look at all those chickens

Why do childhood places feel magical in memory? Why do millions stand in line to see the Mona Lisa? Why does one song move us so deeply while another barely registers? Why do companies spend billions trying to bottle “authenticity”?

These may look like separate puzzles, but a new psychological idea suggests they share the same root—a human capacity that could be the missing link between consciousness and culture.

The Universal Experience Nobody Named

Psychologists have spent decades studying phenomena like sacred values, aesthetic chills, nostalgia, celebrity worship, and spiritual experience. Each was treated as a world of its own.

But Johnson and Laidler (2020) propose that all of these may spring from a single source: hagioptasia—the perception that some people, places, objects, or experiences carry an extraordinary quality of specialness.

Their study, with thousands of participants, suggests that this sense of significance is not only widely recognised but also measurable. Early findings hint that it may even predict how people engage with culture, art, and belief.

Not Just Awe or Nostalgia

At first glance, this might sound like a fancy new name for existing concepts, but the distinction matters.

Awe is an emotional response to encountering something vast or overwhelming.

Nostalgia is a bittersweet state tied to memory.

Reverence is a posture of respect or devotion.

Hagioptasia is different. It comes first. It’s the raw perception of specialness—the moment something feels charged with deep meaning. That perception can lead to awe, nostalgia, reverence, sacredness or aesthetic chills, but it is not the same as any of them.

Think of your childhood home. You don’t feel nostalgia just because you remember it. You feel nostalgia because the place first strikes you as special, infused with significance. That initial perception, or hagioptasia, is what fuels the emotional reaction.

By identifying this capacity, the hagioptasia hypothesis offers a way to connect threads of research that have long been scattered.

Why it Matters

If hagioptasia proves to be a fundamental psychological trait, it could help explain:

Cultural Evolution - why some traditions stick around for centuries while others vanish completely.

Aesthetics – how ordinary sights or sounds become profound beauty or meaning.

Social Psychology - why some leaders inspire devotion while others do not.

Consciousness Research - we might be looking at pure meaning-making in action - not just emotion or sensation, but the mind creating significance from scratch.

A New Tool for Study

The Johnson–Laidler scale now makes it possible to study hagioptasia systematically—across cultures, life stages, and individual differences.

Preliminary results are striking. People who score higher tend to report stronger nostalgia, more spiritual experiences, and greater sensitivity to art and beauty. But the same trait may also leave them more vulnerable to manipulation by charismatic leaders, marketing, or status-driven cultures. Like many human gifts, it carries both promise and risk.

The Research Opportunity

Hagioptasia may underlie art, religion, celebrity culture, and status anxiety. Without it, research remains fragmented—different fields circling the same phenomenon with different names. Recognising hagioptasia as a unifying concept could allow psychology, neuroscience, anthropology, and philosophy to work together on one of the most fundamental questions of all: how humans create meaning.

The framework is testable. The first data points are already in. The next step is for researchers to explore it systematically and decide whether hagioptasia truly deserves recognition as a core psychological construct.

The question is not whether the idea is ready for academia, but whether academia is ready for the idea.

For More Information Hagioptasia: A Fundamental Perceptual Tendency in Human Psychology

Johnson, J. A., & Laidler, D. (2020). Measuring hagioptasia: A case study in theory-testing through Internet-based personality scale development. Personality and Individual Differences, 159, 109919.

Seeming to have somewhat gotten over the mortally wounding shock of this scene (its just so goddamn sweet someone help), I noticed something about Ed’s body language here. 

You’ll notice that as soon as Stede breaks into the bathroom (which, might I add, Ed flinches quite a few times while he was knocking on the door, so… just keep that in mind, i guess) Ed keeps his body turned away from Stede. 

His shoulders are angled towards the wall the entire time, even when he looks at Stede (which he only very hesitantly does, often looking down in the general direction of Stede rather than the man’s face, but I digress). 

To me, this seems like a very protective stance (I mean, Ed did grow up in an abusive household), but I think it also shows a couple other things, too. 

One, and the most obvious, is his shame at admitting he was going to kill Stede. Ed obviously feels really bad about this, and I also feel like he 100% assumed that Stede would be mad at him and that it would ruin their relationship – as anyone would, honestly. 

Two, it does a good job of showing Ed’s reluctance and discomfort with emotional vulnerability. He’s trying to literally shield himself from Stede, who is very kindly trying to help him, because he’s not used to being emotional around people (whereas Stede is a naturally emotional person, i.e. “we talk it through as a crew”). 

And three, I think it reflects how Ed feels about himself. He literally says “I’m not a good person, Stede. That’s why I don’t have any friends.” To Ed, he is the Kraken. A heartless monster who only evokes fear and pain. 

But Stede’s reply is “Hey, I’m your friend.”

And Ed can’t handle this. He leans even further away (and even bangs his head on the back of the tub, which like… I could spend a whole other post unpacking that, but I’ll spare you all the angst). He is quite literally trying to hide from Stede, his emotions, his past, his own self-image, etc etc. 

