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Catastrophobia and mythomania

2012:
Science or Superstition
(The Definitive Guide to the Doomsday Phenomenon)
By Alexandra Bruce
304 pp. The Disinformation Company $14.95

Reviewed by Ruth Douillette

I hadn’t been paying much attention to the impending arrival of December 21, 2012, until I read Alexandra Bruce’s 2012: Science or Superstition, and discovered just how blissfully ignorant I was about the hype surrounding the “end of time.”

Clearly I’m out of the loop on the “twenty-twelve” phenomenon, but it’s big: there are logoed T-shirts, games, movies, books, blogs, and even an iPhone app that counts down to the date.

2012: Science or Superstition, Bruce’s sixth book on popular culture, is written as a companion to a documentary film, 2012: Awakening, which will be completed late this December. The editor suggests that readers begin by reading the glossary, which is extensive, and includes such terms as: syzygy, Milankovitch cycles, and apsis.

This is not “twenty-twelve”-lite.

Fortunately Bruce writes in a companionable style that prevents the mass of information from being overwhelming. Her depth of understanding and her ability to simplify hard-core science lift the esoteric into the light of day.

In a nutshell, the Maya Long Count calendar, developed in 3114 BC, recorded dates grouped in eras or “ages.” The last date of the current 5125-year cycle or “World Age” coincides with the 2012 winter solstice. The unique planetary configuration on that date leads some to speculate that the Maya were connected in some way to a supernatural source of knowledge or were extremely advanced mathematically—or both—and were fully aware of a cosmic significance of a date far in their future.

And if this is the case, just what might we who are alive on December 21, 2012, expect? On a practical note, should I bother to go Christmas shopping in 2012? I hate shopping—although I’d prefer it to apocalypse.

Even the “experts” on the Maya are not in agreement about what might occur at the end of the age: catastrophic doomsday or a new age of psychic awakening. Enter the scientists, “experts” of a different ilk, and the plot muddies. Sure there are potentials for catastrophe, they acknowledge, but it won’t be related to the Maya and their timekeeping.

If there are fifty ways to leave your lover, there are at least as many possibilities for the catastrophic end of our planet— crustal displacement, innumerable natural disasters, geomagnetic pole shift, super volcanoes, gravitational keyholes, asteroid collisions... Any of these and more can occur independently of the 2012 date.

While some predict certain disaster, others like Mayanist John Major Jenkins see “a window of opportunity for a shift in consciousness”:

The ancient Maya viewed an epochal cycle to be akin to cosmic pregnancy, where the most important part was at the end or the “birth.” Academics who specialize in this culture that are willing to engage the topic are virtually unanimous in their assessments, that from the ancient Maya perspective, the most important aspect of 2012 was that it marked the beginning of a new era.

Bruce disentangles the “woo-woo” from the facts, wading “through the oceans of shameless snake oil and past the gatekeepers of the Ivory Tower” to provide solid footing for readers amidst the swirling speculation surrounding the ancient Maya Long Count calendar and the impending end of an age.

The abundance of publications on the topic, ranging from “reasonably speculative to totally kooky,” Bruce believes, points to a “sitting duck” mentality.

We fear that we’ve given our power away to the authorities and now they won’t tell us about a comet cluster that is coming to clobber us or about an imminent single-ply Earth crustal displacement cataclysm—none of which we could do anything to prevent or would have a chance of surviving—if they were really happening...

Bruce is funny, wry, saucy, irreverent... and super-smart. She pokes subtle fun at the New Agers as well as the staid scientists. She asks questions, gathers information, and passes the answers on to us—sometimes with a straight face, sometimes with a wink and a nudge, and often with cogent comments of her own. She’s not above calling something “mythomania.” She’s not above suggesting that psychedelic mushroom consumption plays a part in the reasoning of some. But neither does she mock, nor does she try to influence the reader to accept one belief or another. One man’s woo-woo is another’s firm belief, and we are left to our own conclusions.

Bruce’s book includes everything you need to know about twenty-twelve, and then some. I had to remind myself I wasn’t studying for a test, and didn’t have to completely understand everything—the cycles in the Long Count calendar, for example—to come away with a greater knowledge of the date that most likely will come and go uneventfully. I expect I’ll be seeing you at the mall come holiday time three years from now.

Prognostications abound, and will no doubt increase with the worldwide release of Sony Pictures’ 2012 this month (November, 2009). This apocalyptic movie by the producers of Independence Day is filled with the wildest of the extreme possibilities linked to the date—global cataclysm and the extinction of all life—a real treat for those who like computer-generated graphics and more than a modicum of fear in their entertainment. Read 2012: Science or Superstition first if you want both sides of the controversy surrounding the date. It’ll put Hollywood’s view in perspective.

The experts in both camps—apocalypse v. rebirth—will find out soon enough who’s right. I’m wondering if the “twenty-twelve” thing reveals a bit of the human propensity to attach deep significance to mere coincidence. It’s happened before—many times.

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Ruth Douillette retired after 35 years as a middle school teacher, and now freelances as a writer and photographer. Her essays have been published in the Christian Science Monitor, Cup of Comfort, Chicken Soup for the Soul, and Under Our Skin, an anthology about breast cancer. Her photography has been featured in flashquake's gallery of art. Ruth is a member of the National Book Critics Circle. For a sample of her writing and photography, visit Upstream and Down~.

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