iau1101267a


“Oxford IX” International Symposium on Archaeoastronomy
Proceedings IAU Symposium No. 278, 2011
Clive L. N. Ruggles, ed.

c© International Astronomical Union 2011
doi:10.1017/S1743921311012671

The 2012 Mayan calendar prophecies in the
context of the western millenarian tradition

Nicholas Campion
Sophia Centre for the Study of Cosmology in Culture,

School of Archaeology, History and Anthropology,
University of Wales Trinity Saint David,

Lampeter, Ceredigion, Wales, SA48 7ED, UK
email: ncampion@tsd.ac.uk

Abstract. The 2012 Mayan calendar prophecies have attracted considerable popular interest,
thought little academic attention. Following the papers presented in the 2012 Session at the
conference, I suggest that the ‘2012 phenomenon’ is the latest in a historic series of millenarian
movements that form an established part of Christian culture. The 2012 prophecies, while Chris-
tian in neither tone nor affiliation, may be contextualised within secularised versions of western
millenarianism as a whole. My purpose is to create a framework for analysis, placing the 2012
phenomenon within a wider cultural milieu and analysing its texts. I suggest that Karl Popper’s
paradoxical theory of historicism and activism, and the model of pre- versus post-millenarianism,
may both provide means of analysing competing forms of 2012 prophecy.

Keywords. 2012 Maya prophecy, millenarianism, New Age, historicism

1. Introduction
The papers presented at this session have demonstrated that the apocalyptic prophecies

associated with the supposed end of the Maya long-count in December 2012 may be based
on an exaggerated reading of the relevant Maya inscriptions and misunderstandings of
Maya calendar calculations (van Stone), together with an inflation of the apocalyptic
content of Maya thought in the scholarly literature (Hoopes), both of which have in turn
encouraged the wider counter-cultural Maya Prophecy Movement (MPM). We may call
the MPM counter-cultural in the sense that its view of the future posits a challenge to
the survival of human culture as a whole. It is also, I argue, millenarian.

2. Millenarianism in the western tradition
The word millenarianism, first used in the fifth century CE by St. Augustine (1972:

XX.7), is derived from the Latin millennium, a thousand, and refers to the Persian (Boyce
1987) and, subsequently, Christian belief that world history is divided into periods of
a thousand years (Cohn 1957; Campion 1994). Christian millenarianism has roots in
Mesopotamian, classical Greek and Jewish thought, but the most powerful works are
those within the Christian milieu. The classic text of Christian millenarianism is the
Revelation of St. John, which sets out a historical template in which moral collapse
climaxes in political and military strife, accompanied by the parousia (literally ‘arrival’
or ‘presence’), that is Christ’s return. In the first century CE this event was believed to
be imminent (Mark 13.30, Revelation 22.12).

There is an additional terminology associated with millenarianism. From apocalypse,
the Greek for revelation, is derived the word ‘apocalyptic’ to describe the vision of the
end of the world that was revealed to St. John. The terms millenarian and apocalyptic

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250 N. Campion

tend to be used interchangeably. Although the term millenarian has strictly Christian
connotations, it may be applied to all beliefs that the world is about to enter a major new
phase. In its looser definition, therefore, any political or religious movement or ideology
that expects, prophesies, or fights for, an imminent historical crisis and return to, or
inauguration of, a golden age or state of purity, may be described as both millenarian
(Robbins & Palmer 1997; Hall et al. 2000; Stone 2000) and apocalyptic. I suggest that
the MPM is apocalyptic both in the colloquial sense that in many (but not all forms)
it predicts a violent upheaval, and in the strict sense that its knowledge of the future is
gleaned from revelation, even if primarily as revealed to the Maya.

The main features of millenarian thought may be summarised as follows (Campion
2004: 33–38): catastrophism, a preoccupation with moral collapse, alienation from nature
or the divine, nostalgia for a lost golden-age, a belief in historical time as cyclical or, in its
broad themes, repetitive, and the application of astrological/astronomical factors to the
timing of prophetic events. We should also bring modern New Age culture into consid-
eration as a species of millenarian thought (Hanegraaff 1996: 96, 98–103), based as it is
on the prophecy of an imminent age of enhanced spirituality, which is due to begin when
the vernal point enters the constellation or zodiac sign (the definitions vary) of Aquarius:
that the prophecy is linked to a measurable astronomical event is seen as evidence of its
veracity. In addition, New Age culture possesses the following characteristics (Campion
2004: 76–78): an emphasis on education, personal transformation and spiritual growth.

