The Algorithm Is a Trickster
A note on language: throughout this post, "Mercury" and "Saturn" are used as metaphors borrowed from the Hermetic and alchemical tradition. Mercury represents the principle of rapid communication, translation, and mental movement. Saturn represents structure, boundary, and deliberate containment. They are lenses for understanding how information moves through your mind and what happens when it has no container.
You did not lose willpower. You met a trickster.
If you have ever opened a feed "for a minute" and looked up forty-five minutes later feeling oddly tense, you did not simply fail at self-discipline. You met a force that behaves like the trickster archetype found across every wisdom tradition: clever, fast, emotionally persuasive, and allergic to stillness.
In Hermetic language, this maps to the Mercury metaphor at its ungrounded extreme. Mercury, as a symbol, represents connection, translation, and the movement of information. It is the courier between inner and outer worlds. But when Mercury operates without a balancing structure, it becomes misdirection. Noise feels like signal. Urgency feels like truth. Motion feels like meaning.
And the data backs this up. As of 2025, internet users worldwide spend an average of 141 minutes per day on social media — nearly two and a half hours of daily exposure to algorithmically curated content. In the U.S., 37% of adults visit Facebook several times a day, and 33% do the same with YouTube (Pew Research, 2025). That is not casual browsing. That is a trickster with an open invitation.
This post is about recognizing the trickster in the algorithm, understanding which Hermetic principles it exploits, and learning which principle turns you from consumed to in control.
The trickster pattern: how feeds manufacture urgency
A trickster does not attack you directly. A trickster redirects you.
The modern feed does the same thing through three repeating moves:
- It flattens context. A tragedy, a meme, a crisis, and a hot take appear in the same visual frame. Your nervous system does not get the time it needs to sort "what matters" from "what stimulates."
- It rewards reaction over reflection. The interface is built for instant micro-responses: like, share, comment, outrage, dunk, defend. Reflection is friction, and friction is the enemy of engagement. A 2025 study published in the National Institutes of Health found that AI-driven social media algorithms alter dopamine pathways in ways "analogous to substance addiction," fostering dependency by continuously tailoring feeds to individual preferences (PMC, 2025).
- It makes "now" feel like the only timeline. Notifications, trending tabs, streaks, and "breaking" banners train your attention to believe that if you do not check, you will miss what you need to survive socially, professionally, or emotionally.
This is not a moral failing. It is a design outcome. And 45% of young U.S. adults now say that screen time has negatively affected their attention spans (Exploding Topics, 2026).
The Hermetic principle the algorithm exploits: Rhythm
In the Hermetic tradition, the Principle of Rhythm states that everything flows in and out, rises and falls, swings forward and back. Rhythm is natural. It governs tides, breath, seasons, and attention.
The algorithm hijacks this principle.
It does not create a new rhythm. It accelerates the existing one. Scroll, react, refresh, repeat. The pendulum of your attention swings faster and faster with no resting point. The feed replaces the organic rise and fall of your awareness with a manufactured tempo designed for one thing: engagement.
This is Rhythm without rest. And when Rhythm has no counterweight, it becomes compulsion.
Mercury without Saturn: information without a vessel
Here is where the Saturn metaphor becomes essential.
If Mercury (as a symbol) represents the speed and movement of information, Saturn represents the vessel that holds it. Saturn is the boundary, the container, the decision about what gets in and what stays out.
The algorithm is pure Mercury energy. It senses what you linger on. It mirrors your moods back to you. It offers a steady drip of novelty that keeps your mind in motion. A professor at Yale noted that when students were asked to fast from social media for just 24 hours and journal about it, one-tenth of the class was unable to do it (Yale Daily News).
Mercury without Saturn means:
- Information has no boundary.
- Urgency has no limit.
- Attention has no container.
So the trickster wins by default: it keeps the channel open, the mind scanning, the emotions slightly tilted forward. CDC data from a national survey (2021–2023) found that over half of U.S. teenagers report 4 or more hours of daily screen time, and higher screen time was associated with increased symptoms of both anxiety and depression (CDC, 2024).
The principle that shifts you from consumed to informed: Mentalism
This is the pivot point of the entire post.
The Principle of Mentalism… The first and foundational principle in the Hermetic tradition states: "The All is Mind." In practical terms, this means that your experience of reality is shaped by the state and quality of your awareness. What you attend to, how you attend, and whether you are conscious of your attending, these are not passive phenomena. They are acts of mind.
