The End of Time: The Maya Mystery of 2012

Preface

xv How will it end—cosmic collision, global climate change, nuclear holocaust? When will it end—in billions or millions of years, in a handful of generations—or in only a few years? What makes us think there ever will be an end to the world as we know it? Maybe the world is eternal? Big questions that are right up there with the search for the meaning of life. Who knows? How can anyone know? Did our ancestors know? We certainly seem primed to know. I did a little survey of end-of-the-world predictions since the 9/11 destruction of the World Trade Center. There were a dozen listed for 2006 alone, including two that portended the second coming of Christ (June 6, December 17), one the Islamic Armageddon (August 22), two a nuclear war (September 8–9, September 12), one a collision with a comet (May 25), and one a great earthquake (January 25). Five predictions were non-specific as to both cause and date. P r e f A C e PrefACe xvi Other recent prophecies predict positive events—global awakening, hyperspatial breakthrough, sudden evolution of Homo sapiens into non-corporeal beings, and even the return of alien caretakers to assist us—or events more negative in nature, asteroid collision, nuclear war, reversal of the earth’s magnetic field, world blackouts because of the oil crisis, return of the apostle Peter and the destruction of Rome, and, or course, the reappearance of alien caretakers bent on enslaving us. The End of Time: The Maya Mystery of 2012 probes these fascinating questions, especially the theory that advanced knowledge about the ultimate outcome of humanity and planet earth is secretly encoded in ancient documents that have been passed down through the ages—documents interpretable only by those capable of acquiring higher knowledge. Thestudyof“lastthings”hasanameofitsown.It’scalledeschatology (from the Greek word eschatos, meaning furthest in time). Eschatology divides sharply into two doctrines based on how time is understood. The mythic doctrine, widespread in many cultures, sees humanity immersed in a struggle between the forces of order and chaos. People derive meaning from the rituals they conduct to see the world through its impending destruction and the creation of a new world. In most versions, mythic time is cyclic. Destruction and renewal happen over and over again, endlessly. Historical eschatology , derived from Judeo-Christianity, is based on a linear understanding of time. The world will suffer singular destruction because of humanity’s violation of the laws of God, but existence in the eternal world to follow is possible provided we seek salvation and redemption before time’s end. The contemporary Christian version of what awaits us is heavily laden with apocalyptic overtones—the idea that God will intervene violently and suddenly at a preordained moment in time. The mythic idea that world ages, marked by beginnings and endings of great calendrical cycles, are preordained in the stars belongs to both doctrines and it is widespread and deeply rooted in Western history. This idea has enjoyed a resurgence in American PrefACe xvii pop culture, especially since the revolutionary 1960s. It approaches a frenetic crescendo in recent prophecies about the impending end of the world in 2012, thought by many to emanate from ancient Maya wisdom. Some prophets say the end of the Maya Long Count cycle (one of many ways the ancient Maya reckoned time) on the winter solstice of that year will be attended either by an apocalyptic doomsday or by a sublime ascent to a higher consciousness. Whether doom or bliss awaits us all depends on which visionary you listen to. Why the Maya? How does such a remote culture manage to acquire such a powerful hold on so many of us? Who were these people? We know they are alive today, but what do we know about their ancient calendar, their astronomy, their cosmology, and especially their ideas about the creation and destruction of the world? Was the great cycle of the precession of the equinoxes—the wobbling of the earth on its axis—part of the Maya plan, as some suggest ? These are a few of the questions we will probe in The End of Time: The Maya Mystery of 2012. I think they are linked to even more basic questions, Why do we reach into the deep past of another culture to acquire truths about ourselves? What compels contemporary Anglo-American societies...