Mastery, Mystery, and Metamodernism | Part 2: Mystery
ISSUE 07 [638g Per Serving]
A Mystery To Me
Last week, I wasn’t in Cannes. You remember. But the thing is—in the spirit of full transparency—I’m not far. In fact, just 50 kilometres west of advertising’s mecca, for a… month. So yeah, maybe complaining about FOMO was a little tone-deaf. Anyway, I have reflected and promise no more poor-me-esque reflections for the remainder of my continental jaunt.
Also last week, I proposed—or at least reflected on—a framework. A very old one, really, but one I’ve been freshly applying to various cultural phenomena.
Mastery, and its various guises, opened the show—a traditional pursuit showing up in new forms as younger generations look inward for control and purpose in a world where institutional trust slides ever downward.
This week: mystery.
Mystery isn’t the opposite of mastery, but it does show up differently. If mastery is internal, mystery often looks outward. It finds meaning not in the self but in something beyond it—some larger system, force, or unknowable structure.
As with mastery, examples are everywhere.
Spirituality is no longer fringe, as Kim Townend points out in her recent report for NEXTATLAS:
“The 'New Spirituality' explores the evolution of mysticism from niche interest to mainstream cultural force, deeply woven into daily life—especially for young women. Once seen as quirky or esoteric, practices like tarot and astrology are now integral to wellness routines, social media, even politics. The shift reflects a widespread need for connection, self-understanding, and meaning in an increasingly uncertain world.”
The modern mysticism revival has become a safe space for those allergic to the hierarchies of organised religion and disillusioned by a hyper-rational world that’s failed to deliver on its promises.
But not all mystery summons the ancient. Some are entirely new.
Take AI (yes, I know I said I wasn’t going to write about AI every week, but I just can’t help myself—sorry).
The rhetoric around AI is riddled with spiritual overtones—and its imagined end-state, radical abundance, reads like a digital paradise. Not to mention, those building it often admit they don’t fully understand how it works. Instead, they rely on a strange mix of cutting-edge computer science and faith.
This isn’t new. Think back to 2008—when financial systems collapsed under the weight of instruments no one fully understood. People trusted them anyway. Belief in the higher power of the markets was easier than uncertainty.
Money and emergent technology now collide in the form of crypto—a true case study in modern mystery.
Bitcoin was launched by a messianic figure, Satoshi Nakamoto, who no one can confirm exists. Its advocates speak of Satoshi in quasi-religious tones. And the blockchain, as Utrecht University puts it, has been framed as a "sacred technology":
“Blockchain culture contains many mystical, religious, and magical elements… Astrology and spiritual approaches are also surprisingly popular in attempts to predict the volatile crypto market.”
And prediction is big business. The blockchain has also given rise to platforms like Polymarket, which offer users ways to bet on the future—and famously predicted Trump’s second election. Fortune-telling, reimagined for our digital age.
Mystery, then, isn’t just about the supernatural. It’s about the human urge to locate meaning in something bigger, stranger, or less knowable than ourselves—just as likely to be the universe or the algorithm as an ancient deity.
Same Same But Different
Mastery and mystery have always served the same purpose: making sense of a chaotic world.
The difference today is mastery is pursued not in service of something larger, but in the absence of it. And mystery is embraced not as blind faith, but as a rational response to the limits of rationality itself.
This collision of the pre-modern (spirituality), the modern (rationality), and the postmodern (cynicism toward fixed systems) is the real kicker.
So, we’ll get to that next. In the meantime, feel free to worship at whatever altar soothes your tormented soul—there’s no judgement here.
Race Notes
Written In The Stars — Foresight as a spiritual practice.
Cannes Do — The winning work, courtesy of Quynh Tran and Toan Mai.
Gov Gives — UK invests in the creative industries.
Code Vs Face Tattoo — Risk expert compares the two.
Semantic Satiation — Turns out there’s a term for repeating a word until it sounds weird.