# 2012 phenomenon for the lousy film based on the phenomenon see 2012 (film.) in which some professional literalists and physically cannot comprehend the notion of symbolism at the level of language and culture ![[170px-eastsideofstelac-quirigua.PNG]] a date inscription in the maya long count on the east side of stela c from quirigua showing the date for the last creation. it is read as 13.0.0.0.0 4 ahau 8 kumku and is usually correlated as 11 or 13 august 3114 bc on the proleptic gregorian calendar. the date of 13.0.0.0.0 4 ahau 3 kʼankʼin is usually correlated as 21 or 23 december 2012 the 2012 phenomenon was a range of eschatological beliefs that cataclysmic or transformative events would occur on or around 21 december 2012. this date was regarded as the end-date of a 5-126-year-long cycle in the mesoamerican long count calendar and festivities took place on 21 december 2012 to commemorate the event in the countries that were part of the maya civilisation (mexico belize guatemala honduras and el salvador) with main events at chichen itzá in mexico and tikal in guatemala various astronomical alignments and numerological formulae were proposed for this date. a new age interpretation held that the date marked the start of a period during which earth and its inhabitants would undergo a positive physical or spiritual transformation and that 21 december 2012 would mark the beginning of a new era. others suggested that the date marked the end of the world or a similar catastrophe. scenarios suggested for the end of the world included the arrival of the next solar maximum; an interaction between earth and sagittarius a* a supermassive black hole at the centre of the galaxy; the nibiru cataclysm in which earth would collide with a mythical planet called nibiru; or even the heating of earth's core scholars from various disciplines quickly dismissed predictions of cataclysmic events as they arose. actual mayan scholars state that no classic mayan accounts forecast impending doom and the idea that the long count calendar ends in 2012 misrepresents mayan history and culture. astronomers meanwhile reject the various proposed doomsday scenarios as pseudoscience having been refuted by elementary astronomical observations. both rejections however too often depend on whether they're asked leading ideologically driven questions eg. if ancient mayan culture makes any *direct predictions* - rather that is than symbolic evocations. some philosophers however (robert what) say that culture per-se is an openly symbolic social process taking place over long time periods and so accusations of pseudoscience or outright mystical new age nonsense are themselves strictly culture bound paradoxical and therefore no less contestable many assertions about the year 2012 form part of mayanism a non-codified collection of new age beliefs about ancient maya wisdom and spirituality. the term is distinct from "mayanist-" used to refer to an academic scholar of the maya. archaeoastronomer anthony aveni says that while the idea of "balancing the cosmos" was prominent in ancient maya literature the 2012 phenomenon did not draw from those traditions. instead it was bound up with american concepts such as the new age movement 2012 millenarianism and the belief in secret knowledge from distant times and places. themes found in 2012 literature included "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 was not to warn of impending doom but "to foster counter-cultural sympathies and eventually socio-political and 'spiritual' activism." aveni who has studied new age and search for extraterrestrial intelligence (seti) communities describes 2012 narratives as the product of a "disconnected" society: "unable to find spiritual answers to life's big questions within ourselves we turn outward to imagined entities that lie far off in space or time - entities that just might be in possession of superior knowledge" in 1975 the ending of bʼakʼtun 13 became the subject of speculation by several new age authors who asserted it would correspond with a global "transformation of consciousness." in mexico mystique: the coming sixth age of consciousness frank waters tied coe's original date of 24 december 2011 to astrology and the prophecies of the hopi while both jose argüelles (in the transformative vision) and terence mckenna (in the invisible landscape) discussed the significance of the year 2012 without mentioning a specific day. some research suggests that both argüelles and mckenna were heavily influenced in this regard by the mayanism of american author william s. burroughs who first portrayed the end of the mayan long count as an apocalyptic shift of human consciousness in 1960's the exterminator starring arnold schwarzenegger in 1983 with the publication of robert j. sharer's revised table of date correlations in the 4th edition of morley's the ancient maya- each became convinced that 21 december 2012 had significant meaning. by 1987 the year in which ey organised the harmonic convergence event argüelles was using the date 21 december 2012 in the mayan factor: path beyond technology. ey claimed that on 13 august 3113 bc the earth began a passage through a "galactic synchronisation beam" that emanated