Elites have long kept technology hidden from the rabble. Greek fire and Damascus steel were guarded so fiercely they were said to be lost to time. Even now, technologies of control are hideously clanking— yet we are oblivious. Could there be other instances of occulted tech?
That men have long recognized the causes of technological suppression is revealed to us in the strange tale of vitrum flexile, or flexible glass, that was rendered by the Roman historian Cassius Dio. This story, which was also confirmed by Pliny the Elder (23–79 AD, Naturalis Historia XXXVI.lxvi.195) and Petronius (c. 27–66 AD, Satyricon), takes place during the reign of Emperor Tiberius Caesar, 14–37 AD:
“About this time one of the largest porticos in Rome began to lean to one side and was set upright in a remarkable way by an architect whose name no one knows, because Tiberius, jealous of his wonderful achievement, would not permit it to be entered in the records. This architect, then, whatever his name may have been, first strengthened the foundations roundabout, so that they should not collapse, and wrapped all the rest of the structure in fleeces and thick garments, binding it firmly together on all sides by means of ropes; then with the aid of many men and windlasses he raised it back to its original position. At the time Tiberius both admired and envied him; for the former reason he honored him with a present of money, and for the latter he expelled him from the city. Later the exile approached him to crave pardon, and while doing so purposely let fall a crystal goblet; and though it was bruised in some way or shattered, by passing his hands over it he promptly exhibited it whole once more. For this, he hoped to obtain a pardon, but instead, the emperor put him to death.”
The mechanisms and purposes of the suppression of technology, and technological secrecy, are well understood. Though it is sometimes treated as an outlandish concept, exploiting tech asymmetry is an everyday occurrence.
“In the arena of technology strategy, the suppression of technology constitutes a particularly challenging focus for investigation, because, in the strategic management literature, there is no acknowledgment of its existence.”(The Suppression of Technology as a Strategy for Controlling Resource Dependence, Richard Dunford)
The strategic suppression of technology is itself a secret. Suppressing innovation in order to maintain control of markets, or populations, is ubiquitous. In fact, the entire patent system is designed to stifle innovation, every “reform” is an upgrade.
“Critics of the current patent system argue that a shift towards the strategic use of patents as a “sword” to hold up competitors and extract license fees threatens the effectiveness of patents as a means to encourage innovation (for example, Duhigg and Lohr 2012). The underlying problems with this system, however, may be much broader, and understanding them is critical to the design of patent policies. As early as the 1850s, patentees who did not produce anything were able to hold up entire industries because they had been issued broad patents that had been affirmed in court.”
In 2019, the US Navy had to invoke national security in order to get some of their patents passed. This recent rollout of hidden tech in the form of ‘Salvatore Pais’’(Country Savior) patent application was rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the bureaucrat-priest, the Patent Examiner, determined “the disclosed invention is inoperative and therefore lacks utility” and that “no assertions of room-temperature superconductivity have currently been recognized or verified by the scientific community.”
The Navy had to go so far as to admit this technology already existed in an operable form in order to overturn this verdict. CTO Sheehy had to assure the examiner that he is “well versed in the generation of electromagnetic fields, high-temperature superconductivity, and physics in general.” A lawyer for the Naval Aviation enterprise stated somewhat derisively “the examiner turned to perceived mainstream science to indicate the concept was not possible” but that “in this matter, the gatekeepers of science (the peer reviewers of Applicant’s papers) indicated the concept is possible and enabled.”
That the powerful reserve power for themselves should surprise no one. The pharaoh had his magicians with "secret arts". "Aaron cast down his staff before Pharaoh and his servants, and it became a serpent. Then Pharaoh summoned the wise men and the sorcerers, and they, the magicians of Egypt, also did the same by their secret arts." (Exodus 7:10-12)
Even relatively recently we see sorcerers and witches with uncommon knowledge in the employ of, or controlling, world leaders. John Dee, a Doctor of the sublunary world, and the magical architect of the British Empire, was the first to combine the occult with espionage. A practice that now dominates our daily lives in the form of ongoing menticide campaigns and mass rituals.
In most cases, the line between what we call technology and what was called "magic" is a matter of proximity. Familiarity breeds disenchantment. The vast majority of “theoretical physics” is cargo cult fetishism with constructs made of math instead of bamboo.
The average Westerner is a post-modern orc, relating to the technology which envelopes him with a savage mysticism. He invokes science like some corporeal god which speaks to him through the television. Secret technology programs are so overdeveloped and entrenched that they have their own specialized HR departments, yet a large portion of "modern people" still assume the below image is an Alien Spacecraft.
“The central question in the analysis of the UFO phenomenon has always been that of the controlling intelligence behind the objects' apparently purposeful behavior. In stating the problem in such terms, I am not assuming that the objects are real—contrary to the implications someone might draw if he read this book too fast. Yet in no way am I excluding the possibility that this controlling intelligence is human... For the time being, let me simply state again my basic contention: the modern, global belief in flying saucers and their occupants is identical to an earlier belief in the fairy-faith. The entities described as the pilots of the craft are indistinguishable from the elves, sylphs, and lutins of the Middle Ages. Through the observations of unidentified flying objects, we are concerned with an agency our ancestors knew well and regarded with terror: we are prying into the affairs of the Secret Commonwealth.” —Jacques Vallee, Passport to Magonia
Thus it has been throughout the ages, and of course, there are many examples of technologies of flight, robots, and divine weapons scattered throughout the historical record. Here we will turn our attention to one lost object that seems to have been universally present in the past—in the traditions of Rome, Egypt, China, Persia, pre-Colombian Mesoamerica—the magic mirror.