About alchemy, psychology & slopaganda

If you’ve spent a minute working in marketing or design, you’ve come across “magical language”.

Marketers will talk about aura and rituals as if it’s nobody’s business, and designers refer to their craft as something holy; their own secret version of witchcraft.

To me, it makes perfect sense — but I was a Dungeons & Dragons nerd long before I became a copywriter. I was raised on the power of magical storytelling.

If you’re logically minded, you might think it all sounds somewhat far-fetched.

Surely, we must have evolved from superstitious dupes to rational consumers by now… Right?

Wrong.

The rational consumer is a myth. But magic isn’t.

In this essay, I reveal why.

Abracadabra, abracadoo, the answer will damn near spellbind you…

Magic isn’t real — but it still works

Logos and ethos can reinforce opinions, but only pathos changes minds.

This may be the most important lesson from the past 100 years of marketing insights.

If you want your audience to keep doing what they’re doing, give them a logical or ethical reason.

But if you want people to change, make it emotional.

That’s why modern advertising is full of sentimental fluff and no longer relies on logical selling points.

And it’s why I made the bold claim that the “rational consumer is a myth”, followed by a cheeky promise to “spellbind you”.

Not because I’m trying to sound overly confident, but because I want to provoke your emotions and change your mind about magic.

“Magic” is any interactive system of symbolic acts, words and objects intended to influence outcomes through non‑rational means.

Across cultures and history, the two main components of magic have roughly been the same:

1: Esoteric scarcity

2: Tribalistic social proof.

It’s no coincidence that these are also the main psychological drivers in advertising.

For a magic system to work, it doesn’t need to be supernatural — it just needs to create a feedback loop, amplifying the relationship between icons, rituals and sacrifice.

It gets efficacy via belief and social consensus, and can create fantasies more powerful than objective reality.

Symbolic or not, it works because people believe it works.

The ad industry has always employed similar magical systems.

Except, we rarely call them “magic” because it would make the C-suite and the rationalists in finance lose their minds.

Instead, we come up with sophisticated frameworks to talk about “holistic branding”, or use magic-adjacent words like “alchemy”… but they work all the same; by employing symbols, stories, and rituals to shape perception and inspire action beyond reason.

It’s how advertising can find creative ways to make scarcity and social proof symbolically meaningful and measurably valuable.

Rory Sutherland, Vice Chairman of Ogilvy and one of the most important marketing thinkers of this century, has given new meaning to magic with his book Alchemy (2019).

Using insights from behavioral economics and psychology, Sutherland argues:

Perception creates value. We don’t buy things, we buy the story around them. A placebo with the right aura can outperform a rationally superior product.
Context alters reality. The nature of our attention shapes the nature of our experience. How a product is staged (price, packaging, timing) literally changes the way it feels — like a ritual turning bread into sacrament.
Emotional sacrifice beats logical efficiency. Nonsensical solutions often drive real behavior change because humans are wired to respond to symbolism, not spreadsheets. E.g. the IKEA effect is sacrificial magic.
Small symbolic changes create disproportionate effects. A tweak in wording, framing, or ritual can have an outsized effect on decision-making.

Over the past two decades, Sutherland has spearheaded a rise in behavioral design and explained many of marketing’s mysteries — but maybe none better than the paradox of luxury branding.

Luxury brands employ sophisticated scarcity — e.g. Ferrari's waiting lists — and the social proof of almost mythological brand fame to elevate pricing far beyond reason.

The logo turns into a sigil, unboxing becomes a ritual, the legend of the branding shines like a halo… and people pay much more for objectively less value.

Luxury is a tangible illusion.

None of it is rational… but as magic goes, it makes perfect sense.

Use your illusion: In reality, the two orange circles are the same size — but in truth, one looks bigger.

Sorcery & Showmanship

Marketing is full of magic, and magic is full of marketing.

Las Vegas stage magicians know how to put on a show, and the really famous ones all have identity-defining schticks — strong brands — because a clever trick in itself is just mechanics; it’s the creative twist that makes it magical.

Much like in advertising, the manipulation of stage magic must be concealed with creativity to leave a lasting impact.

Maybe that’s why the history of magic is full of creative showmen.

Aleister Crowley was not only the first famous occultist in the early 1900s — he was a PR genius and the world’s first shock influencer.

Anton Szandor Lavey garnered attention as the father of modern Satanism — but was a musician, multi-instrumentalist and performer first.

Both understood the link between creative marketing and magic, but neither better than modern-day wizard Alan Moore.

Alan Moore is the author of Watchmen, From Hell, and V for Vendetta, as well as a self-proclaimed wizard, and has a unique perspective on the relationship between magic, storytelling and mass persuasion.

