I love the Mayans. Love them to death. Thankfully they don’t know me or sill roam the Earth or else they’d have me sliced and diced and on my way into the sacrifice dumpster faster than you can say "Cortes was a prick". I also love the really crazy things they did in the name of religion and their own bizarre cosmic leanings. All the religious zealots these days are so predictable and boring. Back then, they decapitated the losers (or possibly the winners) of their biggest sport and smeared their blood all over town. I’ll take that over terrorism or Cleanflicks everyday. The Doomsday Prophecy is even more wicked and possibly terrifiying. According to those gents, while we’re doing our last minute Christmas shopping in 2012, the world’s gonna go belly up. Might make you want to consider holding off on that pearl necklace. Not to mention the jewelry you’re getting her.
My good friend and giant shark wrangler Steve Alten (pictured below, ain’t he dreamy) told me of a program for the History Channel he was involved with and since Alten’s Doomsday Prophecy book Domain is my favorite of his, of course I was jazzed to see it. As it turns out, it’s quite a little show and a nice mix of history and far-out spooky speculation.
Here’s the official press release on the show:
"NEW
YORK, NY, JULY 6, 2006 – Did the lost civilization of ancient the Mayans
predict some of the most devastating events of modern times? What did the
Mayans know about the world that present-day scientists have yet to discover?
Is the secret to the end of our existence – not centuries from now, but just a
few years away – waiting to be deciphered from within their complex hieroglyphics?
The truth is uncovered using dramatic recreations that bring a vanished people
to life on DECODING THE PAST: MAYAN
DOOMSDAY PROPHECY, premiering on Thursday, August 3rd at 9:00 p.m. ET/PT on The
History Channel.
our own in many ways, was at its peak from about 600 to 900 AD in present-day
Mexico and Central America. During that time, prophecies originated that some
believe foretold such events as the Spanish conquistadors’ arrival in Mexico,
the American Civil War, the assassination of Lincoln, World War II, and even
the tragedy of September 11, 2001 with uncanny accuracy.
But
of even greater interest is a Mayan prophecy still to occur – doomsday. “Almost
every religion and every culture speaks of a doomsday. The difference between
what other religions are saying and what the Mayan culture says is that the
Mayan calendar, which is an instrument of time and space, actually names the
specific date when humanity will end,” says Steve Alten, author of the book
about the prophecy Domain.
As
the program recounts, the Mayans used their advanced knowledge of astronomy,
architecture and mathematics to discover repeating patterns in the universe.
For example, they determined that every 26,000 years, the sun aligns with the
center of the Milky Way. At the same time, the Earth completes a wobble around
its axis. This incredible cosmic alignment, called procession, will next occur
on December 21, 2012, the date the Mayans call doomsday.
Explains
Bruce Scofield, Mayan astrology researcher, “The processional cycle was an
astronomical measurement that was so slow that they saw it as a fundamental
framework on which they could patch their history, and see where they were in
the context of time.”
This cyclical notion of time forms the
basis for the prophecies that emanate from the Mayan view of the universe.
Experts studying one of the Mayans’ few surviving manuscripts discovered a
blueprint of galactic activity for thousands of years to come. They have
determined that the Mayans predicted a cataclysmic event just six years away.
As MAYAN
DOOMSDAY PROPHECY describes, in Mayan cosmology, there are five great
cycles, each lasting about 5,125 years, and four have already passed. According
to Alten, “The four prior cycles all ended in destruction. So when we talk
about the Mayan doomsday prophecy, we’re talking about the end of the fifth
cycle, the very last day of which equates to December 21st in the
year 2012.”
What will really happen on that date? Some
experts say Mayan documents predict the destruction of the world in a great
flood. Others have a more pragmatic view. Alten adds, “I think it’s easy to be
skeptical about a two-thousand-year-old Mayan doomsday PROPHECY… Could humanity
be wiped off the face of the planet on December 21st in the year
2012? Maybe the more important question is what are we going to do to prevent
it?”
THE PAST: MAYAN DOOMSDAY PROPHECY is produced for The History Channel by 1080
Productions. Executive Producer for The
History Channel is Dolores Gavin.
The History Channel® is one of the leading cable television
networks featuring compelling original, non-fiction specials and series that
bring history to life in a powerful and entertaining manner across multiple
platforms. The network provides an inviting place where people experience
history in new and exciting ways enabling them to connect their lives today to
the great lives and events of the past that provide a blueprint for the future.
The History Channel has earned three Peabody Awards, six News and Documentary
Emmy® Awards and received the prestigious Governor’s Award from the Academy of
Television Arts & Sciences for the network’s Save Our History® campaign
dedicated to historic preservation and history education. The History Channel
reaches more than 89 million Nielsen subscribers. The website is located at
www.History.com."
Sold yet? Here’s two lingering images from the show that might give you an idea where it’s coming from.
of the stuff in there comes off as eerie as Hell, though I have to
admit that some of the Mayan’s prophecies and their relation to
real-world events that transpire might be tenuous, especially since
Americans tend to judge these kind of things based on our own tragedies
(JFK, Lincoln, Columbine, Sept. 11) rather than the ones going on all
around us but the fact remains that this kind of history is always compelling and often eye-opening.
This show is no exception.
See you on August 3rd on The History Channel.