Fractal Time: The Secret of 2012 and a New World Age

As each day passes greater attention is being placed on the up and coming date of 2012 and the various predictions surrounding the westerners interpretation of this period as “the end times”.

Here is a review of Gregg Braden’s latest book, Fractal Time: The Secret of 2012 and a New World Age, recently published by Hay House, Inc.

Rather than focusing on end time theories, Braden explores the idea of Time Codes and Choice Points by using mathematics for his calculations and how they may relate to life and planetary cycles.

Is time really the best tool to measure the vast potential that may be at our door step not all too soon?

God and Science

Fractal Time, Greg Braden’s sixth book on the theme of putting god and science back in bed together, endeavors to reveal the mathematics of the cyclical nature of events.

Braden posits that time based patterns can be discerned and plotted using his Time Code whether they are grand scale effects emanating from the Big Bang or a more personal scale charting repetitive patterns of setbacks, opportunities and triumphs in one’s own life.

He has written an ambitious book in a genre rife with ambition and speculation; the meaning of the enigmatic Mayan calendar end date, December 21, 2012. This upcoming event serves as both the hinge point of his calculations and good marketing for the dust jacket.

“It’s only recently that the meaning of a world age has made sense to modern scientists.”

A Leap Ahead & The End Times Concept

The concept of “the end times” has been pervasive in western thought through the centuries.

Referred to as catastrophism in modern parlance, theories as to why this pathology persists range from the curses of biblical Revelation to suppressed racial memory of past planetary or societal disaster.

The 2012 end date has been collecting these theories like a dark suit in a cat hospital. However, American Indian cosmology, especially of the Maya, teaches that it is more important to realize the date as the beginning of another World Age at the completion of a 5,125 year cycle, and view it as an opportunity to radically shift in consciousness, rather than preparing for the “end.”

The Maya “viewed the conditions of the galaxy as converging in a perfect way to serve as a cosmic midwife. From this perspective, the great birth that 2012 is facilitating is a spiritual one: humankind’s evolutionary leap . . .”

The Time Code Algorithm

Much of the book is a collection of mathematical curiosities and scientific facts tinted with a blush of New Age Christianity, daubs of indigenous wisdom and references to the author’s extensive trekking to spiritual power spots around the globe.

Mixing in some selected quotes, we see time as a pattern of cycles dotted with what he calls “Choice Points,” critical moments when change occurs, good or bad according to choices we make as individuals or society collectively.

Braden’s background as a computer system designer in the corporate/military world applies here as he proposes a kind of cybernetics of spiritual development possibly affecting the entire planet.

The algorithm Braden comes up with he calls The Time Code and, despite not too subtle hints of it’s divine pedigree, it’s quite clever, almost elegant (elegance being an attribute greatly prized in scientific mathematics).

Central to each calculation is the ratio known as phi, a truly elegant and ancient formula generally attributed to the Greeks and popularly known as The Golden Mean. The most interesting part of the book is the all too brief history and explanation of this, Mandelbrot’s Fractal Geometry,  and the Fibonacci Sequence and how they illustrate an underlying universal pattern in creation.

Some reference to David Boehm’s theory of “Implicate Order” would have helped bring this to a more revealing light.

Recognizing Patterns in the Time Code

I tried out the Time Code calculator using events of my own life, as suggested, and certainly found some wild patterns. Then again it’s a matter of how much detail one considers significant.

I’ve had enough heartbreaks, memorable loves, radical course changes, big wins and near misses, and really stupid decisions in my life, that I could find hexagrams, 666 and the profile of Mother Mary by changing the magnification of scrutiny.

Human intelligence is based on pattern recognition and look where that’s gotten the species. This stuff can drive you crazy if you get obsessed with it. Like numerology, astrology or even the I Ching, they are best taken in measured doses.

In my youth I studied Hermetic Occultism using the Tarot and the sacred numerology of the Kabbalah. When I started seeing coded patterns in the numbers on passing license plates, I put down all those books like a junky in rehab. The Bible Code enthusiasts should also consider entering a program; all written language is code. Check out the revolutionary work being done by David Bolton, a project he calls “Children of the Code,” to see how traumatic it can be to learn the code of language at such a tender age.

The Entertainment Factor of Fractal Time

This volume is designed to be entertaining rather than in depth, a good airport book.

It reads like a PowerPoint presentation without the fancy graphics, but my guess is that his live lectures have those visual aids.

The text flows smoothly over the surface of numerous concepts, linking them with the adeptness of an NLP master (neuro-linguistic programing). The Time Code itself is simple enough; explanation, samples, implications and conjectures could be covered in a medium length essay. The rest is fascinating like a stroll through a museum’s diorama collection

Choice Points

An index at the back of the book would have been handy (though there are end notes) because he throws so many authors and researchers along with historical references into the mix, I found myself wanting to go back to particulars to double check some of the author’s assertions.

For instance, Braden uses the infamous Gulf of Tonkin incident as “a perfect example of how easily unnecessary results can be triggered by wartime fears.” Perhaps a Choice Point can even be something as dubious as this manufactured event, an elaborate lie that then President Johnson used to justify escalating the Vietnam War with a bit more than “unnecessary results.” Talk about corporate/military doublespeak.

Hopi Language

Another unfortunate reference is his misread of the brilliant work of Benjamin Lee Whorf whose insights into the structure of Hopi language and world view, had Braden explored them in depth, would have surely altered the tone and conclusions of this book.

He may have only read his research team’s notes rather than the whole of Whorf’s work since he quotes his own paragraph from a previous book, Divine Matrix. According to Braden, “the Hopi simply don’t think of time, space, distance, and reality in the way we do . . . they see everything as happening ‘now.'”

Compare his assertion to this quote from Whorf, ” . . .the Hopi language is seen to contain no words, grammatical forms, constructions or expressions that refer directly to what we call  ‘time,’ or to past, present, or future . . ..” “Hence, the Hopi language contains no reference to ‘time,’ either explicit or implicit.”  There is no “now” in Hopi consciousness. And no “is” for that matter.

I’ll not belabor this point within the limits of this review, however it brings up a critical divergence from what the Maya (whose world view and language are antecedent to most American Indian cultures including the Hopi) actually were thinking when they devised the calendar and calculated the end date.

The Maya were not obsessed with time, as so many researchers and pop-culture authors assert. They did not think in terms of time. Perhaps the “end of the world’ and ‘humankind’s evolutionary leap” will be when our time-based culture drops that insidious man-made illusion, time.

To learn more visit Hay House Books > Fractal Time by Gregg Braden

Watch a Short Trailer for Fractal Time

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDiGXn7LgM0&w=570&h=461]

 

To learn more visit Hay House Books > Fractal Time by Gregg Braden

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Writer, photographer, raconteur, Curtis McCosco fled from academia to further his education in Haight-Ashbury and the streets of Hollywood.

 

He’s worked as a furniture maker, Moviola repairman, documentary film maker, Motown tech, carpenter, masseur, and explores the the worlds of indigenous wisdom and shamanism, Hermetic occultism, remote viewing, history, politics and the evolution of consciousness, all from a Buddhist perspective.

You can find more of his writing on his blog, NOOZINE.com.