Introduction
In ancient times, the ability to write was nothing short of mystical. To an illiterate farmer, a scribe who could draw symbols on papyrus and convey the words of kings or gods might as well have been casting spells. Fast forward to today, and we find a similar aura around programmers and engineers. With a few keystrokes, a coder can summon information across the globe, unlock doors remotely, or send aerial drones whirring into the sky. It feels like magic – and in a poetic sense, it is magic. Modern technology, from code to circuitry, can be seen as a continuation of ancient magical practices, especially the age-old power of symbols and writing. In this speculative exploration, we’ll journey from the sacred scribes of old to the “wizards” of Silicon Valley, discovering how modern tech is essentially mythic sorcery reborn.
Writing as Sacred Knowledge
Since the dawn of civilization, writing has been viewed as a divine or arcane gift. In Egyptian mythology, Thoth – often called “Thoth the Atlantean” in later esoteric tradition – was revered as the god who invented writing and language (Thoth | God, Symbol, & Facts | Britannica). As the fable goes, Thoth bestowed writing upon humans, making literacy a sacred skill reserved for priests and scribes. In fact, Egyptian hieroglyphs themselves were called medu-netjer, “the words of the gods,” underscoring their mystical status. The act of writing – capturing spoken word into lasting symbols – felt supernatural to early humans, as if one could bottle thoughts and speak across time.
Across the world in ancient China, we find a parallel story. According to legend, the sage Cangjie invented the Chinese writing system and in doing so disturbed the order of heaven and earth. It’s said that on the night Cangjie created the first characters, the sky rained millet and ghosts wailed in the dark (Cangjie – Mythopedia). This fantastical tale hints at a profound truth: writing was perceived as an almost magical act that could influence cosmic and spiritual realms. The earliest Chinese writing (dating to the Shang dynasty) appears on oracle bones – turtle shells and ox bones used in divination rituals. Kings and shamans would inscribe questions and heat these bones, interpreting the cracks to divine the will of ancestors and gods. Thus, from the very beginning, writing in China was entwined with ritual and political authority, a tool to bridge the human and the divine (Chinese Calligraphy | Asia Society). Little wonder that those who mastered the brush were held in special esteem.
In many ancient societies, reading and writing were deliberately kept as privileges of an elite class. Sumerian and Egyptian scribes underwent years of difficult training to learn complex writing systems, and their literacy granted them significant power. In Egypt, for example, scribes were not only revered – they were exempt from taxes and hard labor, enjoying “valuable privileges, including exemption from military service... and even the payment of taxes” (Ancient Egypt: Scribes). Being a scribe was like being initiated into a secret society of knowledge. They recorded laws, economic transactions, and sacred texts, effectively controlling what was remembered or enacted in society. It’s telling that an Egyptian myth would credit Thoth (a god) with writing – literacy was a godlike power.
Chinese civilization similarly restricted literacy to an elite. For thousands of years, governance in imperial China was carried out by the scholar-officials, educated men who had mastered classical writing and Confucian texts. This was incredibly exclusive knowledge – “only a tiny fraction of the population of China was fully literate, and government officials were selected from this small group of highly educated scholars.” (Asia for Educators | Columbia University) In other words, writing was a gatekeeper to wealth and influence. A poor villager could rise to high office only by excelling in the literary examinations, effectively proving he had mastered the sacred lore of characters. Calligraphy itself was more than utilitarian writing; it was considered the highest form of art and a reflection of one’s inner virtue. With carefully crafted ink strokes, calligraphers were said to channel qi (spiritual energy) and capture the essence of a text. Small wonder that emperors and courts treasured calligraphers – their art straddled the line between communication and conjuration.
