For me the "mythological" aspect comes in when trying to understand some recursive processes. SICP compared them to incantations. Sometimes it's hard to keep in

For me the "mythological" aspect comes in when trying to understand some recursive processes. SICP compared them to incantations. Sometimes it's hard to keep in one's head all that a tree-recursive process is doing. It's not technically magic, of course, but has some of the character of an incantation.