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Title: Apocalypse 2012: An Investigation into Civilization's End
ISBN: 0767924487
Author:
Lawrence E. Joseph
Publicate Date: 2008-01-15
Publish: 2008-01-15
List Price: $14.00
Average Customer Rating: 3.5
Format: Paperback
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Amazon Lowest New Price: $7.00
Amazon Lowest Used Price: $6.64
Amazon Merchant Price: $11.20
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1: Interesting
I've just finished reading this curious book. The author, a science writer, makes a case not to take 2012 and Mayan calendars too seriously yet on scientific grounds not to ignore them. Well-written and humorous, it postulates just the sort of unknowable that makes easy, interesting reading.
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2: My dear lawrence...you missed the central point!
From my point of view, the most important aspect of the whole 2012 story is...psilocibine mushroom!
Terence McKenna find his inspiration in mushrooms...
Mayan people had their world vision based on...mushroom too!
This is THE central point of the 2012 mystery and Lawrence E. Joseph TOTALLY MISSED IT!
Sorry, Lawrence, but you do not worked very well.
But, may be you never try the ''infamous'' mushrooms...
In that case, you simply cannot understand the point.
''You have to eat it, to see it''
And moreover, the very few words you said about Terence McKenna are very, VERY BASICS...to say the least...
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3: Disparate sources, cultures, and disciplines all predict doom. How can we intellectually ignore it?
I won't say that I'm a total believer in the 2012 Apocalypse, but Lawrence Joseph paints a picture that extremely well researched, comprehensive, and incredibly convincing. There are multiple levels of research, but for the most part they fall into three categories: scientific, prophetic, and religious.
Scientific evidence is as follows:
1) The poles are shifting
2) The ozone layer is evaporating
3) The magnetic field is eroding
4) Super volcanoes are on the verge of eruption
5) A convergence of volcanoes, earthquakes, and hurricanes have been proven linked to one another
6) Sun spots, which work on an 11 year cycle, are due to be at their high point in 2012. Meanwhile, the latest low point was particularly turbulent, and related to the earthquakes and hurricanes (Rita, Katrina, Wilma, Stan) of 2005.
7) Lonnie Thompson, the scientist who inspired "Day After Tomorrow", has scientific evidence that not only was there a climate catastrophe about 5,200 years ago, one which is cyclical, but that timeframe also happens to coincide with the beginning of the Fourth Mayan Age, the beginning of the Egyptian civilization, and the death of the Hindu's Krishna
8) In 2005 (see #6) massive cracks 37-miles long in the Boina, West Africa earth formed as a result of a gigantic earthquake. Not so coincidentally, Boina is also the region where all Atlantic hurricanes begin.
9) The relationship between how the Earth influences the Sun, a strong Mayan belief incidentally, peak, astronomy-wise, in 2012.
10) The Sun's magnetic poles will shift
11) The effect and likelihood of an asteroid impact will be more significant than in the past because of current climate and volcano conditions (see 4-6)
12) LISA (Laser Interferometer Space Antenna), a way to monitor gravitational waves of the sun will launch in 2011 and begin analysis the following year
13) Some scientists believe there to be an interstellar energy cloud that will effect orbital change of planets, the Sun, and asteroids
14) Some scientists believe there to be a star that mirrors our sun that will cause similar results as the interstellar energy cloud, and could be the cause of previous global catastrophes
Religious evidence is as follows:
1) Massive Christian theme-park due to open
2) Armageddon church unearthed in 2005
3) Beliefs that a group of influential, global figures are attempting to create a New World Order - a psuedo global government - of sorts
4) Rabbi Kaduri is calling for the return of the Jews to the holy land in anticipation of Mashiach, believing that the Taliban and Al Qaeda represent Gog and Magog from the bible.
5) Bible Code researchers believe they have evidence that we all face annihilation
6) Some have interpreted the I Ching to represent time, and 2012 to be the end
Prophecy evidence is as follows:
1) Mayan prophecy produced a precise calendar that ends mysteriously in 2012 (perhaps the genesis of the 2012 fears)
2) Edgar Cayce, a prophet from Hopkinsville, KY known for incredible sleep state readings, predicts a pole shift and massive global change
3) Native American prophecy of the Cherokee, Hopi, and Q'ero of Peru all have lore that calls for the end of times
4) Maori legends show that Rangi (Sky) and Papa (Earth) will meet and destroy all.
