Magical Thinking: How It Warps Reality and Wrecks Lives
Hello, Earnest Mann here! In this episode, I expose the real danger of magical thinking—a mindset that may seem harmless on the surface, but in reality, it drives conflict, economic despair, and mass manipulation. From childhood myths like Santa Claus to modern delusions about politicians fixing everything overnight, I’m breaking down why magical thinking is so destructive and what you can actually do to unplug from it.
From Santa to Society: How Illusions Persist Into Adulthood
Magical thinking doesn’t end when we stop believing in fairy tales. It mutates into more complex forms—like blind faith in religion, politicians, or media. I discuss how this persistent illusion affects real-world issues like war, government dysfunction, and financial manipulation. It’s not just about belief—it's about how those beliefs shape our world and who gets crushed beneath them.
Consumerism, Holidays, and the Myth of Meaning
I call out consumer culture, especially the Christmas frenzy, as a prime example of magical thinking. The idea that spending money equals love or happiness is not only false—it's financially and emotionally toxic. I share my own 30-year boycott of Christmas to illustrate what happens when you finally unplug from the madness.
What You Can Actually Do to Escape Magical Thinking
I offer practical ways to break free from the system—starting with your own choices. You don’t need a revolution. You need refusal. Refuse to pay $20 for fast food. Refuse to feed the machine of blind tradition. If you want to truly change your life, stop participating in the illusions. This is how real change begins.
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So if you have a suggestion for an episode topic, or simply want to reach out to me for help, you can reach me via my website's contact page - https://theearnestmannshow.com/aboutcontact - and I will get back to you ASAP.
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© 2020 - 26 The Earnest Mann Show
Are you familiar with the term magical thinking? If not, then stick around
because I'm not only going to explain what it is, but how it destroys lives
and what you can do about it. Hello, my name's Ernest. Welcome.
If you're an adult listening to this, and I assume you are, I want to ask a
question that on the surface may seem well silly, but I mean it seriously.
Do you believe in Santa Claus or the tooth fairy?
Serious, I'm I'm not kidding. Do you actually believe in them?
And if you don't, why why is it really that hopefully past a
certain age we no longer believe that?
Well, one of several reasons, of course, is that as we hopefully mentally grow
and mature, we can intellectually figure out that the proposition of an actual
Santa Claus or the tooth fairy is well impossible.
And we understand that based on all the information in the world that we gather
around us as we grow up. And so you don't necessarily past a
certain age and stage have to be concerned about being good because
you're worried about what Santa Claus will or will not bring you for Christmas because the proposition is well again
silly. And that's the same point that I wanted to make, and I'm going to make a huge
jump here, but that's the same point concerning
magical thinking because basically what you're engaging in, even though you
don't know it at that time in your life, is you're engaging in magical thinking.
Then as you grow older, those particular aspects of magical thinking, they fall
to the wayside. Well, as I said before, because we we grow up, we're not
children, at least not in that respect. Now what I propose to you is that what
happens is as we transition into you know uh adolescence and then early
adulthood and for the rest of our lives, we end up replacing those two items on
the magical thinking list with other items um such as the belief in God or in
the belief in extraterrestrial beings or that the world is flat or any other
number of other things which broadly still fall under the category of magical
thinking. Now, when you're a little child and you
believe in Santa Claus or the tooth fairy or Easter Bunny or any of those
things, you know, the implications in life in general and for those around
you that you as a child believe those things, um, well, they're pretty
inconsequential. you know, they're they're not going to, you know, heavily impact other people's
lives that much. But as far as the other things that I
mentioned, well, they most certainly do.
And that is the problem of magical thinking.
Because if you're any adult out there who hasn't spent the large majority of
your life living under a rock, you for instance know the neverending turmoil in
the Middle East between, say, for instance um Israel and Palestine, the
Palestinians. This is driven primarily.
There are also many other outside factors but primarily its foundation is
magical thinking. And this ends up with thousands and tens
of thousands for 20 30 40 50 years or more. I'm
talking about at least just since the established u state of Israel since 1948
that it it goes on it has been going on and despite just recently a so-called
ceasefire. Yeah, right. Let's see how long that lasts.
It's not going to last because those two groups of people both engage
very actively in magical thinking. They are at an impass and that impass is
not going to change because of magical thinking.
