The concept we moderns have of magic is very strange: we see it as merely a ludicrous heap of recipes and methods stemming from primitive, unscientific notions about nature […] Of course, it would be difficult to maintain that the method of magic has something to do with the method of our natural sciences. The structure of matter is completely ignored and physico-chemical phenomena are ascribed to occult cosmic forces. Yet magic has in common with modern technology that it claims to arrive, by other means, at the same ends: long distance communication, rapid transport, interplanetary trips are some of the magician’s current exploits.