Much like the author said, this all may mean nothing, December 21, 2012 may just turn out to be another day, but it would be incredibly short-sighted and ignorant to simply ignore all the material that seems to coalesce into a singular, quite convincing warning that we may be on the brink of an age that will change everything we know and love.
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4: A Very Compelling Read
I've read dozens of books on 2012, from the time Arguelles first published his book The Mayan Code in the early '90s to some of the more far-out scaremongering by Patrick Geryl in his book. One of the things I find interesting is how much I have been seeing that date appear in seemingly unrelated news items--such as the prediction read in a financial newspaper that we're due to hit a "natural gas cliff" of production "by 2012". It's a meme that has spread far and wide. It's tempting to believe that, if nothing was going to actually happen in 2012, humanity will make it happen, simply by collectively orienting towards that year. To paraphrase Voltaire, if 2012 didn't exist, we'd have to invent it.
Now on to Lawrence Joseph's excellent and entertaining read: I highly recommend it to anyone interested in some of the earth changes already underway. While other reviewers have pointed out some scientific inaccuracies in the text, which I agree with, on the whole I think he "gets it". I loved that he approached his visits with the Mayans without the usual lens of cultural appropriation that many New Age authors have capitalized on in their books. He writes well and the book is an engaging, fun read. Even if you don't "believe" that anything at all remarkable will happen in 2012 specifically, I think most of us can agree that we are going through a period of history that will transform our civilization, perhaps even end it as we have known it. Peak resources, climate change, and environmental degradation are scary enough without some of the more speculative tracks Joseph takes in his book, but if you are at all curious about "what it's all about", Joseph makes the best introduction to the field that I have yet read.
I would have given it 5 stars if not for some of the scientific inaccuracies in the book--after all, if you're going to market/categorize a book as "Science--General" you expect the author to at least represent the science accurately. The fact remains that, scientifically speaking, there's no way to predict exactly when momentous geological events--such as a magnetic pole shift and a supervolcanic eruption--will take place. "We're due" can mean, in geologic terms, that we're centuries or even milennia away from the events in question--but I acknowledge that it's much more sensational for us short-lived humans to contemplate disasters of a more immediate nature. And you only have to read a selection of daily papers to know that we have plenty of those coming down the pike whether or not our cosmic clocks reset themselves on December 21, 2012.
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5: jumps about, but delivers what it promises
Some of the criticism of `Apocalypse 2012' has been harsh, including one review suggesting the author should be medicated for attention deficit disorder. This part journalistic non-fiction and part memoir, part serious and part tongue-in-cheek compendium of doomsday scenarios does jump around quite a bit, but also delivers what the title promises. If you want the whole bible don't just read Revelations, and if you desire a balanced account of 2012, don't just read a book titled `Apocalypse.'
The Author Joseph Lawrence begins by telling us he's not a New Ager, but `your basic Brooklyn wise guy,' and that if evidence didn't point to 2012 gloom and doom, `no profit-minded publisher would have taken on this book.' It delivers what it promises, apocalyptic global-warming, interstellar energy clouds, supervolcanoes, carbon munching nano-robots and sun destabilization, as told by both psychics and scientists. As a public health planner, it seemed to me that the book was as much of an `all-hazard' disaster overview, written at the layperson level, as New Age nonfiction.
2012 books describe a future when some believe a 5000-year-long cycle will begin to repeat itself. If events at the birthplace of our present age, at the Witz Mountain, will somehow be played out again in 2012, we naturally want to know about it. Descriptions of the previous end-of-age, from the ancient Quich?? Maya Popol Vuh, are not encouraging. Before the present age began, inhabitants of the earth were `deluged' by a flood. As if this wasn't enough, demon animals came along and mutilated the corpses. Lawrence Joseph will be the first to say that apocalypse is not inevitable, but, alongside the New Age `emerging universal consciousness' 2012 books on the shelf, he has reminded us of the side of the death-rebirth archetype that we easily choose to forget.
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