On the 2012 Phenomenon or: Relax. The World Is NOT Going To End In A Fiery Ball Of Doom

As 2012 winds to a close, and we bid farewell to this year with it's
ups and downs, let us take a few minutes to focus on a pop-culture
phenomenon which has become the subject of discussion and debate over
the past several years, and which has certainly become a subject of
great interest, this year in particular: The 2012 phenomenon.
The 2012 phenomenon is both an erroneous New-Age idea as well as an
apocalyptic concept, and now that the month of December is upon us, we
would do well to examine this false belief in greater detail, so that
we may have a greater understanding of what is sure to be a theme that
we will encounter in the mass media with greater frequency as we get
closer to December 21 st of this year.
Therefore, let us begin with the actual facts, starting with the
vanished civilization of the Mayans.
The pre-Columbian Mayans were a fascinating people well-known by
modern archeologists for their fully-developed writing system, their
art, architecture and their highly developed mathematical and
astronomical observations. Though the Mayan civilization itself is no
more, the Mayan people still exist to this day and can be found in
Guatemala, southern Mexico and theYucatan Peninsula, Belize, El
Salvador, and western Honduras; indeed, there are some seven million
people of Mayan descent found throughout the Central American region.
Their civilization reached its zenith between the years 250 to 900
A.D. andgradually declined over the following centuries.
Aside from the impressive ruins of greatMayan cities such as Palenque
and Chichen Itza, the Mayans also bequeathed to those civilizations
who followed them a legacy which has survived well into the 21 st
Century; theMesoamerican Long Count Calendar.
The Mayans themselves did not invent the Long Count Calendar; it is
believed by most archeologists that it was actually invented by the
Olmecs, an earlier vanished civilization. However, the Mayans adapted
this calendar to suit their own particular mythological beliefs, andit
is from the Mayan adaptation that the 2012phenomenon begins. Thus, it
behooves us to examine what the Mesoamerican Long Count Calendar is,
and how it functions.
The Mesoamerican Long Count Calendar is a linear calendar operating on
a base 20 function. Thus, 20 days form a uinal ; 18 uinals form a tun
composed of 360 days (close to one solar year); 20 tuns make a k'atun
, and 20 k'atuns form a b'ak'tun or a period of 144,000 days or about
394 solar years.Therefore, a Mayan calendar date of 6.5.2.10.12
represents 6 b'ak'tuns , 5 k'atuns , 2 tuns , 10 uinals and 12 days.
So what does this have to do with December 21 st , 2012 in the Western
calendar and some apocalyptic or transformative event? In short, very
little. The Mayan calendar goes forward far beyond the completion of
the 13 th b'ak'tun , the cycle whichcomes to its end this year, as can
be seen in the west panel of the Temple of Inscriptions inthe ruins of
Palenque; it calculates the date commemorating the coronation of the
Maya ruler K'ininch Janaab' Pakal (which occurred on July 27 th , 615
A.D) all the way forward to October 21 st , 4772 A.D, which is over
four thousand years forward from the time of that long-deceased king.
Indeed, another truly fascinating, and genuinely mind-boggling example
can be found on Stele 1, in the ruins of the city ofCoba (present-day
Mexico) which projects forward to a calendar date inscribed as
13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.0.0.0.0,
or twenty units above the b'ak'tun placing it at 41 octillion years in
the future, which would be three quintillion times the known age of
the universe according to astrophysicists. This represents a
prodigious feat of mathematical computation, to put it mildly, and all
the more so for a society which lacked metal tools, pulleys or for
that matter, the wheel.
Then where does this belief in some apocalyptic event arise?
The Mayans left us with not only a written language, but a literary
tradition as well. In Mayan literature and myth, there is a strong
tradition of "world ages"; much of what we know about this stems from
the Popol Vuh , a compilation of the creation myths of K'iche' Maya.
In their creation accounts, the imaginary Mayan gods created three
previous worlds, with our world being the fourth. The third world
ended after thirteen b'ak'tun , or roughly 5,125 years. The Mayans
Long Count "Day Zero" corresponds to August 11 th , 3114 B.C.; this
means the fourth world (our world) will reach the end of its
thirteenth b'ak'tun on Mayan date 13.0.0.0.0 orDecember 21 st 2012 in
the Western Calendar.
