Magic Systems that wish they were Science — Worldbuilding Ideas

Cold Open Last year I came across one of   the most interesting and bizarre interpretations  of “magic” I’ve ever seen in a work of fiction.   The book Perdido Street Station by China  Mieville is… weird. Exceptionally weird.   Cities built around the corpses of  impossibly-large monsters, beetle-headed  

Women in deep romantic relationships with humans,  god-like trans-dimensional spider-artistes that go   around playing with the “weave” of reality… that  kind of weird. And the magic is no exception.   Just… not for the reasons you might expect. Instead of the traditional “wizardry” or “sorcery”  

Or “witchcraft”, what they practice in the world  of Bas-Lag is “thaumaturgy.” It’s a term I’ve seen   crop up in tons of other fantasy stories as well,  but Perdido Street Station was the first one that   really gave me pause. Is thaumaturgy a different  thing? Is there a reason we should call it that  

And not just “magic”? Turns out, there is.   And this book makes a really good case for it. It’s not the most important part of the tale,   but it is one of more interesting bits. Ad Card   A big thanks to World Anvil for  helping to make this video possible,  

And to all our Patreon supporters as well! Body   Topic #1: What is Thaumaturgy? In its original context,   thaumaturgy really did just mean “magic”. It comes  from a Greek word which means “wonder working”,   which was once applicable to the performance of  any feat that couldn’t be explained by what was,  

At the time, known of natural science. So…  that’s a very wide blanket. From here, the word   just seems to be a synonym for wizardry or…  basically any other kind of magic. In his book   Authentic Thaumaturgy, the author Isaac Bonewits  distinguishes it from what he calls theurgy,  

Which has more to do with divinity and the soul. So that means… thaumaturgy is any magic that   doesn’t come from a supernatural source? I guess  that’s sort of serviceable, but it doesn’t seem   to be what the majority of authors mean when they  use the term. To them, whether they realized it or  

Not, it seems to have something to do with the  strange intersection of magic… and science.   For example, in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld,  the basic unit of magic is called a “thaum”,   which is defined as the amount of magic needed to  create a white pigeon or three billiard balls. Not  

What I would call overtly rational, but still  very systematic! In the game the Elder Scrolls   2: Daggerfall, thaumaturgy is a character skill  defined as a “focus on manipulating known forces   and objects within their natural laws.” A little  more precise, and I think this definition cuts  

A little closer to the quick, as well. But as  I said, it wasn’t until I read Perdido Street   Station that I really started to notice this. One of the story’s protagonists, Isaac,   is a scientist who used to study at the University  of New Crobuzon, where thaumaturgy is not only a  

Practice, but a field of scientific research with  practical application. The thaumaturges who learn   these skills are put to work in every part of  society from engineering all the way down to   corporal punishment. Isaac himself is a dilettante  genius, who wanders from theory to theory,  

Trying to understand parts of thaumaturgy people  haven’t yet bothered to explore-the things that   still look somewhat magical. His ramblings about  theories and philosophies feel so much more like   the musings of a modern essayist than a mage in  a high fantasy story. And it’s this feeling that  

I’m trying to understand. Magic… made oddly  rational. Systematized, but still enchanting.   So, I dug a little deeper into the history  of thaumaturgy, and what I found…   makes a lot of sense. Topic #2: History of “The Art”  

Around the turn of the 16th century in Western  Europe, science as a common practice was entering   into the social consciousness. No longer was  it strictly the realm of latin-speakers and   the extremely wealthy. Anyone who was able  to get their hands on printed or written  

Materials about developing scientific ideals  would be able to, in some capacity, engage!   Well… I say “science”, but it was  still quite a bit rougher than that.   They usually just called what they were  doing “mathematicks”, or, more poetically   “the art.” Don’t forget, alchemy was still  alive and well during this period, and many  

If not most of these early scientists engaged in  it side by side with more… practical studies.   And this is where we come to what may be the first  anglicized form of the word “thaumaturgy”. In his   book Mathematicall Praeface to Euclid’s Elements,  the famous polymath John Dee discusses “an art  

Mathematical” called “thaumaturgy” which, in his  words “giveth certain order to make strange works,   of the sense to be perceived and of men greatly  to be wondered at.” Essentially, thaumaturgy was,   to him, the science that makes really weird  stuff happen. Wonder-working, after a fashion.  

