2012 New Age beliefs

Many assertions about the year 2012 form part of a non-codified collection of New Age beliefs about ancient Maya wisdom and spirituality.[4][46][47][48][49][50] Archaeoastronomer Anthony Aveni says that while the idea of "balancing the cosmos" was prominent in ancient Maya literature, the 2012 phenomenon does not draw from those traditions. Instead, it is bound up with American concepts such as the New Age movement, millenarianism, and the belief in secret knowledge from distant times and places.[51] Established themes found in 2012 literature include "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 is not to warn of impending doom but "to foster countercultural sympathies and eventually socio-political and 'spiritual' activism".[2] Aveni, who has studied New Age and 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 timeentities that just might be in possession of superior knowledge".[52]

Galactic alignment
There is no significant astronomical event tied to the Long Count's start date.[61] However, its supposed end date has been tied to astronomical phenomena by esoteric, fringe, and New Age literature that places great significance on astrology.[46][48] Chief among these is the concept of the "galactic alignment". Precession In the Solar System, the planets and the Sun lie roughly within the same flat plane, known as the plane of the ecliptic. From our perspective on Earth, the ecliptic is the path taken by the Sun across the sky over the course of the year. The twelve constellations that line the ecliptic are known as the zodiac and, annually, the Sun passes through all of them in turn. Additionally, over time, the Sun's annual cycle appears to recede very slowly backward by one degree every 72 years, or by one constellation every 2,160 years. This backward movement, called "precession", is due to a slight wobble in the Earth's axis as it spins, and can be compared to the way a spinning top wobbles as it slows down.[62] Over the course of 25,800 years, a period often called a Great Year, the Sun's path completes a full, 360-degree backward rotation through the zodiac.[62] In Western astrological traditions, precession is measured from the March equinox, or the point at which the Sun is exactly halfway between its lowest and highest points in the sky. Presently, the Sun's March equinox position is in the constellation Pisces and is moving back into Aquarius. This signals the end of one astrological age (the Age of Pisces) and the beginning of another (the Age of Aquarius).[63] Similarly, the Sun's December solstice position (in the northern hemisphere, the lowest point on its annual path; in the southern hemisphere, the highest) is currently in the constellation of

Sagittarius, one of two constellations in which the zodiac intersects with the Milky Way.[64] Every year, on the December solstice, the Sun and the Milky Way, from the surface of the Earth, appear to come into alignment, and every year, precession causes a slight shift in the Sun's position in the Milky Way. Given that the Milky Way is between 10 and 20 wide, it takes between 700 and 1400 years for the Sun's December solstice position to precess through it.[65] It is currently about halfway through the Milky Way, crossing the galactic equator.[66] In 2012, the Sun's December solstice will fall on 21 December. Mysticism

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 center 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). The significance of a future "galactic alignment" was noted in 1991 by astrologer Raymond Mardyks, who asserted that the winter solstice would align with the galactic plane in 1998/1999, writing that an event that "only occurs once each 26,000 year cycle and would be most definitely of utmost significance to the top flight ancient astrologers".[67] Astrologer Bruce Scofield notes, "The Milky Way crossing of the winter solstice is something that has been neglected by Western astrologers, with a few exceptions. Charles Jayne made a very early reference to it, and in the 1970s Rob Hand mentioned it in his talks on precession but didn't elaborate on it. Ray Mardyks later made a point of it, and after that John [Major] Jenkins, myself, and Daniel Giamario began to talk about it."[68] Adherents to the idea, following a theory first proposed by Munro Edmonson,[69] allege that the Maya based their 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".[70][dubious discuss] 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 their cosmology.[71] According to Jenkins, precession will align the Sun precisely with the galactic equator at the 2012 winter solstice.[71] Jenkins claimed that the classical Maya anticipated this conjunction and celebrated it as the harbinger of a profound spiritual transition for mankind.[72] 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 Maya plotted their calendars with the objective of preparing for significant world events.[73] Jenkins attributes the insights of ancient Maya shamans about the galactic center to their use of psilocybin mushrooms,

