Introduction

The year 2012, and more specific the date of 12.21.2012 has become a light beacon in the New Age movement but also in religious circles and other belief systems. It is a light beacon indeed to which a lot of moths are attracted, which will burn to a crisp when they finally have reach the light bulb. Why do I say that? Because the 2012 has become a frame in which everybody is painting his own canvas. That is, it has become a collection for widely different explanations of what will happen around this time period: a change from one Mayan calendar cycle to another, the end of the Mayan calendar, the end of the world, tremendous geological catastrophes, the end of human civilization, the Return of Christ, Ascension into the Fourth Dimension, aliens who will beam us up and so on. When you look at the wider picture it is obvious that 2012 has become a focus point of a money making scheme. Many books have been written about 2012, each author describing what he believes will happen. There is money to be made with not only writing books, but also with giving lectures, workshops etc.

But why that fascination with the 2012 date? Yes, the world around us is changing fast, for the better and for the worst. But could it also be that it is a huge manipulation of the mind of spiritual seekers to divert their attention from the real issues regarding humanity, and steer them into a blind alley?

On the side: other dates have been prophesized as a cataclysmic event. For example, August 13, 1999 when most planets were in a Grand Cross formation, was linked by John Mini to the Aztec calendar, and was supposed to an earth shaking event...that did not happen.

So many people accept ideas associated with 2012 without question. A great expectation of what will happen on or around that date is building up rapidly. Let's do a little homework, and find out what it is really about. How did 2012 become a focus point?

The Father of 2012

The basis for the 2012 idea is the Mayan Long Count calendar (used for counting whole years). The Mayan had several, different calendars, and with the invasion of the Spanish in Middle America, most of the knowledge and wisdom of the Mayan has been lost, primarily due to the extensive book burning. With it, their calendar counting was lost, and had to be reconstructed in later centuries based on certain documents. There are several different 'matches' with the Gregorian calendar, but the generally accepted correlation constant (with our Western calendar) is the "Modified Thompson 2". This makes the present Long Count calendar start at the date of August 11, 3114 BCE (Gregorian calendar). The Maya saw this as the date of the Creation of the world of human beings. This had significance for the Mayan civilization, but as we know that human beings have existed for a lot longer. It might have marked the arrival of the Mayan ancestors in Middle America. Thus it has significance only for the Mayan people. The Long Count was divided in cycles within cycles which are numerically very interesting. For example, one Long Count has 20 baktuns (each one = 144,000 days, an interesting number found in other religions and myths). 144,000 days is roughly 394 years.

So, based on the Thompson correlation (if this is the right match) the present baktun cycle (which is the 13th cycle in the Long Count) started on September 19, 1618 and it will end on December 20, 2012. The 14th baktun cycle will start on December 21, 2012. As you can see, it is just a minor cycle that changes into the next one. The Mayan themselves don't attach any importance to it. There are no historic Mayan references to anything important happening on the changeover from one baktun to another, no cataclysm whatsoever.

Some 2012 writers who base themselves on the Long Count calendar completely misinterpret this calendar. Some of them say the Long Count ends and a new Long Count starts, or it ends altogether.

Why is the end of a baktun cycle in the Long Count, which is only one of the calendars of the Mayan civilization, given so much attention? Well it all started with just one man. Jose Arguelles was the person who first introduced the date December 21, 2012 into mass consciousness with his book The Mayan Factor. I still remember reading this book in the 1980's, finding it both intriguing but also very complicated, as he constructed a whole numerological system. He combined the Mayan calendar with the Chinese I Ching, adding his own concepts and codes to it. He also created a new 'revised' Mayan year calendar consisting of 13 Moon months of each 28 days long, which he used for a game he created.

Basing himself on Mayan concepts, he came up with a lot of strange ideas. Arguelles claimed that he was the "heir of the legacy of Pacal Votan and the instrument of his prophecy, Telektonon". He called himself "Valum Votan" which he claims means "Closer of the Cycle". Who was Pacal Votan? Well he did not exist. It is a combination of two names. Pakal was a historical ruler of Palenque in the Late Classic period. Votan was a mythological 'founder' or ancestor of the Chiapas region. Arguelles made this change in his name essentially because he was receiving so many prophetic messages from a long dead Mayan priest named Pacal Votan that he just decided to go ahead and do away with his other identity all together.  Arguelles explains in another place about how his revelation of the 2012 date came from “Votan”. It seems to me that Arguelles was one of the many victims of channeling spirits.

Arguelles seems to have made up a lot of stuff. He came up with "The Law of Time" which involved two timing frequencies: one he calls "mechanised time" with a "12:60 frequency", and the other "natural [time] codified by the Maya [that is] understood to be the frequency 13:20". He tried to persuade the world leaders to change the Gregorian calendar to his Thirteen Moon Calendar  by July 24, 1995. If they refused they would be considered "enemies of the biosphere." Well, he didn't have any success with this, so he moved on to another date: December 21, 2012.

