particularly drawn to horror films because the adrenaline rush from fear becomes a source of gratification. This aligns with the excitation transfer theory, which posits that the resolution of suspense in horror films converts negative arousal into euphoria, enhancing enjoyment.

For example, The Exorcist (1973) masterfully builds tension through eerie sounds and subtle disturbances before escalating to visceral terror, allowing viewers to experience a cathartic release when the threat is vanquished. However, it is quite a ride to get to point of this release. I only watched this movie as an older teen, and I remember conversing with a friend about it who casually mentioned:

“What about that face that appears?”

I was taken aback. “What face?”

Now she looked nervous. “You know.. the face! That… demonic thing. That face! It’s only up there for a flash but it’s there!”

I hadn’t noticed any flash or face. She became increasingly concerned.

“I swear there is a face that pops up on the screen really quickly - it’s a flash and then it’s gone! But it’s there! It’s a demon!”

I was so determined to look for this face that I watched every scene and every clip with deliberate intent. It was then that I saw it. In the midst of Father Damien Karras’s dream sequence, comes a split-second flash followed by the momentary appearance of a horrid white face, sneering with decayed teeth, eyes pooling in red sores. It’s barely perceptible but terrifying. The face appears for only a handful of frames, and while that might be enough for a viewer to briefly register the image, it’s not long enough for one to actually grasp it. Moviegoers in 1973 would have been left unsure about what, if anything, they had just seen, creating fertile ground for terror.

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The inclusion of subliminal demonic flashes in The Exorcist was a deliberate artistic strategy by director William Friedkin to amplify psychological unease and immerse viewers in the film’s oppressive atmosphere. These fleeting images - most notably the white-faced demon Pazuzu - appear for as little as 1/24th of a second, targeting the subconscious mind.

Friedkin aimed to replicate the fragmented, intrusive thoughts that occur during waking life - such as sudden memories or anxieties - by inserting ultra-brief cuts of Pazuzu’s face during key scenes. These scenes include Regan’s medical exam and Father Karras’ nightmares. As he explained in a 2023 interview, these flashes mimic the brain’s “fireworks of images” during ordinary activities, creating a visceral sense of dread even if viewers don’t consciously register them. This, combined with the explicit horror of Regan’s possession, ensured viewers felt both immediate revulsion and lingering unease, mirroring the film’s themes of invisible, pervasive evil. Neuroscientific studies suggest such subliminal stimuli can bypass rational processing, directly engaging the amygdala (the brain’s fear centre). The fleeting demon flashes and eerie sound design such as buzzing insects, keep audiences in a perpetual state of tension, even during quieter moments.

Pazuzu’s imagery tapped into ancient fears of demonic forces, while the subliminal cuts mirrored 1970s societal anxieties about hidden threats particularly of the Cold War. By embedding these flashes, Friedkin created a film that felt both timeless and urgently contemporary, as noted by critics who linked its release to a cultural crisis of faith.

The subliminal flashes became a hallmark of The Exorcist’s enduring terror. Audience reports of nightmares and heightened anxiety after viewing suggest the technique succeeded in bypassing conscious defenses. As Friedkin stated:

To craft this, I inadvertently collided with images of Pazuzu - a confrontation inevitable in the labyrinth of digital research. Gone are the days of fumbling with VHS tapes or DVDs to freeze-frame that grotesque scene; now, a simple Google search floods the screen with this leering succubus. My body betrayed me once again like it did when I had watched the Evil Dead: my pulse quickened and my fingers trembled.

How curious that a mere image - a subliminal flicker etched in celluloid - retains such a grip, summoning revulsion and dread decades later. I knew that if I dwelled on Pazuzu for too long, I would struggle to get myself around the house at night - every reflection in a window, every dancing shadow would terrify me into paralysis, my imagination streaking ahead into darkness where this repulsive demon lurked. Does this lingering potency speak to the mind’s suggestibility, or to the undiminished power of symbols to bypass reason and clutch at the animal self?

