Customer Reviews

The Mystery of 2012: Predictions, Prophecies, and Possibilities

5 star:		(50)
4 star:		(17)
3 star:		(15)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

The MYSTERY of 2012 contains four parts:

Part 1 - The Mayan Calendar and Mayan Cosmovision (4 essays)
Part 2 - Science, Business and Politics in the Context of 2012 (6)
Part 3 - Spirituality, Signs, and Symbolism Surrounding 2012 (8)
Part 4 - A New Humanity: Evolution Toward 2012 and Beyond (6)

Being a long time reader of Gregg Braden and Peter Russell I was naturally drawn to MYSTERY 2012 but their contributions are minor.

Although MYSTERY 2012 claims to offer all the information necessary to examine the mystery from every angle - there are some gaps. There is no contribution from Sri Yukteswar followers who claim the traditional interpretation of the Yuga time span is incorrect, and no reference to the Book of Daniel, where he interprets a dream of Nebuchadnezzar into the four Ages of Humanity, which in addition to connections to the consciousness of the Great Year cycle, can also be linked to the metallic characteristics of the Yuga cycle. Alan Oken's 'Complete Astrology' has a great summary of the Aquarius Age and the Great Year cycle, including an important connection to Leo. MYSTERY 2012 makes no mention of this important Leo polarity, nor of the work done by Thomas Brophy in 'The Origin Map' about the amazing astrological alignments on the Nabta Playa site in the Eyptian Sahara desert. There is growing awareness of the possibility the Sphinx at the Giza plateau is a lot older than mainstream theory, that it was constructed during the Age of Leo, around 11,000 BC - 13,000 years ago or one half of a great year from where our consciousness is now.

Also unsure to the inclusion of an essay from Janosh. Janosh produces lovely artwork based on the sacred geometry contained within crop circles, and his essay introduces the Arcturians as prime candidates for genuine crop circle makers, without really explaining the relevance to MYSTERY 2012. All I can surmise, is that there is some thought, when viewing the galactic centre from Earth, as we shift our focus in the direction of the northern galactic pole (similar to looking up towards our pole star - currently Polaris) the star that shines most brightly for us from the direction of Earth, is Arcturus. So if the fractal nature of consciousness is consistent, then in the same way the pole star has guided explorers across vast unknown oceans discovering new lands on Earth, so we can use our friend Arcturus to guide us across the galactic oceans towards new dimensions of being. So if one is going to mention Arcturus, then this celestial guidance role to me, is much more important than a crop circle connection.

So MYSTERY 2012 could have been a lot better in my opinion, however, apart from a few omissions, I would still recommend MYSTERY 2012 to readers interested in future studies and its links to spirituality, or vice versa. There are some big hitters in this book - and Sounds True has done a pretty good job linking the essays together. There is some repetition, such as the focus on the number `26' - 26,000 solar years is a full year of precession, both the Mayan Tzolkin and the average gestation period for a human embryo is 260 days, our solar system is located 26,000 light years from the galactic centre, etc. Rather than being monotonous, this repetition was useful to reinforce the concepts being discussed.

Not all the authors agreed on a specific date for the hypothetical window of opportunity which does produce a more realistic presentation of something as controversial as the evolution of our being. If everyone agreed then it may have lacked certain credibility. MYSTERY 2012 will save a lot of individual time and effort searching to pull together a thematic approach to the 2012 question from some of the various mystery schools. Having such a blend and variety of contributions means there is sure to be something relevant for every reader. The notes and credits sections provide useful follow up sources if specific authors appeal, also useful.

Regards,
Daniel John Hancock

The Mystery of 2012 is worth reading - let me start there. For quasi-Millennialists like myself, it offers yet another set of opinions for why we feel unrooted, in transformation and called to something we can't quite wrap our minds around. The other side of the coin of course is a stunning array of purple prose, baseless conjecture, and New Age gurus cashing in on the latest "prophecy." I think "teachers" and "gurus" should be held accountable - for example if nothing happens in 2012 beyond "business as usual" some of them should turn in their new age workshop licenses and go work at Walmart.

This is par for the course though - pearls of wisdom are always mixed with parking lot gravel and both have their place -it is hard to drive a motorcycle over pearls. What is noteworthy in the book are essays like Gregg Braden's that cite reliable literature on phenomena like the magnetic pole reversal and electromagnetic influence on mammals. As a psychologist I am particularly fascinated by this since the introduction of magnetic fields (repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation - rTMS) is the latest physiological treatment for severe depression and other symptoms. If our brains do have millions of magnetic particles, one wonders what a pole shift might do.