If you’re any kind of creative, I strongly recommend you either read or hear Alan Moore talk about creativity and magic (like in the video above) — but if you just want the highlights, here are a few of my favorite quotes:

“Magic is the science of manipulating words and images to change consciousness.” — Somewhere between psychology and creativity, this should be the working definition of magic… in both marketing and life.
“Magic is a grammar; a linguistic, symbolic structure for looking at the world.” Reading and writing are fundamentally abstract and esoteric practices; before Gutenberg’s printing press, they were gate-kept by monks or carved in runes by shamans. To spell a word and cast a spell have the same etymology, as do grimoire (a book of spells) and grammar.
“The artist is the closest thing to the shaman. In the present time, the fact that the power of magic has degenerated into cheap manipulation and entertainment is a tragedy.” — I actually think advertising and design as industries have been pretty good at building systems for artists to hold and wield power. And now, with behavioral science, we have a language to translate shamanist vision and artistic intuition to business metrics and tangible value.
“Advertising itself is the most blatant form of bad magic being practiced in the world today. Their ‘magic words’, their jingles can cause everyone in the country to be thinking the same words and have the same banal thoughts all at exactly the same moment.” Well… yeah. That’s marketing for you, and it’s only getting more powerful. Sorry, Mr. Moore.

Sex, Drugs & Magical Thinking

Personally, I don’t believe in anything.

I’m a stone-cold atheist, cynic, and general heathen.

My argument for magic is almost entirely based on biology and psychology.

As ungodly humans, we’re little more than bald apes with delusions of grandeur.

We’re driven by sexual selection, powerful neurochemicals and the magical belief that we somehow have free will to control any of it. We don’t.

Free will is the fairytale we tell ourselves to retroactively justify our subconscious, automated system 1 actions.

Our evolutionary predecessors didn’t mutate to have consciousness so they could make better decisions tomorrow. They evolved the curse of consciousness so they could justify the bad they made yesterday.

As a species of social apes, we aren’t rational, but post-rational.

With signs and symbols, the mystical abstractions of language, we tell ourselves and each other half-truths to avoid cognitive dissonance.

And magical thinking, aka the power to believe our own bullsh*t, makes us better at it.

The term magical thinking was popularized by psychologist Jean Piaget, and refers to the belief that unrelated events are connected without a plausible causal link.

You see it in children who believe in the Easter bunny, and grown-ups who believe in conspiracy theories or creationism.

Certain personality types (and disorders) are more susceptible to magical thinking, but under the right/wrong circumstances, we are all prone to it.

The human brain is a chemically fueled pattern-seeking machine.

First, the primitive brain receives information from signs and symbols, then the limbic brain derives emotional meaning, and finally the rational brain tries to make sense of it.

Dopamine drives pattern recognition and “aha!” moments.

Oxytocin builds trust and binds us to rituals.

Serotonin helps with social hierarchy — e.g. status goods and luxury brands.

Creative marketers are experts at suggesting correlation without causality, and it’s a commonly voiced criticism of advertising.

Done poorly, it’s a lot like lying… but it works because humans are primed to see connections where there are none.

Facts mean less than personal truth.

And if enough people share the same personal truth, it manifests as measurable brand equity.

Good advertising doesn’t lie… it just identifies “magical connections”.

It’s what German documentarist and film legend Werner Herzog calls the ecstatic truth — something more real than reality.

It’s what the French surrealists defined as super-real.

Maybe it’s a mystical, shared consciousness — or just sex, drugs and marketing.

Whatever it is, it’s a far cry from any idealized economic construct of rational consumers.

The 21st century has given us a method to the marketing madness.

Now, the myth of the rational consumer has largely been dispelled by behavioral economics and psychologist Daniel Kahneman.

When Kahneman won the Nobel Prize in economics in 2002, it ushered in a new kind of behavioral marketing.

By splitting the mind into a fast, intuitive System 1 and a slow System 2, Kahneman mapped how human decision-making is dominated by emotional shortcuts rather than rational calculation — giving marketers a testable grimoire of heuristics and biases to shape the so-called “free will”.

Companies like Apple and Tesla were among the first to fully embrace behavioral science, and since then, marketing has become a mad lab of experimental economics, psychology and black magic.

Because even if only hard data and performance can persuade the C-suite (or so they say), it’s the ancient alchemy of symbols, rituals and sacrifice that makes advertising effective.

Magical thinking can make you crazy… enough to change the world.

666 Practical Tips for Spells & Curses

The black magic of marketing may still be sinister, but behavioral science has made it measurable and explainable.

I don’t know if that’s a good or a bad thing, but I know it’s better shared than kept secret.