psychoactive toads, and other psychedelics.[74] Jenkins also associates the Xibalba be with a "world tree", drawing on studies of contemporary (not ancient) Maya cosmology.[75] Criticism 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 claims he drew his 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 Maya had access to.[59] Furthermore, since the Sun is half a degree wide, its solstice position takes 36 years to precess its full width. Jenkins himself notes that even given this determined location for the line of the galactic equator, its most precise convergence with the center of the Sun already occurred in 1998, and so asserts that, rather than 2012, the galactic alignment instead focuses on a multi-year period centred on 1998.[76][77][78] There is no clear evidence that the classic Maya were aware of precession. Some Maya scholars, such as Barbara MacLeod,[37] Michael Grofe,[79] Eva Hunt, Gordon Brotherston, and Anthony Aveni,[80] have suggested that some Mayan holy dates were timed to precessional cycles, but scholarly opinion on the subject remains divided.[24] There is also little evidence, archaeological or historical, that the Maya placed any importance on solstices or equinoxes.[24][81] It is possible that only the early Mesoamericans observed solstices,[82] but this is also a disputed issue among Mayanists.[24][81] There is also no evidence that the classic Maya attached any importance to the Milky Way; there is no glyph in their writing system to represent it, and no astronomical or chronological table tied to it.[83]

What's going to happen on December 21st 2012?

Will the world end on 21st December 2012 because of the end of the Mayan calendar or because the winter solstice is "aligned" with the Milky Way? It appears that Mayan ideas about time keeping and calendars were very cyclical. This is actually easy to understand because it's quite like our calendar which has cycles of various sizes very familiar to us. For example there is a:

1 Jan every year day 1 every month Monday every week 1am every day

The Mayan cycles were a bit more complex, such that every day in a 52 year period had a unique name from a combination of various different cycles (similar to the idea that there is a Monday 1st January only every 7 years or so). This 52 year cycle has is called a Calendar Round. To keep

track of dates on longer time scales the Mayans then had what's known as the Long Count, which provides a unique numerical indicator for each day. Mayans did not count in base ten like we did, but usually instead in base 20 (although not always). The Mayan long count can be summarized as: Mayan count 1 1 kin 20 20 kin 360 360 kin 7200 7200 kin 144000 144000 kin #days

1 uinal 18 uinal 1 tun 360 uinal 20 tun 1 kactun 7200 uinal 400 tun 20 kactun 1 bactun

The name for a Mayan epoch apparently translates as 13 bactuns, which you can see is 13*144000 days or 5125.26 years (roughly). There is actually some minor disagreement over when the current Mayan long cycle started, but it was probably either August 11th or 13th 3114 BC, which means it comes to an end on either Dec 21st or 23rd 2012. As I mentioned above the Mayan calendar was designed to be cyclical, so the fact that the long count comes to an end in Dec 2012, while having some significance for the Maya as the end of a great cycle (much like we celebrated the millennium (incorrectly as it happens) on Dec 31st 1999), does not mean that the "world will come to an end". It's actually true that there are Mayan names for periods of time longer than 13 bactuns, so that their calendar doesn't even end then, and even if it did there is no evidence to suggest that they (or anyone for that matter) have any special knowledge about the end of the world. There are however a lot of theories knocking around the Internet which use the end of this calendar cycle to predict the end of the world. They often also mention the fact that Dec 21st is the winter solstice, and that the Sun on the solstice that year is "aligned" with the plane of the galaxy. On the winter solstice, the Sun always has a Declination of -23.5 degrees, and a Right Ascension of 18 hours, but exactly where this is on the sky relative to more distant stars changes very slowly due to the "precession of the equinoxes". We have a posted answer explaining this effect but how it's important in this answer (and how it was first noticed) is by the fact that it moves the position of the equinoxes, and solstices with a period of 26,000 years in a complete circle around the sky westward along the ecliptic. So the position of the winter solstice moves 360 degrees in 26,000 years. That means that it moves 360/26000 = 0.01 degrees a year. Defining an exact boundary for the plane of the Milky Way is tough, but it's at least 10-20 degrees wide across much of the sky, meaning that the solstice can be described as being "in the plane of the Milky Way" for 700-1400 years! To put it another way, the winter solstice that just past (2005) was only 0.1 degrees away from where it will be in 2012, a distance smaller than the size of the Sun itself (which is about 0.5 degrees in diameter). In any case the Sun crosses the plane of the Galaxy twice every year as we orbit around it, with no ill effect on Earth. To conclude:

