2012 Phenomenon

The 2012 phenomenon[1][2] is a present-day cultural meme proposing that cataclysmic or transformative events will occur in the year 2012. The forecast is based primarily on what is claimed to be the end-date of the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar, which is presented as lasting 5,125 years and as terminating on December 21 or 23, 2012, along with interpretations of assorted legends, scriptures, numerological constructions and prophecies.

A New Age interpretation of this transition posits that, during this time, the planet and its inhabitants may undergo a positive physical or spiritual transformation, and that 2012 may mark the beginning of a totally new era.[3] Conversely, some believe that the 2012 date marks the beginning of an apocalypse. The 2012 doomsday prediction idea has been disseminated in numerous books and TV documentaries, and has spread around the world as an Internet meme through websites and discussion groups. The idea of a global event occurring in 2012 based on any interpretation of the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar is rejected as pseudoscience by the scientific community, and as misrepresentative of Maya history by Mayanist scholars.[2][4]

Contents [hide]
1 Mesoamerican Long Count calendar
1.1 Maya references to 2012
1.1.1 Tortuguero
1.1.2 Chilam Balam
2 New Age theories
2.1 Galactic alignment
2.2 Timewave zero and the I Ching
3 Doomsday theories
3.1 Geomagnetic reversal
3.2 Planet Nibiru
4 2012 film
5 See also
6 Further reading
7 Notes
8 References
9 External links


Mesoamerican Long Count calendar
Main article: Mesoamerican Long Count calendar
December 2012 marks the ending of the current baktun cycle of the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar. The Long Count set its "time zero" at a point in the past marking the end of the previous world and the beginning of the current one, which corresponds to either 11 or 13 August 3114 BC in the Gregorian calendar, depending on the formula used.[5]

The Long Count kept time roughly in units of 20, so 20 days made a uinal, 18 uinals, or 360 days, made a tun, 20 tuns made a katun, and 20 katuns, or 144,000 days, made up a baktun. So, for example, the Mayan date of 8.3.2.10.15 represents 8 baktuns, 3 katuns, 2 tuns, 10 uinals and 15 days since creation. Many Mayan inscriptions have the count shifting to a higher order after 13 baktuns.[6][7] Today, the most widely accepted correlations of the end of the thirteenth baktun, or Mayan date 13.0.0.0.0, with the Western calendar are either December 21 or December 23, 2012.[8] Even before the dating issue was settled, the early Mayanist and astronomer Maud Worcester Makemson had written in 1957 that "[t]he completion of a Great Period of 13 baktuns would have been of the utmost significance to the Maya".[9] After the correct date was determined, the anthropologist Munro S. Edmonson added that "there appears to be a strong likelihood that the eral calendar, like the year calendar, was motivated by a long-range astronomical prediction, one that made a correct solsticial forecast 2,367 years into the future in 355 B.C. [sic]".[10]

In 1966, Michael D. Coe more ambitiously claimed in The Maya that "[t]here is a suggestion . . . that Armageddon would overtake the degenerate peoples of the world and all creation on the final day of the thirteenth [baktun]. Thus ... our present universe ... [would] be annihilated on December 23, 2012, when the Great Cycle of the Long Count reaches completion."[11] These apocalyptic connotations were accepted by other scholars through the early 1990s.[12] But more recent academic scholars have specifically disputed the apocalyptic interpretation of the Long Count calendar end-date, saying instead that it would be a cause for celebration but that the cycle would continue uninterrupted by any cataclysmic event.[2]

These scholars argue that the Long Count does not end on 13.0.0.0.0.[13] In their seminal work of 1990, the Maya scholars Linda Schele and David Freidel, who reference Edmonson, argue that the Maya "did not conceive this to be the end of creation, as many have suggested,"[14] citing Mayan predictions of events to occur after the end of the 13th baktun. The Maya, due to the cyclical nature of their calendar, also wrote the date of creation, their zero date, as 13.0.0.0.0.[15] Schele and Freidel note that creation date was inscribed at Coba as 13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.0.0.0.0, with twenty units above the katun. According to Schele and Friedel, these 13s should be treated as 0s, so the Coba number would be read as if it were 0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0, with the units of each column beyond the second (counting from right to left) equal to 20 times those of the previous one. This number represented "the starting point of a huge odometer of time". Schele and Freidel calculate that the date at which this odometer would run out lies some 4.134105 × 1028 years in the future, or 3 quintillion times the scientifically accepted age of the universe.

