Will The World as We Know It, End in 2012?

The most interesting aspect of the discussion about December 21, 2012 (the summer solstice in the Southern Hemisphere and the winter solstice in the Northern Hemisphere) is how it relates to history and the history of ancient people – specifically in this case, the Maya. The astonishing feats of ancient peoples from throughout history and well-documented and I can’t pretend that I have any expertise in this field. I can say however, that I’ve spent some time travelling in Egypt, Syria, Turkey, Israel, Jordan, Mexico and Guatemala and there are many interesting things about the way these civilizations constructed their landmarks, statues and way of life in synergy with astronomy, the sun and other natural principles including the Fibonacci sequence that are quite astounding for the assumed level of knowledge of their peoples at the time. John Major Jenkins published a book in 1998 called ‘Maya Cosmogenesis 2012’ in which he claims the meaning of the Mayan long count calendar end date as follows: the December solstice sun will be at the intersection of the Milky Way (where the Galactic Centre, the origin of the galaxy is located) and the ecliptic (the path travelled by the sun, moon and planets through the sky) on December 21, 2012. According to Jenkins, this alignment occurs only once every 25,800 years! This is considered to be one quarter of the precessional cycle (with the last alignment of the autumn solstice sun with the Milky Way being around 4400 BC). The precession of the equinoxes is caused by Earth ‘wobbling’ on its axis, like a spinning top does http://www.unisa.edu.au/planetarium/Info/eclip.asp and apparently several ancient civilizations, particularly the Maya, were familiar with this phenomenon and documented it. The Maya particularly used the precessional point occurring on 21 December, 2012 as an anchor for the end of their long-count calendar, which is why the culmination of this point is Zero Time in the Mayan Calendar. Jenkins hypothesises that the precessional point that will occur on December 21, 2012 will result in the solstice meridian crossing the Galatic Equator (I assume possibly a similar process to the top proceeding past the vertical line (Galactic Equator) in the centre of the diagram below and beginning to tip to the right). Jenkins suggests that given we experience differences in ‘field-effect’ properties on either side of the Earth’s Equator (e.g. hurricanes (Northern Hemisphere) and cyclones (Southern Hemisphere) spin in different directions as per their location on different sides of the Equator), we may well experience differences in ‘field-effects’ once the Earth passes the Galactic Equator.