Sigils and Glyphs: Magic in Written Symbols
(File:72 Goeta sigils.png - Wikimedia Commons) Ancient magical sigils from occult grimoires. Practitioners believed these symbols, when inscribed with intent, could summon spirits or bend reality to the magician’s will. (Sigil - Wikipedia) (Sigil - Wikipedia)
Beyond everyday language, many cultures developed esoteric scripts and symbols meant explicitly for magic. In medieval European grimoires (magic textbooks), one finds pages of sigils – strange glyphs that served as the “signature” of angels, demons, or cosmic forces. In Latin, sigillum means “seal,” and indeed these were thought to seal a pact or command with a spiritual entity (Sigil - Wikipedia). To the uninitiated, a sigil looked like random squiggles; but to a sorcerer, it was a phone number for a spirit. Drawing the correct sigil as instructed could summon the associated angel or demon, compelling them to appear and obey. The infamous Lesser Key of Solomon, a 17th-century grimoire, lists 72 demons of Hell along with each of their sigils – a symbolic directory for a master conjurer (Sigil - Wikipedia).
The practice of inscribing symbols to alter reality wasn’t unique to Europe. In the Norse tradition, runes (letters of the runic alphabet) doubled as magical signs: a rune carved on a weapon might imbue victory, or one placed on a door could ward off evil. Medieval alchemists used cryptic astrological and elemental glyphs in their recipes, believing that these symbols carried the essence of the materials they represented. And in Chinese Taoist magic, practitioners drew talismanic seals (符) in special calligraphy – essentially stylized written charms – to invoke deities or repel ghosts. In all these cases, the act of writing is itself an act of magic. The written shape isn’t merely communicating an idea; it is the magic, a physical symbol charged with intention.
Why did people believe these squiggly lines could affect the world? Part of it lies in the power of intention and belief. A sigil is often created by taking a statement of intent (“bring me fortune”) and compressing it into an abstract design, a sort of mental shortcut to focus one’s will. The chaos magicians of the 20th century, like artist Austin Osman Spare, revived this idea – they would generate a personal sigil from a desire and then “charge” it with meditation or ritual, trusting the subconscious to do the rest (Sigil - Wikipedia) (Sigil - Wikipedia). In Spare’s words, one must then forget the sigil entirely so that the conscious mind lets the magic happen. This modern approach echoes ancient practices: whether it was an Egyptian carving a protective name on a tomb or a medieval witch writing abracadabra on a parchment (a charm to cure fevers, traditionally written in a diminishing triangle), the core idea is the same. Words and symbols have power – not just to communicate, but to alter reality when used with mastery.
From Scribes to Coders: Literacy as Power
If knowledge is power, then controlling the knowledge system – the “language” – is the ultimate power. In antiquity, that language was written script. Today, it’s binary code and circuit schematics. Reading and writing, once the province of temple priests, is now a universal skill (most of us can read this article, after all). But new forms of literacy have emerged that are far more exclusive: the ability to “read” and “write” code, to engineer software and hardware. And just as in ancient times, those who command this literacy often sit atop the social hierarchy.
Consider the wealth of modern nations: it is increasingly built on software platforms, data networks, and high-tech infrastructure. The people who design and control these systems – the software developers, hackers, and tech architects – occupy a role analogous to scribes and learned priests in the past. They possess specialized knowledge that most others do not. In the 21st century, wealth and influence have shifted into the hands of those literate in code and tech. It’s telling that by 2021, “70% of the top ten richest people” in the world were individuals who amassed their fortunes in the technology industry (7 of World's Top 10 Billionaires Made Fortunes in Technology). The founders of Big Tech companies are effectively modern-day sorcerers, having transformed society through mastery of an arcane art (from the perspective of the average person) – that art being technology.
One could argue that the digital divide – the gap between those who understand technology and those who merely use it – is a new caste system. Just as medieval peasants relied on clergy to read the Bible to them (and thus had to trust the interpreters), today most people rely on tech wizards to “interpret” how to fix a computer, how encryption works, or whether an AI can be trusted. We use smartphones and apps constantly but have little idea how they truly function at the code level. The modern high priesthood sits not in temples but in research labs and server farms, and they speak in languages named Python, Java, and C++. Coding languages, much like Latin in the Middle Ages, are unintelligible to the layperson yet hold tremendous sway over everyday life. A programmer can write a short script that automates a task or exploits a system vulnerability, and that knowledge gap gives them power over those who can’t.