The issue is complicated further by the fact that many different Maya city-states employed the Long Count in different ways. At Palenque, evidence suggests that the priest timekeepers believed the cycle would end after 20 baktuns, rather than 13. A monument commemorating the ascension of the king Pakal the Great connects his coronation with events as far as 4000 years in the future, indicating that those scribes did not believe the world would end on 13.0.0.0.[15]

Maya references to 2012
Most Maya inscriptions are strictly historical and do not make any prophetic declarations.[16] Two items in the Maya corpus, however, mention the end of the 13th baktun: Tortuguero Monument 6 and the Chilam Balam.

Tortuguero
The Tortuguero site dates from the 7th century AD and consists of a series of inscriptions in honor of the contemporary ruler. One inscription, known as Tortuguero monument 6, is generally agreed among Mayanists to refer to the 2012 date. It has been partially defaced; Mayanist scholar Mark Van Stone has given the most complete translation:

Tzuhtz-(a)j-oom u(y)-uxlajuun pik
The Thirteenth [b'ak'tun] will end
(ta) Chan Ajaw ux(-te') Uniiw.
(on) 4 Ajaw, the 3rd of Uniiw [3 K'ank'in].
Uht-oom Ek'-...
Black ... will occur.
Y-em(al) ... Bolon Yookte' K'uh ta-chak-ma...
(It will be) the descent(?) of Bolon Yookte' K'uh to the great (or red?)...[17]
Very little is known about the god (or gods) Bolon Yookte' K'uh. Possible translations of his or their name include "nine support [gods]", "Many‐Strides God", "Nine‐Dog Tree", or "Many‐Root Tree".[15] He appears in other inscriptions as a god of war, conflict, and the underworld, though Markus Eberl and Christian Prager believe that the Tortuguero inscription parallels the typical Maya ruler's pronouncement of a future dedicatory celebration.[18] The long count used at Tortuguero contains 20 b'ak'tuns in a cycle, so the end of the 13th b'ak'tun would not end the cycle according to Tortuguero astronomers.[17] No illustrations of Bolon Yookte' exist, though dozens of other gods' images are known.[15]

Chilam Balam
The Chilam Balam of Tizimin has been translated twice: once by Maud Worcester Makemson and once by Munro S. Edmonson. Makemson believed that one of the lines in the book (licutal oxlahun bak chem, ti u cenic u tzan a ceni ciac aba yum texe) refered to the "tremendously important event of the arrival of 13.0.0.0.0 4 Ahau 3 Kankin in the not too distant future",[19] translating it as "Presently Baktun 13 shall come sailing, figuratively speaking, bringing the ornaments of which I have spoken from your ancestors." (Her version of the the text continues, "Then the god will come to visit his little ones. Perhaps 'After Death' will be the subject of his discourse.") Makemson was still relying on her own dating of 13.0.0.0.0 to 1752 and therefore the "not too distant future" in her annotations meant a few years after the scribe in Tizimin recorded his Chilam Balam.[20] Edmonson's translation does not support this reading; he considers the Long Count entirely absent from the book, with a 24-round may system used instead.[21]

Other Chilam Balam books contain references to the 13th baktun, but it is unclear if these are in the past or future; for example, oxhun bakam u katunil (thirteen bakam of katuns) in the Chilam Balam of Chumayel.[22]

New Age theories
In contrast to the apocalyptic view popularly attributed to the Maya, many New Agers believe that the ending of this cycle will correspond to a global "consciousness shift" and the beginning of a new age. This theory is grounded in a apocalyptic vocabulary dating back to the 1950s and draws on many of the same sources and personalities of the 1987 Harmonic Convergence. Established themes found in 2012 literature include "suspicion towards mainstream Western culture", the idea of spiritual evolution, and the possibility of leading the world into the New Age, by individual example or by a group's joined consciousness. The general intent of this literature is not to warn of impending doom but "to foster counter-cultural sympathies and eventually socio-political and 'spiritual' activism".[23]