The catharsis of existential terror

The occult thrives on humanity’s morbid curiosity - a fascination with death, the afterlife, and phenomena beyond rational explanation. Films like The Exorcist and The Amityville Horror leverage this curiosity by blending supernatural elements with pseudo-documentary realism, creating an illusion of plausibility. This genre also taps into existential dread, confronting viewers with questions about evil, morality, and the limits of human understanding.

For a subset of viewers, horror films can trigger cinematic neurosis, a psychological crisis where film content exacerbates latent trauma. Case studies link films like The Exorcist to intrusive thoughts, flashbacks, and sleep disturbances, particularly in individuals with borderline personality traits or unresolved familial conflicts. These cases highlight how possession narratives can mirror personal struggles with control, guilt, or repressed anger. As someone who is drawn to these types of narratives, it inevitably illustrates that deep within - perhaps in all of us who seek knowledge beyond the known - there exists a need for releasing a pressure valve. The process of exploring the dark and hidden allows us to confront personal and collective anxieties in a controlled setting. During times of great cultural upheaval - such as the 1970s, when The Exorcist and The Omen emerged - these films could be seen to channel fears of moral decay or existential threats. Meanwhile, the genre’s focus on haunted spaces could literalise the fear of unresolved past traumas haunting the present.

As psychologist Carl Jung observed, "The brighter the light, the darker the shadow" - horror, in its darkest forms, ultimately reflects our enduring quest to understand the hidden dimensions of existence.

Which horror film has made the largest impact on you?

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When I tell people outside Germany where I live, their reaction is almost always the same-a raised eyebrow, followed by the inevitable question: “Dachau? The actual place where the camp was?”

Yes, I reside in a small village in the Dachau district. The name alone conjures a host of dark associations, all rooted in its infamous past. This is hardly surprising. Dachau’s history is inescapable; as the site of Germany’s first concentration camp, it remains a chilling monument to the horrors that can unfold when hatred, unchecked authority, and totalitarianism take hold of a society.

The camp itself has been preserved and now serves as an open-air Holocaust memorial and museum. The original barracks are mostly gone, but the stark concrete and barbed wire perimeter still stand. It is a landscape heavy with memory-an eerie silence broken only by the wind, which seems to carry the echoes of suffering from those who were once imprisoned there.

Living here has always felt ethically complex. I first moved to the Dachau district in 2015, stayed until 2020, and returned again in 2024. The atmosphere remains unchanged: a persistent darkness, a weight that logic alone can’t dispel. Rationally, it’s not an odd reaction-after all, the atrocities committed here over eighty years ago were unspeakably gruesome. Yet, on a deeper level, something else lingers: perhaps a sense of inherited guilt, or a strange foreboding that surfaces each time I drive past the camp. There is something surreal about saying it so plainly-driving past the camp. But this is life in Germany today, a place where the scars of history are woven into the fabric of everyday existence.

I doubt I’ll ever fully reconcile the feeling of being out of place here, as if I’m a visitor from another world. There I am, running a mundane Saturday morning errand to the supermarket, and there it is-the camp’s imposing concrete wall and its watchtower looming in the distance. The juxtaposition is jarring: the radio playing the latest hit song, my thoughts drifting to dinner plans, all set against the backdrop of a site synonymous with human suffering and cruelty. The ordinary and the unimaginable, side by side.

On Sunday, 4 May 2025, the Dachau concentration camp memorial marked the 80th anniversary of its liberation from Nazi rule - a solemn milestone for the site, the town, and its people. It stands as a powerful reminder that even in the face of unimaginable cruelty and suffering, humanity has the capacity to confront its past, honour the victims with dignity, and move forward with clarity and compassion, without losing sight of the broader moral imperative.

