It's the end of the world as we know it....

Loads of research must have gone into that article. Very timely and interesting! Thank you for posting.

Hi Celta

I've just finished a book called Balthasar's Odyssey by Amin Maalouf, and part of the theme is the end of the world in 1666. Why 1666, because the biblical 666 sign of the beast. This has a fascinating parallel to what people are saying about 2012 today. It is a fictional story but based on historical facts. It's amazing the hysteria that can develop on such notions, whether it's based on the amount of psalms in the bible, the mythology of an ancient civilisation, or some mistaken principle of numerology.

Best Wishes

RP

excellent reading reiki pixie

Thanks for posting this. It's a great resource to hopefully give people a reality check when anyone else starts talking (as they undoubtedly will ...) about "the end is nigh".

A few quick comments.

I didn't know that Columbus or Sir Isaac Newton had made "end of world" (failed, obviously!) predictions.

I was wondering if Jehovah's Witnesses would be mentioned. They are. But haven't they shifted to yet another, future date, or is it just, to them, "very soon indeed, within our lifetimes"?

I didn't know the Mother Shipton writing was fraudulent! 😮

The 1982 date. I watched that carefully and had been to some of their 1970s meetings. What the reference fails to mention is that this is the channeler, Benjamin Creme.

The 1990 date is rather erroneous. I knew Elizabeth Clare Prophet and knew all about that event. It was just silly media spin saying she'd announced "the end of the world". She never did and it's not true. In fact, her idea was that by being prepared for a nuclear strike, it probably wouldn't happen.

The episode may or may not have been silly anyway, but it was never believed by her or by her followers that it would be "end of world". A limited nuclear strike was always a possible planned option by the USSR, since they knew that nuclear war, by first strike, was possible to do, and to win. (Much of the world would be relatively unaffected, and the victors would be fine.) The world would be fairly different afterwards, but not "the end". E.C. Prophet believed the Soviets would launch a first strike in early 1990 because their empire was falling apart. I'm not saying that I agree with her "prophecy" ... but later that year the foreign minister of the time of the USSR (Shevadnarze [sp??]) was quoted on the front pages of half our national newspapers as saying that indeed "I stopped WW3". It turned out that in late 1989, as the Berlin Wall was falling, etc, the Soviet army, air force, and navy all wanted to invade Western Europe and strike at the USA. Only he and Gorbachev stopped them (backed by the KGB I presume). So a WW3 in 1989-90 was in fact desired and planned by the Soviet military - that's now historical record.

V

Hi V

I would be very surprised if all the info on the link was accurate. And there is probably more preditions not mentioned. Glad you saw it was a reality check for the more guilable minded.

Best Wishes

RP

Hi V

I would be very surprised if all the info on the link was accurate. And there is probably more preditions not mentioned. Glad you saw it was a reality check for the more guilable minded.

Best Wishes

RP

It's a pretty good and useful piece of research all the same, as Celtia wrote. Since it's a Western piece of research, I suspect it tells much about Christian failed prophecies, and other Western ones, but those from other cultures we can only guess at. But they'll be there! 🙂

How fascinating, that there's such a widespread human psychological predilection to prophecy the end of the world, over and over, and so many go along and believe it. (I cringed when Creme did his thing in 1982.) Logic would tell a rational person that after so many failed prophecies, not to believe the "latest" or next one.

TBH I so dislike superstition. I was posting, trying to give reality checks, about 2012, from very early on after joining HP in late 2003. Happily, there seems far less hysteria now in the general New Age field than there was a few years ago.

Regarding the gullibly-minded, I'd mention the "New Age". I put it in quotes, as it's so diverse that it's hard to define, and it varies IMHO from excellent to so-so to dreadful. It's the dreadful end of the New Age spectrum that I abhor. Again, one I know about is that Benjamin Creme prophecy of 1982. It made a mockery of so many things, including his followers (who paid large sums for the one-page ads in major newspapers), and the historical name of Maitreya for whom Creme claims to speak.

