CoL49 (1) magic, anonymous and malign [PC 12, 40]

[Mark Kohut]

Laura writes:
When all's said and done, the difference between science and magic is in the eye of the beholder. I think Pynchon blurs magic (or at least the mystical) and technology throughout the book.

Misc. Scientific American mentioned in this chapter...Oedipa is reading reviews(!)......Book Reviews in Sci American at this time
(and long after) under John Campbell were first-rate...But NOT perhaps, what one first thinks of reading in Sci American. I''l bet TRP, science-minded did read them but I think he used that here to indicate part of what was "everywhere" in the tower that was
America then. Science/technology---remember the space race?---was a major component of that tower, yes?  

A--and something TRP judged as part of the problem over and over in his oeuvre. 
 
 
"Magic" slides from card trick to a culture's unacknowledged norms. at least. 
 
A--and a culture's norms are ultimately religious/spiritual?---or they've lost that?