And it is at this point that a good deal of speculation comes into
play. How would the Mayans have considered the end of the cycle? As
the end of time itself? Or perhaps as a reason to celebrate? Sadly,
the available Mayan literature is largely silenton the matter, as it
was more concerned with recording actual historic or past mythical
events than it was with making prophecies. Students of Mayan culture
and history, anthropologists, and other experts have almost no
consensus as to what, if any, significance this turning of the 13 th
b'ak'tun would have had for Mayan civilization, as that civilization
is no more. Indeed, the modern Mayans have openly and publicly
ridiculed the notion thatthe world is coming to end on December 21 st
2012, considering such ideas to be a grotesque misinterpretation of
their culture, mythology and folklore. And in fact, there is only one
reference in all of classical Mayan literatureto the 13 th b'ak'tun ,
which is to be found at the Tortuguero site in the southern part of
the Mexican state of Tabascoon a monument known as Monument 6; sadly,
the inscription itself has been partially defaced. Its translation is
as follows:
It will be completed in the 13 th b'ak'tun
It is 4 Ajaw 3 K'an'kin
and it will happen a [possibly the word "seeing"]
It is the display of B'olon-Yokte' [an imaginary Mayan deity]
In a great investiture.
There is debate among scholars as to what exactly this means.
Somescholars have concluded that a person would be dressed up as this
imaginary Mayan deity B'olon-Yokte' and paraded around; other scholars
dispute this interpretation. Thus, we have no way of knowingwith any
certainty what the closing of the 13 th b'ak'tun meant to the Mayans.
So, if the Mayans themselves left no distinct record of the
significance of this date, or even its meaning within the context of
Mayan civilization, then how did this mistaken belief in some
cataclysmic event occurring on December 21 st 2012 come into being?
For that, we mustlook not to the Mayans, nor other Mesoamerican
civilizations, but rather alittle closer to home.
European identification with the Mayans and theend of the world goes
back all the way to the time of Christopher Columbus. During his
voyage of 1502, he was at work writing a book called the Libro de las
profecias when he first heard about the Mayans.Columbus believed that
his discoveries of distantlands and peoples were prophesied, and that
they were somehow signs of the Christian apocalypse. Indeed, during
the time of the Spanish Conquest of the New World, eschatological
fears were running riot throughout Europe, in particular a false
astrological prediction for a second Great Flood which was forecast to
occur in 1524. Of course, this didn't happen, nor did any other such
world-shattering catastrophe. It goes without saying that in every age
there have been predictions of doom, disaster, mass destruction and
whatnot, and all of themthus far have maintained an enviably
consistent record of being spectacularly wrong. Then in the
early1900s, German scholar Ernst Förstemann represented the end of the
world coming about through a global delugebased on his interpretation
of the lastpage of the Dresden Codex, a Mayan document found in the
ruins of Chichen Itza. It isHerr Förstemann and theDresden Codex which
arguably forms the basis of the current obsession with the year 2012.
In fairness to both Christopher Columbus and Ernst Förstemann,
neither of them mentioned the year 2012 or the 13 th b'ak'tun
whatsoever. Herr Förstemann also pointedout it was quite unclear as to
whether the Dresden Codex itself is referring to a future event, or
something thatmight have happened inthe distant past or an event in
Mayan mythology. However, Herr Förstemann's ideas were repeated (and
considerably embellished upon) by the archeologist Sylvanus Morley in
his book, The Ancient Maya , first published in 1946. These notions
floated about in a rather nebulous form until the early 1970s, which
saw the rise of the so-called "New Age" movement, that false and
perniciouspseudo-religious movement in the service of the dajjal. It
was the New Age movement, a crazy catch-all of false Eastern
religions, superstitions, and crank ideas which seized uponthe Mayan
concepts and transformed them out ofall recognition to the culture on
which these ideas were based.
By 1975, the idea of the 13 th b'ak'tun and its possible meaning was
being explored by several New Age authors, who were generally of the
opinion that a "global transformation of consciousness" would emerge
at the end of the13 th cycle. Of course, thiswas combined with the
"Age of Aquarius" notionthat had become so widespread throughout
American popular counterculture in the mid to late 1960s.