Although Arguelles is considered to be the father or founder of the 2012 date, he did not come up with this date himself. It actually was given to him by the Votan entity he was channeling. This is significant, because many other proponents of the 2012 date, with their many different ideas of what will happen, got their ideas, prophesies etc from channeling too. Isn't it strange that some unseen entities are feeding channels with 2012 concepts? These entities purportedly are highly evolved spiritual beings and extraterrestrials from various places. It is interesting to note that both their identity and their message reflects the spiritual background of the channel. In other words, they shape their identity and messages according to what the channel already was interested in. Also, the messages are often worded in strange terms and superficial phrases. This allows the reader himself to interpret it the way he wants. A couple of examples:

Arguelles claimed that 2012 marks a shift, an important transition, into the next stage of our evolution, the attainment of a unified field of planetary consciousness. Arguelles wanted to reshape the human mind, primarily by changing our calendar into his own created 13 moon calendar. He was interested in the Mayan culture, and thus the entity called itself Pacal Votan.

David Wilcock, another well known figure in the New Age, claims to be the reincarnation of Edgar Cayce. He also is a channel, receiving his messages primarily from two entities called Ra and Seth. Terence McKenna got his 2012 information from a voice, calling itself the Logos, during a hallucogenic trip. Daniel Pinchback was told about 2012 by Quatzetquatl, an extraterrestrial entity that spoke to him during an Ayahuasca trip. John Major Jenkins got his Mata revealtions in regard to 2012.

The Different Scenarios Associated with December 21, 2012

Lineup of the Earth and the Sun with the Galactic Equator, Resulting in Catastrophes or Spiritual Unfoldment

Often it is claimed that the Mayans knew about this astronomical event and that is was important. Certain writers who make this claim base themselves on their own cosmological interpretation of certain Mayan glyphs or scenes.

The precession is a continuous and very slow process, and cannot be pinned down to one date. The precession refers to the gradual shift in the orientation of Earth's axis of rotation, in a cycle of approximately 26,000 years, by which, from an observer's point of view, the position of the stars changes slowly.

The Sun passes the Milky Way twice a year. The issue here is that the Sun crosses the Galactic Equator at the solstices. Due to the precession, the position of the Sun in relation to the stars slowly shifts. In about 26,000 years that spot moves once around the whole sky (compared to the stars), roughly along the ecliptic (the annual path of the Sun between the stars in the sky), so the southern solstitial (around December 21) point moves through the Milky Way twice each 26,000 years. So, at present the sun can be seen near the Galactic Equator at December 21. But one cannot pinpoint a specific year to when it is positioned exactly at the Galactic Equator. This is because the Milky Way does not have clear boundaries, and thus no clear central line or equator. There is an uncertainty about the most likely center line or equator of half a degree, corresponding with an uncertainty of 36 years.

The Sun Lines Up With, or Eclipses, the Center of the Galaxy

When the Sun crosses the Galactic Equator, it is always a couple degrees away from the Galactic Center, which is situated behind Sagittarius A. By the way, the Galactic Center is not situated on the Galactic Equator but slightly above it.

Planetary Alignment

Doomsday scenarios also claim that the planets will align and their gravitational forces will cause destructive earthquakes.

There is nothing special about the planetary positions on December 21, 2012. They certainly do not line up.

A Pole Shift, Magnetic or Geophysical

A geophysical pole shift is called a True Polar Wander in scientific terms. This means that the rotational axis of the Earth remains the same, but the body of the earth rotates, causing the geographic locations of the North and South Poles to change their positions on the surface. during the last 200 million years a total true polar wander of some 30° has occurred, but that no super-rapid shifts in the Earth's pole were found during this period. To expect a geophysical pole shift on December 21, 2011 is not believable, whatever reasons are given such as gravitational forces of the planets, or a changing ice cap.

Geomagnetic reversals have occurred in the past. The Earth's magnetic field reverses at intervals, ranging from tens of thousands to many millions of years, with an average interval of approximately 200,000 to 300,000 years. However, the last such event, called the Brunhes–Matuyama reversal, is observed to have occurred some 780,000 years ago. Most reversals are estimated to take between 1,000 and 10,000 years. 15 million years ago, there was a reversal that took only four years. So, again a magnetic pole shift on December 21, 2012 is out of the question.

Edgar Cayce predicted a pole shift in 2000-2001, but nothing happened. Actually it was an entity which spoke through Cayce that made the predictions.

