Non-electrical technology that pre-modern people would see as magic?

Question

My world was colonized by spacefaring humans who lost the vast majority of their technology in an unknown catastrophe at least 12,000 years before the present. They have now redeveloped roughly up to the point of Late Medieval technology (with some adaptations to the conditions of my planet).

We have all heard the famous line about sufficiently advanced technology being indistinguishable from magic. I plan on having some "magic" in my world that is simply advanced technology wielded by a select few. My question is, what kinds of modern technology would be viewed as magic by a medieval person that fits within the following constraints:

1. No gunpowder weaponry
2. No electricity
3. No modern material science (i.e. plastics, advanced metals, etc.)
4. Replicable, i.e., these are not 12,000 year-old artifacts but technology that the people are still capable of making, even if the knowledge is limited to a select few.

I think the obvious answer would probably be some modern medical technology, but I'm excited to get some unexpected answers.

Answer 1

Modern medicine is probably the most substantial answer.

An engine can be taken apart and looked at - and whilst someone 'primitive' may not be able to understand all of what it does - a reasonable person would be able to infer a cause/effect.

However, with modern medicine (especially vaccines and antibiotics) there is nothing for the person to 'see' (not without a microscope and an understanding of virology/epidemiology) and so it would seem like magic.

Answer 2

Chemistry

It requires no modern materials or manufacturing capabilities to have an understanding of chemistry, but a chemist in the medieval period would literally be seen as a wizard. As it was, blacksmiths and alchemists were already seen as magic by most people being able to turn rocks into metals, poisons, and acids... but a chemist could do all of the things a blacksmiths or alchemists could do, but way better. And his workshop would be complete with all sorts of esoteric charts, indecipherable notes, and potions of all sorts.

Answer 3

Maps and mechanical flight computers

It will probably take a ship captain to appreciate, but medieval maps were notoriously inaccurate - and the sailors knew it. 20th century-quality maps, when checked out and found to be true, would look like a result of clairvoyance or omniscience. (Well, the sight from above the heavens technically is omniscience, as far as medievals are concerned.)

Same goes for the navigation slide rules such as the E6B or the NL-10M. The concept is deceivingly simple, but the math behind it and the knowledge required to navigate by them would look positively arcane even to late medieval people.

For the ultimate complexity, look to the "Globus" navigational computer of the Voskhod spacecraft. It was almost purely mechanical (the driver solenoid can be replaced by a spring or an aeolipile-style steam engine), but was good enough to literally pilot a spaceship.

Answer 4

Pre-1980's diesel engine, and the fuel to run it.

Prior to the mid 1980's diesel engines did not require electricity to run. Modern electrical systems have since been developed to make them run more efficiently, but to jump from Late Medieval to diesel engines would be magical, and the sheer number of useful things that can be done with a diesel engine are numerous and varied.

Additionally, while we do use electricity now to produce diesel fuel from crude oil, it's not necessarily needed, all you really need is a large distillation column. However due to the alcohol industry in Medieval times, this might not really count as looking like magic to everyone, but would still be fantastic to a lot of people who haven't made distilled spirits before.

Answer 5

• X-rays
• Radium (heat and light production indefinitely)
• Nuclear fission (even in its nuclear “damp squib” form and killing rays)
• Chemical Photography and pictures from the deep sea vents etc,
• Liquid oxygen (conventionally would require electricity but unconventionally could almost certainly be produced using the pressurisation provided by a steam engine)
• Dry ice (similarly)
• An aqualung and scuba kit
• A submarine
• Pneumatic cannons
• Many explosive chemicals apart from gunpowder (if allowed)
• A range of other peculiar chemical reactions like the iodine clock reaction (I’m not sure all of the reagents would meet your full requirements – it's complicated) but there are plenty of strange reactions...
• Large High resolution microscopes
• Large High resolution telescopes
• Steam propelled helium filled airships
• Antibiotics
• Tin cans of food
• Popping candy
• Parachutes

Answer 6

Anything predictive

Basing things on real world examples, anything that allowed a person to predict advents in advance. It wouldn't even need to be a physical technology, simply knowledge might be enough.

For example, weather forecasting can be done using things like a thermometer, barometer and anemometer, all of which were invented before electricity was invented in real life. The knowledge of how to use these could enable someone to set themselves up as an oracle for a society that was dependant on farming, because someone who could forecast storms could save a harvest.

A star chart, or astrological compass could be used to calculate eclipses, or when planets that seemed to be stars to a primitive people could be deemed magical, these things were seen as magical in some cultures in real life and also predated electricity.

