Modern Prophets: 2012 A.D.
(This is an excerpt from a University Of Metaphysical Sciences course at www.umsonline.org,
please feel free to visit the school website)
As mentioned in the previous section, several important planetary transits will be taking place during the first two decades of the present century, and the year 2012 will be one of the central turning points in these astrological cycles. Neptune will be in the sign of Aquarius until 2012, making this a time when spirituality will become one of the primary concerns of the common people. Self-transcendence, illumination, and higher consciousness may even become more important to the masses than the pursuit of material wealth, as unimaginable as this may seem. Political change and conflict will likely be reaching a dramatic peak at this time as well, since Pluto will have moved out of Sagittarius and into Capricorn by 2008, allowing the present period of religious wars and clashes of cultures to give way to a time of political restructuring and redistribution of power. Mayan astrology has also placed a great deal of emphasis on the year 2012, and interest in the Mayan prophecies concerning this date are at an all time high. Some authors have even gone so far as to predict that a cataclysmic end of the world scenario will culminate in December of 2012. Other, more optimistic authors, most notably the psychedelic shaman Terence McKenna, theorize that the Eschaton or End of Time that seems likely to occur in 2012 will also be a kind of beginning, perhaps even a worldwide spiritual reawakening akin the Biblical Rapture.
However, the time leading up to this turning point may indeed be difficult. In his book of interviews entitled The Archaic Revival (1991), McKenna opines: “I think that there is a New Age about to dawn. I think that it will come, but... we still have much to go through. Because the cultural institutions will not reach for the emergency brake until things are really cracking to pieces. Because, you know, the present form of civilization represents a sinking ship.” In other words, the powers that be will not repent of their misdeeds until it is already too late. Civilization as we know it has created an enormous amount of bad karma in the form of military and economic oppression of the poorer nations of the world on the one hand, and environmental degradation on the other. Wars, social upheavals, economic collapses, and natural disasters will bring civilization down if the institutions refuse to change the basic way that things are done. We don’t need a Nostradamus to see the truth of such predictions.
This approaching historical moment, therefore, might be called the death of civilization. However, as many spiritual traditions maintain, death need not be the end. Though material forms break down, the energy within the form―call it spirit, astral body, or what you will―has a chance to continue. The key to life after death consists in the creation and maintenance of this immortal spirit that does not depend on the physical form for its survival. By the same logic, the key to human survival after the death of human civilization must be the creation of a society that does not need civilized institutions in order to continue. How can such a spiritual society be created?
The birth of such a society depends on individuals who reach higher states of consciousness in order to devote themselves to guiding their fellow human beings through this time of transition. As McKenna states in The Archaic Revival (1991), “Apparently at the moment of death there is a kind of separation, like birth―the metaphor is trivial, but perfect. There is a possibility of damage or of incorrect activity. The English poet William Blake said that as one starts into the spiral there is the possibility of falling from the golden track into eternal death. Yet it is only a crisis of a moment―a crisis of passage―and the whole purpose of shamanism and of life correctly lived is to strengthen the soul and to strengthen the ego’s relationship to the soul so that this passage can be cleanly made. This is the traditional position. I want to include an abyss in this model―one less familiar to rationalists, but familiar to us all one level deeper in the psyche as inheritors of the Judeo-Christian culture. That is the idea that the world will end, that there will be a final time, that there is not only the crisis of death of the individual but also the crisis of death in the history of the species... We are now, there can be no doubt, in the final historical seconds of that crisis―a crisis that involves the end of history, our departure from the planet, the triumph over death, and the release of the individual from the body. We are, in fact, closing distance with the most profound event a planetary ecology can encounter―the freeing of life from the dark chrysalis of matter. The old metaphor of psyche as the caterpillar transformed by metamorphosis is a species wide analogy. We must undergo a metamorphosis in order to survive the momentum of the historical forces already in motion.”
Conversely, those who fail to undergo such a metamorphosis will fall into the “abyss” that McKenna mentions. For this reason, the spiritual awakening of humankind has now become a matter of life and death for the entire species. The powers that be, when they realize the futility of opposing the wheel of karma, may attempt to destroy the world rather than accept defeat. Only a critical mass of enlightened human beings can hope to avert such a catastrophe. In the absence of such a critical mass, only those humans with a higher state of consciousness will be able to survive after the physical supports of civilization have vanished in the cataclysm. To avoid falling into the abyss ourselves, and to help others negotiate this delicate time of transition, we must undergo the metamorphosis of which McKenna speaks. Hence, the present course has been created in order to show you how to achieve self-realization and self-transcendence, and in the process help others to do so as well.
