In the last couple of days I’ve heard people mention the belief that the Mayan Calendar foreshadows the end of the world in 2012. They Mayan culture is long gone, why has this meme come to the surface now?

Well, there have been a spate of news articles about the end of the Mayan Calendar in 2012. The quesion, as posed by USA Today, “Does Maya calendar predict 2012 apocalypse?”.

If you hit Amazon.com looking for books and such on the subject you get quite a variety with titles like, “The Mystery of 2012: Predictions, Prophecies and Possibilities” and “The Mayan Code: Time Acceleration and Awakening the World Mind”. Some might dismiss this as typical New Age bunk, but there is always a portion of the credulous who will have anxiety after learning of apocalyptic predictions.

What makes the Mayan apocalypse any different from The Millenium, The Great Disappointment of 1844 or any other prediction of the end of the world? Well, I think it has a lot to do with some of the mystique of Pre-Columbian Meso-American cultures like the Aztec, Inca and the Maya.

Honestly, when you hear someone speak of the Maya, what is the first image that comes to mind? Is it of an long lost advanced civilization with lost knowledge we have yet to recover? Is it of ancient astronauts?

The Mayan culture was extensive and advanced, but it seems unlikely they had any prescient knowledge of the end of the world. I think it would be great if we could ask them. Unfortuntely, this advanced culture with foreknowledge of the end of the world collapsed over a thousand years ago.

So, if you are convinced the world will end in 2012…. Can I have your stuff?

“The End of the Universe is very popular, people like to dress up for it, Gives it a sense of occasion.” — Douglas Adams in “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”