Answer 7

Hydraulics

A quite simple hydraulic press can develop immense force, a single person lifting up ships, crushing stones, printing coins from metal and the like by simply trading distance for force (a hand control can be moved up/down or rotated while the crushing plate advances only one way). It is a mechanical device, should be quite precisely made but nothing electric. It can amplify much more than just a mechanical lever.

The machine below allows a single human to move 30 tons (image credit). It was made in circa 1910.

Answer 8

If even primitive people are exposed to it in circumstances where they aren't so shocked/disgusted/awestruck that they can reason about to their level of ability, they will undoubtedly consider that it is just some really clever method/device.

People 5000 years ago were not stupid, and you're not particularly smart because you live in 2023.

People from any age, including this one, will stoop to witchcraft/supernatural/ungodliness as an explanation if they are presented the technology such that:

• It undermines their perspective of society
• It undermines their livlihood
• The people presenting the technology are offensive, dismissive, or potential rivals
• Above, amplified... the people presenting it are hostile and attacking

Etc. The full list is probably a PhD thesis with 30 or 40 categories.

It may also be the case that their level of reasoning would surprise people today if we were to witness it. The basic tools (levers, wheels, pulleys, ramps) have been known for thousands of years... constructing a skyscraper wouldn't shock them (though the materials might, or might not).

The one exception (perhaps outside the constraints of your question) I might make is a tool that hasn't been known for thousands of years. The logic gate. Not very impressive on its own, of course. Silly, and even sort of pointless in single quantities. But ganged together in the hundreds or thousands, and strange things begin to happen. And, being (sometimes) so tiny that you can't even see them, would even the great mathematicians of antiquity have guessed? If those are mysterious, then the recent innovations in NNs and the like are that a thousandfold.

But, at least with our own tech these are very electrical and outside the scope.

Answer 9

Anything computational would be decidedly magical. While we consider computation basic to our reality, it is a relatively new construct. The mathematics behind it would be truly alien to anyone who had not worked through them. Even what we would now consider "basic physics" was several hundred years away from being developed. The work of folk like Newton and Descartes revolutionized how we view things.

Even a mere Jacquard Loom would be incredible to someone with a medieval mind. And a more powerful Turing Complete engine would be astounding. And yes, Turing complete machines have been built to operate in a complete mechanical manner.

Modern cryptography is designed to be magical until you look at its implementation with modern mathematics. As such, even a flawed encryption like Solitaire would perplex all who face it.

All of these have a common thread: they depend on an understanding of the world steeper in a kind of mathematics that did not exist until several hundred years after the medieval era. This shift is a gigantic one. If you remember learning algebra in school, you remember how alien the ability to manipulate symbols in this way was. The fundamental basis for such manipulations was not well fleshed out until the 1700s. And much of what we see today stacks another 300 years onto the mathematics. One of the funniest things I've found in mathematics is how alien Newton's physics is to me because I learned it using modern notation and theory. Even his original work was fundamentally different (getting into how would probably warrant a question on History and Science of Mathematics SE). Teach Newton's work using modern approaches and it would truly be magical.

Answer 10

Yes, medical technology looks like your best bet. You don't even have to think about anything fancy or extra complex. A simple device will do if the wielders jazz it up with some mystical misdirection and keep schtum.

In fact the Chamberlen family did exactly this with the obstetric forceps.

It was a massive help with difficult births, but they carried around the forceps in a large, and ornate box, and wouldn't take it out until everyone left the room and the mother-to-be was blindfolded. They did this across several generations without anyone finding out that it's a device an experienced village blacksmith could probably replicate.

And of course what bigger magic than bringing life where previously only death existed?

Alternatively, slide rules

We no longer use slide rules, so it's difficult to appreciate how powerful and magical they'd appear to anyone before John Napier invented logarithms in the 17th century.

A medieval society still needed a lot of calculations done, especially when building large structures and it's no coincidence that the most famous secret society on our Earth is the Freemasons. These calculations would be notoriously hard, especially before the widespread adoption of positional numerals (a.k.a. "Arabic numerals").

The great thing about slide rules in this setting is that it's dead easy to make one, almost anyone can do it. And it's fairly easy to use it too, anyone with a good level of late-medieval numeracy could use it, if instructed on it first.

Figuring out how to use it without being told the secret though...well, that's why it'd be seen as magic.

Answer 11

Penicillin

I love questions like this because it tends to bring out a lot of bias and misinformation about how technologically advanced medieval society really was.

