Laundry Files: Magic and Mathematics
Because, you see, everything you know about the way this universe works is correct—except for the little problem that this isn’t the only universe we have to worry about. Information can leak between one universe and another. And in a vanishingly small number of the other universes there are things that listen, and talk back—see Al-Hazred, Nietzsche, Lovecraft, Poe, et cetera. The many-angled ones, as they say, live at the bottom of the Mandelbrot set, except when a suitable incantation in the platonic realm of mathematics—computerised or otherwise—draws them forth. (And you thought running that fractal screen-saver was good for your computer?)
― Charles Stross, The Atrocity Archives
Mathematical Methods
Hello young agent, now that you have signed the proper forms we shall begin…
I have been tasked with briefing you on the nature of ‘magic’ in our world. What follows is by no means a comprehensive explanation, but I can safely say that it is short enough that we should be finished in time for the afternoon tea break, and that this is important.
There are many ways in which to preform magic, there are the older traditions, many of which involved long days of chanting, the loss of numerous virgins and/or goats as sacrifices, a high chance of everyone involved going crazy and almost no chance of actually working.
And then there is the Scientific Method.
You see, it turns out that with the correct mathematical understanding of the operations of Dho-Nha topography, a comprehension of the errors in the Church-Turing hypothesis, a detailed understanding of coding and a computer, magic becomes surprisingly easy to perform. This is because mathematics does not just represent the structure of reality; it actually is the structure of reality.
This is very bad, and we would prefer if the general public remained ignorant of this for as long as possible.
Computational demonology works because, for reasons you do not need to understand but the boffins will gladly send hours talking about in their more lucid moments, when you perform sufficiently complex calculations or symbol manipulations of just the right type, the entire multiverse responds.The response is most commonly a hole in the fabric of space letting all manner of foul and hungry entities from another universe into our own, but with careful study and calculation it is also possible to acquire information on other locations, conceal the truth from people, exorcise some of the smaller entities or ward yourself from danger. It is the job of the Laundry to find talented software engineers and mathematicians and prevent them from “landscaping Wolverhampton by accident when creating a realtime rendering algorithm that used a logical shortcut which turned out to be an open and ungrounded summoning grid”.
So far so good, right. I bet you can hardly wait to go gallivanting off into the field, drawing big circles on the ground and saving the day, for Queen and Country and all that. Well I am sorry to burst your bubble, but it is not all that simple, for a starter there’s Form 192b, sub form 35, which you’ll need to fill in covering authorisation to gallivant, then there’s the fact that most of the opposition will likely be terribly impolite and shoot you before you can even set up your circle, let alone start chanting or coding or whatever it is young people do these days.
Agents in the field do need to learn how to draw rapidly and accurately with a conductive pen, as well as how to properly align a laser pentacle and how to set up a portable Faraday cage, but they will not be trying to write a program to reroute human cognitive functions or redirect kinetic energy on the spur of the moment. It is for this reason that Q Division exists. Q Division is in charge of producing all of the magical devices an agent needs in the field. Sure, these devices may break or they may be overloaded with powerful magic, but they do not fail and they do not backfire. This means that so long as you do not lose your government issue device, you will have access to a level of power that would have made old John Dee wet himself with joy. Oh, one last thing on the topic of devices, they come out of your departments budget, so don’t lose them.
Now most of the magic you’ll be doing falls under eight categories which I am required to tell you about as part of your training, they are:
- Entropy manipulation which covers all that flashy showing off things people think of when they hear the word magic,
- Removing the thaumic energy from a place or object thus banishing the unwelcome exonome falls under the topic of exorcism and is surprisingly useful in our line of work
- Geas are spells which bind a subject to a behave itself, your laundry warrant card contains a low level geas field, though I should warn you oversight frowns on the casual use of geas on the general population, so use it with care.
- Gates and summoning, now pay attention and repeat after me “incomplete pentacles emit tentacles”. Go on, I can wait…good, remember that, because this is one topic where I will not have to warn you twice.
- Glamours interfere with a viewer’s perceptions and emotions, they have started to come into common use in marketing, things like those accursed apple do dads and the like.
- We have an entire department set up to cover Prognostication. Needless to say this is a field you should leave to the experts, and if you happen to know any experts please send them to the Laundry’s weather services as they could really use the help.
- Scrying is the reason you will count the damn paperclips, properly scrub a coffee mug after use and do your best not to leave any biological evidence anywhere.
- Warding is incredibly useful, you have your Laundry issued ward, and I would recommend wearing it at all times while in the field, but with a little extra knowledge it is possible to ward things like documents and cups and cars to temporarily prevent them breaking.
That pretty much wraps up this basic introduction. After the tea break we will be discussing thaumic energy and why trying to preform magic anywhere there has been a lot of death is a monumentally stupid idea.
Class dismissed
-David Taylor, Instructor in the Thaumatic Arts, Dunwich