Project Vision 21

Francisco Miraval

The New Year is almost here and the arrival of 2012 will certainly be marked by an even greater hysteria about the Mayan “prophecies” and the end of the world, or the end of an epoch, or the return to Eden, or the beginning of the trans-historical humanity. Regardless of the description of the events expected to happen in December 2012, a review of history will be useful.

At the end of the fourth century, Hilarian, a bishop on North Africa, wrote a book titled The Progress of Time. In his book, Hilarian said the battle between Christ and the Antichrist would happen in 498. Preaching almost at the same time, St. Martin of Tours assured his listeners that the Antichrist was already at work and that the final battle was “imminent.”

Of course, nothing happened on those days. Then, the Beatus of Liebana (a Spaniard monk) recalculated the dates for the end of the world and said it would happen in 786. Nothing happened, so the new date was the year 800. Nothing happened, so they were sure the end of the world would be in the year 1000. And later, the year 1250.

Before anybody suggests that those failed calculations about the end of the world were idle speculations of ignorant people in ancient times and in the Middle Ages, think about the case of the American Baptist pastor William Miller (1782-1849). Miller took a text from the Hebrew scriptures (Daniel 8:14) and predicted the end of the world by the year 1843.

Again, nothing happened. After Miller’s death, several of his followers “corrected” the predictions, saying the true end of the world would happen in 1873. Later, 1897. Even later, 1914. (Those following Miller eventually founded several religious groups, now very active in the United States in and other countries. Details in Apocalypse Not, by John Michael Greer.)

In recent years, American radio evangelist Harold Camping said the end of the world would happen on May 21, 1988. The revised day was September 6, 1994, later postponed until May 21, 2011 and finally adjusted to October 21, 2011.

Obviously, the list of unfulfilled prophecies is limitless. In the previous paragraphs we focused on the Christian tradition (because it is the tradition we have studied), but we could easily share numerous examples of other religious traditions from Antiquity to modern times with similar failures in predicting the end of the world.

What then is going to happen on December 21, 2012? The same thing that happened on Christmas Day 1000, on January 1, 2000, and on October 21, 2011: nothing will happen. It will be just another day in human history. And another failed “prophecy.”

Of course, the “Apocalysitis”, the inflammation of the Apocalypse, will continue, because it has become a profitable enterprise for book writers and for video, movie, and TV producers. However, as President Abraham Lincoln once said, according to a quote found at many websites, you should not believe everything you read or watch online.