Believers in Mayan cycle say 2012 is not the end of the world

Despite Hollywood hype, believers in Mayan cycle say 2012 is not the end of the world

By Nancy Haught, The Oregonian

November 17, 2009, 6:17AM

Darryl James, Special to The OregonianThe Rev. Kathleen McKern Verigin (right) embraces Kathryn King, a therapist who spoke about grief and loss during an Anam Cara Connections gathering on preparing for 2012.

Sites spin science to their own ends

This isn't the first time that serious science has been hijacked by a Web site predicting the end of the world.

The work of Oregon State University professor Joe Stoner and his colleagues shows up on sites that see 2012 as the beginning of the end.

In spotty spelling, www.2012doomsday.com proclaims that the "Doomday" predicted by the Mayans "may be just aroudn the corner! Read more below." And there follows what reads like an official release from the university press office, an account of his work on Earth's shifting magnetic poles.

Other 2012 sites highlight the work of Peter Clark, a professor of geosciences at OSU, and Robert Dziak, a marine geologist at the university's Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport.

The studio behind the movie "2012" has created fake Web sites to hype the film, including Institute for Human Continuity's site (which includes a line identifying it as affiliated with the movie). But other sites that aren't affiliated with the movie are posting scientific findings that they say support their dire predictions. Scientists, who usually ignore online hysteria, are speaking out.

David Morrison, a NASA scientist who answers questions online, says he gets a dozen queries a day about 2012 predictions. Two years ago, he got about one a week.

He blames the hysteria on "cosmophobia": The more some people learn about the universe, the more threats they perceive.

Stoner, an associate professor of marine geology and geophysics, has his own theory. "Some people would like to see the world end," he says.

Stoner's not surprised that his work is portrayed as supporting evidence for a 2012 scenario. The work is real; the conclusions the sites are drawing are not. Many people assume the magnetic poles are stable spots that coincide with the geographic poles. Not the case, he says.

"It migrates in one direction, hangs out there awhile and then moves again," he says. "It's part of a natural progression."

The motion is rare, "but not unheard of. The last time it happened was 500 years ago." But it's a long leap from the poles' shifting to the end of the world.

"Science is around to make sense of these things," Stoner says. "We're trying to figure out what is going on and not get too wrapped up in what-ifs."

-- Nancy Haught

For the impressionable souls who see "2012," Roland Emmerich's ode to the end of the world, here's a mantra:

"It's only a movie."

Only a movie that took in $65.2 million domestically -- to open at No. 1 -- and $230.4 million worldwide when it opened last weekend. Despite the film's claim -- and the studio hype -- that ancient Mayans predicted the end of the world in 2012, they didn't predict it and it won't end. Just ask NASA.

"No, the world isn't going to end in 2012," its official Web site declared Monday.

While other doomsday sites -- some fake, created to market the movie -- proclaim the end (see sidebar), 2012's true believers argue that the date is a beginning.

Bill Maxson of Aloha works as a property manager and studies the ancient Mayan calendar mentioned in the movie. He's been fascinated by archaeology for 48 years, since he dug up an ancient fish fossil in Montana and became the hit of second-grade show and tell. He's read dozens of books on early Mayan culture and visited their ruins in Mexico and Central America.

Maxson, who's spoken to a few groups interested in 2012, patiently explains the myriad details of the Mayan long calendar. He admires their astronomical knowledge and mathematical skill. He marvels that a culture that thrived between A.D. 300 and A.D. 900 saw itself in the midst of a time cycle that began in 3114 B.C., would end in A.D. 2012 and then -- as cycles do -- begin again.

"It's not the end of the world," Maxson says, "it's the end of a cycle."

He agrees with John Major Jenkins, a Colorado writer who's published 10 books about the Mayans. Jenkins argues that the significance of 2012 rests on a galactic alignment, in which the sun and Earth will line up with the center of the Milky Way. As the alignment approaches, Maxson expects life on Earth to be unsettled for a while.