The date became the subject of speculation by Frank Waters, who devotes two chapters to its interpretation, including discussion of an astrological chart for this date and its association with Hopi prophecies in Mexico Mystique: The Coming Sixth Age of Consciousness (1975).[24] The significance of the year 2012 (but not a specific day) was mentioned briefly by José Argüelles in The Transformative Vision, (1975)[25] and later in The Mayan Factor (1987).[26]

Author Daniel Pinchbeck popularized New Age concepts about this date, linking it to beliefs about crop circles, alien abduction, and personal revelations based on the use of entheogens and mediumship in his 2006 book 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl.[27] Pinchbeck argues for a shift in consciousness rather than an apocalypse, suggesting that materialistic attitudes, rather than the material world, are in jeopardy.[28] Semir Osmanagić, the author and metalworker responsible for promoting the Bosnian pyramids, referred to 2012 in the conclusion of his book The World of the Maya.[29] He suggests that "Advancement of DNA may raise us to a higher level" and concludes, "When the 'heavens open' and cosmic energy is allowed to flow throughout our tiny Planet, will we be raised to a higher level by the vibrations".[29]

Galactic alignment
Frank Waters' book inspired further speculation by John Major Jenkins in the mid-1980s, noting the correspondence of the December 21 date with the winter solstice in 2012. This date was in line with an idea he terms the Galactic Alignment.

In the solar system, the planets and the Sun share roughly the same plane of orbit, known as the plane of the ecliptic. From our perspective on Earth, the Zodiacal constellations move along or near the ecliptic, and over time, appear to recede counterclockwise by one degree every 72 years. This movement is attributed to a slight wobble in the Earth's axis as it spins. As a result, approximately every 2160 years, the constellation visible on the early morning of the spring equinox changes. In Western astrological traditions, this signals the end of one astrological age (currently the Age of Pisces) and the beginning of another (Age of Aquarius). Over the course of 26,000 years, the precession of the equinoxes makes one full circuit around the ecliptic.

Just as the spring equinox in the northern hemisphere is currently in the constellation of Pisces, so the winter solstice is currently in the constellation of Sagittarius, which happens to be the constellation intersected by the galactic equator. Every year for the last 1000 years or so, on the winter solstice, the Earth, Sun and the galactic equator come into alignment, and every year, precession pushes the Sun's position a little way further through the Milky Way's band.


The Milky Way near Cygnus showing the lane of the Dark Rift which the Maya called the Xibalba be or Black Road.Jenkins suggests that the Maya based their calendar on observations of the "dark rift", a band of black dust clouds in the Milky Way, which the Maya called the Xibalba be or Black Road.[30] Jenkins claims that the Maya were aware of where the ecliptic intersected the Black Road and gave this position in the sky a special significance in their cosmology.[31] According to the hypothesis, the Sun precisely aligns with this intersection point at the winter solstice of 2012.[31] Jenkins claimed that the classical Mayans anticipated this conjunction and celebrated it as the harbinger of a profound spiritual transition for mankind.[32] New Age proponents of the galactic alignment hypothesis argue that, just as astrology uses the positions of stars and planets to make claims of future events, the Mayans plotted their calendars with the objective of preparing for significant world events.[33]

The alignment in question is not exclusive to 2012 but takes place over a 36-year period, corresponding to the diameter of the Sun, with the most precise convergence having already occurred in 1998.[34] Also, Jenkins himself notes that there is no concrete evidence that the Maya were aware of precession.[35] While some Mayan scholars, such as Barbara MacLeod, have suggested that some Mayan holy dates were timed to precessional cycles, scholarly opinion on the subject is divided.[15] There is also little evidence, archaeological or historical, that the Maya placed any importance on solstices or equinoxes.[15]

Timewave zero and the I Ching

A screenshot of the Timewave Zero software."Timewave zero" is a pseudoscientific numerological formula that purports to calculate the ebb and flow of "novelty", defined as increase in the universe's interconnectedness, or organised complexity,[36] over time. According to Terence McKenna, who conceived the idea in the early 1970s, the universe has a teleological attractor at the end of time that increases interconnectedness, eventually reaching a singularity of infinite complexity on December 21, 2012, at which point anything and everything imaginable will occur instantaneously.[citation needed]