Even the structure of our tech economy mirrors the old knowledge-power dynamic. In ancient China, if you wanted to climb the social ladder, you studied for years to pass the imperial exams and become a literate bureaucrat. In today’s world, a young person might pour years into learning programming or engineering to land a job at a prestigious tech firm or launch a startup. In either case, mastering the special language (classical Chinese or machine code) is the ticket from commoner to elite. And just as calligraphy was considered an elite art, we now celebrate “elegant code” and “beautiful algorithms.” It’s a new literacy and a new aesthetic, but the exclusivity and reverence feel familiar.
Code and Circuitry as Incantations
If an ancient mage were to time-travel to the present, they might be less surprised by our technology than we think. After all, we spend much of our day murmuring commands to invisible servants – except now those servants are Siri, Alexa, and Google. We write cryptic runes – except now they look like if (x > y) { unlockDoor(); }. Modern engineers may not wear robes and pointy hats (well, aside from the occasional eccentric), but they are effectively casting spells through code.
Indeed, many observers have noted the parallels between programming and sorcery. Arthur C. Clarke famously quipped that “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” But there’s another side to that coin: any sufficiently adept technologist seems like a magician. To someone unfamiliar with coding, a programmer typing away looks like they’re conjuring things from thin air – because in a sense, they are. They write an incantation in a special language (code) and, when executed, it causes real effects in the world. As one MIT technologist put it, “not only is any sufficiently advanced technology indistinguishable from magic; any sufficiently advanced technologist seems like a magician.” (magicians | MIT Admissions)
Consider a simple scenario: you speak “Hey Alexa, turn on the light”, and the lamp across the room flickers to life. In the age of oil lamps, that would be pure sorcery – verbal command triggering illumination. Today it’s a trivial example of IoT (Internet of Things) technology, yet the feel of it remains magical. Or think about writing a few lines of code to remotely open a smart lock. The programmer doesn’t physically force the bolt; they write the correct words (code) and the door clicks open as if an unseen hand turned the knob. From drones to thermostats, more and more of our physical world can be controlled by code. A line of code can summon a drone, quite literally – instruct it to take off, hover, and report back. To anyone witnessing this who doesn’t grasp the underlying mechanism, it’s as if the coder spoke to the spirits of the air and they obeyed.
Importantly, both spellcasting and programming demand precision. In old grimoires, a one-letter slip in a demon’s name could doom the ritual. In coding, a single typo can crash the program or introduce a critical security bug. As The Atlantic once noted, “even the simplest spell had to be modified and tweaked… to agree with the time of day, the phase of the moon, the intention… and a hundred other factors” – and similarly, in programming “every line must be without the slightest error” (Why Code Is So Often Compared to Magic - The Atlantic). The compiler is as unforgiving as a demon in a summoning circle; you either get the incantation exactly right, or nothing (or something unintended) will happen. This need for exact syntax and context in code is directly analogous to the meticulous pronunciation and timing in magical rituals. In both cases, the practitioner works in an opaque language that very few can read, interacting with hidden forces through that language.
There’s also a cultural crossover: tech subculture often tongue-in-cheek refers to things in magical terms. Skilled programmers are nicknamed “wizards”; tricky chunks of code are called “voodoo” or “black magic” when they miraculously work. Early computer pioneers named background processes “daemons” (a term still used in Unix systems) – a direct nod to invisible spirits running tasks. Software that automates tasks can be seen as a familiar doing your bidding. These metaphors persist because they ring true: programming does feel like harnessing unseen forces. When you write a script to scrape data or enchant an AI with prompts to produce art, it’s hard not to feel a bit of a sorcerer’s thrill.