There are of course poor essays in the book such as the one by Lawrence Joseph on "The Bible Code." He describes amazing research by Israeli statisticians entering the Torah into a computer and finding predictions in code. What is most amazing is that he claims this was published in a statistics journal but doesn't bother to cite the article that supposedly went through a peer-review process. Either he is not being truthful, he is terribly out of touch with the center of gravity of most people, or he is a poor researcher. Extraordinary claims require at the very least a trail of documentation, not just the proclamation of a prophet (or a for-profit-prophet).

Reading the more questionable essays one wonders if these "futurists" will settle down to a life of farming and meditation after 2012 or if they imagine themselves still conducting expensive workshops. We'll see of course since 2012 is only around the corner.

The best essays in the book remind us that how we live now, that living with integrity, and that cultivating connectivity via compassion are helpful both for ourselves and others. Whatever does (or doesn't) happen in 2012 and the time leading up to it, now is the time to find out who we are and be that.

WHile the worst vice is advice here is mine: use the book as a projective test. Do you find yourself more drawn to explore what you are doing now or what outside forces will do in 2012 (e.g. sweeping down with magic powers to do the hard work for you)? If reading the book helps you answer that question, it is well worth the time and money.

I'm a little over half way through the book and have to give it 5 stars if only just to balance out the overly gross generalized 1-star review about it being mostly a load of hooey. The 4-star review about the useful essays is spot on, and the 1-star review alludes to the validity by virtue of complaining about known risks at hand the book points out. The book does point out known environmental factors but squarely in the 2012 context and correlated with other conscious or cosmic realities that help envision the fractal picture unfolding.

Also, the 1-star hooey reviewer keenly points out that some of the biggest threat of 2012 could likely lie in the volatility of the paranoia surrounding it similar to the situation faced with Y2K. While the book doesn't talk about that, general awareness of the destabilizing force of such paranoia is to me precisely the validation for swaying to the other extreme pondering possibly over idealized esoteric implications of galactic alignment the hooey reviewer cites as a primary complaint. But that's just one dimension of the book, with other essays pointing out scientific facts and implications, along with socio-economic perspectives and trends evident as we cascade toward 2012.

If you're trying to make sense of the disorienting rapidity of transformation going on in the world today, you owe it to yourself to ponder these essays. The uniqueness of the time and space our era of humanity occupies can't be disputed, with greater dimensions of existence to be made sense of than ever collectively grasped. Pondering the environmental, cosmic and nuclear realities surrounding 2012 are valid perspectives to consider right alongside idealizing human consciousness as an extension of the evolution of the universe (whatever the hooey esoteric interpretation).

This book is quite simply the most well put together compilation of essays from the brightest minds of our time focusing on one subject... our time. There is no doubt that humanity will not last if the destructive side-effects of our habits keep running rampant. What can stop it? Well, humanity itself, of course. Where will we get the wisdom to change? Well, humanity, once again. Every motivating aspect of our lives: spiritual, economic, and even the physical state of the world itself are all showing patterns that reach some kind of significantly rapid and radical change at the end of one year, 2012. It is not conspiracy or paranoia, just empirical data correlating with the expansion of human consciousness. There is no doubt that this book WILL influence one to change thoughts about the future, and in effect, thoughts and actions right now. Give your self and your future the light of reading anything from this book.

For the last couple of months or so, the date December 21, 2012 kept coming at me from many disparate sources. Then a few weeks ago, while browsing through my local bookstore I came upon this book and took in a few pages.

Typically I'm not a fan of "collected essay" style books, however I must admit this one was a very good read. If you're curious about the 2012 phenomena but have absolutely no clue what it's about, then I highly recommend this book. For most of the contributors of this work, the years leading up to and including 2012 portend many difficult but ultimately beneficial changes: material, emotional and spiritual, that will usher in a new era for humanity. I sure hope they are right!!!

Worthy of your consideration at the least -- both the predictions and this book. This is by far the most credible of all books on this topic (as of 2/2008). Its strength comes from the credentials of the contributors and the different perspectives that they offer from their different disciplines. Yes, it can sound New Agey, but there's wheat where there's chaff. Most of these authors have been published by quite mainstream publications, have multiple advanced degrees, rely on extensive research, and support their evidence as well as their speculations with citations of the sources in the bibliography. If you're skeptical, yet curious, start here, and explore sources that they cite if you want to dig deeper. There are enough to keep you busy reading for months.

Altogether a well-compiled and captivating read, outstanding in its presentation of collected voices of experts on such a subject of crucial importance. Unfortunately, many are not aware that a tidal wave of Awakening is sweeping across our planet these days, touching and transforming the lives of millions. Sri Bhagavan, the co-founder of the Oneness University in Southern India, says in an interview (2005): "The predictions are quite true, but what they are not aware of is that, as we have seen in our visions, a great transformation is sweeping across the planet, which will in turn prevent these things from happening. Already we are seeing signs of people becoming enlightened, and how it affects the environment. We are able to see this on a very small scale. And from that we are able to predict that on a global scale this transformation is going to occur. This is what is going to save the earth. If that does not happen, then what the scientists are predicting could very well come true. (...) We could save the earth. That is why we are telling people, "the house is on fire, let us move faster, let us hurry up". (...) There is no need for people to lose hope, because things are going to change dramatically. In a very unexpected way things are going to change."

