The Third Age of the World

The Third Age of the World: Magic and Science in the 21st Century is a long-form essay series by Alan G. Carter. It was first published online in the early 2000s, and it reflects the tone, debates, and reference points of that time. We are republishing the core structure here as a stable index page, while preparing modern companion pages for each chapter and section.

The aim is simple. Preserve the work’s central themes and navigation, while presenting it in a clean, readable format that fits the web today. The chapter pages will be rebuilt section by section, with updated context where appropriate, but without changing the underlying intent of the original material.

Contents

  1. Beginning
    • From Clueless to The Truman Show
    • Magicians
    • Modern Magic
  2. Form
    • Galaxies, Trees and Heartbeats
    • Space, Time and Layers of Meaning
    • Fractal Generators and Fractal Compression
    • Deductive and Inductive Thinking
    • It Takes Years to Learn Cree
    • Computer Programming
    • Silver Cords, Clockworks and Bells
    • Magic and Arts
    • Progress
  3. Intuition
    • The Missing Kind of Thinking
    • George Gurdjieff, Pig Farms and BASE Jumpers
    • An Off Switch for the Human Mind
    • Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder
    • The Chemistry of Boredom
    • Mass Boredom Addiction
    • Totalitarianism, Collapse and Automation
    • Kicking the Habit
    • Appreciate Awareness
    • Progress
  4. Reason
    • Deduction All Alone
    • The Universe Knows – We Don’t
    • Turning Inside Out
    • Dualism
    • Social Reality
  5. The Ray of Creation
    • Self Organisation, Time and Rudolph Steiner
    • Quantum Weirdness
    • Gravity
    • Souls, Spirits and Astral Bodies
    • Insight and Inspiration
    • Miracles
  6. Becoming
    • Here be Dragons
    • The First Age of the World
    • The Second Age of the World
    • The Third Age of the World
  7. Magic
    • Mystics
    • Physics, Fractals and Two Arrows of Time
    • Deep Structure Collection
    • Boredom Addiction and Inside Out Thinking
    • Other Sayings
    • Uninterpreted Sayings
    • A Gurdjieff Glossary
  8. Lore

Credits

This work benefited from years of discussion, testing, and retelling by an online community that formed around the ideas in these chapters. The original publication acknowledged a wide range of contributions: practical examples from workplace life, careful critique, provocative questions, hosting support, and sustained discussion across topics including attention, boredom, and the distortions created by “inside out” thinking.

A strength of internet discussion is that the archive preserves the shape of the debate. A summary paragraph can only gesture at what actually happened. This index page keeps that spirit while the chapter pages are rebuilt in a format that is easier to read, cite, and maintain.

Alan G. Carter

Copyright Alan G. Carter 2003.