The 2012 phenomenon is a range of beliefs and proposals positing 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. Arguments supporting this dating are drawn from a mixture of amateur archaeoastronomy, alternative interpretations of mythology, numerological constructions, and alleged prophecies from extraterrestrial beings.
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 new era.
Conversely, some believe that the 2012 date marks the beginning of an
apocalypse. Both ideas have been disseminated in numerous books and TV documentaries, and have spread around the world 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.
Maya references to 2012
The present-day Maya, as a whole, do not attach much significance to 2012. Although the calendar round is still used by some Maya tribes in the Guatemalan highlands, the Long Count was strictly employed by the classic Maya, and was only recently rediscovered by archaeologists.
Mayan elder Apolinario Chile Pixtun and Mexican archaeologist Guillermo Bernal both note that "apocalypse" is a Western concept that has little or nothing to do with Mayan beliefs. Bernal believes that such ideas have been foisted on the Maya by Westerners because their own myths are "exhausted".
Mayan archaeologist Jose Huchm complains that, "If I went to some Mayan-speaking communities and asked people what is going to happen in 2012, they wouldn't have any idea. That the world is going to end? They wouldn't believe you. We have real concerns these days, like rain."
Galactic alignment
Frank Waters' book inspired further speculation by
John Major Jenkins in the mid-1980s, who asserted that the ancient Maya had planned an intentional correspondence of a December 21 date with the winter
solstice in 2012. This date was in line with an idea he terms the
galactic alignment. (It is important to note that Coe and other professional
Mayanists continue to assert that the correct correlation is December 23 and that the coincidence with a solstice is coincidental.) Jenkins attributes the insights of ancient Maya
shamans about the
galactic center to their use of
psilocybin mushrooms,
psychoactive toads, and other
psychedelics.
[41].
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.
Jenkins suggests that the
Maya based their calendar on observations of the
Great Rift, a band of dark dust clouds in the
Milky Way, which the Maya called the
Xibalba be or "Black Road."
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.
According to the hypothesis, the Sun precisely aligns with this intersection point at the winter solstice of 2012.
Jenkins claimed that the classical Mayans anticipated this conjunction and celebrated it as the harbinger of a profound spiritual transition for mankind.
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.
The Movie
Disaster movie maven Roland Emmerich (
Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow) crafts this apocalyptic sci-fi thriller following an academic researcher who opens a portal into a parallel universe, making contact with his double in an effort to prevent the catastrophic prophecies of the ancient Mayan calendar from coming to pass. According to the Mayan calendar, the world will come to an end on December 21, 2012. When a global cataclysm thrusts the world into chaos, divorced writer and father
Jackson Curtis (
John Cusack) uses his knowledge of the ancient prophecies to ensure that the human race is not completely wiped out.
Chiwetel Ejiofor,
Danny Glover,
Amanda Peet, Thandie Newton, and
Oliver Platt round out the cast of this end-of-the-world thriller co-scripted by the director and his 10,000 B.C. writer/composer,
Harald Kloser. ~
Jason Buchanan,find more
source; wikipedia, fadango, sony 2012 Movie
