I WONDER WHY THE WORLD DIDN’T END TODAY

The end of the world looks like the nothing we thought it would. because IT’S STILL HERE!

2012 MAYAN PROPHECY ENDTIMES. DAY 7 AND COUNTING…

McKanna’s Timewave Graph. An amazing testament to one man’s desire to create the evidence that makes him right.

What we have with this specious New Age quackery called the “Mayan Prophecy Endtimes 2012,”is a case of wishful thinking, bad science, junk philosophy and drugs. Jose Arguelles (dubbed, an “academic shaman,” whatever that meant) published “The Mayan Factor” back in 1987.  Arguelles was not an expert in Mayan culture. He was however, prepared to say what he believed and insisted his beliefs were true. Many New Age authors follow this practice. Eckhart Tolle being one of the most glaring example. So when Arguelles claimed that it was proper to treat Mayan legend as “history,”it was very easy for him to claim the Mayans were from another planet, and it was just as easy to get many people believe it. Arguelles also claimed that the Mayans would return on December 21, 2012 apparently to bring about the cosmic “shift” in consciousness.

Fortunately for Arguelles, he died in 2011 before his prophecy could be debunked, pulled apart and discredited on December 21, 2012. He would have endured the same “perp walk” that Rapture prophet Harold Camping had to endure.

The other giant of the propagation of  the Mayan Prophecy was also not an expert on Mayan culture. Terrence McKenna devised his 2012 theories through the use of hallucinogenics (mushrooms) and throwing the I-Ching. That’s right.  According to Nowick Gray,

“The theory of Timewave Zero was revealed to Terence by an alien intelligence following a bizarre, quasi-psychedelic experiment conducted in the Amazon jungle in Colombia in 1971.”[1]

McKenna’s notion (which he predictably promulgated as fact) was that somehow, December 21, 2012 was an attractor or an end-point of time – a singularity that time rushed towards. McKenna used and manipulated all sorts of mathematical sequence to prove it, yet ultimately honed in on the Mayan 2012 thing.

So there you have it. The Mayan 2012 phenomenon was begun decades ago by dilettante hippies who probably took too many drugs. The amazing thing is that on the scantiest of evidence, people around the world are gripped in fear and irrationality, contemplating suicide, building escape boats or burning through their life savings.  The Mayan Prophecy and soon to be BUST will hopefully make believers a little more suspicious of New Age religion and the high-minded myths promulgated as truths.

Note

{1] Nowick Gray, Timewave Zero, http://alternativeculture.com/spirit/timewave.htm

05/11/2012 – Flash: Oldest Known Mayan Calendar Found

End Times Prophecy, or did they just run out of space?

And guess what? The astronomical tables found in a remote Guatemala dig  at the largest-known Classic Mayan site, Xultún, are 500 years older than those preserved in the Maya codices, and they do not reference any End Times scenarios.

According to the CNN feed,

Contrary to popular myth, Mayan experts have known for a long time that this calendar is not a countdown to the end of the world on December 2012, the study researchers said in a press conference to reporters.

The Mayan used a series of cycles to track time in which there were 13 baktuns each representing a 400-year chunk.

Researchers of the study say rumors surrounding a projected apocalypse on Dec. 21, 2012, is a misconception. It is just the benchmark when a cycle of 13 baktuns will be complete and a new cycle begins.

“There was a lot more to the Mayan calendar than just 13 baktuns,” said archaeologist David Stuart of the University of Texas, who worked to decipher the hieroglyphics found on the walls of a house, dating back to the early part of the 9th century (813 A.D.-814 A.D.).

“The Mayan calendar is going to keep going for billions, trillions, octillions of years into the future,” added Stuart.

Can it be true? We shall still wait with bated breath on the December 21, 2012 New Age End Times Mayan Prophecy, but trust me on this. Barbara Hand Clow and her cottage industry of Mayanist Prophets will have to look for another story to exploit their gullible reading audience.