Interestingly, the "Age ofAquarius" has no basis inscience; it is
purely astrological in origin, not astronomical. There are many
interpretationsof what this "global transformation of consciousness"
will entail, from the occasionally sublime to the downright
preposterous such as theEarth passing through a "galactic
synchronization beam" which would result in "galactic entrainment" of
people "plugged into the Earth's electromagnetic battery". Others have
spoken of the Earth's alignment with the center of our galaxy, or a
planetary alignment; neither of these ideas are supported by
astronomy. Astrophysicists will tell you that it's virtually
impossible to calculate when the Earth will alignwith center of our
galaxy, and they will alsotell you there is no planetary alignment
scheduled for December 21 st , 2012.
Now certainly these ideas, though utterly false and unsupported by
science, are far less dire than the recent slewof doomsday scenarios
which have come to dominate the discussion as of late. In examining
this aspect of the 2012 phenomenon, we have to look at a curious
overlapping of disparateconcepts, namely:
1) New Age superstitions
2) Secret knowledge
3) American Evangelical Christian eschatology
As noted earlier, the end of the 13 th b'ak'tun in the Long Count
Calendar will arrive on December 21 st , 2012. However, as to what
significance the original Mayan civilization would have assigned to
this is purelya matter of speculation. For that which is unknown,
there is always something to fill the breach, and the falseNew Age
movement has certainly done that manytimes over. Rather than rely on
scholarly interpretations from anthropologists, archeologists,
linguists, and experts in the field, the New Age movement has created
their own interpretations and impressions of Mayan civilization, and
instead of being able to have a serious and intelligent discussion
about Mayan culture with a non-academic, what we get instead is people
whose heads have been filled with fatuous notions and pseudo-science;
instead of a discussion of how genuinely remarkable the Mayans were at
astronomic calculations, we are treated to discussions on how the
Mayans were allegedly able to calculate not onlythe exact center of
our galaxy, but that they alsoknew of the supermassive
singularitywhich (it is believed) liesat its epicenter, something
modern astrophysics has only quite recently come to hypothesize about.
Instead of giving due credit and a sense of respect to the Mayans for
erecting their pyramids, palaces and cities with little more than
stone and wood tools and raw manpower, we are told that these pyramids
and other impressive structures were erected not by the Mayans, but by
telekinetic little greenmen. In this fashion, theNew Age movement has
distorted not only Mayanculture, but the historic record and
achievements of Mayan civilization, and reducedthe remarkable people
of this ancient civilization to little more than colorful extras in a
B-grade science fiction film.
The New Age movement also relies quite heavily on the concept of
secret knowledge, which is essentially the idea of hidden or
previously unknown knowledge from distant times and places. No doubt
we have all heard of some charlatan who claims to have experienced
their "past lives" in such fanciful locales as Lemuria or even
perhapson distant planets in other galaxies, or seen on television a
spiritual snake-oil salesman who will disclose the secret ofeternal
happiness to you, which he gleaned by discussing the matter with some
extraterrestrial being while zipping around Alpha Centauri in a UFO,
for the mere sum of$2,500. Quite aside from the obvious fact that the
entire New Age movement is nothing but the dajjal's way of leading
mankind astray from our Almighty Lord, Allah (and the fact that italso
serves to enrich it's peddlers beyond the dreams of avarice), the idea
of secret knowledge holds a distinct appeal to those lost souls who
are deeply suspicious of mainstream Western thought, and ultimately
feel a good deal of antipathy toward the culture in which they live.
As an example, a certain British author and public speaker has
recently been selling outseminars in the United States where he
disseminates his "secret knowledge" that our planet is nothing but a
hollow sphere, that reptilian extraterrestrialsare manipulating world
events from their undersea bases, that the Moon is some manner of
spaceship, and that the Queen of England, the U.S. President and other
world leaders are, in fact, reptile/human hybrid monstrosities
determined to enslave us all. That any rational human being would
believe such lunacy (not to mention actually paying money to attend
such a seminar in order to hear what are essentially the ravings ofa
paranoid madman) serves as a clear warningsign that something has gone
terribly wrong in the sociocultural milieu. It is indicative of a
deeply underlying cultural paranoia.
