myk
Posts: 14811
Registered: 04-02 |
Oh yeah, happy new b'ak'tun everybody... it's finally 13.0.0.0.0!
fraggle said:
The 2012 theories originate with a hippy named Terence McKenna.
I was wondering who suggested this. I mean, his novelty idea is associated with 2012, but it's something about everyone suddenly being like high (much like he was all the time, apparently) and ignoring physical laws or whatever, not a painful apocalyptic end. If anything, I just get the impression saying it was McKenna who started it is rhetoric to make fun of the whole deal in a more amusing way. "It's all the idea of a machine-elf-ball junkie". From what I read in the Wikipedia, McKenna took the Mayan calendar date from another new age writer, in any case.
My theory is that these ideas stem from the mood of the times. Beyond that, people just use different sources to try to make it sound real, whether it's the Mayan calendar, the poles shifting, or a new World War, much like when Hitler used an eclectic plethora of historical and philosophical sources to back his crap in Mein Kampf. I doubt we would have seen that much of an apocalyptic 2012/12/21 fad without golbal warming effects, Middle East tensions, the euro zone debt crisis and the fiscal cliff in the US, that is.
InsanityBringer said:
I kind of get the impression that I'm reading the premise for a dreamscape sequence in a children's tv show when I read the description about "self-transforming machine elves" in the linked article. It's somewhat humorous in that regard.
Try reading R. H. Barlow's A Dim Remembered Story. Not only is it an enchanting and well-written story (it's weird fiction) but the final part has entities that are similar to these machine-elves and much of what happens is not unlike other ideas McKenna wrote about. That makes me wonder whether Barlow used hallucinogenic drugs at that time. (He did kill himself with drugs years later, but it was barbiturates.) The story is certainly not influenced by this McKenna guy because it was written in 1936.
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12-21-12 05:34 
