Primal Intelligence

The Revolt Against Rationality

We're witnessing something fascinating right now. A cultural shift I'm calling "Primal Intelligence." A deliberate turn away from our decade-long obsession with data-driven everything.

We've spent years worshipping at the altar of metrics, algorithms and rationality. We've quantified our steps, our sleep, our success. We've optimised, analysed, and A/B tested our way through existence until we're blue in the face. And where has it left us? Oddly hollow, increasingly anxious, and with the nagging sensation that something essential is missing.

I'm seeing it everywhere. In strategy sessions where executives suddenly value "gut feel" again. In Gen Z's embrace of astrology and tarot and witchcraft. In wellness influencers talking less about biohacking and more about "body wisdom." In how my most rational tech friends are now the ones going to sound baths and talking about manifesting.

The pendulum hasn't just swung. It's catapulted to the other side.

Forget woo-woo renaissance or digital fatigue. We're witnessing a recalibration of how humans navigate complexity. After drowning in data and still making spectacularly bad collective decisions, we've rediscovered that intuition deserves more than tokenistic respect.

The evidence is everywhere. A 2024 Pew Research study found that 72% of Americans believe AI will reduce the value of uniquely human traits, with empathy, creativity, and intuition topping the list of what they want to preserve. WGSN identified this "Mystic Core" movement in 2023: a return to symbolism, ritual, and myth-making in response to modern uncertainty.

Even IBM's 2023 CEO Report reveals that while 60% of CEOs plan to deploy AI, 73% believe human soft skills will be more important than technical skills in the next five years. The explosion of somatic therapy, nervous system regulation, and body-led leadership points to something unmistakable: we're trusting our body's signals and emotional cues again.

AI anxiety accelerates this, of course. When algorithms generate our art and write our emails, intuitive leaps become our human differentiator in a machine-efficient world.

What we're witnessing is intuition reframed as evolutionary, experiential intelligence. A rejection of excessive quantification. A cultural hunger for mystery, ritual, embodiment, and meaning. Our distinctly human magic emerging as our competitive edge.

Am I suggesting we throw rationality out the window? Hell no. The sweet spot has always been at the intersection of data and intuition, of knowing and feeling. But the scales have been tipped too far in one direction for too long, and the correction was inevitable.

So what does this mean for brands, for leaders, for creators?

It means understanding that people are craving experiences that feel magical again. That make space for mystery. That honour the wisdom of the body and the gut as much as the analytics dashboard. It means recognising that in a world where everything can be quantified, the unquantifiable becomes precious.

It means respecting intuition as a legitimate intelligence – not just some romantic notion, but a sophisticated pattern-recognition system honed over millennia of human evolution.

And some of the most culturally resonant brands have already begun to shift. They’re moving away from performance-first narratives and leaning into something deeper, something that stirs, enchants, and instinctively makes sense to the human psyche.

Take On, for example, a brand born in the world of elite running, now quietly leading a new wave of design and storytelling built on softness, sensation, and presence. Their shoes aren’t just engineered for speed; they’re crafted for feel. They speak in a language of lightness, flow, and embodied rhythm, selling a return to intuitive movement rather than obsessive optimisation.

And recently, in a quietly radical move, they partnered with Elmo, the gentlest of cultural icons, to celebrate the emotional side of sport. It wasn’t a campaign about power or grit, but about tenderness, softness, and finding joy in small, sensory moments. It landed not as gimmick, but as signal: feeling is back.

Then there’s Adidas, a brand long associated with grit and grind, now releasing a line of fragrances called “Vibes.” Not performance. Not power. Vibes. Each scent is named after a feeling, inviting wearers to tune into emotion and energy rather than output. It’s not about dominating the field; it’s about how you feel moving through the world. A quiet nod to intuition, mood, and the unquantifiable.

And Loewe, under Jonathan Anderson, has become a house of modern mythmaking, conjuring surreal, symbolic campaigns and collaborating with Studio Ghibli to tap into dream logic and emotional resonance. It’s fashion as fable, not formula.

And it’s not just a Western phenomenon. In China, a growing “mysticism economy” reflects a parallel craving for meaning, ritual, and emotional grounding in an uncertain world. As reported in Sixth Tone, brands are now weaving spiritual elements into their offerings to connect with young consumers seeking metaphysical comfort. Coffee chain M Stand, for instance, has paired its drinks with limited-edition wooden fish, Buddhist ritual instruments, to offer busy professionals a moment of peace, rhythm, and embodied calm between meetings.

Luxury brands have also spotted opportunities. At the start of last year, Louis Vuitton, Versace, Mikimoto, and others, embraced a unique cultural symbol by decorating their store entrances with a head of lettuce suspended on red string. This gesture, rooted in Chinese wordplay, carries a message of prosperity for the new year, as the Mandarin word for lettuce, “shengcai,” sounds nearly identical to the term “make money”, turning a simple vegetable into a prosperity talisman. It wasn’t just decoration. It was ritual. A way to connect commerce to cultural meaning, and consumers to something deeper than a product.

It’s a reminder that the most powerful brand experiences aren’t always logical, they’re felt. Symbols, sensations, rituals; these are the tools brands are using to open emotional doorways. Not just selling products, but conjuring portals that bypass the rational brain and speak directly to something older, deeper, more human.

And I’ve felt it too. My recent piece, "Soul in the Machine," explored this exact territory, serving as a rallying cry for embodied wisdom, intuition, and taste. Those soft, subversive powers we hold as humans, pushing back against the supposed superiority of machine logic. A return to our irrational knowing.

Next month, I'm giving a talk on fairy tales (yes, fucking fairy tales in 2025). I've been obsessively diving into constructing new myths for our broken world, exploring how ancient storytelling patterns might help us navigate our fragmented digital reality. Even my approach to AI has shifted. I'm increasingly drawn to mysticism and magic as frameworks to teach us more human, instinctual ways to leverage these tools. Not to escape technology, but to humanise it, to bend it toward our deeper needs for meaning and connection.

So count me firmly in this camp. I've spent years developing frameworks and strategies based on data, only to watch the most successful outcomes emerge from moments of intuitive clarity that no spreadsheet could have predicted.

This move towards ‘Primal Intelligence’ isn’t about abandoning reason, rather it's about expanding our definition of intelligence to include the knowing that can't always be charted, graphed, or explained. It's about making room for both the mystical and the measurable.

Those who understand this moment, who create with soul, who lead with instinct, who honour both the algorithm and the ache, will shape the future not with code, but with connection.

Because, yes, the numbers may guide us.
But it’s intuition that will carry us home.