The Mayan calendar does not predict the end of the world on Dec 12th 2012. 1. The exact date of the end of the current Mayan Long Count is still a matter of debate amongst Mayan scholars, although it is likely to be around Dec 21 2012. 2. The Mayan calendar is cyclical, and there are names for cycles longer than 13 bactuns of the Long Count which are coming to an end in 2012. Even if the Mayans did believe that the world would come to an end at the end of the Long Count (which I don't believe is true), there is no reason to assume that they have any special knowledge which would allow them to make this prediction correctly. You are free to believe the Sun won't come up tomorrow, but it will anyway....

The fact that the winter solstice on 2012 is "aligned" with the plane of the Galaxy has no significance. 1. It takes the winter solstice 700-1400 years to cross the plane of the Galaxy. 2. The solstice last year (2005) was within 0.1 degrees (or 1/5th the size of the Sun) of where it will be on 2012. 3. The Sun crosses the plane of the Milky Way twice every year with no ill effect. Using the Mayan Prophecy as an excuse to create new and explosive ways in which our planet may be destroyed, 20 12 2012 doomsayers use the geomagnetic shift theory as if it is set in stone. Simply because scientists have said that it might happen within the next millennium appears to be proof enough that it will happen in four years time. Alas, although this theory has some scientific backing, there is no way that anyone can predict when geomagnetic reversal might happen to the nearest day or to the nearest million years Firstly, lets differentiate between geomagnetic reversal and polar shift. Geomagnetic reversal is the change in the magnetic field of the Earth, where the magnetic north pole shifts to the South Polar Region and the south magnetic pole shifts to the North Polar Region. Once this process is complete, our compasses would point toward Antarctica, rather than northern Canada. Polar shift is considered to be a less likely event that occurs a few times in the evolutionary timescale of the Solar System. There are a couple of examples of planets that have suffered a catastrophic polar shift, including Venus (which rotates in an opposite direction to all the other planets, therefore it was flipped upside down by some huge event, such as a planetary collision) and Uranus (which rotates on its side, having been knocked off-axis by an impact, or some gravitational effect caused by Jupiter and Saturn). Many authors (including the doomsayers themselves) often cite both geomagnetic reversal and polar shift as being one of the same thing. This isnt the case.

Read more: http://www.universetoday.com/18977/2012-no-geomagneticreversal/#ixzz22ZOW1RuZ Geomagnetic reversal is chaotic in nature. There is no way we can predict it. Simply because the magnetic field of the Earth is weakening does not mean it is near collapse. Geomagnetic field strength is above average if we compare todays measurements with the last few million years. The magnetic poles are not set in geographical locations, they move (at varying speeds) and have done ever since measurements began.

There is no evidence to suggest external forcing of internal geomagnetic dynamics of the Earth. Therefore there is no evidence of the solar cycle-geomagnetic shift connection. Dont get me started on Planet X.

Read more: http://www.universetoday.com/18977/2012-no-geomagneticreversal/#ixzz22ZOZvC8s

2012: Six End-of-the-World Myths Debunked

Brian Handwerk for National Geographic News November 6, 2009 The end of the world is nearDecember 21, 2012, to be exactaccording to theories based on a purported ancient Maya prediction and fanned by the marketing machine behind the soon-to-be-released 2012 movie. But could humankind really meet its end in 2012drowned in apocalyptic floods, walloped by a secret planet, seared by an angry sun, or thrown overboard by speeding continents?

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''Doomsday'' Seed Vault Opens Near North Pole Magnetic-Shield Cracks Found; Big Solar Storms Expected in 2012 Beyond 2012: How Earth Could End

And did the ancient Mayawhose empire peaked between A.D. 250 and 900 in what is now Mexico and Central Americareally predict the end of the world in 2012?