The central message of all prophecy seems to be that our time has a limit. Soon we will reach a deadline, after which it will be too late for us to act. We cannot afford to put off our spiritual awakening until tomorrow. The time is now. The sooner we begin preparing for the 2012 transition, whatever it may entail, the better our chances of crossing over smoothly from our present state of being to that way of existence that belongs to the future. We can choose to participate in the future Golden Age by acting now to make that paradise on earth a reality. In order to manifest this dream, we must become the shamans and prophets of the future. We must find and become the heroes that lie deep inside of us. McKenna has some insights on this point in The Archaic Revival (1991): “Hopefully we are now coming into a period of maturity as a species. We can no longer have forbidden areas of the human mind or mindless cultural machinery. We have taken upon ourselves the acquisition of so much power that we must now understand what we are. We cannot travel much further with definitions of humanity inherited from the Judeo-Christian tradition. We need to truly explore the problem of consciousness, because as human beings gain power they are becoming the defining factor on the planet. The questions that loom are, ‘Is man good?’ and then, if the answer is yes, ‘What is man good for?’
The shamans will point the way because they are visionaries, poets, cultural architects, forecasters―all these roles that we understand in more conventional terms rolled into one and raised to the nth power. They are cultural models for the rest of us. It has always been true that the shaman has access to a superhuman dimension and a superhuman condition and thereby affirms the potential for transcendence in all people. The shaman is an exemplar, if you will, and I see the new attention that’s being given to these things signaling a sense on the part of society that we need to return to these models.”
In order to become transcendent heroes who serve as an example for the rest of humanity, we as individuals must contact the divine or superhuman forces lying dormant within ourselves. Good intentions will not be enough. Heroism implies heroic effort, strength of will, dedication to a higher purpose, and impeccable principles. In short, the prerequisite for shamanic heroism is divine inspiration. The shaman forges a link between the material world and the spirit world, and serves as a bridge between the two. The spirit world may be, at least partly, a sort of collective mind belonging to the entire species throughout history. The gods, myths, and spiritual beliefs of all cultures spring from this collective mind, or mental plane. The Archaic Revival (1991) tells us: “This dualism of the interior and the exterior may have to be overcome. It obviously transcends the individual. But I suspect it is something like an Overmind of the species and that the highest form of human organization is not realized in the democratic individual. It is realized in a dimension none of us has ever penetrated―the mind of the species. It is the hand at the tiller of history. It is no government, no religious group, but actually what we call the human unconscious; however, it is not unconscious, and it is not simply a cybernetic repository of myth and memory. It is an organized entelechy of some sort, and though human history is its signature on the primates, it is very different from the primates. It is like a creature of pure information. It is made of language. It releases ideas into the flowing stream of history to boost the primates toward higher and higher levels of self-reflection. We have now reached the point where the masks are beginning to fall away and we are discovering that there is an angel within the monkey, struggling to get free. This is what the historical crisis is all about. I am very optimistic. I see it as a necessary chaos that will lead to a new and more attractive order.” For the first time in our unfolding series of concepts we encounter the idea that maybe the current historical crisis, the eschaton at the end of history, has a higher purpose and a deeper meaning. Perhaps the end of history has been hard wired, so to speak, into the species, in order to serve as a catalyst for our attainment of higher consciousness.
What makes 2012 such a compelling date for the end of the world as we know it? Strangely enough, Western astrology, Mayan astrology, and Terence McKenna’s Timewave theory all seem to have produced this date as a vital turning point independently of one another. John Major Jenkins, a student of Mayan time and author of the book, Tzolkin: Visionary Perspectives and Calendar Studies (Borderlands Science and Research Foundation, 1994), writes of this fortuitous synchronicity, “In the book he co―authored with his brother Dennis (Invisible Landscape, Seabury Press 1975 and Harper San Francisco, 1993), Terence suggests that the position of winter solstice sun within 3 degrees of the Galactic Center in the year 2012 A.D. (a "once-in-a-precessional―cycle" event) may provide the eschatological end point for his theory of time known as Timewave Zero. His end date was chosen for historical reasons and was, apparently, only later discovered to correspond with the Mayan end date. The McKennas point out that this unusual astronomical situation has been noted by other writers, namely, Giorgio de Santillana and Hertha von Dechend in Hamlet's Mill (1969). As ACS Publication's The American Ephemeris for the 21st Century shows, in the year 2012 the Galactic Center is at 27 Sagittarius (within 3 of winter solstice). Thus McKenna demonstrates that on winter solstice of 2012, Galactic Center will be rising heliacally just before dawn, in a way reminiscent of how the Maya observed Venus's last morningstar appearance.”
