The end of the world as we know it

With John Cusack’s upcoming movie, yet another entry to the already abundant amount of 2012-related media, it’s time we take a step back and carefully look at why some are looking to Dec. 21, 2012, as “the end of the world as we know it.”

Whether their belief rests on the astronomical calculations of the Maya, or on the quatrains of Nostradamus, anticipation is high that our world will see a catastrophic end in 2012.

For many, the belief that the world will end in 2012 stems from archaeological and anthropological findings concerning the ancient Maya, a Mesoamerican civilization that saw its decline start around the ninth century. In excavating the civilization’s abandoned cities, much has been discovered about the Maya, including their unusually advanced knowledge concerning astronomy.

Their calendars, like the calendars of many of today’s civilizations, were based on celestial phenomena. The most important of their calendars was the Tzolk’in, which recognized 260 days in a year, and was used to mark the dates of important religious festivals and ceremonies.

Combine the Tzolk’in with the Haab, a 365-day calendar consisting roughly of 18 months with 20 days each, and you have the system by which the Maya kept track of their dates. The passing of 52 Haab constituted a “calendar round,” which, for the Maya, possibly entailed a forthcoming disaster.

With the interlocking calendar systems comes the Long Count, the source of Maya doomsday prophecy. According to the Long Count system, after the completion of every Long Count the Maya calendar was to set itself back to zero. The end of the next Long Count, it appears, falls on the winter solstice in the year 2012.

For many then, the Maya calendar has been seen as having predicted the end of the world, much like it seemed to predict the Maya civilization’s own demise. Going back to zero, many believe, almost certainly means the end of the world.

The Maya, however, weren’t the only ones to suggest that the year 2012 was to mark the end of the world, because others point to 16th-century France as proof of a December doomsday. Nostradamus, an apothecary born in Saint-Remy-de-Provence, France, in 1503, is regarded today as being one of the great prophets, with many in the present day looking to his prophecies as indicators of what’s to come.

These prophecies, written in a series of poetic quatrains, were published in books around the middle of the 16th century; “The Prophesies,” his most popular collection, contained approximately 942 quatrains.

Although it’s not known for sure, many believe that Nostradamus’ prophecies were based on judicial astronomy, the belief that you could predict the future by following the movements of the planets. For many, such a method isn’t too far-fetched, leading many to believe that his prophecies could bear quite a bit of truth.

Thus, even the idea that some of Nostradamus’s prophecies point to an end of the world in 2012 causes alarm. Lines like the following could possibly suggest the end of the world by celestial influences:

The great star for seven days will burn,
The cloud will make two suns appear:
The great mastiff will be all night howling,
When the great pontiff changes his land.
(Century 2, Quatrain 41)

Most conclusive, to many, however, are the drawings found in his recently discovered book, which contain images suggesting the same alignment of the solar system and galaxy that was predicted to occur at the end of the Long Count by the Maya. 

The question, however, is just how accurate these sources and interpretations are. How do we know that the Maya calendar functions in the exact way we’ve explained it, and how do we know that Nostradamus’ predictions aren’t just ambiguous lines of poetry that some have all too easily accepted as prophecy?

Whatever the case, we cannot deny just how big the 2012 phenomenon has become over the last few years. Now, it seems, all we can do is wait. What do you say? Does Dec. 21, 2012, mark the end of your calendar?