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It was a poignant event listening to the various camp survivors and liberators tell their stories. One such story was of survivor Mario Candotto who began his speech by stating his camp number - 69610; a jarring reminder of the dehumanisation of prisoners at the camp. However, most unsettling was Candotto’s stark warning to the audience:

The story of Abba Naor

Of particular interest was the story of camp survivor Abba Naor - a Lithuanian Jew - that found himself just aged thirteen years old in the Dachau camp. He mentioned a rather provocative and brutal Kapo who’s greeting to these new camp inmates was,

Naor spoke with raw honesty about the shattering trajectory of his youth: the deportation of his family into the ghetto, the death of his fourteen year old brother, and their subsequent transport to Dachau. Torn from his mother and infant brother, he found himself utterly alone in a camp populated by adult prisoners. My heart ached as he described glimpsing his mother and brother among the lines of inmates marching behind the camp’s fences - only to learn soon after that they had been sent to Auschwitz, where their fate was sealed.

He recounted the terror of the infamous death marches, when, as the Allies closed in, the SS forced thousands of prisoners from Dachau and its subcamps at Allach and Kaufering to march south, allegedly toward Switzerland for a possible exchange with German POWs. Emaciated, barely able to stand, Naor and his fellow inmates trudged for days without food or water, passing through villages where German civilians watched from their balconies-some even photographing the procession.

After nine harrowing days, the prisoners reached the woods near Waakirchen. Starving, they discovered a dead horse and desperately tore at its flesh for sustenance. For this, they were shot. The death marches were a final, desperate act by the collapsing Nazi regime - an attempt to erase evidence of their crimes and to continue their campaign of extermination even as defeat loomed. Those who faltered or collapsed from exhaustion were mercilessly beaten or shot by the SS.

What renders Noar’s story especially poignant is the cruel ambiguity of liberation itself. Freedom offered the promise of a new beginning, yet the question of where and how to begin again was fraught with uncertainty. His father longed to return to their Lithuanian homeland, while Noar himself felt drawn to remain in Munich. After much deliberation, they chose to return to Lithuania, only to be confronted by a new ordeal: a compulsory call to enlist in the Soviet army - Noar, just eighteen, his father, already forty-five. Once again, war was inescapable. They fled.

In Lodz, Poland, among a gathering of fellow Jewish survivors, Noar resolved to seek his future elsewhere. He set his sights on Palestine, yearning for a true fresh start. Yet even there, peace proved elusive. Almost immediately, he found himself thrust into another struggle for survival - this time, as a young Jew defending the nascent state of Israel. For Abba Noar, the promise of peace remained heartbreakingly out of reach.

Stories such as Noar’s compel me to reflect on how the legacy of these survivors has shaped the collective memory of Bavaria. The region is scarred with the remnants of forced labor camps and munitions factories-grim reminders of a time when prisoners were worked to the brink of death. Just two kilometers north of Dachau lies the former SS shooting range at Hebertshausen, where over 4,000 Soviet prisoners of war were executed in mass shootings. The SS forced these men to undress, line up in rows of five before the bullet catcher, then chained them to stakes and shot them. When the mass executions of Soviet POWs ceased, the site became a place for carrying out death sentences handed down by SS and Police Courts.

The landscape here is haunted by these memories- a silent testament to the suffering endured and the resilience required to survive. Noar’s journey, marked by repeated displacement and the relentless pursuit of safety, is emblematic of a generation for whom liberation was not an end, but the beginning of yet another uncertain chapter.

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The paradox of German democracy

The path forward, however, remains complex. Germany today finds itself at a crossroads, where the resurgence of anti-Semitism, racism, Islamism and neo-Nazism lingers in the shadows - issues the nation is not yet fully prepared to confront. These unsettling undercurrents lend a deeper urgency to the commemoration of Dachau’s liberation, serving as a solemn warning: the persecution and silencing of those who diverge from dominant political narratives must never be allowed to take root again.

The paradox at the heart of contemporary German politics is perhaps nowhere more evident than at the recent Dachau memorial service. As dignitaries gathered to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the camp’s liberation, several German politicians delivered solemn greetings - yet some could not resist issuing a stern warning: that in the name of safeguarding freedom and democracy, we must remain vigilant, for our democracy could,

What party is it that caused such concern for these politicians? Who are these ‘wrong’ people?

The country’s largest party - the AfD - Alternative for Deutschland (Germany).