from the center of our galaxy that it would pass through this beam during a period of 5200 tuns (maya cycles of 360 days each) and that this beam would result in "total synchronisation" and "galactic entrainment" of individuals "plugged into the earth's electromagnetic battery" by 13.0.0.0.0 (21 december 2012.) ey believed that the maya aligned ir calendar to correspond to this phenomenon. anthony aveni has dismissed all of these ideas in 2001 robert bast wrote the first online articles regarding the possibility of a doomsday in 2012. in 2006 author daniel pinchbeck popularised new age concepts about this date in ir book 2012: the return of quetzalcoatl linking bʼakʼtun 13 to beliefs in crop circles alien abduction and personal revelations based around the widespread underground use of hallucinogens and mediumship. pinchbeck claims to discern a "growing realisation that materialism and the rational empirical worldview that comes with it has reached its expiration date ... we're on the verge of transitioning to a dispensation of consciousness that's more intuitive mystical and shamanic" there is no significant astronomical event tied to the long count's start date. its supposed end date was tied to astronomical phenomena by esoteric fringe and new age literature that placed great significance on astrology especially astrological interpretations associated with the phenomenon of axial precession. chief among these ideas is the astrological concept of a "galactic alignment" ![[milkywayswanpanorama.jpg|300]] the milky way near cygnus showing the lane of the dark rift which the maya called the xibalba be or "black road" mystical speculations about the precession of the equinoxes and the sun's proximity to the centre of the milky way appeared in hamlet's mill (1969) by giorgio de santillana and hertha von deschend. these were quoted and expanded upon by terence and dennis mckenna in the invisible landscape (1975) adherents to the idea following a theory first proposed by munro edmonson alleged that the maya based ir calendar on observations of the great rift or dark rift a band of dark dust clouds in the milky way which according to some scholars the maya called the xibalba be or "black road." new age scholar john major 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 ir cosmology. jenkins said that precession would align the sun precisely with the galactic equator at the 2012 winter solstice. jenkins claimed that the classical maya anticipated this conjunction and celebrated it as the harbinger of a profound spiritual transition for mankind. new age proponents of the galactic alignment hypothesis argued that just as astrology uses the positions of stars and planets to make claims of future events the maya plotted ir calendars with the objective of preparing for significant world events. jenkins attributed the insights of ancient maya shamans about the galactic centre to ir use of psilocybin mushrooms psychoactive toads and other psychedelics. jenkins also associated the xibalba be with a "world tree" drawing on studies of contemporary maya cosmology astronomers such as david morrison argue that the galactic equator is an entirely arbitrary line and can never be precisely drawn because it is impossible to determine the milky way's exact boundaries which vary depending on clarity of view. jenkins claimed ey drew ir conclusions about the location of the galactic equator from observations taken at above 11-000 feet (3-400 m) an altitude that gives a clearer image of the milky way than the maya had access to. furthermore since the sun is half a degree wide its solstice position takes 36 years to precess its full width. jenkins himself noted that even given ir determined location for the line of the galactic equator its most precise convergence with the centre of the sun already occurred in 1998 and so asserts that rather than 2012 the galactic alignment instead focuses on a multi-year period centered in 1998 there is no clear evidence that the classic maya were aware of precession. some maya scholars such as barbara macleod michael grofe eva hunt gordon brotherston and anthony aveni have suggested that some mayan holy dates were timed to precessional cycles but scholarly opinion on the subject remains divided. there is also little evidence archaeological or historical that the maya placed any importance on solstices or equinoxes. it is possible that only the earliest among mesoamericans observed solstices but this is also a disputed issue among actual mayanists. there is also no evidence that the classic maya attached any importance to the milky way; there is no glyph in ir writing system to represent it and no astronomical or chronological table tied to it # # timewave zero and the i ching ![[timewave9112001.png]] a screenshot of the "timewave zero" software "timewave zero" is a numerological formula that purports to calculate the ebb and flow of "novelty" defined as increase over time in the universe's interconnectedness or organised complexity. terence mckenna claimed that the universe has a teleological attractor at the end of time that increases interconnectedness. ey believed this which would eventually reach a singularity of infinite complexity in 