As the Modern Industrial Age is superceded by the Electronic Information age, wizardry will flourish and scientists will be relegated to the role of technicians.

As God and the Church were replaced by Nature and the University so the latter will be replaced by Wizards and the World Wide Web.

From Flat World To Spherical Planet: Every school child knows that during the Agricultural period of civilization, when the priests ruled in conjunction with land owning warriors, the peasants were told that the world was flat. Since no one travelled very far the theory was not challenged.

The Ancient Greeks lived in small coastal towns and as they had very little arable land they had to live by exporting wine, olive oil and manufactured articles. Observations made by sailors about the changing angle of the sun at midday as they moved North and South, led to their understanding that the Earth was a sphere in space. Since their decentralised governments could not easily control information about the nature of the world the Greek natural philosophers were able to break the priests' monopoly of truth. At the same time their bankers and business men broke the political power of the landed aristocracy.

The Greeks invented; Capitalism - democracy, coinage, banking, wage labour, factory production, commercial spectator sports, etc. Science - the alphabet, infinite space, objectivity, atomism, reductionism, education, etc. The Modern world is, therefore, essentially an Ancient Greek creation. Nature- the Greeks' invention of Natura, (the goddess "Mother Nature" and a close relative of "Matter") was their most radical idea. Nature was the observable world and human beings became observers or voyeurs busy "discovering the secrets of Nature" and manipulating them to make money.

From Spherical Planet To Relativistic Model: Over the past hundred years many of the Greek concepts have been demonstrated to be false, naive and dangerous. The idea of an observable natural world was always regarded by non-materialists as, if not positively evil, at the very least an unprovable assumption. Almost a century ago experiments in sub-atomic physics and quantum theory (the microcosm) completely shattered the belief in an objective natural world as did the astrophysical theories of relativity (the macrocosm).

The "South Up" World An amusing but rather old thought experiment, now being found on tea towels in souvenir shops in Australasia, is the portrayal of the Earth as "South Up" thereby challenging the validity of all the atlases which show the Earth "North Up". This is of course because the first industrial societies with their printing presses were in Europe. Atlas was a Greek god. Money talks, and it says "Europe Up".

The ethnocentric arrogance of the Europeans in claiming that they are on top is particularly galling to the Chinese. The Chinese had not only invented the compass, which made navigational mapping possible in the first place, but they had for hundreds of years mapped the world as "South Up".

Incidentally the Magnetic North Pole is an abbreviation for the Magnetic North Seeking Pole as the point to which the North pole of a magnet will point. This point is of course the Magnetic South Pole, as opposite poles attract.

Since most of the world's banks, factories and universities are still in the Northern Hemisphere there has been no incentive for change. With the globalisation of the economy and the industrialisation of South America, Africa, India and Asia there is now a possibility that as independent consumers with communication skills and linked through the Internet these countries could be persuaded by me and fellow wizards to press for an international convention whereby all maps will be South Up. Of course the sun, moon, planets and galaxy would also then be South Up.

Latin Americans will be happy to put the Yanks down for a change, and Dixie can at last "rise again". Blacks in Africa can put the Whites of Europe down, The Indians can put the Chinese down, but the fiercest support would come from the nations of Islam who by supporting the standardisation of South as up would put Mecca above Jerusalem and Rome.

If it ever comes to the vote, and I am determined that it will, the numbers strongly favour South-up. Once I have drawn the attention of the Chinese government and people to this article on my web site, the days of the North-up Earth will be numbered.

And Now For My Next Trick... I Turn The Universe Inside-Out Having persuaded the nations of the world to turn the world up-side down my next spell would be to turn the Universe Inside-out. Before doing so, let me make a truly radical statement; "The Sun Is Smaller Than The Earth".

If there is no "absolute frame" observed by a single omniscient deity from an unchallengeable unique location, then the statement that "the Sun is larger than the Earth" is no longer true.

All size becomes apparent and depends on who is making the observation, what they use to make the measurement with, where they are located and how fast they are travelling relative to what they measuring.

It is more accurate to say "the Sun is smaller than the Earth" because all non-fictional observers are in reality on, or near, the Earth's surface.

Conformal Transformation The old Greek model of the Earth as a sphere surrounded by space is treated the same way as the North-up World. A "conformal transformation" is performed, this time putting everything inside the Earth outside, and everything outside the earth inside. This inversion produces a really exciting new model of the universe ideal for the new age of information.

Earthlings Unite And Transform Your Universe! The Earth now becomes a huge hole in matter, a cosmic egg, and the Sun, Moon, planets, stars and galaxies are all inside it. The Sun now goes round inside the Earth. Thus a simple vote of the "earthlings", adopting this particular model of the Universe as their conventional standard, would restore the confidence of all those depressed people who have been wrongly told by scientists for centuries how small and insignificant the Earth is and how impotent its peoples are.

You are now ready to procede to the "greatest spell on Earth".

TURNING THE UNIVERSE INSIDE-OUT

© ArchWizard of New Zealand 1997. Designed by Actech Media. Hosted by CyberMall New Zealand. Questions and comments to archwizard@wizard.gen.nz