Crystal balls: are we really turning away from science towards the mystical?

A research unit that spots retail trends claims we’re turning to the magical and mysterious. Someone certainly wants their palm crossed with silver, says David Barnett

You may not realise it, but if you’re one of the millions of people who’ve enjoyed an hour with a kale smoothie and an adult colouring book then you’re part of a growing movement that’s been dubbed “unreality”.

What’s that mean? Well, wrap your chakras round this: “We live in a state of hyper-reality. As we navigate through the stress and mundanity of our everyday existence and parallel online lives, we are increasingly turning to unreality as a form of escape and a way to search for other kinds of freedom, truth and meaning. What emerges is an appreciation for magic and spirituality, the knowingly unreal, and the intangible aspects of our lives that defy big data and the ultra-transparency of the web.”

In other words, yes, you’re a 21st century hippie. But instead of “turn on, tune in and drop out” – and it’s 50 years since Timothy Leary’s exhortation, synchronicity fans! – it’s more a case of, “turn off, switch off and drop off” as we embrace spirituality, eschew technology and learn to generally chill out a lot more.

So sayeth the Innovation Group, a trend-spotting futurism research unit which monitors and predicts consumer patterns and interests. Why? So that brands, of course, can re-think how they should be flogging stuff to us. And the latest thinking is that they should be getting New Age.

“Consumers are adrift in a sea of user-generated content that purports to offer access to the ‘real’ world,” says Lucie Greene, worldwide director of the Innovation Group. “But they are increasingly aware that much of this is highly mediated and misleading. Unreality is the clear reaction to this: surreal visuals, unicorns, alternate universes and all.”

Wait, did she say unicorns? Yes, unicorns. According to the Innovation Group’s report, titled Unreality, young people especially are fed up to the back teeth with science; which will come as a blow to people desperately trying to get more schoolchildren engaged in the subject.

It says: “Science has long dominated a market focused on looking younger; yet millennial consumers, who take science for granted, are looking for something more … magical. No wonder – they’ve grown up with Pokémon, Harry Potter, Dynamo and vampires. They love unicorns and anime and have embraced the symbolism of mysticism and spirituality through T-shirts and tattoos. The fact that it isn’t science is the turn-on.”

The Innovation Group’s evidence for our turn towards the numinous comes from recent big-brand campaigns and initiatives – Dolce & Gabbana’s fairytale-themed Autumn/Winter 2016 show, Selfridges’ mystically themed window dressings at Christmas (together with an in-store “adult grotto” offering psychic readings rather than the chance to sit on the knee of a part-time Santa), and Somerset House’s exhibition Utopia 2016: A Year of Imagination and Possibility.

Unreality crosses every boundary. Fancy a drink? We’re turning to mead and poteen, apparently. We’re even told that Burberry make-up artist Wendy Rowe sips “high vibration water” – crystal-infused H2O. Travel? We’re going to Burning Man to dose up on hallucinogenics or on Jedi Training Academy cruises run by Disney. Sex? You probably already know about Chakrubs’ range of sex toys made from jade and amethyst. Or at least, you do now.

“Big data knows everything – there are no more secrets thanks to our digital, hyper-shared lives,” the report announces portentously. “Hollywood has lost its mystique now that every consumer with a GoPro can create a video. Artificial intelligence is replacing human brainpower. What’s left that’s not understood, quantified and replicable?”

What indeed? Magic, spiritualism, unicorns – that’s what’s left. Ignore that person next to you on the tube gurning at their iPhone for a selfie to bang up on Snapchat, we’re fed up with a life in which everything is out there, all the time, for everyone to see and react to. We crave one of mysteries and magic, of enigmas and spiritualism. And it looks like that’s exactly what we’re going to get, whether we like it or not – because, if the Innovation Group is right, we can expect to see brands and marketeers coming up with more and more fantastical ways of appealing to us.

While “unreality” might well summon up images of wistful millennials wearing floaty dresses and sharing a flagon of mead while nodding their heads to some rebooted version of All About Eve singing She Moves Through the Fair, at its heart it does appear to be centred on that most cynical and decidedly un-New Age activity: flogging us stuff we didn’t know we wanted, but which we’ll avidly lap up because it makes us feel a little more connected to… what was it again? The “knowingly unreal”?

Or, to put it in more pastoral, pre-internet, folklorish terminology – which you probably won’t be seeing on an ad campaign any time soon – a fool and his money are soon parted.