The year 2012 has caused excitement and fear due to beliefs that it will bring about a cataclysmic event and a major change in life. This belief is based on cosmological alignment and Mayan beliefs. Skeptics argue that the alignment is purely visual. The Mayan calendar counts forward from 3114 BC and the end of the 13th b’ak’tun occurs on December 20, 2012, but the Maya did not believe it represented the end of the world.
The year 2012 has become, in recent years, the subject of a great deal of excitement, fear and controversy. Many people believe that the year 2012 will bring about some kind of huge cataclysm, perhaps the end of the world, and will mark a major change in life as we know it. This belief is based both on an understanding of the cosmological alignment of the earth in relation to other celestial bodies, and the galaxy itself, and on an esoteric Christian eschatology built on earlier Mayan beliefs that formed in the 16th century.
The cosmological significance of 2012 is believed to be a major alignment, which occurred on December 21 of that year. Some people believe that when the sun rises that day, it will rise directly in the middle of the Milky Way, representing an alignment of the Earth, the Sun and the Galactic Center. This is said to cause a major shift, some say in the consciousness of life on the planet, others say on the planet itself. Skeptics, however, point out that this alignment is purely visual and does not actually represent a true alignment with the Galactic Center. The perceptual alignment is caused simply by the gradual precession of the 26,000 year equinoxes.
Others believe that what is happening on December 21st is not simply a perceptual alignment, but an actual shift in the alignment of the Earth with the Milky Way. Our Solar System orbits the Galactic Center in an orbit that takes about 225 million years to complete, and during its orbit it moves up and down, crossing the central plane about every 33 million years. Believers in this theory argue that on December 21, 2012, our solar system will pass through this central plane for the first time in 33 million years. There is some scientific evidence, however, that suggests that our solar system actually passed through this plane about 3 million years ago, giving us another 30 million years before it passes through again.
The other important interpretation of 2012 as a special date concerns the Mayan calendar and a certain interpretation of it. The Mayan calendar, technically the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar, is a base 20 calendar that counts forward from August 11, 3114 BC. The calendar can be easily represented in a basic system that includes five major subdivisions: the k’in, the winal, the tun, the k’atun and the b’ak’tun. One k’in is equal to 1 day, or about 1/365 of a year; a winal is equal to 20 days, or 20 kin, or 1/18 of a year; one tun is equal to 360 days, or 18 winals, or about 1 year; one k’atun is equal to 7,200 days, or 20 tuns, or about 19.7 years; and a b’ak’tun is equal to 144,000 days, or 20 k’atun, or about 394 years.
These dates are usually represented with decimal places between them. So that, for example, a date 788 years into the cycle, or 2 b’ak’tun, could be represented as 2.0.0.0.0, and the date twenty days later would be 2.0.0.1.0. According to the Popol Vuh, a book compiling the creation myths of the K’iche’ Maya, we are living in a fourth world, created after the end of the third world at the beginning of the 13th b’ak’tun. The Mayan Long Count date of 12.19.19.17.19 will occur on December 20, 2012, making December 21 the start of the 13th b’ak’tun, or 13.0.0.0.0. It should be noted, however, that the Maya themselves never seemed to think this date represented any sort of end of the world, and there are a number of stelae that refer to dates well beyond the start of the 13th b’ak’tun .
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