Coming in second in the latest elections, the party has now soared to take the lead as the nation’s most popular among voters claiming a whopping 26% support. However, the party has been marred by accusations of being far right, nationalistic, anti Muslim, anti immigrant and anti European Union. Although these labels are now widely regarded as morally repugnant within mainstream discourse, the question of just how “far right” the AfD truly is remains a matter of considerable debate - many Germans do not share a consensus on the issue. Recent polls reveal that a significant portion of the population either disputes the label or continues to support the AfD. This ongoing division underscores the complexity and contentiousness of the AfD’s position in contemporary German politics. What is most striking - and conspicuously absent from mainstream political discourse - is the recent surge in anti-Semitism across Germany, manifesting in attacks, threats, and acts of intimidation. Notably, these incidents are not being perpetrated by the familiar image of neo-Nazi skinheads, but rather by so-called “new Germans”- individuals who live in Germany yet feel little emotional connection to, or allegiance with, the nation’s core values

This presents a profound paradox: today, there are Jewish Germans who see the AfD as a potential answer to the growing problem of anti-Semitism, even as it is the liberal left that stands most firmly against the party. Whilst not great in numbers - and certainly not reflective of the majority of Jews in Germany - the fact that there is a Jewish wing in the AfD, Juden in der AfD (Jews in the AfD), speaks volumes about how this small minority of no more than 130,000 people feel in this country.

Recently, Germany’s domestic intelligence agency officially classified the AfD as an extremist organisation, citing its xenophobic, anti-minority, Islamophobic rhetoric and its fundamentally exclusionary, ethnic-based conception of the German people. This designation, based on a comprehensive 1,100-page report, grants authorities expanded powers to surveil the party, including wiretapping, recruiting informants, and restricting civil servants-such as teachers and police officers-from party membership. The AfD’s co- leaders Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla responded with legal action against what they claim are “defamatory attacks that endanger democracy."

Such measures inevitably evoke uncomfortable historical echoes. One need not look far into Germany’s past to recall the Stasi’s pervasive surveillance and the normalisation of monitoring political opponents in East Germany. The irony is inescapable: on the eve of the 80th anniversary of Dachau’s liberation, Germany’s first concentration camp, the country’s most popular political party has been branded as extremist by the state; its members surveilled and civil servants forced to repeal their membership in order to retain their employment.

I have long argued that dismissing, ignoring, or ridiculing legitimate concerns about immigration, terrorism, assimilation, and public safety risks fuelling even more radicalised views among those who feel unheard. The prevailing narrative may champion multiculturalism, but wielding state power to suppress dissent is a dangerous path - one that every regime, regardless of ideology, has justified in the name of righteousness. This is precisely how Germany once slipped into moral catastrophe: those in power, convinced of their own moral clarity, silenced and persecuted dissenters, branding them subversives, communists, terrorists - or worse, Jews.

Germany has spent decades confronting the shame of its past. Countless books, trials, and films-like Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds, which transforms Nazi brutality into a tale of fantastical vengeance-have grappled with these horrors. But history does not unfold in obvious steps; the totalitarian tiptoe often advances while we are preoccupied with daily life and more pertinently, with the conviction of being morally correct. If a government employs the instruments of democracy to suppress dissenting perspectives - no matter how abhorrent - can this truly be called democracy?

The panic and fear are palpable among politicians and citizens who equate the AfD with the Nazis. Yet, context is everything. The AfD emerged as a rebuke to the integration of the German economy and polity into the European Union. It evolved as a consequence of the 2015 mass migration, the mass sexual assaults in Cologne on New Year's Eve, and subsequent terrorist attacks driven by Islamist extremism over the last ten years. To claim that the greatest threat to Germany comes from AfD extremism borders on the farcical - and would remain so, were it not for the party’s meteoric rise over the past decade. Instead of confronting the AfD in the arena of ideas and prevailing through debate, authorities have chosen to pursue their outright prohibition. Such reflexive measures will only deepen existing existential anxieties and further destabilise the fragile multicultural balance the government is so desperate to maintain.

