“The concensus is that it’s a crypto-scientific, four-year wonder that has more to do with tabloid sensation-seeking than any rigorous and disciplined investigation. It mixes astronomy with astrology, which makes it an anathema, and its ties to psychedelic drugs, UFOs, pop sci-fi, shamanism, and, at best contemporary folklore, place it firmly within the lunatic fringe.”

What it looks like is that this writer has not done any investigation himself into any of these things. This is pure opinion. If everyone had a diamond for every opinion s/he has, how much would diamonds be worth? Opinions are fairly empty in their value. His description of the phenomena (tabloid seeking, etc) is an accurate description of how contemporary society handles most things. One need only look around to see rampant lunacy, insanity, and madness. It's all a matter of perspective, and his description of the effect that information about 2012 is having on the consciousness of the world is actually quite accurate - it does put it at the fringe, outside of the centralized lunacy of the mainstream world.

Looking at just this short quote closely, I wonder how a mix of astronomy and astrology is considered anathema? Aren't they intimately linked?? I wonder how these thousands of years old sciences, the roots of most other sciences, as well as psychedelic "drugs" and shamanism, also in use by humans for thousands of years (thousands more than astronomy or astrology in fact) can be considered with any clarity as lunatic or fringe? The entire thing doesn't add up.

At the very, very least, when one looks around, takes in information about what is going on in the world today, it's quite apparent that something big is going to go down in our lifetimes. It's only fear-based thinking that inserts words like "apocalypse". The Mayan calendar and the Timewave drawn from the I-Ching simply point to the end of Time. There's no indication that an end to time is a disastrous event, especially given the descriptions of other prophecies from other traditions about what we're all facing...(these were excerpted from point-form notes in someone's blog):

500 year-old Otomi Prophecy...When 8000 sacred drums play together, an intense hea ling of Mother Earth will commence.

Inca... Call it the 'Age of Meeting Ourselves Again'.

Hopi... Predict a 25 year period of purification followed by End of Fourth World and beginning of the Fifth.

Mayan... Call it the 'end days' or the end of time as we know it

Maori... Say that as the veils dissolve there will be a merging of the physical & spiritual worlds.

Zulu... Believe that the whole world will be turned upside down.

Hindu... Kali Yuga (end time of man). The Coming of Kalki & critical mass of Enlightened Ones.

Aztec... Call this the Time of the Sixth Sun. A time of transformation. Creation of new race.

Pueblo ... Acknowledge it'll be the emergence into the Fifth World

Cherokee... Their ancient calendar ends exactly at 2012 as does the Mayan calendar.

Tibetan... Kalachakra teachings are prophesies left by Buddha predicting Coming of the Golden Age.

Egypt ... According to the Great Pyramid (stone calendar), present time cycle ends in year 2012 AD

Dogon... Say that the spaceship of the visitors, the Nommo, will return in the form of a blue star.

It doesn't look that bad to me.

Actually, you may want to hop on over to the article... not to read it (I skimmed it only), but to read the comment that John Major Jenkins left (If it indeed was John Major Jenkins). Even if it wasn't him, someone schooled the writer of the article quite well in JMJ's name.