Magic Wands

Is there such a thing as a wizard without a magic wand? Is there anything more common in our world than a remote control? Doesn't it seem like someone must have been doing some time traveling?

Logical, simple, even elegant … but, complicated.

It was probably not someone going from modern times back to the past. The wand is a magical, mystical concept. Anyone from modern times, well, anyone who did reasonably well in eighth grade science, could have taken a lot more stuff and some concepts that would have rocketed primitive tech forward.

But there are also problems with a person coming forward to our time from ancient times.

Where would they have visited to see enough remote controls to go home with the all-powerful concept of the magic wand? A factory with heavy equipment controlled by remotes would be necessary. A hospital with those giant, bizarre scanning machines that twist around in the air would have to be on the list. But you’d also need to see some of the military laser stuff, the real zappers. And, of course, a kitten chasing a red laser dot around. A pretty complex itinerary for some wandering cave person checking out the twenty-first century.

Another problem is when, in ancient times, our visitor came from and returned to. It would have had to have been very early on, before our ancesestors spread out across the world from Africa so that the magic wand would show up in multiple cultures. And the person who brought the news would have had to be important enough that others would have taken the magic wand concept seriously.

On the other hand, there is a passage in the old testament, in the book of Ezekiel, that Ancient Astronaut Theorists, among others, believe is a report of a sighting of an alien space craft.

Ezekiel 1:4-6 says, "I looked, and I saw a windstorm coming out of the north - an immense cloud with flashing lightning and surrounded by brilliant light. The center of the fire looked like glowing metal, and in the fire was what looked like four living creatures."

Now first and foremost I want to acknowledge that this ship is an object of much study and speculation by Ancient Astronaut Theorists and I am not credentialed or otherwise qualified to speak on the subject.

And I am not speaking or speculating on it other than to suggest that if it was an alien spaceship that visited ancient Babylon it would be a very good candidate for the source of the magic wand myth. The aliens could have had plenty of really powerful things that would have resembled magic wands. The ship could have visited multiple ancient civilizations which would account for the presence of the magic wand in so many cultures. And the event is believed to have been reported in the sixth century BC, a time about which hard facts are pretty hard to come by. Other reports of the visiting aliens could have disappeared into the mists of time with only the mythology of the magic wand surviving.