Is the end nigh? Maya prophecy gains a following

Might want to rethink your long-term plans. In case you haven't heard, a surprising number of people believe that the end - make that, The End - is only three years away.

On Dec. 21, 2012 - or the 23rd, depending on the math - the 5,125-year-old Maya calendar runs out of days. Add in an assortment of prophesies and some unusual celestial forecasts, and you've got the ultimate doomsday scenario, a script that includes everything from ecological collapse to cosmic cataclysm to a reversal of the Earth's polarity.

Hollywood cashes in on it all next month with the opening of the mother of all disaster movies: "2012." Its catchphrase is: "We were warned."

Which begs the question: Were we really? No, says Mark Van Stone, at least not by the Maya, a people who flourished in Central America from around A.D. 250 to A.D. 900.

Van Stone, a professor at California's Southwestern College, is a Maya scholar and hieroglyphic expert. He says 2012 merely marks the end of a cycle on the ancient calendar, a point at which it resets.

"The Maya were noteworthy and interesting and all that stuff," Van Stone said, "but they probably weren't anybody who'd be able to pinpoint the end of time."

The 2012 phenomenon doesn't seem to care. A cottage industry of books, seminars and T-shirts has been spawned. The History Channel and Syfy have produced "what-if" specials. In Virginia Beach, a company that designs 2012 shelters says it can't keep up with demand.

"We're slammed," said Brian Camden of Hardened Structures Hardened Shelters, a division of Powell Management Associates on Lynnhaven Parkway.

Doomsday calls for the most expensive type of shelter - a "standalone fortress," as Camden calls it, able to withstand earthquakes, tsunamis, solar flare-ups, explosions, impacts and armed assaults.

Costs run between $350 and $600 per square foot, depending on location. So far, all of the company's clients have been out of state. Confidentiality is part of the deal, Camden says. Most of his clients are millionaires building bunkers beneath remote retreats.

Camden figures that companies like his have built more than 1,000 doomsday shelters across the country, with another 100 under construction.

"I really don't buy into any specific part of 2012," he said, "but we have a simple philosophy here: Our clients' priorities are our priorities. I'm not going to argue with them about what might or might not happen."

John Hoopes at the University of Kansas specializes in ancient cultures and myths of the past. He says people have been eyeing 2012 since the early 1900s, when Maya dates were first translated. Over the decades, their ranks grew, swelled by followers of Nostradamus, Edgar Cayce and others whose predictions seemed to point to the year as well.

In time, they were joined by other subcultures - a psychedelic circle that based its 2012 fears on a handful of drug-induced visions; UFO believers convinced of alien influence on the Maya; star gazers concerned about celestial alignments destined to push the sun across the galactic equator; the religious right, long poised for Armageddon.

"It's made for some really strange bedfellows," Hoopes said, "groups that don't typically think on the same page."

Mark Wilson, a visiting professor of early Christianity at Regent University, doesn't think most Christians are buying into 2012.

"It's not linked to the Bible, so there's not much interest," Wilson said. "Besides, the Christian community is experiencing a bit of apocalyptic burn out."

Too many doomsday dates have come and gone. The granddaddy was Y2K.

"It all fizzled," Wilson said. "The Bible says that only the Father knows the day or the hour."

As for the Maya, they were indeed deep thinkers for their time - equipped with a written language, adept at astronomy and math. But they also favored elongated heads, crossed eyes and human sacrifice.

Van Stone, the Maya scholar, says their calendar, while impressive, is just another calendar, flawed by inaccuracies and historical agendas: "All calendars are like that - even the one we're using today."

He finds the 2012 phenomenon "fascinating. As a professional, I've been looking at this as a chance to draw the spotlight off the crazies and onto the actual Maya."

So far, he's had limited success. The movie won't help. Starring John Cusack, Woody Harrelson and Danny Glover, it's directed by Roland Emmerich, the man behind "Independence Day" (alien attack) and "The Day After Tomorrow" (global warming).

Van Stone plans to see "2012" with some of his anthropologist pals. What the heck, they like to see famous landmarks blow up as much as the next guy.

Hoopes, the ancient cultures specialist, says 2012 hype is self-perpetuating. It'll keep going as long as it sells, and it'll keep selling as long as the hype fans the flames.

"So it spirals out and keeps people's juices going and makes them spend money," he said. "Looks like a good time to invest in bottled water and duct tape again."

For the past three years, the Edgar Cayce Association for Research and Enlightenment in Virginia Beach has held an annual 2012 conference. Hundreds of people have come, mostly out-of-towners.

"It's one of our best conferences," said Alison Ray, ARE's marketing manager.

Speakers touch on 2012's many ties and theories, with an emphasis on the ARE's own take. Cayce followers are among those who believe 2012 won't bring global catastrophe, but just the opposite.

They think 2012 will herald the dawning of a new age - a phase of enlightenment and evolution for mankind.

But that won't make nearly as cool of a movie.

Joanne Kimberlin, (757) 446-2338, joanne.kimberlin@pilotonline.com