Dire Gnosis reviews:

 2012 – The Return of Quetzalcoatl by Daniel Pinchbeck

Daniel Pinchbeck’s first book, Breaking Open the Head, about the author’s travels around the world, meeting shamans and sampling their sacred hallucinogenic medicines, was widely acclaimed. Thus his next book was awaited impatiently by many, and being published by Penguin, had the advantage of pre-sales hype, and pre-orders awaiting its release.  

Pinchbeck, a New York intellectual, describes himself as “a clearly deficient, half-dissolute figure, a ‘freelance journalist’ of dubious repute” (p.20), and his 400-page (hardcover edition) book, 2012 – The Return of Quetzalcoatl, is an autobiographical essay that starts with his childhood experiences growing up in New York City. The book is split into six named parts but none of the chapters are named. There is no list of contents, nor are there any pictures or diagrams, nor any notes and references. However, there is an index and a bibliography. The book is well-written, but is not very gripping reading, and when finished, left me wondering if the author could have got his point over with just a short article. So what point is Pinchbeck actually making in this book? A summary of the chapters and their contents would be instructive here, so here are my chapter summaries:

 Part 1: A Universe in Ruins 1: Pinchbeck’s Youth, Drugs and Quetzalcoatl; 2: Psychedelics; 3: Death of Pinchbeck’s Father and Ayahuasca; 4: New Physics and Jung; 5: 9/11

 Part 2: The Serpent Temple 1: Daimonic Reality; 2: Crop Circles; 3: Terence McKenna; 4: Christianity 

Part 3: Lucifer and Ahriman 1; UFOs; 2: Streiber and Abduction; 3: Glastonbury Crop Circle Symposium 2002; 4; Goswami and Steiner

 Part 4: The Loom of Maya 1: The Maya According to Arguelles; 2: Gebser; 3: Deep into Arguelles; 4: Jenkins, Calleman and Arguelles

 Part 5: The Dance of Kali 1: Iboga in Mexico; 2: Hawaiian Healing; 3: Symposium 2003, Crabwood Alien, Stonehege and Avebury; 4: Crop Circles – Schnabel, Irving, Martineau, Brown

 Part 6: The Lord of The Dawn 1: Burning Man Festival; 2: Pinchbeck’s Sex Life; 3: Santo Daime and Channelling Quetzalcoatl 4: Jung on the Book of Job and More Daime; 5: The Quetzalcoatl Transmission; 6: Quetzalcoatl/Akosha/666 = Author, Recommends Global Calendar Change

 Epilogue: The Hopi and Calleman

 As you can see, there is not much continuity in the subjects, since they are covered in the chronological order in which Pinchbeck dealt with them in his life story. The main thrust of the book, apart from the expected psychedelics, is crop circles. Pinchbeck was impressed by retired architect and crop circle researcher Michael Glickman, whose study of the sacred geometry of crop formations has led him to the conclusion that these creations are the harbingers of a dimensional shift, and that it will culminate in 2012. Glickman figured that the 1997 26 x 30 grid formation at Etchilhampton in Wiltshire signified the year 2012 because the 26 squares represented the 26 weeks in 6 months, and 30 of those equals 15 years, meaning that the 780 squares of the grid represented the 780 weeks between August 1997 and August 2012 (see item 23, Boustrophedon ). However, Pinchbeck mistakenly says the 780 weeks lead to “the end of 2012” (p.87). I pointed out in the late nineties, that not only is 780 days exactly 3 Tzolkins, but it is also one cycle of the planet Mars – a cycle also recorded by the Maya, since one Mars Round of 146 Mars cycles equals 3 Venus Rounds (6 Calendar Rounds). Pinchbeck covers this point with “This grid also seemed to reference the Tzolkin…”

