Philip Pullman writing on Athensius Kircher (in the form of a book review) is a treat, lightly linking him to the post-pomo cultural melange, and the return of magic:
Kircher lived on the cusp between the magical world of the Middle Ages and the rational and scientific world of modernity – as perhaps we do again today, except that we’re going in the other direction. His half-sceptical, half-credulous cast of mind is very much to our current taste.