I suppose I called Crowley's "great works of time" ( subconsciously cribbed from Crowley's novella of the same title without realizing it-- but nonetheless applying it also to the Aegypt Cycle) mechanistic precisely because I could not identify its mechanism.  A black box apparatus.  Seemingly magic, but, the author assures us, very real and not to be mistaken for chance or fantasy.  A natural process perhaps, distorted through our perceptions, but itself right as rain.  Magic only seems like magic now, and was not magic back when.

Still, what about our input?  Beau seems to know what to do to keep certain things in the world, trade them for others that will vanish.
Is that something we all do without realizing it? Should we not strive in some way to vouchsafe our interests? Our loved ones? Our dreams and goals?  Is planning a waste of time, or if not, just a dream we gamble on?

Because if we can't understand, interact, influence, change, if we can't "knowingly" exert control, how are we any different from the proud coke bottle in the commercial, produced by some mysterious Rube Goldberg assembly line, sent off with fanfare, dropped to the invisible future, never knowing what stands outside our vend unit?  Until? Short answer.  We're not!