Concept

2012 phenomenon

Overview

The 2012 phenomenon was a range of eschatological beliefs that cataclysmic or transformative events would occur on or around 21 December 2012. This date was regarded as the end-date of a 5,126-year-long cycle in the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar, and festivities took place on 21 December 2012 to commemorate the event in the countries that were part of the Maya civilization (Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador), with main events at Chichén Itzá in Mexico and Tikal in Guatemala.

Various astronomical alignments and numerological formulae were proposed for this date. A New Age interpretation held that the date marked the start of a period during which Earth and its inhabitants would undergo a positive physical or spiritual transformation, and that 21 December 2012 would mark the beginning of a new era. Others suggested that the date marked the end of the world or a similar catastrophe. Scenarios suggested for the end of the world included the arrival of the next solar maximum; an interaction between Earth and Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy; the Nibiru cataclysm, in which Earth would collide with a mythical planet called Nibiru; or even the heating of Earth's core.

Scholars from various disciplines quickly dismissed predictions of cataclysmic events as they arose. Mayan scholars stated that no classic Mayan accounts forecast impending doom, and the idea that the Long Count calendar ends in 2012 misrepresented Mayan history and culture. Astronomers rejected the various proposed doomsday scenarios as pseudoscience, having been refuted by elementary astronomical observations.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

Possible passages

Found by search and not yet checked by a person; they may only mention the idea in passing.

There is operative also an external influence imparted by Nature herself, namely, the perception of the setting sun. Wherever particular attention is called to some one entrance to the underworld, or where a distant region of the earth is regarded as the abode of the dead, this is located in the west, in the direction of the setting sun. We have here a striking example of that form of mythological association and…
Wilhelm Max Wundt, Elements of Folk Psychology Outline of a Psychological History of the Development of Mankind
States what 2012 phenomenon is.
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Time, then, was generated with the universe, in order that, being produced together, they might together be dissolved, if their dissolution should ever happen:—and it was formed on the model of an eternal nature, that it might as far as possible resemble it; for this model exists through all eternity, while the world, on the other hand, has been generated, now exists, and will exist, throughout all time. With this…
Plato, The works of Plato
Close in meaning to 2012 phenomenon; the term itself is not named.
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This bird was brought to Rome in the censorship of the Emperor Claudius, being the eight hundredth year from the building of the City, and it was exposed to public view in the Comitium. This fact is attested by the public Annals, but there is no one who supposes that it was a genuine phoenix.
the Elder Pliny, The Boys' and Girls' Pliny
Close in meaning to 2012 phenomenon; the term itself is not named.
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Philosophers who discussed 2012 phenomenon

Dustin Thomason

Related ideas

Place in the tradition

Part of New Age.

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