First we need to rule out a lot of technologies and concepts that were invented/discovered or already known by our medieval ancestors and wouldn't evoke a sense of wonder to the level of "magical". Examples are:

1. Metalworking - A 2,000 year old industry by this point
2. Mechanical engineering - Clocks, trebuchets, mangonels, water wheels. All intricate uses of kinetic energy.
3. Simple medicine - Glasses, syringes, quarantine, anaesthesia, cleaning wounds.
4. Structural engineering - No need to list the stunning achievements here.
5. Gunpowder - Important to note that with their knowledge of mixing chemicals to form explosive materials, combined with mechanical engineering, they could readily deduce how a diesel engine was functioning.

And many more...

Without the use of electricity and limited by what was available during the middle ages and the intelligent scrutiny of medieval minds I think Penicillin is your best bet. It's effects were discovered in 1928, which is VERY modern, and being mold I think your informed society can find it. Also it can be marketed as a potion formed with spells rather than a chemical, although I think with the already established practices of alchemy you might be met with cynicism.

Answer 12

Any Steam Engine.

Add a drive shaft and gear box etc and you have a 'magical' fire and smoke breathing dragon. Enclose it in a vessel or vehicle like a ship or tractor etc and that vessel or vehicle becomes a magical beast that eats wood or rocks (coal) and 'spits' out fire and steam.

Answer 13

LSD. Even in modern times, plenty of people have believed it has supernatural properties.

Some naturally occurring substances might have similar effects, but people thought those were magic, too.

Answer 14

Yours is a challenge

Granted, you don't define when during the Medieval Era your people exist. The Medieval period was from 476ce to about 1450ce. There were advances in hydraulics and mechanics by the 1450s that would appear like magic to the people of 476ce.

But there might be a few things that could apply anywhere in that period.

Magnetism

While magnets have been used since at least 600bc, the manufacture of small, powerful magnets certainly does not. A small neodymium magnet mounted in a ring would easily move bits of ferrous materials around — and that would appear like telekinesis. or use it to move a ferrous rod in a lock, a lock that can only be opened by the magnet! We have such "locks" in retail stores today. They're a common effort to avoid shoplifting. We dont' even really think about them. but hundreds of years ago... magic.

Electromagnetism

And that brings us to electromagnetism. The first wire mill was created in England in 1568, 100 years after the end of the medieval era, which means that, if shown how, people in the 1300s-1400s could manufacture it. Extrude the wire, coat it with laquer, wind it around a ferrous core, and you have an electromagnet. Imagine holding a door closed with one, only to open upon the owner's command! A strong enough magnet could cause something to appear like it could fly through the air.

Flash paper (specific uses of chemistry)

Chemistry has been around since the first person discoverd mixing a tart fruit with the right kind of beet made it taste better. So, by itself, chemistry isn't enough. But there are specific applications of chemistry that weren't understood during the medieval period. Such an application is flash paper.

Flash paper is used today to add drama to a good magic act — but we all know today that it's just part of the act, not real magic. A paper that someone can write on... use... and yet burns away to nothing would be magical.

Similar uses would be the chemistry of batteries, water purification tablets, Bleach (which was invented in 1787 to whiten textiles). Search for specific applications of chemistry invented at least after 1600 and you'll have a good candidate for magic before 1400 that could be replicated.

Springs

While a non-coiled spring was used as an archery bow 64,000 years ago, coiled springs were invented in 1763. Combined with an advancement in metalurgy that wouldn't come around until the mid-1800s and you get something that's easily hidden that has many magical uses in the medieval era. Similar to a magnet, springs would allow someone to move large, heavy objects (perhaps combined with leverage).

But, why were people actually accused of witchcraft?

While many (if not most) accusations of witchcraft over the last 2,000 years were likely emotionally (read: revenge) motivated, the practice of herbology (already mentioned by so many in other answers) caused many to be accused. The knowledge not only allowed them to do things people didn't yet generally understand — but often to do things that in some cases were philisophically or religiously assumed to be a power that belonged only to God.

And so I mention it to point out that any invocation of science that was perceived to be the province of diety was often considered magic. Saving life and repairing bodies is only one such way of expressing this idea. A use of mirrors (common in today's Las Vegas magic shows!) to let someone "disappear" would also fall into this category, as would the use of a chemical fertilizer to make plants grow remarkably better or the use of acoustic waveguides to hear secrets.

Use the idea of religion to identify behaviors, practices, and "miracles" that, if not performed by diety or the initiates of the faith, are automatically identified as magic — whether the average person otherwise would realize it's not magical or miraculous... or not.

