For several years before 2012, the date 21 December 2012 was one of the hottest topics in esoteric literature, on the internet and in pop culture. It was linked to the Maya calendar, to predictions of an alleged cataclysm and to hopes of a “new era”. Yet the day passed without any disaster. So it is worth taking a calm look at where the myth came from and what the date recorded in the Maya reckoning of time really meant.
The Maya – astronomers and mathematicians of Mesoamerica
Maya civilisation developed in what are now southern Mexico, Guatemala and Belize. The first Maya settlements date back to the second millennium BC, and their culture flourished in the first millennium AD. The Maya achieved a great deal in astronomy, mathematics and sacred architecture – as the temple complexes at Tikal, Palenque and Chichén Itzá, among others, bear witness. The cultures of Mesoamerica – the Maya, Aztecs, Toltecs, Zapotecs, Mixtecs and the people of Teotihuacán – differed from one another but shared many ideas, including ideas about measuring time.
What we know about the Maya comes mainly from inscriptions, surviving codices and the calendars themselves. The best known is the sacred calendar, the tzolkin, of 260 days: it combines a cycle of numbers from 1 to 13 with a cycle of 20 day names.
The Long Count and the 13 baktuns
To record longer periods the Maya used the so-called Long Count. Its largest commonly used unit was the b’ak’tun (baktun), about 394 years. The count began from a mythical starting date that scholars place in August 3114 BC. After 13 baktuns the counter reached 13.0.0.0.0 – according to the correlation accepted by most scholars, this fell precisely on 21 December 2012.
For Mayanists this was above all a symbolic anniversary and the close of one great calendar cycle, not a prophecy of doom – just as the end of a millennium in our calendar does not mean the end of the world. The calendar does not “run out” in 2012; after the 13th baktun, the next one begins. The few Maya inscriptions that mention the date describe no catastrophe.
Precession and the Age of Aquarius
In esoteric literature the year 2012 was also linked with precession – the slow wobble of the Earth’s axis that makes the spring equinox point shift against the background of the stars. A full precession cycle takes about 26,000 years (a figure of 25,920 years is often given). Astrologers divide it into “astrological ages” of about 2,150 years each and associate each with a different character of the era.
In this view 2012 was meant to symbolise the transition from the Age of Pisces to the Age of Aquarius – a time of transformation of consciousness, not destruction. Writers of this school stressed that “something is ending and something is beginning” and that change need not be bad. Bear in mind that this is an astrological interpretation; astrologers themselves disagree about when the Age of Aquarius begins.
Orion, pyramids and Atlantis – theories of the 1990s and 2000s
The myth owed its popularity to books that linked the Maya calendar with other themes. Patrick Geryl, in “The Orion Prophecy”, claimed that the positions of the planets and the constellation of Orion in 2012 would repeat the configuration at the time of the great flood, and that there would be a sudden reversal of the Earth’s poles, violent solar eruptions and waves destroying continents. Similar ideas appeared in the work of Adrian Gilbert (“The Mayan Prophecies”). The same literature also circulated speculation about Atlantis, whose survivors were supposed to have passed their knowledge to the Egyptians, and about the plan of the Great Pyramid “recording” the length of the precession cycle.
None of these theories has been confirmed by scientific research. Reversals of the Earth’s magnetic poles did indeed happen in the geological past, but they unfold over hundreds or thousands of years, not in a single day. Nor was there any special planetary alignment in 2012 that could have threatened the Earth – astronomers and scientific institutions, NASA among them, explained this many times.
How fear became a commodity
In the years before 2012 many websites and publications presented the end of the world as a certainty “confirmed by scientists”. The Maya calendar was lumped together with Nostradamus, solar storms and quotations from the Bible, and readers were offered paid “survival guides”. Today these predictions are chiefly an interesting example of how easily a genuine calendar tradition can be turned into a prophecy of doom.
What remained after 2012?
21 December 2012 passed peacefully. For today’s Maya and for scholars of their culture it was an occasion to recall the achievements of this civilisation, and for many people interested in spirituality, a symbolic moment to reflect on change and renewal. The story of the 2012 myth shows that the most interesting thing about prophecies is often not whether they come true, but what they reveal about the hopes and fears of those who believe in them.
First published (Polish original): 12 November 2009. Written by astrologers and esoteric specialists working with our editorial team; edited and translated for HOROSCOP.SPACE. © All rights reserved.
