12-21-12
The end is near
Experts say only 1,148 days until the beginning of our demise
By Jared Curtis
Throughout time people have predicted the future and the impending doom of the world. And, every few years, a certain date or time period is overly examined and presented as the end of days.
The Internet didn’t shut down during the Y2K fiasco, and the world wasn’t sent back to the Stone Age without utilities and computers, as predicted by critics, thinkers and software geeks. On June 6, 2006 (6-6-06), some were afraid that the date symbolized the end as the Antichrist would rise and destroy us all. But, once again, nothing happened. In the classic 1991 film, “Terminator 2: Judgment Day,” the so-called “judgment day” when the robots took over the world, destroying humans and life as we know it takes place on Aug. 29, 1997. In 2003’s, “Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines,” the date is listed as July 24, 2004. We have survived both of those dates, with a robot take-over not looking credible in the foreseeable future.
The human race will likely survive well past Dec. 21, 2012, but there are always the naysayers who believe in the end. The human race has been predicting the end of the world for centuries, and it hasn’t happened. We can’t see into the future, but curiosity and skepticism are alive and well.
On Nov. 13, director Roland Emmerich’s (“Independence Day,” “The Day After Tomorrow”) newest movie, “2012,” follows a worldwide catastrophic event, which is inline with what scientists say could happen following a polar shift — earthquakes, floods, fire, etc. Even though it seems made for a Hollywood movie, the truth is somewhat near. The end of the Mayan calendar is one of the biggest concerns, and a number of other religious and historic facts and fictions point to Dec. 21, 2012, as well. Some people call these coincidences; others call them prophecies. You be the judge.
The Mayan calendar
Of all of the so-called doomsday prophecies, none is more popular than the end of the Mayan calendar. The comprehension of time, seasons and cycles in the Mayan calendar has proven to be vast and sophisticated. The Maya understand 17 different calendars, some of them charting time accurately over a span of more than ten million years.
“The Maya were excellent astronomers and kept detailed records,” said Dr. Kevin Gannon, Grand View University Associate Professor of History. “They ran their lives and society by astrological observations and had a 365-day calendar figured out with the rotation of the sun.”
The Long Count Calendar of the Ancient Mayans ends on Dec. 21, 2012. Although information regarding what the Mayans thought would occur at the end is sparse, the consensus is that there will be great change. To some that means a positive, spiritual change, but to others it means a catastrophic event.
“The Maya did believe in an apocalyptic cycle,” said Gannon, who teaches early U.S. History and a class Latin American History. “The Aztecs believed that there are five ages of living, and currently we are living in the fifth age. They believe that one day the sun won’t come up, and that’ll be it.”
The calendar has predicted lunar eclipses thousands of years into the future as well as when conquistadors would arrive in their land on the exact day. What we do know is that on Dec. 21, 2012, the Earth will be in exact alignment with the sun and the center of the Milky Way galaxy. This event happens only once every 25,800 years, and even though no one knows the effect it will have, the Mayans believed it is dire.
“You have to accept The Thompson Correlation number to believe it,” Gannon said. “The day the calendar started (numbered as 0.0.0.0.0) was in Aug. 11, 3114 B.C. And if you do the math, it roughly ends around Dec. 21, 2012.”
But an end to a calendar isn’t always a bad thing.
“The one thing with the theory is that the Maya don’t really talk about bad things at the end,” Gannon said. “Most calendars just start over.”
According to www.survive2012.com, Mayan mythology states the First Age began with the creation of the Earth, and it had upon it vegetation and living beings. Unfortunately, because they lacked speech, the birds and animals were unable to pay homage to the gods and were destroyed. In the Second and Third Ages, the gods created humans of mud and then wood, but these also failed to please and were wiped out. We are currently in the Fourth and Final Age, the age of the modern, fully functional human.
“If I could put money on it, I’d bet the calendar ends a cycle, rather than the end,” Gannon said. “But there is supposed to be a solar eclipse that day, and NASA has predicted solar flares, so I’ll be interested to see what happens. Whenever numbers are involved, people find the ones that fit and they have their argument. The Mayan calendar is very complex, which is easier for people to get behind theories.”
Polar shifts and black holes
A polar reversal occurs every 11,000 to 12,000 years, which means the North Pole will be changed into the South Pole. In 2012, the next polar reversal will take place on Earth. This can only be explained scientifically by the fact that the Earth will start rotating in the opposite direction.
In 1955, renowned theoretical physicist Albert Einstein suggested that a polar shift could occur, but believed there would have to be a massive black hole to change the rotation. Almost five years ago, scientists discovered an enormous black hole at the center of the Milky Way, which our planet will align with on Dec. 21, 2012.