The third ingredient in this heady, if toxic, brewis American
Evangelical Christian eschatology, and in particular the emergence of
dispensational premillennialism as a dominant End Times scenario among
certain sects of fundamentalist Christians in the United States and
its accompanying cultural impact.
Briefly, dispensational premillennialism is the doctrine that the
Prophet Jesus (pbuh) will return to take up Christians into heaven
inan event known as the Rapture (it should be noted here there is
nothing in the Gospel to support this point of view; those who believe
in it generally cite First Thessalonians, Chapter 4,verse 17. However,
mainstream Christians such as Orthodox Christians, the Roman Catholic
Church, and mainstream Protestant churches maintain this particular
verse is simplya general reference to the Day of Judgment), which
will be followed by a seven-year period of war, death, pestilence,
destruction, famine and general unpleasantness known as the
Tribulation, after which the Prophet Jesus (pbuh) will return with the
saints to reign for a thousand years.
Until the last quarter or so of the 20 th Century, dispensational
premillennialism was adhered to largely by Calvinists and assorted
Christian fundamentalist denominations. However, starting in the
1970s, this peculiar (and erroneous) doctrine burst onto the public
scene through the publication of The Late Great Planet Earth by Hal
Lindsey, though it had been propagated earlierthrough the Scofield
Reference Bible and Lewis Chafer's eight-volume tome Systematic
Theology . After the 1970publication of The Late Great Planet Earth ,
which was a bestseller (28 million copies), the doctrine entered
mainstream American religious discussion and is still with us to this
day;for example, the continuing popularity and cultural influence of
the Left Behind series by Tim Lahaye and Jerry Jenkins. It has also
been spread through the work of influential American evangelists such
as the late Jerry Falwell, Ray Comfort, Dwight Pentecost, and a good
many others.
This particular variant ofChristian eschatology is exceptionally
violent, and involves a good dealof suffering, destruction,and the
shedding of oceans of blood (may Allah forbid). As
Christianfundamentalists became a stronger force on the American
sociopolitical and cultural scene towards the end of the 20 th
Century, it was perhaps quite natural that their particular
interpretation of the EndTimes would come to have a cultural impact.
And it has, indeed.
One particular example can stand out. Prior to the changeover from
1999 to the year 2000, there was much hysteria,particularly in the
U.S., about the so-called "Y2K bug", an alleged software defect that
would supposedly cause trains to derail, airplanesto fall from the
sky, the world's arsenal of nuclear-tipped ICBM's to spontaneously
launch, and in short, cause us to all die horribly. Needless to say,
this didn't happen. But there was certainly a distinctly apocalyptic
scent in the air, for those readers oldenough to recall that time. And
there were quite a few fundamentalist Christians who maintained that
"Y2K" was indeed the dread fulfillment of Biblical prophecy; many
well-known Christian personalities took to the airwaves in the run-up
to the changeover from 1999 to 2000 and spreada good many rumors,
stories, false statistics and outright misrepresentations, which of
course did nothing to allay fears. As it turned out, the only problems
encountered were wholly insignificant and easily fixed.
Thus, through a trifecta of New Age nonsense, anincreasingly paranoid
society that is profoundly distrustful of its own institutions, and
the cultural impact of a belief in a violent eschatological event,
many find themselves looking ahead to a particular date toward the end
of this year witha sense of the strongest foreboding. Though it may
manifest itself in different hypothetical scenarios, from the arrival
of the next solar maximum (actually not due until 2013), to our planet
colliding with another celestial object (the so-called Planet X/Nibiru
theory, easily debunked as an object the size of a small planet would
already be clearly visible in the skies, even in daytime), to a host
of other ideas including, but not limited to, an extraterrestrial
invasion much like the film "Independence Day", people are genuinely
preparing for some kind of apocalyptic scenario to play out. This can
be observed by the simple fact that recent statistics out of the
United States show Americans are stocking up on:
1) Non-perishable foodstuffs
2) Firearms and ammunition
Indeed as to the latter, there has been a recorded 32% increase in the
sale of firearms in the last quarter of 2011 according to the American
F.B.I. Until quite recently, there wasa major shortage of ammunition
available onthe American market, this shortage being created by
overwhelming consumerdemand. Similar sales increases corresponding to
those of firearms havealso been noted for non-perishable foodstuffs,
including U.S.military surplus MRE's (Meals Ready-to-Eat) to
civilians. This begs a legitimate question; what are people afraid of?