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The COVID-19 pandemic did not merely disrupt the world; it became a prism through which the fragility of human rationality, and the seductive power of collective narrative, were laid bare. For me, it was a moment of awakening: the first time I could isolate, with clarity, the mechanics of mass formation - a phenomenon I had sensed but struggled to articulate during earlier crises like 9/11 or the Iraq War. Those events had already marked me as a skeptic in the eyes of others, branded with the scarlet letter of “conspiracy theorist,” a term akin to cultural excommunication. Yet it was during the pandemic that this label calcified into a kind of social identity, as questioning the origins of policies, the proportionality of measures, or the silencing of dissent became tantamount to heresy.

What struck me most was not the policies themselves, but the fervor with which they were embraced. Logic, data, historical precedent - none could penetrate the mantra of “But it’s a pandemic!”, a refrain that dissolved discourse into a fog of moral urgency. I recall debates where facts were met not with counterarguments but with averted eyes, as if skepticism were a virus more dangerous than Covid. The populace, it seemed, had slipped into a synchronised trance, parroting directives with a zeal that bordered on liturgical. It was here I realised that human behaviour is not merely shaped by reason, but by something deeper, almost primal: a need to belong, to trust the herd, even as it marches toward a cliff.

Five years later, the vindications are many - the admissions of overreach, the retracted studies, the quiet undoing of mandates once deemed sacrosanct. Yet for many, these reckonings pass unnoticed, like stones dropped into a well of collective amnesia. Those who complied unflinchingly have rewritten their memories, reframing fear as altruism, obedience as unity. The rest of us, who clung to nuance, who asked “why” when others demanded “how fast”, find ourselves in a curious limbo: proven right, yet still cast as relics of a not too distant past.

The pandemic, was not just a crisis of health, but of epistemology. It revealed how easily truth is trampled by the stampede of consensus, and how the line between “responsible citizen” and “heretic” is drawn not by evidence, but by the mood of the moment. This mood, was laid bare just this week where FOI evidence was obtained by the Victorian opposition showing how the Andrews Labor government's decision to enforce night curfews during the coronavirus pandemic was not based on health advice. The email exchange between former chief health officer Brett Sutton and public health commander Dr Finn Romanes reveal that:

It's clear that the decision had been made by former Premier Daniel Andrews prior to any of the scientific information being presented. Victorians complied because the fear of the virus was greater than the virus.

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Mass formation psychosis is a term that’s shot to the front of conversations about crowd behaviour, social movements, and even politics in the last few years. Based on the work of Belgian psychologist Mattias Desmet, especially his book The Psychology of Totalitarianism, it offers an unsettling look into how entire populations can lose access to reason and critical thinking. Instead, they start moving and acting as one mind, often in ways that support authorities without question. When reflecting on the origins of his thesis, Desmet states that when he was writing his PhD, the replication crisis in the sciences was emerging where it was revealed that up to,

Desmet posits the rather candid question - How do seemingly intelligent and well educated people buy into research methods and narratives that are utterly absurd? What is this strange phenomenon where entire groups of highly well educated people such as those in the academic community, can buy into absurd narratives? In the 19th century, Gustave Le Bon asserted that highly educated people - even more than people with lower degrees of intellectual acumen - fall prey to a kind of group think: a mass formation/crowd formation. Desmet states that highly educated people have a desire to conform - to try to match the social ideal image as much as possible.

Desmet began his delve into the group think phenomenon after examining statistics emerging from the beginnings of the pandemic, publishing a paper titled: The fear of the coronavirus is more dangerous that the virus itself in March 2020. Desmet claims he tried to warn society that the official statistics dramatically overrated the mortality rates of the virus. Three months later, it was illustrated that the skeptics had been correct - the rates of the virus were statistically overrated.

Desmet digs into how societies can slip into a collective trance, where facts and independent thought are replaced by a single shared narrative. In The Psychology of Totalitarianism, Desmet outlines how modern society, despite advances in education and technology, remains vulnerable to mass manipulation.

When groups fall into mass formation psychosis, people stop questioning, even when the story doesn’t make sense. Instead, they act together, often following one leader or ideology - regardless of the facts. This is more than just peer pressure or “groupthink”; it’s a total shift in how large groups see themselves and their place in the world.