Scientists also suggest that a polar shift could cause the entire mantel of the Earth to shift in days or possible even hours, changing the position of the North and South Poles and causing worldwide disasters like earthquakes and tsunamis. Recently, Princeton University revealed in a study that the poles have shifted before. At one point in time, Alaska used to be located at the equator.
Although polar shifts don’t seem as scary as some of the following prophecies, it’s the most scientific answer we have on what could possibly happen on Dec. 21, 2012.
The Book of Revelation
The Book of Revelation was written around the year 96 at the end of the first century by John the Apostle while he was in exile on the Greek island of Patmos. As the story goes, he was in a cave prison and in a dream he began to see a vision that told him what to do, which became the revelation of the future of the world.
John the Apostle wrote a chilling and terrifying account of the prelude to the end of days in the Book of Revelation. Some believe John the Apostle was speaking about his time. Judaism itself went through cataclysmic changes, like when the Temple was destroyed, when the Christian movement was born and Jesus was executed. Others proclaim the book was a futuristic view of how the world will end. Still others point to the Book being filled with bizarre images with objective translations of things happening today — flying creatures with streaming hair making the noise of 1,000 horses could be considered the Black Hawk Helicopters fighting battles in the air; self-propelled chariots belching flames could be seen as the tanks fighting battles on the ground; and a mention of global warfare in the Middle East.
No matter how you interpret the Book, it’s about God’s wraith being poured out on the world. The Book is easy prey for skeptics and conspiracy theorists because it offers such an arsenal of apocalyptic images and predictions that could easily happen at any time. Could this be a prelude to what will happen in 2012? Time will tell.
But it does seem coincidental that, according to a PBS Frontline documentary on the apocalypse, in the New International Version of the Book of Revelation, chapter 20:12 reads: “And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books.”
The I Ching
The ancient Chinese text is called the “Book of Changes” and was often used as a fortune telling tool. After asking a question, a coin-type item is rolled and depending on which side it lands on, you draw a line, either Yang (an unbroken or solid line) or Yin (a broken or an open line), known as trigrams. After the trigrams are written down, a book filled with possible outcomes and answers is consulted and the questionnaire receives his or her answer.
Although it was mostly used to predict futures or fortunes, Terence McKenna, a philosopher/writer who was known for his unusual and anarchist ways, discovered a pattern in the I Ching and came up with a theory called “Timewave Zero.” The theory of Timewave Zero was revealed to him in the wake of an unusual psychedelic experiment conducted deep in the Amazon jungle in Colombia in 1971. This led to McKenna being instructed in certain transformations of numbers, derived from the King Wen Sequence of I Ching hexagrams, relating to the occurrence of temporal phenomena.
According to www.december212012.com, McKenna took the I Ching, performed a mathematical fractal operation with it, and produced a computer program that supposedly produces a “Timewave” that maps out something called “novelty” across the scale of time, from the Big Bang to the Eschaton, the ending of time. And surprise, surprise, the mapping of time, which flows throughout history, mysteriously ends on an exact date — Dec. 21, 2012.
McKenna explains how he derived the Timewave from the I Ching in an article called “Derivation of the Timewave from the King Wen Sequence of Hexagrams.”
“Using techniques that I developed for the problem I was able to mathematically collapse the hexagram construct into a self-similar fractal curve that can be used to map the unfolding of temporal variables and their resonances on all levels of duration.”
Basically it created a graph that coincided with a lot of important dates thoughout time. Using his computer program based on the structure of the I Ching, McKenna could generate what he called the Novelty Theory.
“Novelty Theory suggests that on Dec. 21 of 2012 A.D., at the coincidence of the moment of the solstice and the heliacal rising of the galactic center, levels of planetary novelty will exponentially increase.”
Oracles
The definition of an Oracle is simple — “a prophet: an authoritative person who divines the future.” But in the ancient past, oracles were considered as important as kings because of their future-telling abilities. Although numerous oracles existed throughout time, one in particular has ties to Dec. 21, 2012 — The Sybil.
According to www.disasterrx.com, The Sybil was a Roman oracle around 6 Century B.C. who consulted heads of state, leaders and generals. The Sybil wrote her messages on oak leaves that were later transferred to scrolls and housed in the Temple of Jupiter.
The Roman oracle came to fame with many early Christians because of her prediction of a child who would be born to welcome the Golden Age in 20 B.C. Many took this to be a foretelling of Jesus’ birth, which earned her a place in the Sistine Chapel. She also predicted the rise of Emperor Constantine by name and the invasion of Italy by Hannibal 700 years before it happened.