Part One starts in New York City in the early seventies, where Pinchbeck grew up. By the time of his late twenties, he had plunged into feelings of desolation, and felt he was dead and “wandering in some Hades” (p.25-26), and sought escape in heroin, cocaine and alcohol. Unsatisfied, he re-investigated magic mushrooms and LSD, and found that the substances themselves seemed to be intelligent and could suspend linear time. He continued the investigation, and visited the West African rainforest, to experience an initiation with the Bwiti tribe using the psychedelic root bark called iboga. He tried ayahuasca, the Amazonian sacred brew, “in an East Side apartment, guided by pseudo-shamans from California”(p.28),  visited Mexican shamans of Oaxaca, to try the local hallucinogens, and also tried smoking pure DMT and psychedelics invented in laboratories, such as DPT (dipropropyltryptamine). Pinchbeck later became convinced that this exploration of chemically-altered consciousness was being guided by Quetzalcoatl – the Toltec/Aztec plumed serpent god.

The psychedelic experiences triggered an interest in the paranormal, and Pinchbeck started reading up on the findings of Dean Radin, director of the Consciousness Research Laboratory in Nevada, who have apparently scientifically verified telepathy, precognition and clairvoyance. In 2000, he started going to the annual Burning Man festival, in the Nevada desert, then went to Ecuador to try ayahuasca with the shamans of the Secoya tribe. In chapter 4, he explores quantum physics and the work of psychologist Carl Jung, to try and throw some light on the strange dimensions and time-warps experienced in altered states. In September 2001, he witnessed some of the horrendous scenes of the 9/11 disaster, and notes that the Princeton University random number generator recorded a strong signal that started before towers were hit. This, according to the director of the project, is evidence of the first glimmerings of a global brain coming into being, which ties in with De Chardin’s concept of an evolving mind-layer, or ‘noosphere’ around the Earth.

In Part 2, Pinchbeck introduces crop circles, but fails to give any information (apart from mention of Gerald Hawkins' diatonic ratio discovery and Eltjo Hasselhof's work), that might convince people that the phenomenon is anything more than “landscape art”. The huge amount of evidence produced by BLT is barely mentioned, let alone referenced. This is a shame, because it will bring disrepute onto the subject of 2012 – supposedly the main subject of the book (see discussion on 2012 Tribe HERE ). In fact, Pinchbeck twice visited the Glastonbury Crop Circle Symposium, in researching his 2012 book, but didn’t attend the presentation about 2012. He also failed to mention any of the formations that reference Maya calendar numbers, (apart from the one cited above, upon which his whole crop-circles-2012 connection is based), and for a book centred on crop circles, to have no photos or even drawings of them means the reader cannot grasp the massive impact of these images. Part 2 is, however, redeemed by the discussion of the McKennas’ trip to Ecuador, which prompted the discovery of the Timewave. Unfortunately, the Timewave itself is not explained, and its brief mention incorporates an error, which I list below along with other errors in the book.

In Parts 3 and 4, Pinchbeck makes the most interesting points in the book, regarding 2012, in which he finds correspondences in the work of philosophers such as Steiner and Gebser – see The Pattern Perceived, below. Part 4 goes on to discuss the channelling of Jose Arguelles, in which “Pacal Votan” appeared and subsequently dictated the “Telektonon prophecy”. Arguelles then became “convinced that he is an incarnation, or emanation, of the “galactic agent” and time-wizard Pacal Votan…”, although Pinchbeck and many followers of Arguelles don’t seem to realize that Pacal and Votan were actually different people who lived centuries apart. Pinchbeck does remain objective on Arguelles, pointing out that there is an element of “megalomaniac ego inflation” (p.236), but he likes the idea that the Maya calendar is “fundamentally a time-schedule for the evolution of consciousness”, which is the concept behind Arguelles’ Dreamspell system, although these are in fact the words of Carl Calleman. Calleman’s system is also covered, but the faults of the theory are not. You can read about them in Beyond 2012, or on this site (see www.diagnosis2012.co.uk/call.htm ). The brilliant work of John Major Jenkins is also briefly covered in this part of 2012 – The Return of Quetzalcoatl, and Pinchbeck attempts to unify Arguelles, Calleman and Jenkins, saying they all agree on the Maya calendar being a consciousness-evolution time-schedule.