Both Christian millenarianism and New Age prophecy draw their legitimacy from
astronomical/astrological timing, and a form of cultural astronomy in which celestial
motions are seen either as divinely-inspired omens, or as evidence of the unfolding of a
mathematically-ordered cosmos, in which historical crises coincide with powerful planet-
ary aspects. The use of celestial omens in order to predict the coming crisis was encour-
aged by texts such as Mark 13.24–26 (“in those days, after that tribulation, the sun will be
darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from heaven”)
while, in medieval and Renaissance Europe, the notion of a mathematically regulated
universe prompting historical upheaval was tied to the cycle of Jupiter-Saturn conjunc-
tions, following the Persian model, recorded in the eighth century by Abu Ma`shar (Abu
Ma`shar 2000: I.16; Campion 1994: 354–359).

The MPM follows the following characteristics, established in Jose Argüelles’ semi-
nal text, The Mayan Factor (1987): it envisages physical upheaval coinciding with an
exact astronomical and calendrical alignment, followed by an era of enhanced spiritual
awareness. So successfully did Argüelles’ work capture the New Age imagination that
the previous astronomical basis for forecasting the coming of the future age, based on
precession of the equinoxes and the beginning of the Age of Aquarius, has now been
largely superseded. The favoured application of precession in the MPM is the coming
conjunction between the December solstice sun and the Galactic equator (Jenkins 1998).

3. The nature of the MPM
The MPM is clearly of cultural significance as a contemporary form of a two-millennia-

old tradition of millenarian thought in western culture: a simple Google search for ‘Mayan
Prophecy 2012’ yields 2.8 million results, with thousands of protagonists eager to make
their views heard. There are many questions one can ask about the MPM’s nature,
whether of its religious content, political ideologies or sociological context. I am concerned
with its statements about the nature of history and would like to ask the following
questions about it, adapted from previous discussions concerning millenarianism and
New Age culture.

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The 2012 Mayan calendar prophecies 251

3.1. Does the MPM constitute a philosophy of history?
In that it makes an astrologically-based prophecy about the future direction of history,
the MPM may confirm what Eugenio Garin, writing of Renaissance astrology, considered
to be “a precise philosophy of history based on a conception of the universe, and char-
acterised by a consistent naturalism and a rigid determinism” (Garin 1976: 16). Keith
Thomas also considered whether astrology had a function in the development of histor-
ical thought. He concluded that it did, adding that the sociological world view has at
least partial roots in the astrological, and writing that during the Italian Renaissance
astrological doctrines about the recurrence of planetary conjunctions had helped both to
form the concept of a historical period and offer a model of social development (Thomas
1980: 386–387). The historical models identified by Garin and Thomas in Renaissance
historiography can be traced back to Plato’s statement in the Timaeus concerning the
role of planetary and stellar motion in world history (Plato 1931: 39D): “The complete
number of Time fulfils the Complete year when all the eight circuits with their relative
speeds, finish together and come to a head, when measured by the revolution of the
Same and the Similarly-moving.” MPM historiography, in that it postulates an unfold-
ing order in which celestial and terrestrial events are inextricably linked, is therefore
identifiably Platonic.

3.2. Are there parallels with other modern forms of millenarian thought?
It has been persuasively argued that there is a direct continuity between ancient and mod-
ern eschatology. Cohn (1970: 108–109) argued for a close relationship between ancient,
medieval and modern millenarianism and hence that Marxism and Nazism, the most
powerful political ideologies of twentieth-century Europe, were secular forms of millenar-
ianism: both assumed that history follows patterns that are broadly predetermined and
punctuated by major upheavals or cataclysms that, in turn, result in a new golden-age.
For Schwartz (1980) and Godwin (1994), the revolutionary and esoteric millenarianism
of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries provided the link between the me-
dieval Christian world on the one hand, and the modern, secular, world on the other. The
most pervasive form of secular millenarianism in the modern world, though, according
to Baillie (1951: 64–65), is belief in progress, which was first set out by the Marquis de
Condorcet in 1795 in his optimistic view that the condition of the world must necessarily
improve as time passes and that any future age must, in principle, be qualitatively an
improvement on any past age (Condorcet 1955). Such progressive philosophy is central to
the core New Age belief that the coming era will inevitably be preferably to the present.
Baillie argued that progress theory evolved directly out of Jewish and Christian mil-
lenarianism’s message of hope that a new world will be born. Bury (1932: 1–36) made
a similar argument, but proposed Platonic apocalyptic thought as the basis of progress
theory.

3.3. Does the MPM encourage wider cultural activity?
Karl Popper’s theory of historicism and activism (Popper 1957), which was directed at an
understanding of the millenarian components of Platonic and Marxist historical theory,
provides a framework for understanding millenarianism’s political and social functions.
Historicism, for Popper, was the belief that the events of history were arranged into pat-
terns and regulated by laws according to a deeper, unfolding purpose. Popper’s theory
of historicism was at odds with the conventional theory associated with the anthropolo-
gist Franz Boas, in which historicism was considered to be the belief that history should
be understood through local and complex processes, rather than universal causes (Boas
1904: 522; Stocking 1966: 871). Popper argued that historicist theories have two central
characteristics. Firstly, they take it for granted that historical change develops according

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252 N. Campion

to underlying laws, which suggests in turn a broadly predetermined pattern and a pur-
poseful goal. Secondly, while history is predetermined, human beings paradoxically pos-
sess the capacity to make free choices. The only free choice to be made in relation to
history, though, is to help it on its way and serve its greater purpose. This active par-
ticipation, Popper termed activism. Thus, Christian activism demands that the faithful
evangelise the gospels to prepare for the second coming, while twentieth-century Marx-
ism required the politically aware to form a revolutionary vanguard and prepare for the
revolution. The New Age movement, it may be argued, exhibits the same paradox: while,
in the form of the Age of Aquarius, the New Age is inevitable, just as the movement
of the vernal point into Aquarius must happen, still it is necessary to prepare for the
Age. As Louis Le Roy wrote, in relation to Platonic millenarianism, “The best thing
is to wisely help destiny run its course” (Le Roy 1594: 11). The seminal activist event
in the MPM was the so-called Harmonic Convergence of 16th–17th August 1987 which
was intended, through a mass, ritual meditation to avert any dangerous implications of
the coming calendrical event. Calls for participatory engagement in order to encourage
the coming historical shift are widespread within the MPM. Calleman (2011: 105), for
example, calls for a ‘massive participation’ in a public programme that encourages the
‘shift to consciousness of the ninth wave’, in order to take advantage of ‘the last chance
that human beings will have to truly align themselves with the cosmic plan’, and will
require involvement in social media, funding initiatives and mass events.

3.4. Is the MPM violent or peaceful?
One framework for understanding whether millenarian prophecies are peaceful or vio-
lent was suggested by Desroche (1979: 93–94), who identified two forms of Christian
millenarianism. The first, ‘premillenarianism’, or ‘premillenialism’ (Wessinger 1997: 48–
49), argues that Christ will come before the millennium, typically accompanied by the
violent upheavals prophesied in Revelation. This may also be commonly referred to as
catastrophic millenarianism. The second form, postmillennialism, or ‘progressive’ mil-
lenarianism (Wessinger 1997: 50–51) assumes that the “kingdom of God is progressively
installed by an evolutive process” (Desroche 1979: 93), which therefore removes any need
for a violent transition. We see both forms of millenarianism in MPM literature. For
example, Patrick Geryl (2011) is pre-millennial, predicting that

“In 2012 the next polar reversal will take place on earth. This means that the North
Pole will be changed into the South Pole. Scientifically this can only be explained by
the fact that the earth will start rotating in the opposite direction, together with a huge
disaster of unknown proportions. In my books I reveal the immense cataclysm that is
going to torment the earth in the near future.”
Eden Sky (2011), though, is post-millennial, and appropriates the transformational

language and Popperian activism of so much New Age discourse:
“First things first—rather than preparing for the future event down the road, let’s notice

how we are participating in the moment. Rather than focusing on an imaginary disaster,
we need to realise that we are already in the midst of the planetary transformation.”

3.5. What is the role of astrology?
Hilary Carey posed two questions in her study of medieval astrology (1992); firstly what
motivates and sustains belief in astrology and, secondly, what intellectual function does
it serve? A possible answer was suggested by Karl Popper who noted that astrology’s
practice is based around the activist paradox that, although the future is predetermined,
knowledge of what is to come enables human beings to amend it. He argued that

“Astrology, it should be realised, shares with historicism the belief in a predeterminate
destiny which can be predicted: and it shares with some important versions of historicism

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The 2012 Mayan calendar prophecies 253

(especially with Platonism and Marxism) the belief that, notwithstanding the possibility
of predicting the future, we have some influence upon it, especially if we know what
is coming. . . All astrology, for instance, involves the apparently somewhat contradictory
conception that the knowledge of our fate may help us to influence this fate.” (Popper
1986: I.210, 244)
In Popper’s scheme, astrology is sustained by the need for security and order in a

world beset by potentially threatening change and instability, a fact on which academics
and critics agree with astrologers working within the theosophical tradition, although the
latter would add the quest for personal meaning as an important additional motive. In the
astrological milieu, security is to be obtained through the manipulation of a future which,
once forecast, can be turned to human advantage. The fundamental political-astrological
belief that the futures of heavenly cosmos and terrestrial state are equally fated on the
one hand, can be contrasted with astrology’s attempt, via the detailed examination of
horoscopes to manipulate the future, on the other. It is therefore the astrologer’s task to
enhance human freedom of choice as much as possible within the limits set by historical
and cosmic law. Carey (1992: 3–5) suggested a similar conclusion. Citing Malinowski’s
theory (1954: 25–36) that one of magic’s primary functions is to provide a means of
influencing forces and events normally outside human control, she raises the question as
to whether astrological forecasting, combined with the rituals which often accompanied it,
may be seen as ways of intervening in historical order. Astrology’s function, as a particular
application of activist divination to the cosmic state, may therefore be understood within
the differing frameworks of competing historicist narratives. If the underlying purpose of
historicism is to control change then astrology, within the terms set by Karl Popper, may
be seen, within the millenarian framework, as a principal activist discipline. In this sense
the astronomical features of the MPM drive its activist programme, the assurance that
the astronomical patterns ‘will’ happen, providing validation for the wider prophecy.

4. Conclusion
Given that no millennial movement necessarily includes the same combination of beliefs

in the same balance as any other, it is often impossible to define such movements, except
by acknowledging the paradoxes they contain and the tensions these generate. In addi-
tion, like any other cultural, social or political force, millenarianism constantly adapts
to changing circumstances. As Schwartz (1980: 6) puts it, “millenarian moods and per-
ceptions change as believers battle to keep their footing”. Moreover, as Desroche (1979:
99) argues, “the millenarian tradition is cumulative”, with later forms both arising out
of earlier ones and looking back to them for authority.

As a millenarian phenomenon, the MPM may therefore be seen to conform to a long-
standing strand of ideas in western culture that emerges from roots in classical Platonism
and Judaism, is fundamental to Christianity, and has secular forms in Marxism, Nazism
and the theory of Progress, as well as New Age culture. I suggest that a potentially
useful path to examining the MPM is in terms of an established cosmological philosophy
of history, justified by Plato, identified in the Renaissance by Garin and defined by Popper
as historicist and activist. Having confirmed that the prophecies have no basis in Maya
calendrics, the next step, following Popper, is to pose such questions as ‘what forms
of political or social action do the prophecies encourage?’, applying methodologies from
history, sociology and anthropology. In addition, as a contemporary ‘cultural astronomy’,
the MPM’s existence in the modern west is a vivid demonstration that cosmologies
that flourish in the modern west may not be substantially different from those normally
categorised as ‘non-western’ and ‘pre-modern’.

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254 N. Campion

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