This is a great historical tie into Part II of Existence Strikes Back and its observation that modernity's momentum began to build in the 13th century, as Western civilization's capacity for control increased. Magic and science were twins in the cradle of modernity. This essay points out that it was really a set of triplets: Magic, Science, and Math.
How mathematics built the modern world - Works in Progress
Mathematics was the cornerstone of the Industrial Revolution. A new paradigm of measurement and calculation, more than scientific discovery, built industry, modernity, and the world we inhabit today.
Bo Malmberg
Science and Magic
The historian of intellectual history, Frances Yates, wrote extensively about the realm of magical pursuits in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, in particular about hermeticism and its legendary eponymous source, Hermes Trismegistus. Yates points out that Renaissance magic--through characters…