Are Americans genuinely afraid that their civilization is somehow
going to collapse in the next 12 months? Are they truly anticipating
some kind of cataclysmic event? Is itmerely widespread cultural angst
reflecting a degree of political paranoia?
Or have they been deceived by the New Age movement?
If we take a brief look back at some recent trends in American
pop-culture, we can see that a spate of television shows, films, and
books have surfacedin the last few years, all of them dealing with
the2012 phenomenon. The History Channel, an American cable
network,aired the following programs; Decoding the Past , 2012: End of
Days , Last Days on Earth , SevenSigns of the Apocalypse , and
Nostradamus 2012 . A trip to any reasonably well-stocked bookstore
will reveal scores of titlesdealing with the subject,and of course, we
must mention Roland Emmerich's hugely entertaining blockbusterdisaster
film, "2012" , which went on to gross over 750 million dollars
worldwide. All of this amounts to a sort of conditioning; people begin
to believe that some sort of unprecedented catastrophe is going to
take place imminently which will lead to the either the destruction of
the world, or at the very least the end of human civilization. If the
sociocultural consensus comes to anticipate something so strongly,
itcreates an extraordinarily tense and doom-laden culturalatmosphere;
the society which has allowed itself to become fixated on the
certainty of a violent apocalyptic event basically becomes a
powder-keg in search ofa spark. This is the way of the dajjal. By
poisoning the minds of men and turning them away from Almighty Allah,
he inevitably guides them down the path which ends in their ruin.
Fortunately, some of our Christian brothers have recognized this
danger, and have themselves launched a counter-offensive to tell
people they have nothing to fear on December 21 st 2012. They quote
from the Gospel (correctly) that no man knows the hour of the Day of
Judgment, as that knowledge lies with Allah alone. They point out that
much of the fear associated with the Mayan Long Count Calendar is the
result of deliberate New Age deceitfulness at worst, or a blatant
misinterpretation of Mayan culture at best.
We, as Muslims, naturallylook forward to the coming of Hazrat Mahdi
(pbuh), and the Golden Age in which all mankind, be they Muslim,
Christian or Jew will live together in harmony, peace, and prosperity.
We look forward to the arrival of Hazrat Mahdi (pbuh) andthe coming of
the Prophet Jesus (pbuh) notas events filled with terror, bloodshed,
and violence, but as events as foretold by our beloved Prophet
Muhammad (saas) who said that Hazrat Mahdi (pbuh) would not even
"awaken a sleeper" or "cause so much as a noseto bleed". Hazrat Mahdi
(pbuh) and Prophet Jesus (pbuh) will come soon, insha'Allah, and they
will bring love, gentleness, and peace tothe world. And surely that is
something worth praying for, and we continue to do so five times a
day.
One last note on the 2012 phenomenon. The government of Mexico is
planning on using the year 2012, without its apocalyptic connotations,
to hopefully revive Mexico'sailing tourism industry, which has been
lately beset by difficulties caused by narco-gang wars and increasing
crime. Their tourism initiative hopes to draw on the popularity of the
ruins of the long-vanished Mayan civilization and their appeal. As
tourism forms a good-sized part of Mexico's annual revenues, let us
wish them well; many people, particularly in small towns and villages
near the Mayan ruins, dependon the tourist trade for their
livelihoods. And let us also hope that the tourists, in turn, will
discover a far more honest and historically accurate representation of
Mayan culture and gain a better appreciation of this fascinating
people, who accomplished so much with so little.
Men ask you concerning the Hour. Say, "The knowledge of it is with
Allah alone. And what may make you perceive?Perhaps the Hour is near."
(Surah Ahzab, 63) - - ▓███▓ Translator:->
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