We were recently in Tulum, a Mayan site from around 2000BC to 250AD, on the Caribbean Sea. The placed was packed with tour groups and translator guides. The one we got was a mystic who believed in the Mayan prophecies and the numerology of the Mayan civilization. Some of the correlations that were made, especially in multiplying out the orbit of the planets in such a way to achieve the human gestation period defied belief.

I don't doubt that the Mayan made those correlative leaps in their rationality, but given the superior knowledge system of the scientific method, those animistic and mystical correlations to maintain logical consistency are no longer necessary.

I was reading an article on copulas in the financial times that threaded the 'dieing of a broken heart' with actuarial interest and somehow used Markov Chains to discuss why statistics and probabilistic outcomes failed in predicting the subprime mortgage credit collapse. One quote from Taleb stood out:

Anything that relies on correlation is charlatanism.

From what I could understand of the civilization at Tulum the coin that gave the priestly class their authority was their knowledge of calendering which found its way into their religious ceremonies and their architecture.

One of the purposes of the main building in Tulum was to discover the coming of spring accurately and then determine, and publishing through the use of mirrors, the start of planting season to all the villages and cities between Tulum and Cozumel.

Presumably that sophisticated knowledge of calendering gave the civilization in Tulum a productive advantage over other non-calendering groups such that they could provide food for their population with greater ease. I would not be surprised that good harvests gave the ruling and religious classes their legitimacy as well.

As to the mysticism in seeing harmony through numbers in the worlds, orbits, stars, seasons, and human gestation periods; that falls into correlation through arbitrary mechanisms and requires a rationality system based upon it to make it seem logical.

Science is replete with people seeking simplistic, harmonious and perfect systems of forms; only to see them fail as the system becomes more obviously complex and disordered such that the warning; correlation is not necessarily causation, is always a good skeptical phrase.