Answer 15

None.

There is this common misunderstanding of magic as a generic name for "technologies not yet understood in the past". In fact, it operated on completely different principles. Your goal with using magic was to change somebody's consciousness in a way which made achieving your goals more likely. That somebody might have been another person, a spirit or a god, or even your own self, and you basically made them more inclined to help your plans along. Technology instead seeks to change the material world directly, without ever stopping to think what the others' opinion of that might be.

Now sure, you could then use these modern technologies to perform magical acts - which doesn't make them magic, but merely tools for magic. Just like say a car is not travel, but rather a tool for travel.

I bet you did not expect that answer... ;)

Answer 16

The line is about sufficiently advanced technology. With your restrictions you've left a few centuries at best. There are some things you can think of that would seem magical, but are also useless much like a card trick. All the most useful things won't really be magic, but rather marvels which quickly reveal their secrets once scrutinized by experts. For this to work you will need a way to restrict access to the technology. In some cases where manpower is required, you will probably need some kind of cult to keep the assistants from spreading the knowledge.

• Various types of advanced mathematics. In particular probability and statistics. The "magic" of this will not be apparent to ordinary people, but it might impress administrators, merchants and rulers.
• Cryptography. This is an interesting one because people have been trying to invent secret codes and ciphers since time immemorial, and yet the work of amateurs in this field is usually trivial to defeat, whereas professionals can produce do some truly incredible things.
• Navigation and precise clocks, depending on the geography of your planet.
• Chemistry is basically the alchemists' dream come true. Explosives, poisons, drugs, fertilizers, fuels, metalworking and processing. However, it won't take long for people to catch on that you can't make the philosopher's stone, you can't turn lead to gold (it's hard to even plate metal without electricity) and the rules for what you do are not that complicated. So something you'd have to be pretty secretive about.
• Steam power and other heat engines. Obviously these will be quite simple to reverse engineer, especially because not having modern materials will restrict their intricacies. But they can produce great gains in agriculture, extraction, transportation. You would probably have things like magical ships that move without wind, but no non-cultist is allowed to see what's in the hold. Huge military advantage as well.
• Mechanical computers, powered by water or mechanical energy. Again hardly magical once you take a close look, but can do incredible things.
• Modern geology, in combination with chemistry and steam power, would be similar to dowsing in that you'd find a lot more mineral deposits.

Answer 17

Plumbing

In medieval times, people threw waste out of their windows, so the streets were covered in waste. To medieval people, it would seem magical if there was a way to get rid of their waste without it being thrown on the streets. It would be much cleaner too.

Answer 18

It's not technology per se, but I think you should consider using modern dietology, fitness practices, hygiene, dental medicine and martial arts.

Don't get the wrong idea, medieval people could very well be very fit and very much capable of kicking someone's ass in a fight. But they did not know a lot of things about human bodies that we know today. And therefore a lot of their performance and longevity depended on chance and genes. We today though have ways to reliably get people quite fit, physically capable and attractive.

So consider this scenario. In a mostly-medieval society there exists a group that basically has been practicing modern fitness and wellness for a while, keeping the methods mostly secret. They also have time and resources to get good food and lots of exercise.

So we suddenly have a bunch of people, every single one of them is fit, beatiful, looks half their age, has those weird white pristine teeth, can fight really well, seems immune to most diseases, lives on average 1.5-2 times longer... They also follow some weird taboos (like won't touch specific food or eat at certain hours). To people around them they would look positively uncanny. Superhuman. Arcane. Magical.

Sprincle in some basic math education (statistics come to mind), psychology, maybe some more advanced medicine (anitibiotics would work very well as a magical "cure the uncurable" pill) and those guys will also suddenly posess subtle, but noticable powers of prediction, mind-bending and healing, making them even more impressive/creepy.

Most of this does not require any kind of high level tech or even any deep understanding of medicine or chemistry. They just could have found an archive of fitness magazines and basically follow those like a recepie/ritual without understanding why this works. Questionable content in the magazines that does not really work would even add to the mistique and drama.

And yes, some of the practices can and will be reverse engineered by their peers outside of the initiated. But figuring out everything our Order of Fitness guys do is going to be a very tedious and confusing endeavor.

Another fun thought is that actually leading a healthy life, even if you know how to do it, is time-consuming, relatively expensive and involves some almost monk-like self-limitations. So only the rich have the capacity to follow the Order's rules... if they are willing to change their lifestyle. And in the medieval period opulent lifestyle is not only a matter of pleasure for the rich and powerful, but also a matter of status. You MUST throw banquets and entertain your vassals, lest they decide that their sovereign grew weak in mind and/or purse. Not a great backdrop for the proliferation of modern notions of health an well-being.

