Does Mayan Calendar Predict 2012 Apocalypse?

*** Plan to see a lot more of this as the date approaches. ***
*** Should we be scared, or should we laugh? ***
*** Do you think the Maya were just tired of extending the calendar out, and just decided to end it on this date? ***
*** Taken from USA TODAY ***

Does Maya calendar predict 2012 apocalypse?

THE YEAR FOR BOOKS

Current and coming books on 2012:

2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl by Daniel Pinchbeck (Penguin/Tarcher, May 2006)

2013 Oracle: Ancient Keys to the 2012 Awakening by David Carson & Nina Sammons (Council Oaks, November 2006)

Apocalypse 2012: A Scientific Investigation Into Civilization's End by Lawrence Joseph (Random House/Morgan Road, January 2007)

The Revolution of 2012: Vol. 1, The Preparation by Andrew Smith (Ford Evans, January 2007)

Serpent of Light by Drunvalo Melchizedek (Red Wheel/Weiser, Autumn 2007)
By G. Jeffrey MacDonald, Special to USA TODAY


With humanity coming up fast on 2012, publishers are helping readers gear up and count down to this mysterious — some even call it apocalyptic — date that ancient Mayan societies were anticipating thousands of years ago.

Since November, at least three new books on 2012 have arrived in mainstream bookstores. A fourth is due this fall. Each arrives in the wake of the 2006 success of 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl, which has been selling thousands of copies a month since its release in May and counts more than 40,000 in print. The books also build on popular interest in the Maya, fueled in part by Mel Gibson's December 2006 film about Mayan civilization, Apocalpyto.

Authors disagree about what humankind should expect on Dec. 21, 2012, when the Maya's "Long Count" calendar marks the end of a 5,126-year era.

Journalist Lawrence Joseph forecasts widespread catastrophe in Apocalypse 2012: A Scientific Investigation Into Civilization's End. Spiritual healer Andrew Smith predicts a restoration of a "true balance between Divine Feminine and Masculine" in The Revolution of 2012: Vol. 1, The Preparation. In 2012, Daniel Pinchbeck anticipates a "change in the nature of consciousness," assisted by indigenous insights and psychedelic drug use.

The buildup to 2012 echoes excitement and fear expressed on the eve of the new millennium, popularly known as Y2K, though on a smaller scale, says Lynn Garrett, senior religion editor at Publishers Weekly. She says publishers seem to be courting readers who believe humanity is creating its own ecological disasters and desperately needs ancient indigenous wisdom.

"The convergence I see here is the apocalyptic expectations, if you will, along with the fact that the environment is in the front of many people's minds these days," Garrett says. "Part of the appeal of these earth religions is that notion that we need to reconnect with the Earth in order to save ourselves."

But scholars are bristling at attempts to link the ancient Maya with trends in contemporary spirituality. Maya civilization, known for advanced writing, mathematics and astronomy, flourished for centuries in Mesoamerica, especially between A.D. 300 and 900. Its Long Count calendar, which was discontinued under Spanish colonization, tracks more than 5,000 years, then resets at year zero.

"For the ancient Maya, it was a huge celebration to make it to the end of a whole cycle," says Sandra Noble, executive director of the Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies in Crystal River, Fla. To render Dec. 21, 2012, as a doomsday or moment of cosmic shifting, she says, is "a complete fabrication and a chance for a lot of people to cash in."

Part of the 2012 mystique stems from the stars. On the winter solstice in 2012, the sun will be aligned with the center of the Milky Way for the first time in about 26,000 years. This means that "whatever energy typically streams to Earth from the center of the Milky Way will indeed be disrupted on 12/21/12 at 11:11 p.m. Universal Time," Joseph writes.

But scholars doubt the ancient Maya extrapolated great meaning from anticipating the alignment — if they were even aware of what the configuration would be.

Astronomers generally agree that "it would be impossible the Maya themselves would have known that," says Susan Milbrath, a Maya archaeoastronomer and a curator at the Florida Museum of Natural History. What's more, she says, "we have no record or knowledge that they would think the world would come to an end at that point."

University of Florida anthropologist Susan Gillespie says the 2012 phenomenon comes "from media and from other people making use of the Maya past to fulfill agendas that are really their own."

**** THIS WAS TAKEN FROM THE "WICHITA NEWSBRIEF". ****

I just read a report on the Mayan Calendar that used scientific facts and studies to support the belief that it predicts the end of the world on December 21, 2012. The Mayan Calendar is actually three calendars that enter lock with one another; the religious calendar, the solar calendar and the long count calendar. The most significant segment of the calendar is the Long Count. As it turns out the date the long count ends is significant in several ways. This is the short version of what the report had to say. First it is the day the next active solar cycle peaks, Saturn and Jupiter align on the same side of the sun. The massive flare that hit the North American continent in 1989 that caused massive power outages in the US and Canada may have been the result of just such an alignment of large planets. The second important fact that will occur on 12/21/12 is something I was shocked to learn. Earth and our solar system did not originate in the Milky Way. Our solar system is actually part of the dwarf galaxy Sagittarius that is being gobbled up by the Milky Way. The existence of the Sagittarius Dwarf Galaxy was not discovered until 1994. The significance of this is that we are not on the same gravitational plain as the rest of the Milky Way Galaxy but on an elliptical orbit that takes us over and under the plain of the Milky Way; the exact same elliptical orbit as the Sagittarius Dwarf Galaxy has around the Milky Way Galaxy. Right now we are on the upper side of the gravitational plan on our way to the bottom side. On 12/21/12 our solar system will feel the maximum gravitational force of the Milky Way Galaxy because that is the day we will be in perfect alignment with its gravitational plain. Our approach to the gravitational plain of the Milky Way with its increasing gravitational influences may explain why we have just gone through an abnormally active solar cycle and even though we are in the less active period of the cycle we are still seeing higher than normal activity. The clincher is the third alignment that will occur on that ominous date. The Milky Way Galaxy will also experience an alignment as it passes through the gravitational plain of the Universe on 12/21/12. You can take it anyway you like, but it would appear that the Mayans may have had a very good reason for ending their calendar on December 21, 2012. For the religious out there correct me if I am wrong, but didn't your God say He would not destroy the earth again by floods but the next time He would destroy it by fire and brimstone?