In Part 5, Pinchbeck continues his psychedelic voyage, taking Iboga in Mexico, and Ayahuasca in Hawaii, and then he goes back to the Glastonbury Symposium, and takes up crop circles again. On p.296-299, Pinchbeck succeeds in communicating the “daemonic reality” concept of Patrick Harpur, which circle researcher and sacred geometer, Allan Brown skilfully described in his Glastonbury talk. The intelligence behind the phenomenon plays games with the observer, prodding him/her into a shift of understanding. However, for those unconvinced that these formations are not the work of artists and jokers, the observations will fall on deaf ears.

In Part 6, in the midst of more ayahuasca stories and tales of the author’s need for multiple sexual partners, the ‘skeptical journalist’ surprises us by channelling Quetzalcoatl, the Toltec/Aztec plumed serpent deity, and also claims to be the reincarnation of an Indian prince called Akosha. The “Quetzalcoatl transmission” implies that the prophesied return of Quetzalcoatl is happening now, and that, “the writer of this work is the vehicle of my arrival – my return – to this realm” (p.370). This means that, like Arguelles, who is one of several claimants to being a reincarnated form of Lord Pacal, Pinchbeck is now one of several returned Quetzalcoatls (see coming review of The Return of the Feathered Serpent by JC Husfelt). Even more incredible, perhaps, is that Pinchbeck goes on to identify himself with the Great Beast of Revelation, whose number is 666, though he does consider that he could have been the victim of astral plane entities, “puffing me up with delusions of grandeur…” (p.371). He saw the ayahuasca brew (“Daime”) as a protection against “whatever arrogant self-inflation came with my Quetzalcoatl transmission” (p.352), but also realizes the validity of the question, “…did the overuse of hallucinogens merely distort my judgement, tilting me toward madness?” (p.372). The identity with 666 is not surprising considering that Aleister Crowley, the infamous explorer and Magickian (intended spelling) and the most famous claimant to the title, also had a multiple partners/ drug experimentation history – see his book, Diary of a Drug Fiend.

 Errors

An inaccuracy creeps in when Pinchbeck briefly covers McKenna’s Timewave Zero. He quotes from the 1993 edition of The Invisible Landscape, but is unaware that in the original 1975 edition, the end-point of the wave was calculated as 17^th November 2012. When McKenna later found out about the 21^st December end-point of the Maya 13-baktun cycle, he modified the end-point by 34 days. Pinchbeck also implies that McKenna returned from his expedition to the Ecuador rainforest with the conviction that ‘concrescence’ would occur during an eclipse of the galactic centre by the solstice sun, and that he then consulted astronomical software to find that this  “would next occur on  December 21, 2012” (p.98). It is then implied that this is why the 2012 end-point was chosen for the Timewave. The fact is that McKenna analysed the I Ching upon his return from Ecuador, and having produced the Timewave, locked it on to history by correlating the Hiroshima bomb explosion in 1945 with a massive novelty peak near the end of the Timewave. 64 lunar years later (each consisting of 384 days or 13 lunar months), the wave hits its maximum novelty endpoint on November 17^th 2012. It was only after this revelation that McKenna found out that we are in the time of a conjunction of the winter solstice sunrise and the “galactic center”. Page 196 of the 1993 edition of The Invisible Landscape has an extra sentence inserted, that wasn’t in the original 1975 edition, saying “When this is done the most likely heliacal rising of the galactic center with the solstice sun occurs on December 21, 2012”. This is because, between the editions, McKenna had heard about the end-point of the 13-baktun cycle being in 2012, on a winter solstice, and thus changed his end-point by 34 days. It is still true that McKenna ascertained the 2012 end-point independently of any knowledge of the Maya calendar 2012 end-point, but not the actual day, apart from his identification of solstices generally around 2012 as being significant. Pinchbeck’s failure to grasp this distinction is understandable considering the ambiguous wording of the 1993 edition of The Invisible Landscape. John Major Jenkins later went on to show that it is the galactic equator (or visible galactic centre) rather than the astronomical galactic centre that is concerned in this conjunction, which he called Galactic Alignment.

