I’ve been fascinated with the year 2012 for some time. I think Terence McKenna first brought it to my attention, back when I was in my taking drugs to achieve full universal understanding phase. According to the Mayan calendar, December 21, 2012 completes the 13th cycle since the beginning of time. Nobody knows what the heck that actually means, but many have interpreted it to mean that a new Creation will begin, ending this one. There are other apocalyptic predictions, including a couple about the Earth being hit or ravaged by a comet (and good news, 433 Eros, the second largest Near Earth Object on record will pass within about 16 million miles of Earth on January 31 of 2012!), and some scientists predict catastrophes like the world’s oil production finally going past the peak point, leading to permanent blackouts in parts of the world, to the changing of Earth’s magnetic polarity, creating massive disasters. Even the Catholics get in on it – Saint Malachy predicts that the last Pope shows up in 2012, ushering in Christ’s Tribulations (truly a good name for a reality TV show hosted by Pat Robertson).
For me 2012 has been a terrifying aspect of my mortality looming on the horizon. I always think it’ll be pretty ironic if I kick the bucket that year but the rest of you jokers keep on keeping on. But then I look at how the New Agers approach 2012 – many of them think that this will be the beginning of a new age of understanding and spirituality, finally delivering the promise of the Age of Aquarius. Grant Morrison’s The Invisibles ends in 2012 with everybody ascending to a higher state of consciousness. So maybe this will all work out for the best.
It may work out for the best in real life (or, to be rational, nothing much may happen), but in Hollywood it’s going to be a bloodbath. Whitley Streiber, supposed alien abduction fruitcake and author of Wolfen, on the 2012 bandwagon with a new novel, probably dictated to him by Greys from Pleiades. The book is called 2012: The War For Souls, and it’s being published later this year but has already been snapped up by Warner Bros, with Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci – the guys writing Star Trek XI – producing.
The other name being attached to the film is Michael Bay, but it’s unclear if he’s producing as well or actually directing. But let’s be honest, do you think Bay could pass up the opportunity to end the world? This seems like what his whole career has been building up to, with only a small stutter when he saved the world in Armageddon.
I like to think that making this movie could function as magick, in the best Alan Moore/Grant Morrison crazy English people who do a lot of drugs way – that by getting these issues, concerns and fears out to the population at large maybe they can be cosmically diverted. After all, look at how much we freaked out about Y2K and that went well. But if the world does not end in 2012, this movie is going to have a very short shelf-life on DVD.