Have you ever used something that "just works" and it actually has done so always, without a miss? I don't think I have. And the more magical something is, the harder it is to debug. When it comes to code, I think it makes more sense to keep things clear and obvious, rather than whimsical and obscure. Make the final product magical, not the software that runs it. What do you think about that?
The author could use some better examples. Magic at runtime (the PHP example) is very different from magic at compile time (the Svetle/React example).