McKenna expressed "novelty" in a computer program, which purportedly produces a waveform known as timewave zero or the timewave. Based on McKenna's interpretation of the King Wen sequence of the I Ching,[37] the graph appears to show great periods of novelty corresponding with major shifts in humanity's biological and cultural evolution. He believed the events of any given time are recursively related to the events of other times, and chose the atomic bombing of Hiroshima as the basis for calculating his end date of November, 2012. When he discovered this date's proximity to the end of the 13th baktun, he adjusted it so that the two dates matched.[38]

The first edition of Invisible Landscapes refers to 2012 (as the year, not a specific day) only twice. McKenna originally considered it an incidental observation that the two dates matched, a sign of the end date "being programmed into our unconscious". It was only after he met Jose Argüelles in 1985 that he became convinced that December 21, 2012 had significant meaning and peppered this specific date throughout the second, 1993 edition of the same book.[23]

Doomsday theories
A far more apocalyptic view of the year 2012 is represented by the History Channel which, beginning in 2006, aired "Decoding the Past: Mayan Doomsday Prophecy", based loosely on John Major Jenkins' theories but with a tone he characterized as "45 minutes of unabashed doomsday hype and the worst kind of inane sensationalism". It was co-written by a science fiction author.[39][40] This show proved popular and was followed by many sequels: 2012, End of Days (2006), The Last Days on Earth (2008) Seven Signs of the Apocalypse (2008) and Nostradamus 2012 (2008), together with programs recounting past doomsdays: Comet Catastrophe (2007), Noah's Great Flood (2008) and Journey to 10000 B.C.[41]

History Channel documentaries have also related their End of the World scenario to the following:

The Bible's Book of Revelation. This text, composed some 1900 years ago, did indeed offer a dramatic picture of the end of the world—but it also promised that it would happen "very soon".[42] The Bible says nothing about 2012 or any similar date.
The Tiburtine Sibyl. As reproduced in the 16th century, this book did indeed likewise present a dramatic picture of the apocalypse, but did not date it, least of all to 2012.[43]
The quatrains of Nostradamus. While these are clearly intended to be read in a pre-apocalyptic context, they do not specifically mention (or, consequently, date) the end of the world:[44] their Preface states that they are valid until the year 3797.[45]
The so-called Lost Book of Nostradamus. This is in fact merely a retitling[46] of the anonymous Vaticinia de Summis Pontificibus — a book of prophetic papal emblems dating from centuries before his time – and does not mention the year 2012.
The Prophecies of Merlin. This was a fictional composition by the medieval Geoffrey of Monmouth,[47] amplified in 13th-century Venice, and did not mention the year 2012.[48]
The Prophecies of Mother Shipton. The original 1641 edition of these says nothing at all about doomsday or the end of the world or, consequently, any proposed date for either.[49]
Geomagnetic reversal
One idea proposed in these films involves a geomagnetic reversal (often incorrectly referred to as a polar shift by proponents of this hypothesis), which could be triggered by a massive solar flare, one with energy equal to 100 billion atomic bombs.[50] This belief is supposedly supported by observations that the Earth's magnetic field is weakening,[51] which indicates an impending reversal of the north and south magnetic poles. Scientists believe the Earth is overdue for a geomagnetic reversal, and has been for a long time, even since the time of the Mayans, because the last reversal was 780,000 years ago.[52] Critics, however, claim geomagnetic reversals take up to 5,000 years to complete, and do not start on any particular date. Also, while NASA expects a particularly strong solar maximum sometime between 2010 and 2012,[53] there is no scientific evidence linking a solar maximum to a geomagnetic reversal.[54] A solar maximum would be mostly notable for its effects on satellite and cellular phone communications.[53]

Planet Nibiru
Proponents of a Nibiru collision claim that a planet called Nibiru will collide with or pass by Earth in that year. This idea, which has been circulating since 1995 in New Age circles and initially slated the event for 2003, is based on claims of channeling from alien species and has been widely ridiculed.[55][56] Astronomers calculate that such an object so close to Earth would be visible to anyone looking up at the night sky.[57][58][59]