If reason can’t save the world, no wonder magic and superstition are on the rise

Exorcisms are booming, witchcraft is having a moment, Tucker Carlson says he was attacked by a demon. It makes as much sense as anything at a time of climate crisis, war and Trump

How good must it feel to gather up physical manifestations of your anxieties, shove them in a giant papier-mache demon and set fire to them? Wonderful, surely. The citizens of Santa Fe, New Mexico, think so: it was recently described in the New York Times as their secret to happiness". Every year, they stuff the Zozobra with glooms" - representations of their fears - before burning them. These days, anything clogging your psyche can go in there: wedding albums; medical bills; report cards; loved ones' ashes; parking tickets".

My fascination with folklore was nourished by a decade in Belgium, where I was initially baffled by, then sought out, the country's best bits. I watched my sons' primary school headteacher gleefully set fire to a Zozobra-adjacent humanoid - bonhomme hiver - to banish winter; dodged carnival figures in straw-stuffed tunics, blank white masks and vast ostrich-plume headdresses hurling oranges into crowds; and heard children cry in real terror at the prospect of being stuffed in a sack and dragged to Spain by Saint Nick's nasty sidekick.

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.