At least one aspect of the 2012, end-of-the-world hype is, for some people, all too real: the fear. NASA's Ask an Astrobiologist Web site, for example, has received thousands of questions regarding the 2012 doomsday predictionssome of them disturbing, according to David Morrison, senior scientist with the NASA Astrobiology Institute. "A lot of [the submitters] are people who are genuinely frightened," Morrison said. "I've had two teenagers who were considering killing themselves, because they didn't want to be around when the world ends," he said. "Two women in the last two weeks said they were contemplating killing their children and themselves so they wouldn't have to suffer through the end of the world." (Related gallery: "Apocalypse PicturesTen Failed Doomsday Prophecies.") Fortunately, with the help of scientists like Morrison, most of the predicted 2012 cataclysms are easily explained away. 2012 MYTH 1 Maya Predicted End of the World in 2012 The Maya calendar doesn't end in 2012, as some have said, and the ancients never viewed that year as the time of the end of the world, archaeologists say. But December 21, 2012, (give or take a day) was nonetheless momentous to the Maya. "It's the time when the largest grand cycle in the Mayan calendar1,872,000 days or 5,125.37 yearsoverturns and a new cycle begins," said Anthony Aveni, a Maya expert and archaeoastronomer at Colgate University in Hamilton, New York. The Maya kept time on a scale few other cultures have considered. During the empire's heyday, the Maya invented the Long Counta lengthy circular calendar that "transplanted the roots of Maya culture all the way back to creation itself," Aveni said. During the 2012 winter solstice, time runs out on the current era of the Long Count calendar, which began at what the Maya saw as the dawn of the last creation period: August 11, 3114 B.C. The Maya wrote that date, which preceded their civilization by thousands of years, as Day Zero, or 13.0.0.0.0. In December 2012 the lengthy era ends and the complicated, cyclical calendar will roll over again to Day Zero, beginning another enormous cycle. "The idea is that time gets renewed, that the world gets renewed all over againoften after a period of stressthe same way we renew time on New Year's Day or even on Monday

morning," said Aveni, author of The End of Time: The Maya Mystery of 2012. 2012 MYTH 2 Breakaway Continents Will Destroy Civilization In some 2012 doomsday prophecies, the Earth becomes a deathtrap as it undergoes a "pole shift." The planet's crust and mantle will suddenly shift, spinning around Earth's liquid-iron outer core like an orange's peel spinning around its fleshy fruit. (See what Einstein had to say about pole shifts.) 2012, the movie, envisions a Maya-predicted pole shift, triggered by an extreme gravitational pull on the planetcourtesy of a rare "galactic alignment"and by massive solar radiation destabilizing the inner Earth by heating it. Breakaway oceans and continents dump cities into the sea, thrust palm trees to the poles, and spawn earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, and other disasters. (Interactive: pole shift theories illustrated.) Scientists dismiss such drastic scenarios, but some researchers have speculated that a subtler shift could occurfor example, if the distribution of mass on or inside the planet changed radically, due to, say, the melting of ice caps. Princeton University geologist Adam Maloof has extensively studied pole shifts, and tackles this 2012 myth in 2012: Countdown to Armageddon, a National Geographic Channel documentary airing Sunday, November 8. (The National Geographic Society owns National Geographic News and part-owns the National Geographic Channel.) Maloof says magnetic evidence in rocks confirm that continents have undergone such drastic rearrangement, but the process took millions of yearsslow enough that humanity wouldn't have felt the motion (quick guide to plate tectonics). 2012 MYTH 3 Galactic Alignment Spells Doom Some sky-watchers believe 2012 will close with a "galactic alignment," which will occur for the first time in 26,000 years (for example, see the Web site Alignment 2012). In this scenario, the path of the sun in the sky would appear to cross through what, from Earth, looks to be the midpoint of our galaxy, the Milky Way, which in good viewing conditions appears as a cloudy stripe across the night sky. Some fear that the lineup will somehow expose Earth to powerful unknown galactic forces that will hasten its doomperhaps through a "pole shift" (see above) or the stirring of the supermassive black hole at our galaxy's heart.

