The Hollywood Oracle

Dear Reverend Rick,

According to the Mayan calendar, the world is going to end in 2012. Do you support this stance (and the action movie it has spawned)?

CDF

Dear CDF,

I must kindly point out that only two blogs before this one i did one on the Mayan Calendar. I will recap-then answer your question, and well, keep up with the posts!

According to the Mayan Calendar (the long count portion of it) the world will NOT end - but the cycle of the long count does.

It's just like the Mayans grabbing one of our calendars and saying "hey you guys just ended this in December very abruptly...HOLY CRAP IT'S THE END OF DAYS!!!"



The answer is no, you just have to get a newly illustrated long count calendar with kitties, puppies, or men for your home or office.



The cycle marks the complete 360 degree rotation of the winter solstice and it is going to be when the plane of our solar system is in line with the plane of our galaxy - and the time when movie and book publishers make lucrative deals exploiting peoples gullibility.

In fact the date Dec 12, 2012 at 11:11 is for the particular place on the planet where the calendar was created and began the count. You would actually have to adjust your watch depending on where you are. Furthermore, this is the mathematical breakdown of the cycle to the minute. It's not like the solar system will jump or lock into place from being off kilter in when the clock strikes. The solar system and milky way are not paper thin, so the alignment is actually spread over a number of years.

The hysteria over the date may very well be localized to that time considering they don't sell illustrated long count calendars at hallmark anymore and people won't just buy a new one to hang on the wall and go about their day. They'll buy into Hollywood or not (people will exponentially lean towards NOT as the date approaches - i can assure you).

I do believe this is a very special time in our history though. The Mayans developed the calendar not only from watching the movements of the planets to a supreme degree of accuracy, but it seems they based their system on a woman's biological system too. It takes into account a full term pregnancy in their counting method. So there is a good reason to believe that they had a keen insight into the link between the motions of the planets and our biological system.

The part where they royally messed up was believing they could control the environment by killing babies. But hey, keep in mind the Mayan calendar was not created by the Maya, only modified. It was inherited from earlier meso-american civilizations like the Olmec. The entire civilization lasted thousands of years and the people who created it were vastly different than the ones who threw babies down temples. Sooner or later government beauracricy will F*CK things up.

Lastly, let me introduce Mr. Terence McKenna.



While often thought to be a fringe scientist in his lifetime who studied anything from Mushrooms and DMT (Dimethyl triptamine) to Chaos theory, he stumbled upon the date of 2012 as an important date to come in our history. His research was done long before any hype of 2012 and he hadn't even heard of the Mayan Calendar, but he based his research on what he called a "Novelty Timeline" or "Novelty Map". He mapped out major and unique events in all recorded history and geological history and gave a higher value to more "unique" or "world changing" events, hence the word "novlety". For example the invention of the printing press would show a spike on the timeline and Columbus' discovery of America would rate pretty high too. He analyzed the cycles of peaks and valleys and used it as a mathmatical model to forcast changes in the future. While it can't tell him what will happen, the model can is supposed to predict the when portion. He showed a significant spike around 2012. This means it is an invention, creation, discovery, or the like which will have a major impact on our world.

In truth, only time will tell, but don't hedge your bets that it will be the earth caving in, exploding or whatever the Hollywood "Oracle" wants you to believe. It might just be something not even known that is discovered, or invented and developed over many years. Keep in mind that the day Columbus set foot on American soil, nobody in Spain had any idea!

But really i don't put much stock in the "End of the World" crap. I'm much more hopeful that Aliens will come down take me aboard their ship and leave a horrible virus that will turn everyone else into losers.



Hey, can't i have my own Hollywood ending??

Reverend Rick

Big Big Events

Today I've got a right lovely reader's e-mail to respond to:

Dear Rev. Rick,
Why do big events occur on even years: the Olympics, Elections, etc…? Are they afraid the odds are against them, in other words is it based in superstition?

JRAS



Dear JRAS,

Big events occur on even years because the Universe began at Year 0. That was a mighty big event. We weren't even there and we're still hearing about the party from nerdy scientists who weren't even invited to the "Big Bang".

Early attempts to even describe the event always fall short of capturing the essence of the event. On day-one after the bang it was "Remember yesterday? That was really cool!" and as days went by and years went by it was "The Super Awesome Event that happened that one time".

As man came onto the planet evolving from the pure boundless energy from "The Greatest Party Ever Thrown" he evolved and evolved and some species of man branched into the Nerd-anderthal and the Geekazoid. They were not interested in recreating parties, events, or "big bangin parties". While others were honoring the "Really Fun Thing that happened before any of us could remember" They were trying to figure out what happened while they were in their basement playing Magic the Gathering.



What they did do was study it with telescopes like a Geeky frat nerd watching a panty raid.

All the while Humans were having major events and important things fall on even numbered dates. They don't even remember the "Big Bang" at this point because they were so loaded at the time, but all these events are smaller and smaller "after parties" if you will, timed and synchronized to the beginning of time in honor of "The Greatest Party Ever Thrown"


See What I mean?

Reverend Rick