"Personally, I believe in a shift," Maxson says, "that we'll become less materialistic and more spiritual. I believe in the balance of yin and yang and this is a balancing -- on a huge, huge scale."

Facts, fallacies

Jenkins, who is visiting Portland on Wednesday for a reading at Powell's -- wrote "The 2012 Story," a book that claims to sift through the facts and fallacies surrounding the famous date. Jenkins says Sony Pictures invited him to the movie premiere, despite the fact that the plotline and his research barely intersect.

"They are using 2012 in the title of the movie," he says. He used the red carpet and his few minutes at the microphone to try to set the record straight. His 20 years of research, he says, have convinced him that the long calendar does not predict the end of the world. It anticipates a galactic event that he calls a "rare astronomical alignment."

"I'm not saying that this alignment is a grand astronomical event that makes the Earth's poles flip or causes solar flares to happen," he says. "But it is the cornerstone of understanding the full knowledge that the Maya had, and it's impressive and fascinating in its own right."

Mayan metaphors

It's possible that Mayan stories of gods' coming and going as time cycles begin and end are metaphors for shifts in consciousness, Jenkins says. "Transformation and renewal start within the human heart, on a spiritual plane," he says. "It's not about electing a new president or even changing our institutions."

Laura Skinner hasn't read any of Jenkins' books, but her ideas about 2012 echo his -- in a cosmic way.

A psychology student at Washington State University Vancouver, she works part time at Celestial Awakenings, a metaphysical shop on Northeast Highway 99 in Vancouver. Skinner teaches classes on developing intuition, that "inner knowing" she says most people have but don't always follow.

The 2012 Story

What: A reading by John Major Jenkins

When: 7:30 p.m. Wednesday

Where: Powell's City of Books, 1005 W. Burnside

Details: Free

Official movie site: whowillsurvive2012.com

She believes that she has always been psychic, that all human beings are psychic, but that most suppress or ignore it. Four or five years ago, she says she began to hear inner voices that she calls "her guides." They are preparing her for 2012.

Increasing awareness

"It's a time for releasing our fears," she says, "especially our fear that there is not enough for all of us. It's time to bring in our abundance. There is plenty to go around." She believes that, spiritually speaking, 2012 invites people to increase awareness of themselves and why they're alive.

The Rev. Kathleen McKern Verigin is doing similar work. A licensed minister in the New Thought movement, she leads a nonprofit ministry inspired by the Celtic idea of "soul friends."

The ministry, Anam Cara Connections, meets monthly for participatory, spiritual gatherings that aren't tied to any particular religious tradition. Verigin thinks her program is a perfect fit in Oregon, where many people describe themselves as spiritual but not religious.

"I tell people I'm outside the box of Christianity but inside the circle of God," she says. She'd heard bits and pieces about 2012 for almost 10 years but didn't know much about the date or its significance.

"One night, I couldn't sleep, so I Googled 2012," she says. What she read on the Internet scared her: vivid descriptions of earthquakes, tidal waves and the collision of planets.

Armed with knowledge

"I didn't want to give in to the fear," she says. "I decided to arm myself with knowledge." She read up on 2012 and began to see it as a positive turning point for human beings.

Over the summer, she saw the "2012" movie trailer: In Rome, the dome of St. Peter's Basilica topples onto a holiday crowd. In Washington, D.C., a massive aircraft carrier crushes the White House.

"I was stunned," she says. "But it also calmed me down." She asked herself what she could do to help people understand that the movie's exaggerated catastrophic events are likely not going to happen.

She's convinced that 2012 will mark a shift -- perhaps in the Earth's crust, definitely in its infrastructures, but mostly in consciousness. A new awareness will focus on unity, and connections between people will become more important. And the power of words can pave the way.

"In my moments of despair, it feels like we're spiraling downward," she says. "But it's all in how we look at it. The language of 'counting down' ends with a blastoff. I try to think about counting up to 2012 and looking for the places where we can have hope."

As for how Verigin explains Hollywood's take on 2012? "It's only a movie."

-- Nancy Haught