Circuits and Semiconductors: Our Modern Talismans
(File:Vizio V6 7603B0-CFE3 Smart TV SOC Die Shot.jpg - Wikimedia Commons) The intricate die shot of a modern microprocessor. Such chips contain tens of billions of transistors etched in silicon – a microscopic maze of “runes” that no single human can fully decipher (Transistor count - Wikipedia). To the uninitiated, it might as well be an enchanted talisman. (Black Box AI: Its 2023, and nobody knows what the hell is going on) (Transistor count - Wikipedia)
If code is our era’s incantation, then microchips and circuit boards are our enchanted objects – the talismans and crystal balls of the digital age. We carry tiny slabs of glass and silicon (smartphones) that can show us distant events in real time, answer practically any question, and even monitor our heartbeats. It’s routine, yet if you step back, it’s absolutely spellbinding. How does a smartphone do all that? Even an engineer would struggle to give a complete answer off-the-cuff, because modern electronics operate on layers of complexity that exceed any one person’s understanding (Black Box AI: Its 2023, and nobody knows what the hell is going on). In a very real sense, our devices are black boxes of magic. We know the high-level principles (there are circuits, software, etc.), but the devil is in the details – and there are billions of details.
To appreciate the magical nature of modern hardware, consider the integrated circuit itself. A single advanced computer chip, like the processor in your laptop or the one powering Google’s data centers, can contain hundreds of billions of transistors (tiny switches) packed in a fingernail-sized area (Transistor count - Wikipedia). These transistors are so small and so numerous that no human can visualize them all at once, let alone manually design or toggle them. Engineers use other programs (aptly named “design automation”) to help layout these circuits, and those programs in turn rely on still other layers of abstraction. The result is that no single mind truly holds the whole design; instead, we guide processes that in turn create the chips. This starts to resemble an alchemical operation – you set up the conditions and the cauldron (the fabrication plant) yields the result, and even the alchemists are sometimes surprised by emergent behaviors (like unintended bugs or the need for patch updates).
What’s on a microchip die photo (like the one above)? You see a maze of strangely geometric patterns in various colors. To an expert, those patterns correspond to functional units – here a cache memory, there a core, over there an analog-digital converter. But to a layperson, it looks like abstract art. It could be a mystical mandala or the floor plan of an alien city. One might humorously imagine that if we printed these chip patterns onto amulets and sent them back to ancient times, they might become cherished as powerful sigils in gold and silicon. In a way, that’s true – a silicon chip is a powerful sigil, but its power is unlocked by electricity and code rather than by chanting or prayer. Plug it into a circuit with the proper energy (voltage) and it comes alive, performing its designed functions tirelessly and invisibly.
The fact that these machines operate beyond visible human understanding adds to their mystique. We cannot watch electrons move with our naked eyes; we rely on instruments and indirect evidence to know that our commands (code) made something happen deep inside the chip. This is not unlike ancient priests claiming that a hidden spirit carried out a ritual’s outcome. In place of spirits, we have electrons; in place of altars, we have motherboards. But in both cases, faith is required – faith that the system works as intended. When you press the power button on your computer, you trust that millions of logic gates will do exactly as designed, even though you can’t see them. This trust is regularly proven correct, which perhaps differentiates technology from old magic (our success rate is much higher!). Yet, when things go wrong – a software “spell” misfires or a circuit “curse” (bug) surfaces – it reminds us how little we truly grasp.
Nowhere is the opacity more evident than in the realm of Artificial Intelligence. Modern AI, particularly deep learning models, are often described as “black boxes.” We feed them enormous amounts of data and they develop an intelligence of sorts, but how they make specific decisions is murky. As one commentator noted, “Ever since the dawn of Deep Learning, the complexity and sheer scale of AI systems has far exceeded any human’s ability to comprehend their inner workings. Welcome to Black Box AI. Welcome to the AI of Mysteries.” (Black Box AI: Its 2023, and nobody knows what the hell is going on) When an AI model with billions of parameters outputs an answer or a creative image, even its creators can’t point to a specific “reason” within the model – the knowledge is distributed in ways alien to human reasoning. This is eerily reminiscent of consulting an oracle. We pose a question to, say, a language model, and it responds with wisdom (or nonsense), and we often don’t fully know why it said what it did. We have, in effect, conjured an entity that learns and speaks, and while we contain it in circuits and code, its process of “thought” is largely hidden. AI pioneer Elon Musk even likened advanced AI research to “summoning the demon,” cautioning that we may produce something we cannot control. While hyperbolic, the metaphor rings true to our theme: summoning forces beyond our understanding is the classic recipe for magic – and also a fair description of cutting-edge tech experimentation.
