Any Sufficiently Advanced Tech...

People look at me weird when I say this, but we live in an age of magic.  I'm serious.  We're talking true swords-and-sorcery type magic here.  I used to think the 21st Century would look like the Science Fiction novels I used to read, but it's becoming something closer to the worlds portrayed in fantasy, where wizards wage wars of words from their towers high in the clouds.  Of course, the rest of us must make do with ordinary, every day magic, but it's no less magical.

Today, I took a little device out of my pocket, performed a few gestures and, with the speed of swiftest Hermes, sent a message around the world.  It's not the only "magic mirror" that I own.  I have one on my desk, one on the kitchen table, one in the bedroom and one in the living room, all showing different things depending on the commands I give them.  What powers these devices is the power of Zeus.  We have harnessed lightning and made it our slave, we hold the power of God in our very hands.  It lights our homes, cooks our food, keeps us warm in winter, cool in summer.

Of course, it's easy to learn how these devices work.  You can learn electronics in your spare time.  But does the fact make their effects less magical or does it make us wizards?   For millenia, humans relied on horses to carry us from place to place.  In a little over a hundred years we have completely abandoned animals for personal carriages that run on fire.  Neptune's depths hold little challenge to us.  We fly through the air in metal dragons, sail the seas irrespective of the wind and have placed our own stars in the night sky, levitating them into place on columns of fire.

In warfare we have replaced the clumsy sword and shield with metal magic wands that can kill from any distance with the twitch of a finger.  If that's not sufficient we can summon balls of fire to destroy our enemies and their cities from miles away.  We will soon be entering an age where most of our fighting is conducted by inhuman armies, monstrous beings of our own design.  Even our human soldiers will be wearing suits of armor that make them stronger, faster, and even invisible.

We have learned techniques to see into the past, and others to let us predict the future, though these skills are far from perfect and we have yet to learn to predict how our own actions will change that future.  Every  day our knowledge of the universe increases, knowledge anyone can access, and even add to, through our magic mirrors.  Healers perform miracles daily, letting the lame walk, and soon even the truly blind will see.

Unfortunately, magic carries a price.  We must consort with evil powers to gain these abilities.  Demons who dwell deep in the earth, remnants from the ancient past, stoke our fires and poison our air.  Fortunately, magic is neither good nor evil, and there are other gods, gods of wind and sun, who can carry us out of our evil past and into the future.

I despise allegory, or I would attempt to write a novel exploring these themes.  Fortunately, I don't need to.  It's a novel we write ourselves, every day.  Perhaps if we saw ourselves as wizards we would spend more time trying to correct the evils of this world rather than going about our mundane lives.