The Four Conditions for Mass Formation

Desmet argues that mass formation psychosis only arises under four key conditions:

1. Social isolation When people feel cut off from their communities, they become more likely to look for belonging elsewhere - even in unhealthy ways.

2. Lack of meaning or purpose Modern life often strips away traditional beliefs, jobs, and communities that give meaning. People crave a cause or a bigger story to tap into.

3. Free-floating anxiety With no clear source for their worries, people feel anxious, unsafe, or restless. Mass movements give their anxiety a target and a theory.

4. Frustration and aggression Built-up frustration looks for an outlet, especially when old ways to vent it are gone.

When these conditions stack up, large groups become much easier to steer. They can get caught up in ideas that feel right, even if they’re not true.

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In the grip of mass formation psychosis, people start to lose their sense of self. Their identity merges with the group’s identity. Thinking for oneself becomes strange, even dangerous. Desmet suggests that mass formation can thrive if a narrative is distributed via the mass media especially if they identify an object of anxiety and provide a strategy to deal with that object. It connects the masses to a heroic struggle allowing them to meet their needs and provides them with a release giving them a new social bond and meaning that has been lacking. At this point in time, people participate in a strategy, that may not make logical sense to each individual if they were in a psychologically healthy state and were thinking critically of things without the mass influence of the group (or media in this case).

Critical thought takes a back seat. Instead of asking questions, individuals rely on the group to tell them what’s true or false. Anyone who opposes the group gets labelled as a threat. The need to belong outweighs the urge to be right.

This is why groupthink becomes so strong during mass events: it’s about safety, meaning, and fitting in. The group’s emotions, fears, and hopes become stronger than logic or fact.

The Anti Israel Mass Formation Psychosis

Mattias Desmet’s ideas can be seen in some of the most talked-about recent events, where crowd behaviour and conformity show up in plain sight. Whilst the Covid pandemic was a clear illustration of mass formation, the more contemporary event of the pro Palestinian anti Israel protests is another.

The Hamas-led massacre of October 7th, 2023 - which claimed over 1,400 Israeli lives and left hundreds captive - sparked global demonstrations. Yet campuses swiftly devolved into cauldrons of antisemitic hostility, with reflexive condemnation of Israel emerging even before its military retaliation, while Hamas’ atrocities faced erasure or justification. Slogans like “globalise the intifada” and “from the river to the sea” epitomise a mass formation dynamic: hollow rhetoric becoming a tribal adhesive for unexamined rage. Many protesters, swept into performative solidarity, faltered when pressed - “Which river? Which sea?” - revealing a conformity masquerading as moral purpose.

The fusion of ideologically incongruent factions under the banner of uncritical Palestinian solidarity exemplifies the obfuscating mechanics of collective delusion, its contours starkly visible to those attuned to societal undercurrents. “Queers for Palestine” epitomises this paradox: a movement whose professed liberationist ethos exists in irreconcilable tension with the regressive social doctrines of Hamas and allied Islamist factions. This cognitive dissonance - where activists champion a cause whose dominant actors would criminalise their very existence- transcends mere contradiction, flourishing instead within the surrealism of mass formation psychosis. Here, the suspension of critical thought becomes not merely acceptable, but a perverse badge of ideological purity.

Circling back to Desmet’s work, this phenomenon, reveals how social isolation, existential anxiety, and digital echo chambers coalesce into a dangerous collective narrative which violently erupted on American college campuses: student protests, sit ins and encampments. This narrative and its subsequent violence spread to the Netherlands, UK, Australia and Canada however, the most violent manifestations of this solidarity was seen in US colleges.

Vandalism and Physical Threats

• University of Delaware: In May 2024, a student destroyed flags at a Holocaust memorial erected by Hillel, shouting antisemitic slurs like “Jewish people are nasty” while tearing down tributes to victims of the October 7th attacks.

• American University: Swastikas and Nazi slogans were graffitied on dorm doors housing Jewish students in October 2023, part of a 20% national spike in antisemitic vandalism.

