Beyond 2012: Catastrophe or Awakening? A Complete Guide to End-of-Time Predictions

Feeling a bit dazed and confused by all the books, DVDs, TV shows and divergent opinion about the so-called End Date of the Mayan Calendar?

Well fret no more, Geoff Stray has done his yeoman’s work and published the ultimate compendium of all things 2012, both on his website Diagnosis 2012 and his book Beyond 2012: Catastrophe or Awakening? published by Bear & Company.

Stray has done a great job of including, sorting through, and testing all the End-of-Time Predictions, prophecies, calendars, theories, science, and channelings you’ve ever heard of and a few you probably haven’t.

End-of-Time Predictions

More than just a listing of authors and conjectures, however, the book brings to light the long history of “millennialism”, “catastrophism”, apocalyptic traditions, and end-times hysteria in an open minded way.

He gives each their due before applying his considerable intellect (and long experience researching the Mayan Calendar, consciousness, spirituality and ancient traditions) to an examination of the internal logic, calendric calculations, the math and relevant science, plus the track record of the individual prognosticator.

Earth Changes

For instance, Gordon Michael Scallion’s latest predictions come under scrutiny comparing them to past predictions.

He did predict in 1993 the epicenter of the 1994 Northridge, California earthquake, but not it’s date. Scallion’s Earth Changes Report, published nine times a year, has been predicting massive earth changes since 1994 but has had to keep moving the goal posts back as the changes fail to materialize.

He now has joined the 2012 chorus. Other equally dubious predictions and their authors are subject to similar exposure, then gently but definitively debunked by Stray.

Not To Worry

One of the strengths of Beyond 2012 is that Stray has actually done the astrological and calendrical calculations, plus researched the alleged science behind the many theories he chronicles, summarily dismissing those whose figures don’t add up.

So you can stop worrying about the famous Photon Belt (doesn’t exist), or the “Realm Border Wave” preceded by a cluster of comets and ridden by a colossal fleet of spaceships carrying a race from Zeta Reticuli (home of the Grays) called The Annunaki.

Debate About the End Date

There is an ongoing debate in some quarters as to the actual end date of the Mayan Calendar.

First of all, as Stray points out, the calendar doesn’t end, nor is there anywhere in the Maya Prophecy any hint or reference to “the end of the world”.

The date of December 21, 2012 has, in most academic circles, been settled upon as the day the ancient Maya themselves chose for the calendar transition due to it being the winter solstice and the alignment of that day’s dawning sun with the galactic center.

However, two of the most popular figures in the pop phenomena of 2012ism, Carl Calleman and Jose Arguelles, insist on the date October 28, 2011.

Wisdom and Knowledge Lost

The confusion began with the 16th century Spanish conquest of the Maya. In their zeal the Conquistadors and Jesuit Bishops burned virtually every book, artifact, and text along with the priests and scholars who could have translated them.

So thorough was the holocaust that the Long Count of the calendar, the ancient calculations of the passage of long periods of years and ages, was lost.

The Sacred Day Count, a 260 day/52 year calendar has recently been discovered to have survived intact only in the remote highlands of Guatemala.

Mayan Day-Keepers have kept the count unbroken for at least a thousand years, but is not adequate to determine the end date by itself. Both the Long Count and the Sacred Day Count are necessary.

Ancient Mayan Calendar Restored

Gradually the greatness of the Maya civilization has been uncovered and the sophistication of their science restored piece by piece, mostly by European and American explorers, ironically the cultural descendants of those who destroyed the civilization.

But mistakes were made in the early days of Meso-American archaeology when trying to correlate carved stone dates with the Gregorian calendar.

Again, Stray meticulously clears up the debate, with the help of John Major Jenkins, and establishes the December 21, 2012 date as accurate. The elaborate abstractions and conjectures of spiritual consciousness proposed by Calleman, Arguelles, and others are not dismissed entirely, but placed in perspective as opinion based more on intuition than scholarship.

Psychic Power On the Rise

Which is not to say intuitively derived information is not valid.

To the contrary, Stray concludes his book with a Prognosis informing us of the verifiable data behind theories of increasing human psychic, paranormal, intuitive abilities due to earth changes such as the weakening of earth’s magnetic field (as proposed by Gregg Braden), especially along earth’s ley lines and at ancient sacred power spots.

In fact Stray proposes that cultivating these powers of mind is the key to survival in the challenging times ahead.

Shamanism, the New Age and Conspiracy Theories

Before concluding, Stray takes us on another voyage of discovery through the realms of Shamanism and Altered States; UFOs, ETs and Crop Circles; Secret Government conspiracies; Nostradamus and Edgar Cayce; and the vast horizons of The New Age.

By this time in the text, you’ll trust him as your guide and welcome his cogent insights regarding the nature of what his mentor Terence McKenna has called the “invisible landscape”.

Conscious Evolution

The author has done more than just research all the topics in this encyclopedic opus, though the thoroughness of his scholarship stands tall in the field of 2012 studies.

He has personally gone through many of the processes of conscious evolution he prescribes as an antidote to the coming “purifications” and changes. And he’s experienced these changes in some of the actual locations around the world frequently mentioned in the literature.

Beyond 2012 is the book for you if you want to discern what’s valuable and what’s dross in the accelerating carnival of 2012ism.

To learn more, visit Amazon > Beyond 2012: Catastrophe or Awakening? A Complete Guide to End-of-Time Predictions

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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.