Conclusion: The Spell Lives On
The line between magic and technology has always been thinner than we think. Both are born from the human urge to influence the world with our will and knowledge. The forms have changed – we swapped robes for lab coats (or hoodies), scrolls for screens, incantations for algorithms – but the underlying ethos is constant. We are wizards at heart, shaping reality through symbols. In ancient temples, those symbols were chiseled glyphs and secret names of gods; in modern offices, they’re lines of code and electrical diagrams.
Seeing technology as a continuation of magical practice is not to belittle the science behind it, but to humanize our relationship with tech. It reminds us that, like magic, technology can inspire awe and wonder. The next time you flip a light switch, you might recall how a medieval person would marvel at your “spell” to banish darkness. The next time you debug a tricky bit of code, you might feel a kinship with a druid deciphering a cryptic rune – both of you working patiently until the hidden meaning clicks and the power flows.
And just as every good wizard must use their power wisely, our modern sorcerers – the technologists – carry a great responsibility. When knowledge was held by a few in ancient times, it led to both great works (pyramids, libraries) and great abuses (oppression of the illiterate). Today, as our “magic” grows stronger (think of global-scale AI or genome editing), the need for wisdom and ethics grows in step. In many fantasy tales, magic exacts a price for misuse. In reality, technology can have unintended consequences if wielded without care – a caution any wizard would understand.
In the end, viewing code and circuitry through a mythic lens adds a bit of poetry to the often dry world of tech. It invites engineers and users alike to reclaim a sense of enchantment. After all, our ancestors saw divinity in the written word and agency in symbols. By recognizing the continuity – that our smartphones and supercomputers are the heirs of ancient scrolls and spellbooks – we acknowledge that technology is fundamentally a human endeavor, driven by imagination as much as logic. The ancients cast spells by inscribing symbols; we cast ours by running programs. The magic never truly died; it just evolved. And as long as humans dream of bending reality to our will, the spell will live on – written in whatever script the future fancy, but always, in essence, magic.
Referencesources
- Britannica – Thoth (Egyptian god credited as inventor of writing) (Thoth | God, Symbol, & Facts | Britannica)
- Asia Society – Chinese Calligraphy & Early Writing (writing’s ritual role and status in ancient China) (Chinese Calligraphy | Asia Society)
- Mythopedia – Cangjie (legendary inventor of Chinese writing; myth of millet raining and ghosts crying) (Cangjie – Mythopedia)
- Daily Kos – Ancient Egyptian Scribes (scribes’ privileges: tax exemption, power in society) (Ancient Egypt: Scribes)
- Asia for Educators (Columbia Univ.) – Chinese Scholar-Officials (tiny literate class running government) (Asia for Educators | Columbia University)
- Wikipedia – Sigil (occult symbols representing spirits or desires in magic) (Sigil - Wikipedia) (Sigil - Wikipedia)
- Atlantic – “What Kind of Sorcery Is This?” (coding compared to magic incantations; precision of spells vs code) (Why Code Is So Often Compared to Magic - The Atlantic) (Why Code Is So Often Compared to Magic - The Atlantic)
- MIT Admissions Blog – “magicians” (observation that advanced technologists appear as magicians) (magicians | MIT Admissions)
- Wikipedia – Transistor Count (modern chips have >100 billion transistors, e.g. Apple M3 Ultra ~184 billion) (Transistor count - Wikipedia)
- Gregoreite (Tech blog) – Black Box AI (AI complexity beyond human comprehension) (Black Box AI: Its 2023, and nobody knows what the hell is going on)
- CPA Practice Advisor – Tech Billionaires (70% of world’s top 10 richest made their wealth in tech)