These may sound like nitpicking, but critics will use errors like these to try and undermine the whole concept of the significance of 2012. A slightly more serious error occurs on p.191 of Pinchbeck’s book, where he puts the start-date at “August 13, 3114 BC”, and the end-point at “December 21, AD 2012”. This is due to the fact that he got his information from Jose Arguelles, as he readily admits. Pinchbeck correctly ascertained that Arguelles’ start-date of August 13, 3113 BC is misleading because it fails to account for the missing year zero between 1 BC and 1 AD, and he corrects it to 3114 BC. However, the 13 August start date is the start-date of what Mayanists call “the 584285 correlation”, the end-point of which is 23 December 2012. The alternative correlation used by Mayanists, and the one supported by Jenkins’ work is the 584283 correlation, (which starts and finishes 2 days before the 584285 correlation), starting on August 11, 3114 BC and ending on 21 December 2012 AD. Thus, Pinchbeck has the start-date of one correlation and the end-date of the other correlation. This is sloppy research, and any book about 2012 should have these very basic facts sorted out.

Another misunderstanding on p.192 shows that Pinchbeck equates the Long Count with the “Great Cycle”. When Mayanists started to decipher the calendrical glyphs of the Maya, they didn’t have a word for the cycle of 20 katuns, so they simply called it a “Cycle”. At first they thought the next significant cycle was composed of 20 of these “Cycles”, but they later agreed that when 13 of the “Cycles” were completed, (13.0.0.0.0) the numbering of all 5 periods reverted to zero the following day (0.0.0.0.1). They called this 13-Cycle period, the “Great Cycle”. Later, to avoid confusion, they named the 20-katun cycle a baktun, using linguistic clues, and refer to the Great Cycle as the 13-baktun cycle, since there are actually larger cycles on some monuments. Thus, the Great Cycle is an outmoded term used by Arguelles, and refers to the 13-baktun cycle, which is just one cycle in the Long Count calendar.

Yet another error picked up from Arguelles is the confusion of Lord Pacal of Palenque and Votan. As explained in Whats New item 198, The "Pacal Votan" Composite, Pacal and Votan were 2 totally different people who lived centuries apart. Another error picked up from Arguelles, who in turn got the error from Tony Shearer, concerns the arrival of Cortez on the day 1 Reed in the year 1 Reed. This is not true – I have checked all the facts and ascertained that it was the year 1 Reed, but day 1 Reed was about 12 days off. See http://www.diagnosis2012.co.uk/harm.htm for more information, or Beyond 2012 pages 45-47).

 Yet More Errors

 On p.288, Pinchbeck gets the date of the 2012 Venus transit wrong. He says it will be on June 5, 2012, when it will be on June 6, 2012. It occurs exactly 8 haabs (365-day years) after the previous Venus transit in 2004 (8 June 2004). This is the period of one Venus pentagram, and exactly 104 of these makes a Venus Round, which is 2 Calendar Rounds. This is why the Maya did not include leap years in their calendars – it would have destroyed their whole cross-referencing calendrical structure. The Arguelles Dreamspell calendar includes leap days, so in that system, it goes unnoticed that both these Venus transit days (2004 and 2012) are on the same Tzolkin day sign, (in the unbroken Tzolkin count of the Quiche Maya) which is Ik, or Ehecatl in the Aztec version, and this day is governed by Quetzalcoatl himself, who turned into Venus. So, the Venus transits occur on the day of Venus in the original unbroken day count, but in Dreamspell, they occur on 2 different day signs, neither of which is Ik.