This astronomical event has a great deal of significance for shamans in the Mayan cosmology, for as Jenkins points out, “it seems that when a planet, the sun, or the moon entered the dark cleft of the Milky Way in Sagittarius (which happens to be the exact center of the Milky Way, the Galactic Equator), entrance to the underworld road was possible, which could then take the journeyer up to the Heart of Sky. Shamanic vision rites were probably involved in this scenario.” Thus, Venus will likely pass through the Galactic Equator near the winter solstice of 2012, enabling modern shamans to enter the Mayan underworld and make the ancient journey to the “Heart of the Sky.”
To get a better idea of what this means, we would need to undertake a thorough study of Mayan mythology and shamanic practices. Unfortunately, such a study lies beyond the scope of the present course―perhaps another course will explore this fascinating subject in the depth that it deserves. At present, a few details will have to suffice. Jenkins tells us, “Where the Galactic Equator crosses the ecliptic in Sagittarius just happens to be where the dark rift in the Milky Way begins. This is a dark bifurcation in the Milky Way caused by interstellar dust clouds. To observers on earth, it appears as a dark road which begins near the ecliptic and stretches along the Milky Way up toward Polaris... In Dennis Tedlock's translation of the Popol Vuh, we find that the ancient Maya called it the "Black Road.” The Hero Twins Hunahpu and Xbalanque must journey down this road to battle the Lords of Xibalba. (Tedlock 334, 358)” Thus, the winter solstice of 2012 marks the time when this “Black Road” will again become accessible to modern shamanic heroes. Like the Mayan Hero Twins, we too must take the dark road on our way to the final cosmic battle at the end of history. In this battle, we must first triumph over ourselves. Only then can we obtain victory over the mechanistic, unconscious forces in the outside world that oppose the ascension of humankind toward higher consciousness.
Conscious striving toward enlightenment can transform the momentum of so much unconscious machinery into a positive force that will drive us into the Golden Age or Green Age of the future. In The Millennium Book of Prophecy (1997), the prophet Tamo-san explains the nature of these unconscious forces in the world: “What do you expect? People are machines. Machines have to be blind and unconscious; they cannot be otherwise, and all their actions have to correspond to their nature. Everything happens. No one does anything. ‘Progress’ and ‘civilization’ in the real meaning of these words, can appear only as a result of conscious efforts. They cannot appear as a result of unconscious mechanical actions. And what conscious effort can there be in machines? And if one machine is unconscious, then a hundred machines are unconscious, and so are a thousand machines, or a hundred thousand, or a million. And the unconscious activity of a million machines must necessarily result in destruction and extermination. It is precisely in unconscious involuntary manifestations that all evil lies. You do not yet understand and cannot imagine all the results of this evil. But the time will come when you will understand.” Thus, in order to ensure the triumph of evil and the destruction of humankind, we must simply continue to do what we have always done. No effort will be required. We can continue to watch television, drive our cars, go to work, go shopping, and when the Apocalypse comes to take us away it will be no surprise.
If, on the other hand, we wish to create an enlightened civilization for ourselves and those who come after us, a great deal of conscious effort will be required of us. The purification of our hearts and minds, the training of the will and the imagination, and the raising of our consciousness toward a superhuman or divine level, are but the first steps in this process. For once we have achieved enlightenment for ourselves, we must then face the task of projecting the light of higher consciousness out into the world so that others can cease to be machines and begin to act consciously as well. At this point we will have become prophets ourselves, and our words will be the predictions that will come true through the united efforts of all conscious beings.