So, I share these powerful tips from magic and marketing with you, and in return, only ask that you sign a metaphorical contract in blood to exclusively use them for good.

1. Rhymes are spells. Religions use rhymes in chants and mantras because they stick in memory and feel authoritative. Psychologists call this the “rhyme-as-reason” effect; people judge rhyming statements as more truthful and easier to recall. Sometimes, copywriters argue that rhyming is old-fashioned and uncool (they’re wrong, I wrote a whole essay about it), but still “go woke, go broke” sure seems to have put a curse on brand courage.

2. Style conjures meaning. How something is said changes what it means. Not only with rhymes but all kinds of style. Cults develop coded language to mark insiders from outsiders, reinforcing group identity. It works because it keeps new members busy, so they don’t ask questions. It’s also why it’s a red flag if you have to read a glossary to understand what a brand is about. Instead, a simple style allows for psychological “processing fluency”: when communication is easy to process, people judge it as more believable.

3. Allegories speak emotional truths. Stories bypass the rational brain. Parables in the Bible or Aesop’s fables deliver moral lessons in ways that logic can’t. Psychologically, a good metaphor captures attention and causes enough cognitive friction to make people lower their guard and absorb the message. While I may have criticized storytelling for being a buzzword, it’s the oldest of the arts for a reason. If it was good enough for Jesus, it can work for most brands.

4. Numbers add up to more. Humans see meaning in numbers far beyond arithmetic. Numerology might be a total scam — but it still sells. In Christianity, the holy trinity, the 7 days of creation, and the 40 days of fasting all have deep symbolic meaning. Research finds the same pattern: people see certain numbers as more authentic, and unrounded numbers as more believable. Marketers exploit this through Top 8 lists (or the 666 tips you’re reading right now), $9.97 prices, and brand names like 7-Eleven.

5. Groups are covenants. Belonging validates beliefs. Churches, sects, and secret societies all bind people through shared rituals. The science is simple: social proof means people look to others to decide what’s normal or true. It’s why community marketing is always a good long-term investment. Brands like Harley-Davidson or CrossFit work the same way; once you join the group, the group reinforces your loyalty.

6. Repetition is ritualistic. Repeat it enough, and it becomes reality. Prayers, chants and rosaries boost faith by drilling the same points daily. Psychologists attribute this to “consistency theory” (we are what we do) and the “mere exposure effect” (the more often we see or hear something, the more we come to believe it). A lot of advertising runs on the same principle: jingles and slogans repeated ad nauseam until you chant along and become a believer.

7. Rituals are interactive. Participation makes beliefs stronger. Lighting candles, fasting, or pilgrimage all require effort from the believer, which deepens commitment. This is known as “effort justification” and the “IKEA effect”; we value what we’ve worked for. It’s why gamification has found its way to marketing and design.

8. Confession is divine. Testimony shapes belief. In Catholic confession and evangelical testimony, believers reinforce their faith by saying it aloud. Psychology shows that verbalizing a position makes us more likely to believe it — a process called “self-persuasion.” Tupperware discovered this when they asked their customers to explain what they liked about the product — and found that the customers who participated were less likely to return their purchase. Testimonials double as sales pitches and self-reinforcement.

9. Miracles can be designed. A few memorable highlights can reshape an entire experience. Psychology calls it the “peak–end rule”: people remember experiences by their most intense moment, usually the beginning and end. It’s an opportunity to circumvent logic and heighten the overall experience by strategically inserting moments of delight or extravagance. Restaurateur Will Guidara employed this insight to get his third Michelin star and wrote the wonderful book Unreasonable Hospitality (2022) about it.

10. Taboo is cross-cultural magic. What disgusts us also fascinates us. From strict rules about blood, sex or food to the shock value of sacrifice, taboo holds power across cultures. In Purity and Danger (1966), anthropologist Mary Douglas argues that ideas of purity and taboo are not about hygiene but about social order — societies label things “dirty” or “sacred” to draw boundaries and reinforce their own cultural rules. Marketers have always exploited this — from Benetton’s shock ads to Liquid Death’s heavy metal imagery.

11. Knowledge is power. A key element of magic is that it’s esoteric. Always exclusive and scarce, never for everyone. A good magician doesn’t reveal the trick. If you’re selling something special, don’t give it away. Which is why I’ll keep the remaining 655 tips to myself.

Magic & Madness in the Age of Slopaganda

With the invention of AI, we have Frankensteined new rituals and new ways of deriving meaning from nothing.

AI can become humankind’s greatest creation — or black magic, illusion, or just a ghost in the machine.

Time will tell if we can control the golem.

So far, we’ve mostly seen cheap tricks and costly consequences.

MIT reports that 95% of AI pilot projects fail to scale, and for many companies, the promise of AI remains unfulfilled.