 On p.287, at first glance, it seems that the method of calculating the numbers of the Fibonacci sequence is given as “…by adding each pair of integers, and then dividing the resulting larger number by the preceding smaller one…” The sentence is worded in a slightly confusing way leading to a possible misunderstanding (several other people have also pointed this out). What was meant is that the Fibonnaci sequence is produced by adding each pair of integers to get the next number in the series, but if each number is divided by the previous one, the resulting figure approaches nearer to Phi, the further along in the sequence you go.

 On p.292, Pinchbeck says that the Wessex Research Group put out a magazine called Swirled News, but this is actually the name of a crop circle website run by Andy Thomas, author of Vital Signs, and was not the name of the WRG magazine. The crop circle confusion also extends to which county they are centred in, on p.274, where Pinchbeck says he drove 50 miles to Somerset, to see the crop formation that appeared on North Down, Wiltshire. This is probably just a typo, since he was already in Somerset, at Glastonbury. Other typos occur on p.265, which starts halfway through a sentence, and on p.261, which ends halfway through a sentence. Other errors include the "cosmic giggle factor", a term repeatedly attributed by Pinchbeck to Terence McKenna, while it was actually coined by Robert Anton Wilson in his 1977 book, Cosmic Trigger - The Final Secret of the Illuminati. Irritating to students of  literature on the ancient Maya are Pinchbeck's use of the term "Classical Maya" instead of Classic Maya; "Mayans" instead of Maya, and attribution of the Aztec New Fire ceremony to the Maya.

 The Pattern Perceived

 Pinchbeck excuses these errors in advance, in the book (p.20), when he declares himself “a generalist, a perceiver of pattern rather than a delver into detail”. The pattern that he perceived is that a global transformation of consciousness has been predicted by philosophers such as Steiner, Goswami and Gebser, and is supported by the Psychologist Carl Jung and findings from quantum physics – a quantum leap also fits in with evolutionary theory, in which changes are made in sudden jumps – punctuated equilibrium. In fact, Gebser says we are in the 4^th evolving stage  - archaic, magical, mythical, and mental-rational., and are on the verge of a mutation, or transition to a 5^th stage – “integral and aperspectival, characterized by the realization of time freedom and ego freedom”. This fits in well with the Hopi system, in which we are in the 4^th World, approaching the 5^th World.

 Steiner, Pinchbeck points out, also said we are in the 4^th incarnation of the Earth, and approaching 5^th incarnation, or “Jupiter state”. We have 3 bodies already formed – the physical body, the ether body, and the astral body, and in the 4^th incarnation we are strengthening the “I” or ego-body, by changing the desires and cravings that “pour into us through the astral body”, or “transmuting lower passions into higher energies”. This will create a 5^th body called the 'spirit self', and in the Jupiter state, the “spirit self will experience its full unfolding”.

 Conclusion

Although Pinchbeck spends a lot of time looking at Jose Arguelles’ ideas, and finds that the 13-moon calendar proposed by Arguelles is faulty, he is convinced by Arguelles' arguments that the following of the Gregorian calendar is the basic problem underlying the major problems in the world, and he recommends "a meeting of minds from various spiritual traditions, indigenous cultures, and scientific disciplines, capable of overcoming factional discord to create a new global standard, one that can meet with global acceptance." This would be “a necessary part of the solution” to “our enslavement by artificial time” (p.377). He recommends that this congress takes place in Glastonbury, which is the UK town that is most densely packed with followers of the Arguelles 13-moon Dreamspell calendar - so holding the event there might prove counter-productive, unless PAN - the Planet Art Network, (who promote the adoption of Dreamspell as the solution) were first persuaded that the 13-moon calendar is not the best one for the job. Pinchbeck also comments on the ego-inflation of the Arguelles channellings, yet surprisingly ends up providing his own transmission.