Still some people will pay attention to the Order. And would seek to either gain the secrets or purge the witches. And in return, the Order may either brutally hunt down those who know too much... or instead seek to educate the unwilling masses to make their lives easier, fighting against the norms of the medieval society. Or even both! There may be factions!

Enter politics, drama and intrigue.

Answer 19

Photography

Making exact images of people is likely to have a lot of perceived magic for its technological buck. The larger the images, the better.

Answer 20

• Steam Power — Maybe this one wouldn't count because technically, the technology existed 2000 years ago, but the Industrial Revolution provided lots of practical applications for the steam engine that the ancients would consider amazing.
• Printing press — Perhaps too simple in its operation to count as “magic”, but it would be a marvel to a society used to tediously copying books by hand.
• Hot air balloons — The first technology to allow human flight.
• Telescope
• Mechanical clocks — Especially the marine chronometer which allowed “magically” accurate navigation.

Answer 21

Hang-gliders, paragliders, light pipes/optical fibers (replicable as a tube with water).

Compass.

Greenhouse, fertilizers, hydroponics, drip irrigation.

Dyeing clothes, hair dyeing, eyeglasses. The very color of modern clothes could be seen as magic in the past, not to mention printed color images or text. BTW, printed text, printed books.

Precise weather forecasts for more than 10 days :)

Answer 22

Mechanical mass manufacturing

A mechanized factory can be run with water wheels, and the individual machines are relatively simple. Skilled craftspeople can manufacture the parts, and individually there is nothing very special about them.

Combine them together and make it manufacture something laborious, and it seems like magic by being so revolutionary and by the scale of the factory. Fabric is a classic example, but tools, buckets, wheels are just as suitable.

With medieval technology, the factory would still require a large number of workers to operate. The owners of the factory would have a strong incentive to keep their monopoly by keeping the technology secret. Each worker would probably be taught only a small part of the whole process, and there would be an air of secrecy surrounding the factory. A worker might say "My job is to put these yarns in place and the fabric starts appearing on them without anyone weaving it!"

Answer 23

A magic lantern Or a camera obscura or what you would call it. Essentially a picture projector which only needs a box, some picture and some brightly burning fuel. Then you project an image up on a wall or on smoke. The concept is so basic that variations of it was probably used in antiquity and the middle ages. With a couple of lenses (you could use some from glasses for shortsighted and far sighted individuals) and a bit of knowledge of optics a person might actually be able to get pretty clear and precise pictures, even without any electricity. People did so in the late renaissance.

The question is of course if a 'primitive' person really would be terrified by this. In reality they might quickly find out that you were just using some gadget that they didn't understand. If you met a person on the street today with a thing you couldn't explain, but which didn't seem dangerous in itself (let's say a box that could suppress sounds for example) you would of course be amazed but its not likely that you would worship him as some god or grand magician.

Oh, and I should just add: Whispering Gallery Waves: Buildings where the acoustics means that a voice can be made to sound as if it were coming from somewhere else. These were probably also used by magicians in antiquity to make statues speak.

Answer 24

Dragons, werewolves, and similar critters

12k years ago, your colonists were masters of genetic engineering. Some were, say, furries, and made themselves into all kinds of wondrous forms.

Your catastrophe happens, the technology is lost, but those who became fire-breathing winged lizards, remained so; while those whose skin was laced with silk (making it tougher than Kevlar, and thus bullet resistant) and which had been engineered to grow lush fur, and whose skull was structured to somewhat resemble a wolf, they too remained in such forms, generation after generation.

Not sure if the "orcs" and the "elves" were secret Star Trek fans, cosplaying as Klingons and Vulcans, but same sort of ideas apply there.

Answer 25

Clockwork. Which must be magical, since it's too short to be acceptable as a valid comment.

However that does introduce the entire field of automata, undoubtedly seen as magical by commoners, as well as things like the Mechanical Turk which inhabited a realm of quasi-magical Extreme Cleverness.

But Extreme Cleverness does carry its own risks: if Newton had been discovered to be doing calculations with a slide rule and writing his notes with a ballpoint pen he would almost certainly have been shunned- or worse- for communing with the Devil using arcane items of divination.

Answer 26

Modern beauty products such as

• hair dye / bleach
• coloured contact lenses
• makeup
• glitter
• spray-on tans
• tattooing

These, especially used together, can make a person appear to "transform" into a completely different one.