The Sybil also believed that the world would last for nine generations of 800 years each, and that the 10th generation would be destroyed by war and natural disaster.
In her fourth volume of predictions, the Sybil states, “The earth shall be shaken by a great earthquake that throws many cities into the sea. There shall be war. Fires shall come flashing forth from the heavens and many cities burn.” Unfortunately, the 10th generation is said to have began in 2000 A.D.
The Hopi Indian Tribe
The Hopi Indians have a prophetic tradition dating back thousands of years according to www.mayan-prophecy-2012.com. One of their crucial prophecies was carved on a rock cliff in the Black Mesa of Arizona, some 2,000 years ago. This petroglyph (as described by Thomas Banyacya, Hopi Elder) depicts the Great Spirit pointing to two divergent historical paths across the era of our world (the fourth world).
“At the time of emergence, we met the spirit who owns this world. He met us, and we asked him to be our leader. He refused and gave us instructions (this is symbolized by his figure holding the line). The circle at the bottom of the drawing symbolizes the physical world and creation. They met again and the Hopis believed he gave a path of life to follow. The straight line that goes across shows this. To the white brother, he gave different instructions. The white brother went up, and the Hopis went another direction.
“Now at this second meeting, he told us that within the life of this current world, there would be three phases of life where the whole world would be shaken up. Three nations would rise up and shake the world. This we interpret to mean World Wars. Now up at the left side we see a symbol. This is what is painted on the Hopi ceremonial rattles that are given to children. The rattle symbolizes the world. The paintings on the rattle show the symbols of the countries that would shake the world three times. I think that the swastika in the middle symbolizes the German people, who had that for a symbol. They brought the United States into the First and Second World Wars. The sun symbol signifies the Japanese people who brought the United States into the Second World War. Pasivaya, an old religious leader from Shipaulovi, told me that the third nation to rise up would have its national symbols in red. The people would wear red caps or red robes. The world has been shaken up twice already. There is one more war left.”
The Hopis believed the world has been created and destroyed four times. They had several keys to let future generations know that we are on the brink of transitioning from the end of the fourth world into the beginning of the fifth world.
According to “Decoding the Past — Doomsday 2012: End of Days,” their keys included the seas beginning to rise, great quakes shaking the Earth and the sun turning hotter. The Hopis also predicted technology would be used near the end. Saying that near the end of days, a device called the Spider Web will crisscross the world. Some theorists liken this spider web to the World Wide Web.
The Web Bot Project
The Web Bot Project refers to an Internet bot software program that is said to be able to predict future events by tracking keywords entered on the Internet. It was orginally created in 1997 to predict stock market trends. But, soon after, it was predicting more than just stock trends.
The Web Bot is claimed to have predicted a number of devastating events including Hurricane Katrina and the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake. The Web Bot also reportedly predicted the power outage in the Northeastern U.S. in 2003 and the 9/11 attacks.
Although some predictions have missed, The Web Bot stated a catastrophe will begin Oct. 25, 2009. Many believe this involves President Obama declaring H1N1 a natinal emergency. Much like others mentioned, The Web Bot also predicted the end in 2012. The Web Bot has stated that a cataclysm will devastate the planet in the year 2012, possibly reversing Earth’s magnetic poles, also known as polar shift.
Is the end near?
Whether you believe in these predictions or not, it’s hard to deny that the majority of them point to 2012, specifically Dec. 21.
NASA officials predict that during 2012, as the sun reaches the end of the current 11-year sunspot cycle, it will reverse its own magnetic poles, which may further amplify the effects of magnetic field on Earth as harmful charged particles blast away from the sun (also known as solar storming). So even though numerous prophecies preach the end of time, it could be simply the threat of a polar shift.
We’re not sure what is going to happen, but at least one man isn’t worried.
“I’m already making plans for 2013,” Gannon laughed. “People read into things too significantly. I don’t think the world will end with a catastrophic event, at least not predicted by the Mayan calendar. But with humans, there is always a risk.” CV
Caption: mayancalendar: The Mayan calendar ends on Dec. 21, 2012. Special to Cityview
Caption: gannon: Grand View University history professor, Dr. Kevin Gannon, is already making plans for 2013. Photo by Jared Curtis
Caption: mckenna and timewave: Terence McKenna discovered a mathmatical chart in the I Ching called “Timewave Zero.” Special to Cityview
Caption: 2012 movie: A scene of devastation in the new film, “2012.” Could it foretell the future? Special to Cityvew