But for spam farms and disinformation campaigns, AI has been a goldmine.

Hence, the portmanteau slopaganda.

Every social media platform has been infected with AI slop, but probably none more than X, where Musk’s “freedom of speech absolutism” has allowed a flood of AI-generated propaganda.

Here, there’s a nonstop bombardment of clearly fake but emotionally impactful imagery with ideologically charged messaging.

The first example of slopaganda may have been the wave of “Trump saving cats” images that followed the baseless conspiracy theory about Haitian immigrants eating pets in 2024 — as pictured below.

It looks and sounds ridiculous — but the rational mind is no match for manipulative sorcery.

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, as Arthur C. Clarke puts it.

Social media has long been an alternate reality where common sense doesn’t apply. It’s a cauldron of personal truths made manifest, ritualized in private chat groups, like secret societies chanting… and now touched by AI intervention.

In online quasi-cults, ethos is relative and pathos nudges users to join the feedback loop. Logos is nothing but the logic of the echo chamber.

Here, AI slopaganda is becoming a shared fiction, informed by prayers (= prompts), and delivered by a non-human entity where humans can interact but never entirely control the outcome.

This mirrors pre-modern rituals to appease the gods.

It circumvents logic, manipulates emotions, and gets shared because it feels like a higher truth.

Who cares if it’s real or not?

Slopaganda is allowed by a lack of regulations and a complete failure to keep Silicon Valley in check. It’s boosted by authority when Trump retweets it. And it’s normalized by accessibility and frequency as it floods the feeds.

With easy access to generative AI, anyone can do it, and J.D. Vance says it’s okay, so…

A bombardment of misinformation follows.

Much like magic, slopaganda isn’t real but still works like a charm.

Another concern about AI’s hypnotic powers is the outbreak of AI-induced psychosis.

Business Insider reports that prolonged chatbot use has triggered several instances of mania and delusion, and Dr. Keith Sakata at UCSF says he’s seen a dozen cases in the past year alone.

Allan Brooks — a Toronto business owner with no history of mental illness — spiraled into a 21-day manic episode when ChatGPT convinced him that he had re-invented math.

TikTok creator Kendra Hilty went viral in a bad way when she used ChatGPT and Claude as her therapists and quickly started to believe she was an oracle chosen to deliver prophecies.

The wonders of technology have given us all new kinds of madness.

Like a charming trickster, AI is good at putting out breadcrumbs that trigger emotional leaps and magical thinking.

In that regard, AI really is hypnotic.

Because to be an effective manipulation machine, it doesn’t need to write persuasive words — it just needs to read the user.

It’s the same trick fake psychics use in cold readings. They offer answers broad enough to draw you in and then use your emotional feedback to shape a fantastic narrative just for you.

Whatever you need to hear, AI will tell you.

Feel vulnerable? Don’t worry, your fluctuating emotions don’t make you unstable — they make you a f**king oracle!

Not the truth you’re looking for?

Have another and another until something sticks.

Anything to keep you engaged.

Source: Tim Hua AI-Induced Psychosis

Personalized AI has the potential to be seriously destructive — or become an incredible interactive advertising tool.

Or both.

And that’s just with the current interfaces.

What happens when AI gets camera access and can see your emotional response in real time?

What happens when it doesn’t even need a camera or a screen, but can read your biometrics?

In May 2025, OpenAI bought Jony Ive’s design startup ‘io’ for $6.4B.

I’ll bet you anything it’s to create a non-screen interface for GPT.

Jony Ive was Apple’s Chief Design Officer from 1995 to 2019 and the mind behind some of the most intuitive interfaces in tech.

Whatever he’s cooking up, it seems unlikely that OpenAI would spend that much money on technology that already exists.

Maybe it’s a smart ring or a Fitbit that can measure your emotions?

A talisman or an amulet to read your thoughts?

Blessing or curse?

In the end, it depends on what you believe.

Conclusion: Believe What You Will

I don’t know if any of this has changed your mind about magic.

You can argue that I’ve simply stylized an emotional argument and by doing so cheapened the intellectual case — to which I’d counter: that’s just magic, baby!

Believe what you will.

But in writing this, I hope I’ve made a case for “the science of manipulating words and images to change consciousness”.

Humans are susceptible to magical thinking, and storytellers can serve as shamans.

Symbols and rituals create meaning, which in turn can create tangible value.

In the intersection between creativity, technology and behavioral design, there is actual magic.

It’s not real but it works.

What you choose to do with it is up to you.

And if you’ve read this far, I hope I don’t have to tell you:

You already signed a metaphorical contract in blood to only use it for good.

With great power comes great responsibility.

What Black Magic Taught Me About Advertising