Some crumbs on the balcony

The Berto Romero series The other side (Movistar +) pays tribute to the history of Spanish parapsychology: Fernando Jiménez del Oso, Germán de Argumosa, the Hepta group of the psychic Paloma Navarrete and, of course, Iker Jiménez. Not all of them are there, but almost. In The Messiah (Movistar +), by Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi, two classic themes of this world appear: sects founded by people with supposed powers and UFOs. The protagonist takes on his trauma in the form of extraterrestrial contact and the series opens and closes with a group of abductees meeting on the mountain of Montserrat. In recent months, the United States government has declassified material on the UFO phenomenon, NASA announced this summer a committee to study the possible alien presence and a researcher presented a supposed non-human being in the Mexican Congress. As they said in X-Fileswe want to believe.

In the 18th century, the Enlightenment built a wall between what exists and what does not exist, what can be named, measured and classified—to be sold—and what can only be supported by narrative. We are on the side of things that exist and goblins, monsters, ghosts and even God were on the other side. This is what the sociologist Max Weber called the disenchantment of the world. The wall left us alone, but we didn't know it. Very soon, the cornered began to rebel against its non-existence and its beings populated Romanticism. All countries began to establish their national mythology of elves, fairies or processions that announce death. The Gothic novel is full of ghosts, vampires and curses, traces of the Old Regime that moved to industrial cities to remind us that science was not capable of explaining everything. The beings who visit us at special moments to preserve the ritual of the gift also appeared, such as Saint Nicholas, Santa Claus or the Three Wise Men. That world that does not exist began to be a privilege of childhood because maturity was not believing.

Meetings to contact the dead had their peak after the First World War and disappeared after the Second. Perhaps the conflict left too many dead or showed that the idea that there are people with special abilities is dangerous.

Little by little, the undead took over all the space. In the West, the concept of the afterlife was secularized to avoid being linked to the decline of religion, as was the idea that human beings have abilities that they are unaware of and that some people can develop. In the mid-19th century, meetings to contact deceased people began to be common among the upper class and mediums were as famous as athletes are today. The practice had its peak after the First World War and disappeared after the Second. Perhaps the conflict left too many dead or showed that human beings are what they are and the idea that there are people with special abilities is dangerous if taken too seriously.

The aliens have arrived. For half a century, the sky housed the fears and hopes that had previously been placed in the afterlife and was also a good image of the bipolar world. From the universe, beings could come that kidnapped people and mutilated livestock or a more advanced civilization that would teach us a path of perfection that we had separated from religion. We may not believe in God, but it is difficult to do without transcendence without becoming desperate, exhausted or becoming cynical. With the fall of the Berlin Wall, UFOs disappeared. In the cinema, they gave way to zombies, the perfect metaphor for the social model of nihilistic neoliberalism. In beliefs, the era of conspiracies began, where we still are. There is an other who watches over me and controls everything because he is the cause of all the consequences. We have taken God out of the engine room to put the Bilderberg Club or the chemtrails because we implore case. Human beings need to feel that we are important to someone.

Perhaps the main sign of optimism that we have right now is the return of the UFO phenomenon, since it shows the exhaustion of nihilism. There is a return of spirituality

Perhaps the main sign of optimism that we have right now is the return of the UFO phenomenon, since it shows the exhaustion of nihilism. There is a return of spirituality that goes beyond the growing presence of religious symbols in politics and the rise of fundamentalist movements. The writers Josep Maria Esquirol and Pablo D'Ors have been exploring this return for years through everyday elements such as the house or silence. Philosopher Byung-Chul Han defends the return of transcendence and grand narratives against the society of fatigue and self-surveillance.

We want to believe. It is likely that we cannot escape the desperate interpellation of the famous psychophony: “And what am I doing here?” The wall raised by the Enlightenment closed the path opened thousands of years before, when human beings began to imagine the answers to that question. It was a horizon whose path was traveled not only through religion, but with art or one's own personal hope, and closing it leaves us trapped with a single toy: ourselves. We are in a room full of mirrors. We want to tear them down—at least for one day—and we look for a crack through those who can believe: the children.

Performing the rituals with care to maintain the belief connects us with that horizon where there are things that cannot be measured and classified. Prepare the plate of milk and cookies or a piece of roscón. Get up the next day and see that there are only crumbs. Enough with that. Some crumbs

Jorge Dioni He is a journalist and writer, author of 'The Spain of the Swimming Pools' and 'The Discontent of the Cities' (Arpa).

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