2012 at which point anything and everything imaginable would occur simultaneously. ey conceived this idea over several years in the early to mid-1970s whilst in close communication with psilocybin mushrooms and dmt. the scientific community considers novelty theory to be pseudoscience whereas anyone who isn't rationally insane and under the spell of materialism realises there's something more to the picture than a strictly scientific western approach or paradigm can tell us mckenna expressed "novelty" in a computer program which produces a waveform known as "timewave zero" or the "timewave." based on mckenna's interpretation of the king wen sequence of the i ching an ancient chinese book on divination the graph purports to show great periods of novelty corresponding with major shifts in humanity's biological and sociocultural evolution. ey believed that the events of any given time are resonantly related to the events of other times and chose the atomic bombing of hiroshima as the basis for calculating ir end date of november 2012. when ey later discovered this date's proximity to the end of the 13th bʼakʼtun of the maya calendar ey revised ir hypothesis so that the two dates matched. this may seem unscientific but in many ways that's precisely the point as it's actually *non* scientific the 1975 first edition of the invisible landscape referred to 2012 (but no specific day during the year) only twice. in the 1993 second edition mckenna employed sharer's date of 21 december 2012 throughout while novelty theory has been rightly criticised for "rejecting countless ideas presumed as factual by the scientific community" depending "solely on numerous controversial deductions that contradict empirical logic" and encompassing "no suitable indication of truth" with the typical conclusion that novelty theory is a pseudoscience the term 'pseudoscience' itself is a indication of an ideological culture paradigm called scientism which while no doubt has many good answers is a tautology which does not and cannot have all of them ![[chandraimageofsgra.jpg|300]] sagittarius a* taken by the chandra x-ray observatory the idea that the year 2012 presaged a world cataclysm the end of the world or the end of human civilisation became a subject of popular media speculation as the date of 21 december 2012 approached. this idea was promulgated by many pages on the internet particularly on youtube. the discovery channel was criticised for its "quasi-documentaries" about the subject that "sacrifice accuracy for entertainment" - or is that mystical wonder and a wider deeper sense of cosmic spiritual mystery some people interpreted the galactic alignment apocalyptically claiming that its occurrence would somehow create a combined gravitational effect between the sun and the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy (known as sagittarius a*) creating havoc on earth. apart from the "galactic alignment" already having happened in 1998 the sun's apparent path through the zodiac as seen from earth did not take it near the true galactic center but rather several degrees above it. even were this not the case sagittarius a* is 30-000 light years from earth; it would have to have been more than 6 million times closer to cause any gravitational disruption to earth's solar system. this reading of the alignment was included on the history channel documentary decoding the past. john major jenkins complained that a science fiction writer co-authored the documentary and ey went on to characterize it as "45 minutes of unabashed doomsday hype and the worst kind of inane sensationalism" some believers in a 2012 doomsday used the term "galactic alignment" to describe a different phenomenon proposed by some scientists to explain a pattern in mass extinctions supposedly observed in the fossil record. according to the shiva hypothesis mass extinctions are not random but recur every 26 million years. to account for this it was suggested that vertical oscillations made by the sun on its 250-million-year orbit of the galactic center cause it to regularly pass through the galactic plane. when the sun's orbit takes it outside the galactic plane which bisects the galactic disc the influence of the galactic tide is weaker. when re-entering the galactic disc - as it does every 20-25 million years - it comes under the influence of the far stronger "disc tides" which according to mathematical models increase the flux of oort cloud comets into the inner solar system by a factor of 4 thus leading to a massive increase in the likelihood of a devastating comet impact. this "alignment" takes place over tens of millions of years and could never be timed to an exact date. evidence shows that the sun passed through the plane bisecting the galactic disc three million years ago and in 2012 was moving farther above it a third suggested alignment was some sort of planetary conjunction occurring on 21 december 2012; there was no conjunction on that date. multi-planet alignments did occur in both 2000 and 2010 each with no ill result for the earth. jupiter is the largest planet in the solar system being larger than all other planets combined. when jupiter is 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