That alone, just that example, that one example alone
should clearly explain the dangers of magical thinking.
That's what it is. And anytime you happen to be someone, even if you're
one of the relative few who refuse to engage in magical thinking,
you can get caught up in it. Nonetheless, because one group of people under their
government decides to bomb the [ __ ] out of the other group of people that they
don't agree with and you just happen to be living there,
you know, let's say if you're a either an Israeli or Palestinian who is not in
any way, shape, or form religious, and they do exist,
But still you get caught up in the quagmire of this this whole nonsense
because of other people who are in control and are not operating under their full
faculties. Yet you can get, you know, harmed or
maybe even killed. And this has been repeated countless
times throughout history. You know, all of the uh people in the Second World
War, whether you know it was um the Nazis or what have you, you know, you
you got to remember although a very mass number of Germans identified with the
Nazis, not all of them did. There is a a very famous photo of a man
whose name won't come to me at the moment, but it was I believe it was
taken at some um it may have been Nuremberg, not certain, but he circled because he was the one person and all of
the group of hundreds that were around him while everybody else was doing the Nazi salute, he stood there, his arms
folded. So that's what I mean by that. It is
always very difficult to swim against the crowd.
And often times when the crowd is into
magical thinking or you could call it delusional thinking. Regardless, they're in a temporary state
of insanity. And it can be very hard to stand against
that. So this is what I mean by magical
thinking. And in order to understand that even more fully,
you would have to be a person who is um say as myself is happily agnostic.
And you're caught up in a society that is in the throws of that kind of
thinking. And um you feel you feel incredibly isolated
and um you feel the pressure and you're you're the fish
that's swimming against all the other fish headed in that direction, the wrong
direction. So hopefully
um if I made that you know clear enough that's what I mean by magical thinking.
So yeah a lot many places even in the US
are under the under the throws throngs if you will of this kind of thinking.
Now it's not all out war. They're not all out killing each other.
Not yet. But it's entirely possible that that
could happen. And all it takes is a spark.
And when you keep building a powder cake
of resentment and then on top of that you mix in a whole lot of economic
troubles, people living, you know, with job uncertainty in general in no
certainty. you know, you uh you you're mixing up a brew of uh desperation, despair,
a whole mix of bad things. Then if those same people, if you add to
that ingredient list, you have them in a state of magical thinking,
um, such as believing that you're going to hire a president, some kind of
doofus, and that he's going to change everything relatively overnight and
going to make everything better. That's delusional thinking. It's not
going to happen. As a matter of fact, and I want to make this very clear,
I am not necessarily wanting to say that a dictatorship is a
good idea. But what I am saying on the other hand
is that when you're having multiple societal crisis
um you know at the same time that I believe is what it would take to
change things for the better. And I think in many people's heart of
hearts, even if they don't want to admit it,
that's what they want. That's what they want. They want a dictator.
They want a dictator. There, I said it. Because with all of this kind of
turmoil, everything that I just mentioned, it was the exact same uh situation in
that sense. Uh tremendous uh economic uh
problems, uncertainty, people, you know, people in dire economic times and then
you can't can't even afford food because inflation's going through the roof. All
the conditions are there to just make things in this pressure cooker of crazy
worse and worse by the day. And it gets so bad that people just throw in, you
know, they give up reason and they kept trying reason repeatedly with quote unquote getting presidents
and presidents in the US are such under the under the current life that we live
and the times. This isn't we're not talking 250 years ago when a constitution was written and we didn't
even have [ __ ] electricity or running water or a whole host of other things.
It's a very different time of course. Well, obviously that time is long past.
But regardless, this entire rule book, this entire framework, and I'm not necessarily talking about
the framework work of democracy, but I'm talking about the entire structure as it
is, obviously is not working.
When I say working, well, actually, let me let me clarify that for a certain
segment of the population, it's absolutely working. meaning the rich of course um you know you know the
story these guys they steld them if ever they don't pay any taxes they break the
law they get slapped on the hand you know I'm to the the guys I'm talking about or at least you should
but the rest of us nah not so much so yeah um it's not the system is not
work for us and they keep people keep saying, "Well,
the system's broken and it No, no, no. It's not broken.
