At least when it comes to satisfying existential anxiety, value and meaning can come without a commitment to supernatural metaphysics and magic.
This is likely a reference to Ontology, a branch of philosophy that deals with metaphysics and the nature of being—which is all rather on brand for The Matrix.
Descartes opposed any effort to separate metaphysics from science.
When he says he lives in harmony with nature, he’s not talking so much about metaphysics but sound ecological principles that propel his business and preserve the land.
Physicists draw on metaphysics all the time, yet few of them are aware of what they do.
The philosophy of Germany at the present day is making several attempts at a metaphysic of the universe.
But these three systems have not, except in a secondary way, attempted a metaphysic of human life.
And it is in this work that Eucken's Metaphysic of Life becomes a religious metaphysic.
The new religious metaphysic will then mean a real philosophy of values.
This, that physic inquires concerning the material and efficient causes, but metaphysic handles the formal and final causes.