The book is a rambling autobiographical tale, peppered with quotes from philosophers but it doesn’t actually have much to say about 2012, apart from a weakly argued crop circle connection; the ambiguous study of Arguelles, the theory of Carl Calleman, in which the evolutionary shift is actually all over by 2012; a brief mention of John Major Jenkins’ work, and even briefer one of McKenna’s Timewave. As one enthusiastic reader put it, when he finally finished the book, “...I’m not sure what I learned or if I learned anything tangible that can be described with words...” (from a 2012 Tribe discussion ). However, if the interesting points in The Pattern Perceived, above, had been concentrated into an article, rather than spread out through the book, then that would have made very interesting reading.

Having said all that, I have to admire Pinchbeck's willingness to stick his neck out, bare his soul and tell his story to get this important subject out there and into the mind of humanity. He said this in response to this review:

"...I would argue that the breadth of the 
book, as well as the autobiographical elements and the attention to style, 
are crucial to convey these ideas outside of the narrow and 
circumscribed realms in which they have lingered. If this consciousness 
transformation has any real meaning, then it must be realized as a qualitative 
shift that changes one’s inner nature and one’s perceptions, rather than 
just a flat tabulation of scientific data and hypothesis. My hope is 
that the book will convey the process that I had to go through, as a 
flawed individual, to integrate an entirely new system of thought and a new 
way of relating to time and being. “The more abstract the truth you 
want to teach, the more you have to seduce the senses to it,” wrote 
Nietzsche. By following my process, the reader has an opportunity to work 
through his or her own relationship to this material.

You also quote an enthusiastic reader of the book on tribe.net, who 
felt I had not suggested any tangible solutions. For the sake of clarity, 
I have posted his note and my answer to it below, with the hope that 
you will include it, along with this letter, with your review on your 
website.

Yours,
Daniel

#
Re: Pinchbeck's Book
Fri, May 26, 2006 - 12:12 PM
so i finished the book...

..im not sure what i learned or if i learned anything tangible that can
be described with words...as t mc k once said: the brighter the bonfire
the more surrounding darkness is revieled..

so i dont think i walked away with any anwers
im just more suspicious of how i view things
from a rational standpoint...maybe more trusting of my intuition...

    *
      Daniel
      Daniel Pinchbeck
      online 91
      Re: Pinchbeck's Book
      Sat, May 27, 2006 - 12:26 PM
      Hi Xodman,

      I want to say I appreciated your log of thoughts and impressions 
while reading my book. I will try to answer your questions.

      As to why I omitted Leary, I just couldn’t cover everything! I 
had to go with what I was drawn toward – I also omitted Nostradomus, plus 
a number of prophecies from other Native American cultures (such as 
“White Buffalo Girl”) that would have supported my thesis. The eight 
circuit model seems interesting, but I have not yet explored it in depth. I 
am more drawn toward Stan Grof and his model of the perinetal matrices, 
and the relationship between birth trauma and transpersonal experience 
(also its relationship to astrology, via the work of Richard Tarnas), 
but wasn’t able to incorporate that in the book either.

      As for “answers”, I feel that I do provide a number of possible 
conclusions, but I also leave it up to the reader to sort through these 
possibilities. I didn’t want to impose my answers, but let people work 
it through the material on their own, so they can integrate the new 
perspective or paradigm I am offering. If I try to separate some of these 
hypothetical “answers”, they include the following:

      1. Perhaps I am offering a kind of “system software upgrade” for 
the modern mind, which has been trapped in dualism, literalism, and 
rational materialism. I am saying that “rationality” has to open up to 
include actual, tangible factors of reality that are left out of the 
materialist paradigm – psychic phenomena, for instance, and transpersonal 
experience, and the “reality of the psyche.” By making this shift in 
perspective, you reorient yourself in relationship to the world and the 
cosmos. Because we create systems and technologies based on our 
perspectival relationship to time and space, this might allow for a deepseated 
shift in the nature of our world.