And this sentiment wasn’t unique to Dee. Around  this time, you see phrases like mathematicall   magicks and mechanical wizardry used to describe  the fabled works of Archimedes and Daedelus.   There was certainly a general understanding that  they were tapping into something quite powerful  

And quite wondrous… they just… didn’t really  know how to talk about it. Some segment of the   lay-population has always been wary of new  technologies and sciences. The employment of   mathematics to create complex contraptions like  automata and simulacra had long drawn suspicion  

Before this point in history, uneducated audiences  unable to see how else they could be fabricated   but with the help of devils or demons. So  practitioners of the so-called “art” were   very often derided as “conjurers” and suffered  a lot of infamy as a result. In 1583, a mob  

Broke into and destroyed John Dee’s fine library,  including much of his “thaumaturgic” apparatus.   We even see the sentiment borne out in Goethe’s  Faustus, where, upon making a deal with the devil,   the protagonist doesn’t don a black robe  and start weaving evil enchantments; rather,  

He becomes “the most famous mathematician  that lived in his time.” How sinister.   You’d think the fact that early scientific  resources were becoming more accessible would   help the situation. People would be able to see  that it’s not devils and demons behind all of  

This and, hopefully, calm down a bit. But… the opposite sort of happened.   Part of the reason people were so upset was  because practitioners like John Dee spoke in such   high terms about their “thaumaturgical art”. Even  simple things like levers and mirrors were made to  

Sound like magic wands and crystal balls. Here,  listen to what Dee says about Numbers. They are,   according to him, the means by which  on might “arise, clime, ascend,   and mount up (with Speculative winges) in  spirit, to behold in the Glas of Creation,  

The Forme of Formes, the Exemplar Number of all  things Numerable: both visible and invisible:   mortall and immortall, Corporall and Spirituall.” So… yeah. I can understand why   people were a little confused. It also doesn’t help that John Dee was very much  

A mystic and believed he was constantly surrounded  by invisible spirits, but that’s neither here nor   there. The point is that the “thaumaturgy”  all these people were engaging was…   really just misunderstood science. In the words of Arthur C. Clarke,   “any sufficiently advanced technology  is indistinguishable from magic.”  

We usually hear this maxim in the context of  sci-fi, but I think all of this proves that it   can work just as well in fantasy. Topic #3: Perception and Potential   Some magic systems depend on theurgy, and  the divine is usually, by nature, impossible  

To fully comprehend; supernatural. Other systems  treat their magic as numinous and unquantifiable,   impossible to source-the thing that defines  it is that it’s an elusive part of nature   that can never be rationalized. But thaumaturgy is  different. This is magic that has nuts and bolts.  

You might not be able to see it at first glance,  but when you boil it down, it’s just science.   Perhaps science different from what we have in the  real world-the setting may have different natural   laws-but within in that context? Yes, science. If the history of thaumaturgy proves anything,  

It’s that magic can abide in a world where, in  the end, everything is subject to natural laws.   It just requires that some people don’t quite  understand how things work, or believe that   some things are possible. Where that’s the  case, no matter how scientifically sound,  

You have yourself magic. Or at least  something indistinguishable from it.   This is the thing I love so much about  the magic of Perdido Street Station:   it just isn’t magic. At least not to the  denizens of that world. And even if it is,  

The protagonist is hell-bent on rendering  it rational and scientific in some capacity,   which he genuinely seems able to do. Everything  can be demystified. It’s an interesting   precedent to set for your world, one which really  changes the tone of the stories you tell in it.  

If you find yourself writing a lot  of vague magic-o-mancy in your work,   this could certainly be worth a try. You don’t  actually have to invent an entire secondary-world   science for people to wonder confusedly at  for it to work; you just have to suggest that,  

Behind the arcs of actinic lightning,  there’s a thaum or two of rationality at  

Work. Ad Spot   Segue When I  

Come across a method or an idea like this, I  like to find some way to try it out if I can.   But there’s a lot that goes into a good  story beyond the writing and the method.  

A lot of planning. It can be a drag if  you’re just trying to get to the execution…   but World Anvil can help lighten the load. Copy   You might know Cyberpunk as the genre of  neon lights and leather coats. A world where   physically-augmented half-human, half-machine  rogues move through claustrophobic mega-cities in  

The rain; where once-hopeful technologies  have become the tools of oppression;   where bands of misfits wage futile wars  against the tyrannical engines of greed.   All of this is very cyberpunk, and  very fun, and very interesting.  

But the part of the genre that has always held  my attention is the… liminal natural of it. The   world of cyberpunk isn’t just a digital dystopia  full of groundbreaking technology. It’s also   a world of change. The technology in these stories  brings us to the brink of what is human… and  

What may no longer be. Patreon Spot   Before we wrap up, I’d like to give a quick  thanks to all the helpful humans who support   the show on Patreon. All those words you see  scrolling in the background of these videos?  

Those are actually the names of  our Patreon maintenance crew,   without whom this show would be impossible.  And a special word to all of our top patrons:   Lord_Gatte, RPGgrenade and  TheAutumnWriter – thank you so much!   Outro And… that’s it for this video!  

There’s usually a few weeks between uploads, so  if you want more Tale foundry in the mean-time,   come join our community! We have a discord server  that’s basically like a big family of creatives-a   lot of love, there. We also run writing groups  on Twitch every week, if you want to get some  

Practice in! You can find links to all of it  in the description. Hope to see you there!   Until then, thanks for watching,  and keep making stuff up!   I’ll see you… next time. Bye!