Sean Ono Lennon on Growing Up with 'Good Witch' Yoko Ono — and 'Rebelling' Against Her 'Cosmic, Woo-Woo Stuff' (Exclusive)

Mar. 15, 2025

Yoko Ono and Sean Lennon in New York City in September 2018.Photo:Erik Pendzich/Shutterstock

Erik Pendzich/Shutterstock

The effect of the gargantuan package, which earned a Grammy nomination for best boxed or special limited edition package, is almost comical. To Sean, that’s partially the point. “I feel like everything my dad did had a bit of humor,” the 49-year-old tells PEOPLE. “People who grew up with him in Liverpool say that he was the kind of guy who would make a joke even at a very difficult time. So humor was an important factor in this [project]. The initial concept for me was ‘mind games.’ What are mind games? They’re games of the mind! So I thought we would play with people’s minds a little bit. We have illusions in there, we have some games, we have some hidden secret things. There are multiple layers to it.”

Yoko One, Sean Ono Lennon and John Lennon in 1977.Mediapunch/Shutterstock

Mediapunch/Shutterstock

Many of the objects contained in the set are items he recalls seeing around the family home, reflecting his parents' unique worldview: palmistry prints, I Ching coins and astrological charts. “There are all sorts of things that reflect the way they were thinking at the time — which wasverycosmic, to put it mildly.”

The practice may sound cutting edge, but it’s something Sean has known since childhood. “I grew up with these Stroboscopic goggles that I would strap to my head that flashed these different alpha waves,” he explains. “They were in my dad and mom’s bedroom — they used to meditate with these goggles. So the Lumenate app is actually connected to John and Yoko directly because that’s something they did.”

The collection itself is encased in a replica of a minimalist sculpture Ono initially constructed in 1966: a clear plexiglass cubedubbed “Danger Box.”The piece is labeled with a plaque above a small hole. A second plaque beneath is engraved with the humorously ominous advisory:Warning: The management will not guarantee that a hand when put in this hole will come out in the same condition as prior to entry. Sean remembers taking that notice very seriously as a child. “We had [a Danger Box] at home. It’s just a plexiglass box that you put your hand inside, but I was kind of scared it might turn into something like a monkey hand or something!”

Ono, he says, remains a devout disciple of tarot, astrology and numerology. “She is deeply into cosmic things, to a level that I’ve never seen in anyone else. You could argue that she’s a good witch,” he laughs. “I was raised with so much cosmic woo-woo stuff that I rebelled against it. I was more interested in science and rational thinking. Growing up, it just felt like everything always had to be about numbers and calculating dates for astrology. [I’d say] ’Mom, can we just do something without worrying about what the tarot cards say?!”

The differing perspectives have led to some philosophical debates between mother and son. “I was having a discussion with her a few years ago. I said, ‘Mom, I don’t believe the universe can work this way! There’s no way the number of something matters, whether it’s a seven or a nine.” And she said, ‘But thatisthe way it works…’”

Despite his inclination towards secular reasoning, Sean says he still feels a pull towards the mystical. He describes it as his version of Catholic guilt. “No matter how much I try to reject what I would call supernatural thinking — or superstitious thinking — I can’t get it out of my being. I still worry when there are coincidences or if I see the ‘wrong’ number on a hotel room. No matter how rational I pretend to be, I still have it in me. Maybe it’s genetic, or maybe it’s just because I was raised that way. But the truth is, I secretly do kind of believe all that stuff might be real.”

Yoko Ono and Sean Ono Lennon in 1980.AP Photo

With age, Sean has begun to warm to his mother’s metaphysical approach to life — and beyond. “I try to be rational and scientific in my world view, but sometimes things happen that feel beyond the realm of what is knowable.”

For more from Sean Ono Lennon, pick up the latest issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands everywhere Friday.

source: people.com