People arepaying witches on the online marketplace Etsyto cast spells and cleanse them spiritually. It's trendy to carry aroundtiny monsters called Labubus on keychains, like amulets. Jennifer Aniston is rumored to be dating ahunky hypnotist. Two of thebiggest moviesof the year areabout demons. There's something weird about this moment in 2025. Call it a spiritual awakening of sorts. Thanks to algorithms that intuit our habits and create tiny worlds for us according to our interests, culture feels more fragmented and individualized than ever. The standout trends popping up on social media, though unrelated, have a supernatural undercurrent. But there's no one unifying song of summer or name for the season as there has been in years past. I'd like to propose a name for the ethereal, otherworldly vibe shift that seems to be taking place: Mystical Magical. Leave it to budding pop starBenson Boone, singer of one of 2025's most inescapable hits, to have his hand in the matter. You can hear him belting out these two words, "Mystical Magical," in a song of the same name, which went viral on TikTok. The tune is reminiscent of the chorus to Olivia Newton-John's "Physical," an earworm that begins as a somewhat annoying riff and morphs into a song that sticks in your brain. I don't think it's a coincidence, given the unusual spirituality of the year. I'm not the only person noticing culture has been getting a little more woo-woo lately. Hila Harary, founder of trend forecasting company Tectonic Shift, keeps an eye out for shifts in the zeitgeist and their impact on our lives. She tells Yahoo that the desire for otherworldly escapism has been building since the pandemic, when "COVID-19 unleashed anxiety levels unseen in our lifetime." It's only gotten worse as war, inflation and climate threats increase. "Our mental limits are constantly tested, driving a desperate search for escape, and that's where this 'magical' moment lives," Harary says. "As anxieties mount, people turn to magical narratives, rituals and mystical products — such as witches on Etsy, hypnotists and meme songs — because magic offers a sense of control and relief in a chaotic world." This shift to magical thinking is written in the cosmos too. Charly King, an astrologer and reader for the podcastThe Horoscope Vault,tells Yahoo the vibe shift coincides with Neptune's movement into Aries in March 2025. It'll be there for the next 14 years. She explains that Neptune symbolizes movies and spirituality, among other things. Aries symbolizes individuality. Together, this movement correlates with "a surge in individualized spirituality, also seen more publicly on screens and in the lives of others, as everyone becomes more open and confident with wearing their spiritual experiences for all to see," King says. It may not be a coincidence, then, that demons are so dominant in the movies that are exceedingly popular right now.KPop Demon Huntersconquered the domestic box officein the waning weeks of summer after topping theBillboard chartswith its soundtrack and becoming Netflix'smost-watched film of all time. The biggest movie of the year at the global box office isNe Zha II, an animated Chinese movie about a demon sprite who battles monsters. Both heavily involve the supernatural, suggesting that there's a growing acceptance of — and enthusiasm for — otherworldly narratives in pop culture. Public acceptance of the mystical is all around us — not just on our screens. There are tarot cards in Whole Foods and pentagrams at the mall. WitchTok blew up during the pandemic, leading to a cultural familiarity with witchcraft that may just make way for a mainstream breakthrough, Jason Myers, a witch priest, tells Yahoo. Over the course of her 50 years in the spiritual world, Kelle Sparta, a shaman, tells Yahoo that she's seen a number of awakenings happening. A massive one came in 2020, when "forced hermitage" around the world forced people to face their own "inner dissatisfaction." They turn to magic and spirituality to feel safe, forging connections online. "The rise of social media — especially TikTok — has allowed those who have awakened to share their message more freely, and this is bringing more and more to the edge of awakening and beyond," Sparta says. "People are running away from the current reality in search of something more palatable [and] more attractive." The challenge now is that people must do the inner work to truly become spiritual — not just hiring witches on Etsy or carrying around talismans like Labubus, Sparta says. Seemingly frivolous passions were all the rage during other major cultural shifts throughout history, according to Judy Ann Nock, a witchcraft expert who has written several bestselling books. She tells Yahoo that crystal collecting, seances and terrariums were popular in the Victorian period, for instance, which coincided with the Industrial Revolution. "It is easy to understand how, when faced with rapid change coupled with wealth inequality, people will naturally turn to the eternal in a quiet, almost unconscious rebellion against the manmade, mass-manufactured and disposable," Nock says. "We tend to grasp for the signs of permanence during times of uncertainty. We look to the stars, the oceans and the wisdom of plants and trees." I wanted to experience mysticism myself, so I spoke with someone who could give me insight into the spirit realm. I chose Jen Billock, a "cheese witch" who practices the ancient art of tyromancy — telling people's fortunes through cheese — primarily because I thought it would be funny. To be fair, that's why she got into it too. It's a serious craft, but she's aware of its kookiness. It's perfect for these unusual times. Over Zoom, Billock looks closely at the photos of freshly-bought cheese I sent her a few hours ago: The orangey chipotle Gouda represents my present, and the off-white hunk of provolone represents the future. She examines it for blobs that could be interpreted as messages about my life in the same way other witches use divination to interpret tea leaves, and dubs one hunk a "great cheese" because "there's a lot going on." "You have a little witch in your cheese," Billock tells me, inspecting my present through the Gouda. There's a tiny darkened patch on the rind that she highlights with her cursor while presenting my cheese photo on her screen. "Here's a long nose and the hat. It's a very stereotypical witch, but that's OK." She explains that the splotch means I'm connected to the witchier, more mystical side of life, which then connects me to the world at large. That, in turn, means it's a good thing that I'm connecting trends and writing about spirituality. I can't argue with that. I might not be all-in on cheese magic, but I'm incredibly charmed by the prospect of finding messages in the mundane that lead to introspection, be it Benson Boone music or Labubus or Gouda. Kooky or not, there's an otherworldly charm to embracing the mystical side of this season of life.