But then Stede brings up the idea of just forgetting that Ed was ever going to murder him. And the look on Ed’s face…

He doesn’t make eye contact (yet), but he does turn back towards him. He’s listening to what Stede is saying, but he doesn’t quite believe it. Not until Stede reiterates that he can forget what Ed was going to do if Ed can. And that’s the key. Ed has to forgive himself, because Stede already has. 

And that’s when Ed finally looks at Stede, and asks him “Really?” Does he really mean it? Is he really going to forgive him? Is he really his friend? And Stede doesn’t even need to say anything for Ed to see that the answer is “yes”

And it’s only then that Ed finally turns his body towards Stede. An act of opening up, of letting Stede in, of accepting his forgiveness and maybe even forgiving himself. An act of moving forward. He’s not shielding himself anymore. 

This can be even further seen with the life-threateningly adorable head boop that Ed does. There is so much utter relief in this gesture that I am quite literally going to scream. Because after all of that (the horrific ordeal of being known), Ed’s first instinct is to find comfort in Stede and his touch. 

I finally made a proper pattern to use for Stede and Ed's robe! 💫

and here's a transparent version, if any of y'all would like to use it-

(I think the first pic here is slightly closer in design to what he has, the second is for the clear lettering–)

This is going to be a delicate operation, Stede knows. One wrong move, one misplaced toe on a creaky bit of wood, and he'll be done for. But if it works--if he manages it--it'll be worth it.

He creeps forward.

The captain's cabin is dark, shadows growing long over the empty chairs, the library, the tables strewn with maps and teacups. The curtains around the bed are pulled almost all the way shut.

Stede slips past them, finds his quarry tucked up underneath the linens, not a care in the world. A dangerous mistake, on a ship full of pirates.

He steps in, raises his weapon, and--

"If you think for one minute," a rough voice says, at the exact moment a hand shoots out from the sheets to grab Stede's wrist, "that you're putting that brush in my hair, you better think again."

Stede laughs, his heart bubbling up with affection and mischief, and the boar bristle brush is abandoned instantly to the bedside shelf. "I'll get you one of these days yet," he promises, and leans in to press a kiss to his would-be victim's forehead.

Ed pretends to grimace, but he accepts the kiss and steals another for himself anyway, shaking his long hair back so he can find Stede's mouth properly. "You'd be sorry if you did," he says, though he's laughing too now. "The mess that would make of me. The split ends alone would--"

"You didn't even know what split ends were a year ago--"

"I think you ought to do my hair oil, to make up for it."

"Oh, what a terrible punishment," Stede protests, but he's grinning, already fiddling through the little bottles on their shelf to find the one he's after: a little dark green thing, with a light oil that smells like lavender. "Budge up, O fearsome Captain, and put your head in my lap."

Ed does, easier now than he had the first time, the second time, the third time. He nuzzles into Stede’s belly as Stede arranges his hair in long sweeps, comfortable and quiet. It’s a luxury, to have Ed’s trust like this, and it takes Stede’s breath away every time.

He won’t waste it. 

-

Ed settles into Stede’s lap, reveling a little in the warmth of him, in the scent of the cool night that clings to his skin. The oil is a bit of a fine thing, a frankly unnecessary luxury in the salt air of the sea, but Ed likes the way it smells, and he likes Stede's hands in his hair applying it, and he's getting better at allowing himself things he likes.

"Were you having a nice sleep?" Stede asks after a while, low and soft, his hands steady and gentle in Ed's hair. He touches Ed so carefully Ed would hardly be able to breathe if he weren't half-asleep again already, soothed and rocked by the motion of the ship and the warmth of Stede's belly and the steadiness of those hands.

"It was all right," Ed mumbles. And then, because he really is getting better at allowing himself things, he adds, "Wished you were here."

"Mm." The motion of Stede's hands gets longer, softer. Petting, really, more than working the oil into the hair. All affection and lingering care. "I'm here now."

He is. He always is, never more than a shout or an arm's reach away. Ed's getting used to it. Ed's getting used to little fine things, to soft hands. To kisses that taste like laughter and to the bone-crushingly tender realisation that Stede Bonnet wants to take care of him.

That Stede Bonnet loves him.

Ed looks up, a little bleary-eyed already, and shakes Stede's hands out of his hair. Pushes at him until he laughs quietly and slips into the bed proper, arranges him until Ed can curl up under the protection of his arm, ear pressed to his chest. The steady thump-thump of his heart.

He's getting better at allowing himself. Tonight he allows himself just a little bit more.

He says, "I love you, you know."

Stede's hand finds the back of his neck underneath his lavender hair. He's warm, and soft, and everything Ed had never been able to be.

"I know," Stede answers. Like it's that easy. Like maybe it always has been. "You know I love you too."

Ed closes his eyes, settles in against Stede's heart. Tonight--and tomorrow night, and the night after that, and the night after that--he allows himself just one more thing.