Boom. Ahh. Screeching. These are the sounds of human pain, and pain is what every human fears. In modern times, the idea of a doomsday has always been in the mainstream: raptures, meteors, zombie apocalypses. Some have even been made into TV shows. However, there is one doomsday idea that actually had people scared for the date December 21, 2012. What that day meant to a lot of people was the end of the world according to the Mayan Calendar. While many were genuinely afraid of the end of times, most of them were uneducated about what the end of the Mayan calendar actually signified.
The “end” of the calendar is actually not the end of the calendar. The Mayan Calendar has different cycles. For example, the end of the b’ak’tun cycle, the most recent cycle, was December 21, 2012. The entire b’ak’tun cycle lasted for 144,000 days. It was also the end of a cycle of thirteen b’ak’tuns, the beginning of which was on August 11, 3114 B.C.E. That cycle of thirteen b’ak’tuns is called the Long Count, and according to scholars, this literally defined the Classic Period of the Mayan civilization.1
Since the end of the b’ak’tun cycle and the Long Count cycle both coincided on the winter solstice of 2012, many people thought the sun would also align with the equator for the first time in 26,000 years.2 This eventually caused widespread panic; however, there actually was nothing to worry about. Since many people did not know that the end of the calendar only signified the end of a period, they began to freak out as the Gregorian calendar reached closer to that December 21. They began protesting, screaming at everyone “the end is near,” and some people even began stockpiling candles and essentials, and survival shelter sales were ever increasing.3 People then waited, and waited. Finally, the day arrived… and… nothing happened. People were shocked, and life went on. Workplaces and cities kept on their pace, unfazed by the threatening context behind the date.
Many people truly believed this would happen: this day meant death and doom, something people have always been scared of. These people were ready to be taken, for many people felt this was a prophecy of some sort. They thought the readings of Nostradamus, the Book of Revelation, Hopi Prophecy, and others had some truth to them, rendering this idea of a calendar prophesying the end of the world realistic.4 Some anticipated some sort of pick-and-choose session where Jesus would come back to Earth to save His people (Christians) and leave the rest behind.
The meaning of this 2012 phenomenon, now a debunked theory, is that people fantasize about a doomsday; they fear it, for they see it as a real possibility because of both their fantasies and the plethora of theories to read about. The idea of an apocalypse will always be appealing to some, for the end of times can show who a person truly is. Since most of this was widespread online hysteria, and not taken too seriously by most people, with hindsight now, we can see that it was clear that “this wouldn’t happen.”5
- Robert K. Sitler, “The 2012 Phenomenon: New Age Appropriation of an Ancient Mayan Calendar,” Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions, Volume 9, Issue 3, (2006): 25; V. Bohm, B. Bohm, J. Klokocnik, J. Vondrak, J. Kostelecky, “Dating of Mayan calendar using long-periodic astronomical phenomena in Dresden codex,” Serbian Astronomical Journal, Issue 186: (2013): 54. ↵
- Sarah McCarry, “Is the World Going to End in 2012?” Scholastic Scope Vol. 61, Issue 5: 18 (2012). ↵
- Nick Allen, Malcolm Moore, and Tom Parfitt, “Mayan apocalypse: panic spreads as December 21 nears,” The Telegraph, (2012). ↵
- Carl Johan Calleman, The Mayan Calendar and the Transformation of Consciousness (Simon and Schuster, March 25, 2004), 1-2. ↵
- Stephanie Pappas, “After Mayan Apocalypse Failure, Believers May Suffer,” Live Science, (2012). ↵
59 comments
Samman Tyata
Wow, I found your article really interesting and refreshing. All the contents and description were in flow. Well, I too freaked out at that time as people were calming the end of the world. I am happy that nothing happened. Basically, through the article i got to know more about the Mayan Calendar and its different cycles. This is something that i had never heard of. To sum it up, it was a good read.
Josemaria Soriano
Undoubtedly, to believe that the end of the world was approaching only because someone interpreted a Mayan calendar like this, is something really ridiculous. But even more ridiculous is that millions of people believed this story and moved their life around it. I remember, when it was December 2012, people were panic, and supermarkets were depleted of basic foods. To make things worse, Hollywood did not had a better idea than to increase the panic’s flame. What happened that year is a clear example that the vast majority of people are not as mature and rational as we think. That while science and technology have exponentially developed, our average minds continue to cling to a mystical and irrational idiosyncrasy. For many people, that day will pass as a simple anecdote, but for me, that day confirmed me that people is able to believe in such irrationalities. Therefore, they are also able to easily fall into political demagogy. Very good approach and analysis of the author, my congratulations.
Ezequiel De La Fuente
Reading this article gave me more insight to the history of the Mayan calendar and what it actually meant. I remember when everyone was freaked out and I’ll admit I was a bit worried. Fear can be like a virus. I also remember feeling so stupid the next day, still alive and in good health. When I think of the apocalypse, or doomsday, I think of fiction. If the end of the world is to come I think it would be caused by a massive world war or global warming beyond years
Lauryn Hyde
I remember being in grade school and hearing people talk about how the word was suppose to come to an end in 2012. I think the article does a great job on explaining how the Mayan calendar has cycles and how two of the cycles ended on the same day which is why people believed the world was coming to an end. This article shows us that we need to do more research and educate ourselves before we panic about something that we hear.
Oceane Roux
Thank you for this article! I remember when this happened and how everybody was talking about the Mayan calendar ending on this day. It is interesting how some people thought that we would have died and I fully agree with the author when he says that people fantasize about doomsday. This article was truly interesting; I definitely learned a lot about what exactly happened.
Veronica Spryszynski
Now that I read this article the end period of the mayan calendar makes sense. In the year 2012 I was 13 and I believed that the world was really going to end, I watched a movie called 2012 and got scared from it but obviously nothing happen. The mayan calendar had a lot of different meaning to all of us which caused the reaction of a lot of people I think.
Evelin Joseph
I definitely lived through the panic that occurred in 2012 and reading this article only brought back memories of all the fear and anxiety that was present in the time. Through this article, I got to learn what the “end” of the Mayan calendar actually meant, and how useless it was to freak out over such a small thing. I cannot believe that I never before knew that there were different cycles present in the Mayan calendar and December 21, 2012 was simply the end of one. The conclusion of this article truly opened my eyes to the reality of human beings- the reality that we are waiting for a doomsday; that an end to civilization seems appealing and imminent to us.
Jasmine Martinez
This article brought memories back up, because everyone I knew was freaking out and it was plastered over every social media you think of. There have been so many more situations where people go crazy and spread the panic and fear through social media. I didn’t even know that the end of the calendar meant it was the end of the cycle, and not actually the end of the calendar. I also agree with you saying that doomsday has always been a very common thing and always comes around somehow.
Ashley Tumlinson
Very written article, I like how you started out with sounds! I clearly remember the panic of 2012 – mostly because I was freaking out myself. Especially with the ‘2012’ movie they made about our world coming to an end. I think it is interesting that we believe anything we hear without researching more into the particular subject at hand. This article definitely makes me think twice about things others have to say – instead of panicking, we should learn to understand where the words are stemming from.