It's not broken at all. It's working exactly the way it should
again for them, but for the common average person, nah,
not so much." And just like at the times of the French Revolution or any other huge social
uprisings that occur, yeah, that's um you know that's pretty much you know the
situation that it is. And that's why you have revolutions and
all this nastiness which also I'll say it doesn't it
doesn't end up or it hasn't let's just say for the most part it hasn't really changed anything because what happens is
is whether it's through the guillotine or whatever the case may be even if even
if we you know got rid of all the bad guys however that's done and you put
things more to you a much leveler playing field. You tried to write all the wrongs. You redistributed wealth. If
the fundamental system is in place that enabled that in the first place,
in a relative short amount of time, it's going to creep back in and you're going
to have the same damn thing all over again. So the way you have to get rid of that
is you have to get rid of those ideas which are backward and stupid and well
based in magical thinking. But in the meantime,
the question you might be thinking is, okay, let's storm the gates. Let's hang
the bastards. Let's, you know, let's let's have a whole bastile day with and
have a, you know, have a field day and then be a big gigantic huge blood bath
and all that. Let's we we know that. But as I said, if you don't thoroughly
accept and understand what got us there in the first place, it will all
eventually come back again. So that first of all you need to
understand you need to recognize that you need to get rid of the magical
thinking. Now maybe you
maybe you can do that yourself and that's that's
great. That's wonderful because it has to start somewhere and there's no place better in the world where it should
start particularly for your own life is it needs to start with you that that's
great. But if you can't count on this, if it
doesn't take off into an absolute very broad um say national movement um where
just you know suddenly suddenly like what I'm visualizing is just you know
like um masses masses of people that you know just become aware you know it's
kind of like for you people that remember the old the movie um V for Vendetta
uh when on the 5th of November all these people showed up dressed as V and they
all had the masks on and and all that that kind of thing. Uh as far as the
possibility of that happening, I I don't know. I mean, maybe maybe it could,
but I'm not necessarily counting on that. I think it's going to be a much
more, you know, gradual uh but yet forceful uh shift. Let's say one of the
I believe as I don't know as incredible or silly as this may sound again since
primarily it's a propaganda machine not a truth machine and can't believe a damn
thing in our own uh mass media today. But when they're constantly talking
about u let's say if we just limit it to across America the huge price spikes in
fast food but consequently all the places selling fast food that no one's
no one's going to and say well they they bring it back into the economy and how
broke everyone is. And I'm like, look, you know, if you can't afford
McDonald's, yeah, there's something really wrong. But you see, even that is
disingenuous in itself because it's not it's not addressing
what the real issue is. The real issue I believe what the truth is is that what
many Americans at least have done is they're doing their own form of becoming
V and they're simply they're they're be honest just [ __ ] you I'm not paying 135
$20 for a Big Mac Coke and fries ain't happening screw yourself
and so it's an unwillingness to pay that's that I is driving this and I
think that I think that's great. I think that's wonderful and I hope it continues
and I hope it spreads to so many other areas where people have been they've
been gouged for 30 plus years. Everything from cars, housing, houses, clothing, you name it.
I mean, we've been gouged, really gouged, really bad, and people are sick of it, and I understand that.
But what drives the machine, the old the old guard, the old thing gets it, you know, gets it really going. What they
count on is the whole magical call. They ring the bell. It's sort of like, you
know, everyone turns and drops what they're doing mentally. and they can always count on Christmas,
the whole Christmas thing. And so they could eek out just long enough to make
it to, let's say, you know, the beginning of December and then they get
that whole PR thing going because that's the shopping. It's it's the shopping
season and you know a million sales and this and that and they that's what they do
and that's what I've done my whole life and I haven't I haven't participated in
Christmas let's see it's been
over 30 years over 30 years. Think about that. No
Christmas, nothing. No gifts, no dinners, nothing. Nothing at all.
Now, just to say on a side note about that, I will readily admit because I I'm
not a space alien and I don't have six heads and grew up just like most Americans and
I engaged and did all that [ __ ] for, you know, roughly half of my life.