• Columbia University: A hub for anti-Israel activism, Columbia recorded 67 incidents in 2023–24, including defaced posters of Israeli hostages and threats like “Zionists off campus.”

Harassment and Intimidation

• University of Illinois, Chicago: A student confronted a rabbi outside a Chabad center, demanding he chant “Free Palestine” while another hurled antisemitic tropes about “Jewish genetic disorders”.

• Gallaudet University: Protesters disrupted a Hillel event in February 2024, chanting “Zionists off our campus now” and accusing Jewish donors of controlling university policies - a trope echoing age-old antisemitic conspiracies.

• Online Threats: At Rutgers, Ohio State, and UC Santa Cruz, anonymous social media accounts issued bomb threats and calls to “eradicate Zionists,” leveraging platforms like Telegram to evade accountability.

Institutional Targeting

• Hillel and Chabad: Over 100 incidents targeted Jewish student groups, including protests outside Hillel buildings and vandalism of memorials for Israeli hostages.

• BDS Campaigns: Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) pushed divestment resolutions at 430+ campuses, often conflating Zionism with racism - a tactic condemned by the IHRA as antisemitic.

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Desmet’s Framework in Action

Social Isolation and Anxiety

• Jewish students reported concealing their identity to avoid hostility, with 73% encountering antisemitism in 2023–24.

• Non-Jewish students, grappling with pandemic-era isolation, found purpose in anti-Israel activism, which offered a simplistic narrative of “oppressor vs. oppressed”.

Social Media’s Role

• Anonymous platforms like Sidechat and Telegram amplified threats, while TikTok algorithms flooded feeds with hashtags like #GazaGenocide, often devoid of historical context.

• Viral misinformation, such as the debunked “hospital bombing” narrative, fuelled moral outrage divorced from facts.

Erosion of Debate

• At Harvard, pro-Israel panels were disrupted by protesters accusing speakers of “genocide apologia”.

• NYU’s Hillel was vandalised with “Death to Zionists” graffiti, while students reporting incidents faced accusations of “weaponising antisemitism”.

The data is unequivocal: antisemitic incidents on U.S. campuses surged by 628% in 2023–24, with 2,637 documented cases. Yet, as Desmet predicts, groupthink supplanted critical inquiry. Students who cited Hamas’ use of human shields or the complexities of Gaza’s governance were labeled “apartheid apologists.” Meanwhile, violence metastasised:

• UC Berkeley: Pro-Israel students were assaulted with chemical sprays during a “die-in” protest.

• University of Minnesota: A Holocaust survivor’s testimony was drowned out by chants of “From the river to the sea”.

The campus response to October 7th exemplifies how collective emotion can eclipse truth. When activism devolves into intimidation - when swastikas reappear and Jewish students fear wearing Star of David necklaces - the line between anti-Zionism and antisemitism blurs. Universities, once bastions of discourse, now face a reckoning: Can they uphold free speech while protecting marginalised communities?

Most recently, what appeared to be a Muslim woman at the Holocaust monument in Berlin, raised her hand in the Nazi salute and jumped from one stone block to another. The video was taken by passers-by. It is here one must ask: In what society could a guest to a Holocaust memorial, feel comfortable enough to stand on a monument dedicated to the millions who perished, and then proceed with a salute deliberately intended to mimic the Nazis? All this in the heart of Berlin?

Though documented across social media platforms, the event failed to achieve widespread virality. Could this stem from its inherent moral repugnance, which resists alignment with the marginalised victim narratives championed by anti-Israel demonstrators? The dissonance becomes stark when contrasted with the frenzied media amplification of Elon Musk’s supposed Nazi gesture, whose ambiguity sparked global debates yet still garnered disproportionate attention. This disparity underscores how narratives gain traction not merely through shock value, but through their perceived utility in reinforcing or challenging established power dynamics.

Mass formation psychosis may explain why groups sometimes lose sight of factual reality, and become swept up in emotionally charged narratives that obscure reason. Mattias Desmet’s analysis - though controversial - offers a framework to examine how societal anxiety and fragmented social bonds can fuel such phenomena, from pandemic responses to polarised protests.

This serves as a cautionary reminder: