Many people thought that the end of the calendar year 2012 would mark the end of the world. Not only had it apparently been predicted by ancient Mayan astronomers that the world would end then, but Terence McKenna’s Timewave Zero program supported those predictions. This essay examines a terrifying possibility: that the world actually did end on December 21st, 2012 – we just haven’t realised it yet.
People have been conditioned to believe that if an end of world scenario arose, it would look a particular way. Nuclear war, comet strike, zombie virus or mass tsunami are the most popular examples, but we have been made to think that it would be spectacular and cinematic. Chest-rattling explosions and flashes of light and fire come to mind.
Therefore, when December 21st 2012 came and went, and no-one got engulfed in a firestorm, most people assumed that the world did not end, and that it was business as usual. However, there are other, much subtler ways for the world to end.
Leading up to the end of 2011, televangelist Harold Camping ran an extensive fear campaign about an upcoming apocalyptic event called the Rapture. This event would involve all of God’s chosen being “raptured” up into heaven, leaving us sinners behind.
Could something like this really have happened?
Since the end of 2012, many people have been struck with a sense that something is going wrong. It seems like something took a dark turn at some point in the recent past. Since then, there has been less kindness in the world – less light, love and laughter. Things seem to have become unusually grim and serious.
This is reflected in the rising suicide rates. The suicide rate in America has increased by 33% since 1999, and the rate in New Zealand is the highest since records began. Not only suicide, but phenomena correlated to suicide have also increased. There is more depression, more opiate addiction, more loneliness throughout all levels of society.
Some commentators have chalked it up to the lingering financial effects of the Global Financial Crisis of 2008, something which bankrupted many businesses and created mass unemployment. The problem is, of course, that the unemployment rate has since recovered: in America it’s an almost nonexistent 3.6%, and in New Zealand it is 4.2%. The malaise has not.
Many feel like we have been forsaken by God. It’s possible that the world really did end in this manner: God’s presence may well have withdrawn from the material world.
It’s possible that the world ended in the sense that the forces that constrained the evil and chaos of the world are no longer present.
Something like Camping’s Rapture may really have happened at the end of 2012. It may be, however, that instead of being pulled into the sky in rapture, those of us who had pleased God enough simply disappeared, their consciousness returning to God’s embrace while the rest of us continued our lives.
After all, we don’t know which of our fellows are conscious and which are not. So it’s entirely possible the consciousness of many people, perhaps a large percentage of people, withdrew from the material world and reunited with God, leaving the rest of us here.
The effect that this would have on the remainder of the world would be subtle, but over time it would become clear.
Absent a divine spark, people will come to make decisions based on the raw programming of their bodies. This means instincts and conditioning, with no higher functions. Apart from sheer intelligence, such people have no tools with which to moderate their behaviour. Not being conscious, they are incapable of using empathy. Metaphysical gold is absent.
Consciousness is essential for empathy because, without it, it’s impossible to truly imagine that another person is conscious, and therefore it’s impossible to realise that causing harm to that person causes suffering to their consciousness.
This means that raw animal lusts, particularly for wealth, status and women, start to reign. When they take over, concern for suffering caused to other people is thrown by the wayside, and the world becomes a much nastier place.
It could be that, on December 21st 2012, a significant amount of consciousness was withdrawn from the world, leaving the rest of us here in a place that had essentially ended.
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