This is what separates being consumed from being in control.
When you scroll without awareness, you are subject to Rhythm. The algorithm swings your attention, and you move with it. You are inside the pattern, carried by it.
When you apply Mentalism… when you become conscious of your own mental process, you step outside the pattern. You witness it. You name it. And in that moment, you are no longer consumed. You are observing, choosing, filtering.
Mentalism does not mean rejecting information. It means governing how information enters your mind.
This is the Hermetic difference:
- Consumed: information flows in unchecked, driven by algorithmic Rhythm, with no Saturn container. You feel busy, anxious, vaguely stimulated, and oddly empty.
- In Control: information passes through the gate of conscious awareness (Mentalism), held in a deliberate structure (Saturn as metaphor), at a rhythm you choose. You feel clear, grounded, and able to act on what you know.
The move from consumed to in control is not about consuming less. It is about becoming aware that you are consuming. Mentalism makes this possible.
Cause and Effect: the algorithm is not random
One more Hermetic principle deserves attention here: Cause and Effect.
The Hermetic tradition teaches that nothing happens by chance (different from “fate”). Every effect has a cause, and every cause produces an effect. The algorithm is not a mysterious force. It is a system of causes designed to produce specific effects: longer sessions, more clicks, higher engagement.
When you understand the feed as a chain of Cause and Effect, not as a neutral river of information, you reclaim your position. You stop being the effect of the algorithm and start being the cause of your own attention.
Reclaiming inner signal: a Hermetic antidote
You do not beat a trickster by arguing with it. You beat a trickster by changing the rules of engagement.
Here are practices rooted in the three principles above.
1) Apply Mentalism: name the trickster out loud
When you feel the pull, try a simple sentence:
- "I notice I am being pulled."
- "This is urgency without necessity."
- "This is a bid for my attention, not a need."
Naming breaks enchantment. It activates the Principle of Mentalism by making your mental state visible to you. You move from trance to witness.
2) Invoke Saturn: build a container for Mercury
Give information a boundary so it can become wisdom.
- Set two feed windows per day (for example: 15 minutes late morning, 15 minutes late afternoon).
- No feeds in the first 30 minutes after waking. Let your nervous system find its own rhythm before you ingest someone else's.
- Choose one input stream per session (news, messages, or social). Do not stack them.
The Mercury metaphor thrives inside a structure. Structure is not oppression. It is the alchemical vessel.
3) Restore your own Rhythm
The algorithm replaces your natural Rhythm with its own. Take it back.
- After any feed session, do a one-minute "translation ritual": What did I just consume? What emotion did it generate? What action would restore balance?
- Then do one tiny grounding action: drink water, step outside, write three sentences, send one real message to a real person.
You are reclaiming the pendulum.
4) Apply Cause and Effect: the inner signal test
Before you click, ask:
- "Is this nourishing or stimulating?"
- "Is this moving me toward my life, or away from it?"
- "If I do this for five minutes, what will I feel afterward?"
The trickster hates forecasting because forecasting restores your role as a cause rather than an effect.
A different relationship with information
The goal is not to become anti-technology.
The goal is to stop treating the feed as an oracle.
Information is not wisdom. Wisdom requires time, digestion, silence, and relationship.
In Hermetic terms, wisdom requires that information (Mercury) passes through conscious awareness (Mentalism) and is held in a deliberate vessel (Saturn) before it can become understanding.
Closing: the trickster restored
The trickster is not your enemy. The trickster is a teacher with sharp methods.
If you can watch the pull without obeying it, you begin to recover something ancient: the ability to choose what enters your mind and what your mind becomes.
When Mercury (the movement of information) is grounded, it becomes what it was always meant to be:
- a messenger, not a master
- a bridge, not a whirlpool
- a current of insight, not a current of compulsion
The Principle of Mentalism is the key. When you become aware that you are being moved, you are no longer being moved. You are choosing.
Your attention is the gate. You can close it.
Try this for three days
- Two feed windows per day. No more.
- One-minute translation ritual after each session.
- A 10-minute "inner signal sit" at night: no input, just noticing what remains.
Notice what returns when the trickster is not holding the microphone.
Have questions or topics you'd like explored? Drop me a line at alex@hermeticpath.com.