Magical Thinking is a development phase we all go through as children. Unfortunately, some never come out of it fully. It’s a juvenile way of imagining you can wish reality into existence through the sheer force of your mind.

There is a role for Magical Thinking in key contexts, such as creative fields — as it is intimately tied to our capacity for imagination. But an inability to determine fact from our own invented fictions is something else entirely — and it’s dangerous. It undermines our sense of shared reality, which is the collective basis for things like a functioning justice system and working government. It endangers factuality itself in its disregard for the learnings of the Enlightenment.

Magical Thinking is related to:

• Tribalism; the hive mind; lemming behavior
• Groupthink
• Cognitive dissonance
• Evangelicalism & Dominionism — extremist Christian nationalist sects wielding outsized political power through wealth
• Blind support for Donald Trump and his tribe long after they plead guilty to crimes and get sent to prison
• Ostriching
• Denial — refusal to acknowledge a documented fact after credible evidence has been presented
• Projection
• Avoidance and denial — of truth; of responsibility
• Emotional immaturity — they exhibit a pronounced lack of emotional depth and maturity, have difficulty managing their emotions, and are easily angered.
• narcissism & Cluster B
• Marshmallow Minds