      2. Our civilizational crisis is based on a wrong relationship to 
time, and this can potentially be overcome through a new calendar that 
would place us in a new “timing frequency.” This is Arguelles’ idea – 
but I carefully critique the calendar he has created. I argue that we 
will need a global meeting of minds – astronomers, physicists, shamans, 
mystics, astrologers – to create a new calendar and harmonic timing 
frequency, meshed with the physical reality of the surrounding universe. A 
new timing frequency would be retroactive as well as projective, so we 
would be able to do away with nationstate charters, Third World debt 
structures, unfair legal codes, etc. We could create a new harmonic 
template for a compassion-based planetary civilization without artificial 
borders or boundaries.

      3. My own narrative suggests that those of us who are currently 
outside the power structure and have been intensifying our consciousness 
and deepening our awareness over the last decades may turn out to 
constitute a new “elite class” that will supplant the current political and 
economic leadership during an imminently approaching crisis. As 
previous revolutions – such as the French Revolution – indicate, there is a 
natural process in which a ruling class becomes increasingly out of touch 
with visceral reality, until that class can no longer maintain order. 
At that point, the class that has attained a deeper attunement to the 
truth of their time naturally emerge into prominence. Although this was a 
violent and chaotic process in the past, if we can understand and 
integrate the pattern at a deeper level before the crisis happens, we can 
ready ourselves for being leaders in this shift to a new form of social 
organization. I believe this process is also carefully e!
 xplored in Tao do Ching and the I Ching.

      4. We co-create reality through the activity of consciousness and 
our directed intention. Therefore, we have to take careful stock of our 
intentions and how we direct our psychic energy. If we are obsessed 
with apocalypse and collapse, or enmeshed in paranoid conspiracy, we help 
to bring those results into manifestation. I agree with Arguelles that 
the “job” of the visionary is to envision the best possible outcome for 
humanity – by realizing and holding the higher frequency, we help to 
bring new possibilities into manifestation.

      5. The importance of psychedelic investigation and the 
transpersonal domain: The book suggests that what is taking place is a nondual 
process of consciousness evolution – we have to simultaneously do the 
painful work on ourselves, master ourselves, in order to bring about 
positive transformation of the world.

      6. A huge amount of trapped and wasted psychic energy is embedded 
in sexuality and love relationships, and we need to bring this area up 
to a much higher level of conscious awareness and articulation. Women 
have as much work as men in realizing and reintegrating their shadow 
projections – much of the feminine “will to power” manifests in the arena 
of personal relationships, with devastating consequences. This turns 
out to be very hard work on a personal level. A transformation in our 
realization of eros – also a resacralization of eros - may be necessary 
before we can make a positive transformation of the world.

      7. The most extraordinary and sophisticated reading of the Mayan 
Calendar by Calleman suggests that breakdown is coming very soon – 
2008, give or take a few months. This may seem over literal- but I think 
his reasoning is quite sound. This also fits with other predictions I 
have seen – Peak Oil etc – and also intuitively seems to fit with the 
sense of accelerating entropy now prevalent. Therefore, those of us who may 
as I said above become the elite of a new planetary civilization have 
just until that time to prepare – I would like to see the widespread 
dissemination of a new paradigm including sustainability, alternative 
energy and permaculture tools, new media expressing a positive vision of 
human possibilities, as well as wider dissemination of shamanism and 
other techniques of personal transformation.

      8. We are in the same situation today with psychic power as 
people were in the 1750s with electricity: They had experienced lightning 
and static shocks but had no idea how to bring it down into the world to 
create an industrial grid. Many of us are experiencing upsurges of 
synchronicity and psychic phenomena (part of the process of the “coming of 
the self” revealing the “reality of the psyche.”), which suggest that 
the new “mutational” shift in consciousness will allow us to understand 
and access psychic energy in new ways, by integrating intuitive and 
rational modes of cognition. We can begin to envision what support systems 
for this transformation might be like, as that visioning process will 
help bring it into realization.

      Does this help at all?"