John Henry makes the very persuasive point that magic thinking is at the very core of the modern experimental method. Francis Bacon, the inventor of the experimental and inductive methods was seriously committed to a research program inspired by magic. In the “Proficency and Advancement of Learning” (1623) he affirms: “The aim of magic is to recall natural philosophy from the vanity of speculations to the importance of experiments.” Magic was thus not a temporary stage that was overcome by modern science, but the very seed from which science and technology were born. This idea is far more evolutionary than Thomas Kuhn’s “paradigm change” model. On the other hand, it emphasizes the profoundly religious and transcendent aims of modern science. It is true that modern science and technology have, at their very core, a program of material transformation of the world. But this program is not aimed at transformation for transformation’s sake. It is in fact an attempt to create a feeeling of transcendence that is not “other wordly” but “this wordly.” It is a program committed to a philosophical aim which although anti-religious, oozes religiosity and mystical yearning…