Once enough human beings have transcended their unconscious, mechanistic natures, it will be possible for a collective transformation to take place. If such a shift toward higher consciousness can be achieved at the collective level, then the crisis culminating in 2012 will pass without the fulfillment of the doomsday scenarios which would-be prophets currently use to frighten the masses into a confusion of terror. As The Millennium Book Of Prophecy (1997) tells us, “The critical mass of enlightenment can be defined as the smallest number of awakened human beings whose collective influence can initiate a significant shift in global consciousness. The process of creating enough enlightened ones to achieve this critical mass can be likened to the transformation of coal into diamonds. The pressure of surrounding human unconsciousness creates an urgency in the potential enlightened one to awaken from illusion. The total weight of so much unconscious 'carbon' exerts a tremendous pressure, through which a few coal stones reach the appropriate mass to become 'diamonds.' These awakened beings embody the crystal clarity of enlightened consciousness which can transform the level of consciousness of the entire planet.” Such an achievement would tremendously improve the quality of life on earth. We could see the end of war, environmental destruction, inequality, and poverty. The technology and knowledge now at our command makes all of these things possible. Consciousness is the only factor lacking in this equation.
If ignorance and mechanistic inertia can be overcome, then virtually any positive achievement will become possible for us as a species. As John Hogue writes in The Millennium Book Of Prophecy (1997), “The forewarned end of the world may not see civilization go up in a thermonuclear holocaust at century's end. There may be another kind of atomic explosion ―of human consciousness ―in which the smallest mass of a fissionable material that will sustain a chain reaction is not uranium but 'Uranian.' (Surprise! Uranus the ruler of the Aquarian Age is back. Blow the doors of your prison of limitations and seek your freedom from the known.)” Our efforts during the present time leading up to the year 2012 can make this dream into a reality.
The shift toward higher consciousness that humanity must achieve, with the help of a critical mass of shamanic heroes, may be the fulfillment of the Rapture or Kingdom Come of Biblical prophecies. Thus, a harmony between humanistic and religious thought becomes possible, healing the philosophical divisions that have for so long divided Western thinkers into secular and spiritual camps. Higher consciousness, a concept derived from psychology, can lead to the “Christ consciousness” symbolized by the Second Coming. Jesus may indeed come riding down out of the sky on a white horse with sword in hand, but He will not need to do this physically. His coming may instead be a metaphorical one that coincides with the collective shift in human consciousness. The white horse might be thought of as a symbol for divine inspiration or devotion to God’s purpose, the sword could symbolize the will of the divine, and Christ himself can be conceived of as the dawning of higher consciousness and enlightenment in each one of us.
Terence McKenna uses language curiously evocative of the Rapture idea in this excerpt from The Archaic Revival (1991): “What is happening to our world is ingression of novelty toward what Whitehead called “concrescence,” a tightening gyre. Everything is flowing together. The ‘autopoetic lapis,’ the alchemical stone at the end of time, coalesces when everything flows together. When the laws of physics are obviated, the universe disappears, and what is left is the tightly bound plenum, the monad, able to express itself for itself, rather than only able to cast a shadow into physis as its reflection. I come very close here to classical millenarian apocalyptic thought in my view of the rate at which change is accelerating. From the way the gyre is tightening, I predict that the concrescence will occur soon― around 2012 A.D. It will be the entry of our species into hyperspace, but it will appear to be the end of physical laws accompanied by the release of the mind into the imagination.
“All of these images―the starship, the space colony, the lapis― are precursory images. They follow naturally from the idea that history is the shock wave of eschatology. As one closes the distance with the eschatological object, the reflections it is throwing off resemble more and more the thing itself. In the final moment the Unspeakable stands revealed. There are no more reflections of the Mystery. The Mystery in all its nakedness is seen, and nothing else exists. But what it is, decency can safely scarcely hint; nevertheless, it is the crowning joy of futurism to seek anticipation of it.”
Put aside the fears, therefore, with which the false prophets have tried to fill your mind. Seek instead the light of wisdom that burns within you and within all of humanity. Seek to make all of your actions conscious, and make love the keynote of that consciousness. Strive patiently yet persistently to purify your heart and mind, develop your will and imagination, and activate the Hero within. Then will your spirit shine as a beacon of light and hope for others in the world who also seek the path of wisdom, and a critical mass of enlightened humanity will transform the current dark age into an Era of Illumination. The rest of this course will be dedicated to the exercises and practices that will assist you in smoothly negotiating your personal Apocalypse, or the individual transition from mechanistic unconsciousness to willful enlightenment. When your intuition has been awakened and you have forged your link to the divine source, you will no longer be in need of instruction. Instead, you will have become a self-directed, complete individual. Then you will be ready for your journey down the dark road, at the end of which your own heroic deeds await.