The Arrival of Planet Niburu, Also Called Planet X, Causing Geophysical Changes or a Pole Shift

Niburu is a creation of Zecharia Sitchin. Zecharia Sitchin has garnered much attention in New Age circles. He gave his own translations of Sumerian texts, which he said gave evidence that the human race was visited by a group of extraterrestrials from a distant planet in our own Solar System. Sitchin hypothesized it as a planet in a highly elliptic orbit around the Sun, with a perihelion passage some 3,600 years ago and an assumed orbital period of about 3,750 years. He also claimed it was the home of a technologically advanced human-like alien race, the Anunnaki, who apparently visited Earth in search of gold.

Since Sitchin has postulated Niburu, other people have claimed that this planet is coming closer to Earth, and its gravitational forces are going to cause geological catastrophes.

Experts in Sumerian language have examined Sitchin's translation, and have found it to be full of inaccuracies and distortions. Like so many other writers who re-interpret the writings of ancient cultures, he has shaped his own translations to fit his own belief system. By the way: the word Niburu is nowhere present in Sumerian texts.

If Niburu would be coming close to Earth in 2012 it would have been very visible for many years, even with the naked eye. Even if it would be behind the sun as some claim, it can only stay behind the sun for a very short time, as it continues its orbit.

The Photon Belt

The most known version is the passing of the earth through the photon belt. Some say that the photon belt is an area of photons (=light particles) around the Pleiades. Problem is, the Earth is actually moving away from the Pleiades.

The idea of the photon belt is found in Paul Otto Hesse's book Der Jüngste Tag, 1950, with fantastic descriptions of what will happen when the earth passes through it. Later, Barbara Hand Clow, who claims to communicate Alcyone/Pleiadian views from an entity called Satya, picked up the story, and made it popular. Other people have been writing about the photon belt as well.

Astrophysicist Paul Alex LaViolette has clearly shown that the claimed scientific proof of the photon belt by its proponents does not exist.

Ascension

Some people claim that in 2012 a transformation of humanity will take place. Many different claims for this one: expansion of consciousness, humanity will become enlightened, humanity will enter the Fourth Dimension (never explained what that is), the whole Earth will shift into the Fourth Dimension. The Earth will split in two, or rather duplicate itself, with the good people shifting to the more subtle, more energetic earth, and the bad people left behind on the physical Earth (what are good or bad people?). Lately the term ascension is used a lot; humanity is going to ascend into something higher.

All these different assumptions of some kind of transformation come from channeling entities, again.

Who is behind the 2012 Scenario?

Almost all ideas associated with the 2012 year or date come from channeled sources. In other words, the 2012 year and date with its associated catastrophic or enlightened happenings, was not invented by humans, but by entities channeled by certain people. These entities claim to be particular gods, spiritually advanced beings like Ascended masters, but mostly extraterrestrials.

With channeling we always observe the same: the channel is not able to verify the identity of the entity; the messages are often superficial, and they often differ from one channel to the other. The messages, terms and names used often reflect the belief system of the channel. Most significant, people who channel tend to believe everything the entities are giving. They believe without questioning, and they don't verify if the information given is correct.

Without questioning the human channels any further, why would certain entities put so much energy and effort in disseminating misinformation over so many decades? We have been talking here about the 2012 issue, but there are other topics as well, such as the Return of Christ (see my article here). They put a lot of effort in giving well defined concepts to psychic people who are able to receive the transmissions, often telling them that they have to write a book containing their messages. This is especially prevalent with UFO/alien abductees and contactees.

It is my opinion that it is a certain group of extraterrestrials that is behind all these channeled messages, of which the 2012 issue has now become a major part. I have called this group of ETs the ET traders of which I have written a couple of articles in my House of the Sun section of our website. These ET traders are masters of manipulation. They plant those seeds in the human mind, knowing that spiritually oriented people tend to believe these things without question.

The question is why are they doing this? Why 2012? In my other articles I have shown that this group of extraterrestrials have taken over our solar system many thousands years ago for the simple purpose of mining resources. These resources are not only minerals and metals, but also biological. Planet Earth is a rich biological resource for them. We have now entered a time in which humanity is not only messing up its environment with many pollutants, but it is technologically developing very fast and starting to explore outer space. It is without questions that those organizations who have the technology, public and secret, to travel beyond the Earth are well aware and have encountered these ET beings. On top of that consciousness of humanity is expanding as well. The common people are becoming aware as well of what is going on both on Earth as with the ET 'visitors'.

The 2012 phenomenon, as well as the staged return of Christ yet to come, are are part of manipulation programs by these ETs to direct the spiritually aware people into a blind alley. In the mean time a new control system for humanity is being built that is going unnoticed. Well almost, because it is gaining more and more publicity, but the mankind is still being blind sighted by all those mind manipulated programs. 2012 is a mind control technique. If anything of the predictions happens, it will be deliberately created and designed to further the manipulation programs, it will have nothing to to with any calendar, cycle, planetary lineup or anything else of that nature.