According to the ancient Mayan calendar, December 21, 2012 marks the end of the Age of Movement and the commencement of a new Earth Age. Many believe this actually predicts the end of time or the end of the world. Some believe no catastrophe will happen at all, but instead the world will begin in a new Age of Enlightenment.

The Mayan Civilization is a pre-Columbian society referred to as a Mesoamerican, what we call today Central America. The Mayan resided in parts of Southern Mexico (Yucatan Peninsula) and Central America (Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, Honduras). From roughly 2500 BC to 1500 AD the Mayan civilization in Central America ruled the landscape until the Spanish conquest of Central America in the early 16th century. The Mayan were an extraordinary people, they had a fully written language, sophisticated mathematical and astronomical system more advanced than the Romans, Egyptians, and Greeks. The Mayan thrived on the study of the movement of the stars, planets, moon, and sun. They built magnificent cities, huge stone temples, and pyramids. They even built many observatories to which they used to calculate an accurate calendar of time.

The Maya culture was obsessed with time and they created a system of the most accurate calendars ever produced, even more accurate than today’s. The Mayan Long Count Calendar predicts doom by the year 2012. This particular calendar describes that the Milky Way (our galaxy), the stars, the planets within our solar system, and the earth, will be at a “Crossroads” where creation occurs at the “Black Hole.” Scientist with today’s technology has just discovered a massive Black Hole at the center of our galaxy in the Milky Way and doing modern astronomical calculations the stars and planets are going to line up in the direction of this Black Hole.

How could the ancient Mayan have known about this fact without sophisticated technology? The Mayan were using exact calculations. They had a complex system of bakuns, the Mayan measurement of time, that the earth goes in cycles of 13 bakuns or every 5,125 years. Our current age called the Age of Movement began on August 11, 3114 BC, and is set to end on December 21, 2012. This also marks the beginning of the next cycle, a rebirth or resurrection to higher levels.

But to the Mayan this also means a great change, not just to the face of the earth, but death and destruction, than a period of rebirth. The next age to follow this one is the “Age of the Return to Oneness.” This could mean a change in global consciousness and a greater awareness with the creative force in the universe. Many prophecies and the Book of Revelation speak of a great change is coming, where all evil will be dispelled, after a apocalyptic cleansing, and a shift in consciousness to higher vibration brings peace and spiritual growth to the whole world.

Some Mayan scholars believe that nothing bad will happen, that humanity will survive, and move into a peaceful era of existence. While others interpret a more dire outcome and that the Mayan somehow knew from their complex calendar that the world would end. Many other cultures and psychic like Nostradamus have predicted that worldwide disaster will be revealed in our time. The Bible Code with the aid of computers have foretold a great cataclysm for the year 2012. The Hopi Prophecy (Native Americans), believe that we are living in the end time of the Fourth World, that the world has been destroyed many times before in the past, and that we are experiencing a time of conflict, war, and heartlessness, and facing a major cataclysm, and in the aftermath, the emergence of the Fifth World will start, promising peace and a reconnection to Oneness.

Weather one wants to believe these prophecies or not, the fact is quite evident that they are now part of our culture and fascination of predictions about our society. The film by director Roland Emmerich “2012” fully illustrates and over-dramatically, shows a writer (John Cusack) trying to save his family from the total worldwide cataclysm that hit’s the planet by 2012. Much like Emmerich’s other films (The Day After Tomorrow) he demonstrates everyone’s fear about the worst possible outcome. The saving grace of this motion picture is the compassionate characters and the hope that the human race will endure and survive. So whatever happens on 2012 all predictions and prophecies clearly state that the earth and it’s people will still be here, and living in a brave new beginning, Q.E.D. (quod erat demonstrandum).