Others see the purported event in a positive light, as heralding the dawn of a new era in human consciousness. NASA's Morrison has a different view. "There is no 'galactic alignment' in 2012," he said, "or at least nothing out of the ordinary." He explained that a type of "alignment" occurs during every winter solstice, when the sun, as seen from Earth, appears in the sky near what looks to be the midpoint of the Milky Way. Horoscope writers may be excited by alignments, Morrison said. But "the reality is that alignments are of no interest to science. They mean nothing," he said. They create no changes in gravitational pull, solar radiation, planetary orbits, or anything else that would impact life on Earth. The speculation over alignments isn't surprising, though, he said. "Ordinary astronomical phenomena are imbued with a sense of threat by people who already think the world is going to end." Regarding galactic alignments, University of Texas Maya expert David Stuart writes on his blog that "no ancient Maya text or artwork makes reference to anything of the kind." Even so, the end date of the current Long Count cyclewinter solstice 2012may be evidence of Maya astronomical skill, said Aveni, the archaeoastronomer. "I don't rule out the likelihood that astronomy played a role" in the selection of 2012 as the cycle's terminus, he said. Maya astronomers built observatories and, by observing the night skies and using mathematics, learned to accurately predict eclipses and other celestial phenomena. Aveni notes that the start date of the current cycle was likely tied to a solar zenith passage, when the sun crosses directly overhead, and its terminal date will fall on a December solstice, perhaps by design. (Take a Maya Empire quiz.) These choices, he said, may indicate that the Maya calendar is tied to seasonal agricultural cycles central to ancient survival. 2012 MYTH 4 Planet X Is on a Collision Course With Earth Some say it's out there: a mysterious Planet X, aka Nibiru, on a collision course with Earthor at least a disruptive flyby. A direct hit would obliterate Earth, it's said. Even a near miss, some fear, could shower Earth

with deadly asteroid impacts hurled our way by the planet's gravitational wake. Could such an unknown planet really be headed our way in 2012, even just a little bit? Well, no. "There is no object out there," NASA astrobiologist Morrison said. "That's probably the most straightforward thing to say." The origins of this theory actually predate widespread interest in 2012. Popularized in part by a woman who claims to receive messages from extraterrestrials, the Nibiru doomsday was originally predicted for 2003. "If there were a planet or a brown dwarf or whatever that was going to be in the inner solar system three years from now, astronomers would have been studying it for the past decade and it would be visible to the naked eye by now," Morrison said. "It's not there." 2012 MYTH 5 Solar Storms to Savage Earth In some 2012 disaster scenarios, our own sun is the enemy. Our friendly neighborhood star, it's rumored, will produce lethal eruptions of solar flares, turning up the heat on Earthlings. Solar activity waxes and wanes according to approximately 11-year cycles. Big flares can indeed damage communications and other Earthly systems, but scientists have no indications the sun, at least in the short term, will unleash storms strong enough to fry the planet. "As it turns out the sun isn't on schedule anyway," NASA astronomer Morrison said. "We expect that this cycle probably won't peak in 2012 but a year or two later." (See "Sun Oddly Quiet Hints at Next 'Little Ice Age'?") 2012 MYTH 6 Maya Had Clear Predictions for 2012 If the Maya didn't expect the end of time in 2012, what exactly did they predict for that year? Many scholars who've pored over the scattered evidence on Maya monuments say the empire didn't leave a clear record predicting that anything specific would happen in 2012. The Maya did pass down a graphicthough undatedend-of-the-world scenario, described on the final page of a circa-1100 text known as the Dresden Codex. The document describes a world destroyed by flood, a scenario imagined in many cultures and probably experienced, on a less

apocalyptic scale, by ancient peoples (more on the Dresden Codex). Aveni, the archaeoastronomer, said the scenario is not meant to be read literallybut as a lesson about human behavior. He likens the cycles to our own New Year period, when the closing of an era is accompanied by frenetic activities and stress, followed by a rebirth period, when many people take stock and resolve to begin living better. In fact, Aveni says, the Maya weren't much for predictions. "The whole timekeeping scale is very past directed, not future directed," he said. "What you read on these monuments of the Long Count are events that connected Maya rulers with ancestors and the divine. "The farther back you can plant your roots in deep time the better argument you can make that you're legit," Aveni said. "And I think that's why these Maya rulers were using Long Count time. "It's not about a fixed prediction about what's going to happen."