Two of the experts appearing in this book, Arjuna Ardagh (author of The Translucent Revolution) and Ervin Laszlo (honorary president of the Club of Budapest), recently realeased a thoroughly well-researched account on how this shift is going to be accomplished. Awakening into Oneness is the title of this highly recommended book.

This is a book filled with essays from various people concerning their theories about the meaning of the end of the Mayan calendar which falls during the winter solstice of 2012.

What I expected:
An outline of prophecies related to 2012 (Mayan and otherwise), predictions of the future from professional futurists, and hard scientific data.

What I found:
New age hullabaloo and pseudoscience.

I cannot say that I came away from this book without learning anything. I did find it interesting that there's only one small mention of the significance of the end of the Mayan calendar within all the Mayan literature that's been printed. If the Mayans had seen this as such an important, cataclysmic day for all of mankind, surely they would have written more about it. I think this fact is what has inspired the authors of this essay not to see 2012 as being a scenario for doomsday but as a scenario for a change of world consciousness. The overwhelming consensus of many of the authors of these essays seem to be that the world will become more of one mind and feel less isolated and individual. The post-modern age has been filled with a great deal of asocial individualism, solipsism, and alienation. It seems to be the overall thesis of the writers of these essays that our next age will be the opposite of this. For most of the theorists, they feel that this will be a spiritual and psychological change that we will see starting in 2012.

As nice as "one world with one mind" sounds, I really don't see any proof for this anywhere in their research. It's a nice, warm, and fuzzy idea. But this is not what I was hoping for from this book. I suppose that it's good to know that the consensus isn't that the world will come to a grinding halt wherein all of humanity becomes extinct as the winter solstice of 2012 approaches. So the optimism, I suppose, is nice. And perhaps there are people out there that might find these theories interesting, but as a person who is curious about prophecies but want to see them related to cause and effect science, this book was absolutely not for me.

This book offers a look at the 2012 phenomenon from a wide range of viewpoints. It makes for a good introduction to the subject for someone who's interest has already been piqued by something they may have heard about 2012 or the Mayan calendar. While there is a bit of conjecture that some may be quick to write off as New Age mumbo-jumbo, (and a couple references to aliens and "galactic beams" and such) its important to keep an open mind while reading. A large portion of the essays are quite rational, and presented by learned people in an intellectual manner. Its the collective effect of this wide range of perspectives that allows one to see the common threads that run throughout the entire collection, and begin to understand the underlying truth that they present.

The title says it all: predictions, prophecies, and possibilities. Look elsewhere for in depth, scientific studies of magnetic pole reversals, astrology/astronomy, and quantum physics (but do look!). This is a collection of short essays that glosses over a extremely wide range of topics, all relating back to the 2012 phenomenon (including: Mayan Calendar systems and mythology, collective consciousness, accelerating evolution, astronomical cycles and the cyclical nature of time). Taken with a grain of salt, I found it fascinating, and it left me wanting to find out more on my own.

I've watched many documentaries concerning the 2012 phenomenon and am very interested in the history and the science of all of it. I'm not too interested in the new-age stuff. Hence, my 3 star review...

I got this book expecting more of the history and the science. There are several chapters that discuss the history of the Mayan calendar and the various other historical societies that have pointed to the date of 12/21/2012. There are a few chapters that cover the science of the galactic alignment and the movement of the heavenly bodies through space and time. All of these I found to be very interesting and informative.

The majority of the book covers the warm-and-fuzzies of this approaching date; the "oneness" of mankind, the universal love type view of what we can do to make the date a good thing. Problem is, we don't know that the date will be bad. I'm not a "new-age" kind of guy, but I don't mind reading about it. These sections were interesting if not somewhat off the mark for me personally.

Still, the read was interesting on the whole and I can recommend it to anyone that has a genuine interest in the 2012 period of history. Don't expect any physics or major historical explanations, but you can expect to be informed from every angle.

I think, in the end, the fact that this book really does take the time to view this coming date from every angle, every viewpoint from the physical to the spiritual to the historical, that I lean toward a higher rating becuase, at the least, it is fair in providing a fair and balanced look at the topic.

But, if all you want is the history or the scientific, keep on looking; trust me, you don't want to wade through the "fluff" for the few facts.

Good luck!

***Edit - 9/21/09 - I have since read The 2012 Story and would recommend this read to those who want the history, archaeology, astronomy (without the hocum) and science behind the date. This is a much more throrough, although somewhat slanted by the author's opinion (but not so much so that it ruins the book), look at the "practical" story of the Mayans and their calendar. Enjoy!