And then when I started figuring all this stuff out and I decided no and I
let people know and of course at first they thought I was kind of well losing my mind. Um, again, this is where the
fish starts to swim upstream. And I admit there's a a very strange
feeling when the masses, friends, family, all that. All of them um are
doing this and you're not. It's, you know, I remember for probably
[ __ ] three, four seasons, um, feeling that way and, um, it was
weird and it was tough and at least and but then finally by
like the I guess it was around the fourth or fifth year, I felt it, but I
felt it less. And then as the story goes, as time went on, I felt it less
and less. And fast forward to today, I see I feel I see clearly
because I try to the best of my ability not to engage in magical thinking and so
I don't and it's just I I recognize it exactly for what it is and I refuse to
participate. Um, I'm not there's nothing wrong if you
if you like someone or you love someone and you want to give them a gift. Um,
anytime you want to give them a gift, fine. I'm not against gift giving. I'm
talking about the cult of consumerism around Christmas
and everything that that economically demands of you and the whole drive about
that. And it's it's it's obscene. And it's stupid and it's magical
thinking which like I said I try not to
engage in. So now I think I would mention the part
to you about what you can do. Now, I
don't have the time in this episode to go into all the things you can do, but
just a few things and hopefully we'll get you on track so you can, as they
say, unplug from this. Um, what do I say? Simply don't engage.
Just like all the people that are foregoing fast food and they're foregoing, you know,
movie theaters that are charging, I don't know, they want to charge 20 and $25 for a ticket to see a [ __ ] movie.
And that's before any of the, you know, concession stand items. Just stop engaging.
And you're not you. You don't have to worry about this as a
movement. Just worry about you. You and maybe your immediate family. If
you're married, for instance, um you know, or if you have kids, this
makes it can make it so much tougher. But if you both do this, uh and you
know, it would kind of work much better if you both did. And you know, and don't go into the Saab
thing. And then don't go into the psychological manipulation of so-called caring friends and family and grandma
and grandpa. What do you mean? The kids aren't going to get any toys for Christmas. What kind of what have you
lost your mind? Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. You have to decide in unplugging
from magical thinking. Are they living your life or do you want to live your
life? And in addition to that, as far as passing on traditions and values, I
can't think of any better traditions and
values to pass on than non-engagement. And then eventually
when they're old enough, they'll understand. they'll figure it out and they'll say, "Well, it felt really weird
at the time, but um you know, do the right thing, they'll
thank you later." kind of thing. So, I can't, you know, I can't speak um for
obviously for everyone out there and I would certainly be interested in hearing your thoughts or what you have to say.
But the point is is to unplug and you know if you have to like cigarettes or
whatever if you have to withdraw gradually that works for you. Um
that's what will not only not only clear your conscience and clear your mind
but it will also save you a hell of a lot of money. Uh yeah that so you'll
have that Hollywood's uh that uh holiday spirit. Ho ho ho.
So I just um yeah I just think the whole the whole thing is well it is what it
is. It's a part of magical thinking and that's simply one of the things that you need to do to move forward is to unplug.
And there's there's not just Christmas. There's just so many fields, so many
things that you need to unplug from.
And what does all this mean? Well, it means basically in time, you know, you
give it some time and especially from all the money you'll save. And there's a lot of headaches
associated this with this. you you begin to think well clearly and
you begin to feel better but it's not going to happen overnight you know this
isn't something that you just do once and say well I tried that but you know
parents didn't like it and my sister and brother brother or brother-in-law or whatever thought I was crazy and I I
made up for it the next year because because I have beliefs
these things and this living it's all part this is all an an integral part of
what is not sustainable for all those groups out there for instance and they talk about sustainability
well yet they engage in Christmas and the if you look at it just from an
environmental point of view it would be absolutely staggering
almost you know inconceivable just the amount of waste
from all of the paper and and nonsense that goes with the presence. Hundreds
and hundreds of tons, hundreds of millions of tons perhaps
that won't go into the landfill. You see, it affects everything. And that,
think about it, that's just one. Although probably the biggest, at least
in North America, but that's just one holiday.
That's just one. So, um, anyway, I'd like to I'd like to
hear what your thoughts are about this. And of course, yes, I I hate I always
feel guilty to ask this, but I'd appreciate it. I would if you would hit that button and subscribe and all that
jazz and it would really help the channel grow, of course. But, you know,
um yeah. Anyway, so I hope that what I told you here is far
as this is concerned is has been helpful. Anyway,
until next time, this is Ernest and that's all I've got
for today.