Sean Monahan, writing in his newsletter 8Ball, has an interesting point in his treatise on addiction that caught my eye.

People love to quote the third of Arthur C. Clark’s laws—“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” And almost always with a positive spin. The Disneyfied language makes it sound wondrous. But let’s reconsider the quote with a different word:

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from witchcraft.

At the outer edges of technological possibility, magic is ominous. What if, instead of using clinical language to describe addiction, we used spiritual terms? The gambling addict is not suffering from compulsive behavior; he is possessed. Schoolchildren are not distracted by screens; they are hypnotized. Ozempic is not a medication; it’s a potion. Propaganda does not use communications strategies; it casts spells. Or on a more personal note—it’s not a vibe shift; it’s a broken spell? Maybe UFOs aren’t extraterrestrials; they’re demons.

That’s an interesting spin on things. Using different but similar terms does change one’s perception.