Maybe it's just me and a faulty perception, but the wacky end of the New Age spectrum seems to have peaked and is now on the wane? The 2012 topic may be an example of that.

V

HI V

Has the New Age peaked and is on the wane? I hope so! I was kind of sucked into the New Age scene in the 90s, but when the 00s came in and with a bit of hindsight I realised that the New Age is built on poor foundations. It takes a bit of this and a bit of that, and poorly integrates it. The New Age generally speaking has no roots and no wonder that its "followers" are so ungrounded. I'm starting to think that ideologically there are aspects of the New Age that is a form of fascism, but I find it hard to back up my statement. Extra thought needed! Actually can think of an example: Angels - the religion of sentimentality, bogged down in emotional marshlands. If you denign the existence of angels to a new ager, listen to the passive argressive abuse they will give back. Spiritual Fascism! Anycase going off topic.

I think 2012 will be another 80's Creme (I do remember that) and will discredit spirituality in general, which would be a pity. But an interesting thing about 2012 is that there will be (there already is) apologists that will say the dawn of the new age is here and that they are of a higher vibration.

My take on spirituality is that change happens within and that we need to be a light to ourselves, radical internal revolution which reflects into outer change. Not waiting for some cosmic advent to stimulate human progression. Oh I think I've been reading far too much Kristnamurti, lol 🙂

Best Wishes

RP

My take on spirituality is that change happens within and that we need to be a light to ourselves, radical internal revolution which reflects into outer change. Not waiting for some cosmic advent to stimulate human progression. Oh I think I've been reading far too much Kristnamurti, lol 🙂

Yes, it's all a bit off-topic, but I think you had a broader intent anyway re this thread? 🙂

It's hard really to guage where the "New Age" is going, as it's hard to know how to define it. I may just be seeing things through my own coloured spectacles, but I just suspect that not so many younger people are caught up in the worst aspects of whatever it is, and that more mature people may have matured their beliefs. I dunno - become Buddhists and all sorts of things.

It's not long off, so we'll see, but I get the sense there may be little human hoo-hah over December 2012 after all. Or maybe I'm just ignorant of what this or that group have got planned.

I can't recall her name, but another failed prophecy was a lady in 2008 or 2009 who was mentioned on HP and who said UFOs were all coming to collect us or something? It was channeling again. Channeling is IMHO often from the subconscious, or maybe from invisible entities having a laugh, but this lady in her conscious mind was very sincere and nice. Again I cringed for her, and she was personally devastated when the date came - and went. LOL, I'd say that if you want to keep a cult going strong, just don't commit yourself to dates! Why do they do it? 😀

I agree with your words I quote above.

Krishnamurti was another example in a way. Not "end of world", but that something tremendous was destined and planned to occur through him, while he was a youngster in Theosophy. To be perfectly honest, I do believe and follow that one. But he was found and brought up by them I think from age 12 or 14, and the pressure told. Just as a great Light is said by thousands to have started to appear in him at huge public events, his brother died I believe, and this may have been the trigger that turned him sour (towards 'God'). He abandoned the role he had been raised to play.

Even more off-topic, but in an earlier post I mentioned the revelation of Soviet foreign minister, Shevardnadze. The internet wasn't really up and running much in 1990 so off-hand I can't find a link to it. But it's one of the most important events of the 20th century, yet totally forgotten twenty years later. All of the Soviet military did desire to invade Europe at the end of 1989 (it would probably have happened in spring 1990). In November 1990 the front page of The Times and other papers gave Shevardnadze's story, that he and Gorbachev faced down their army, navy, and air force commanders. They wanted to first invade West Germany. As Western analysts said then, NATO had a "line in the sand" that any such invasion would be attacking the NATO line, and such a war would definitely have gone nuclear. So few people today know it, but we really nearly did have WW3 in 1990.

P.S. On the term, "New Age". The movement (or whatever it is) has in some eyes been discredited for many years. IMHO it was pretty pure and good when it began in, say, the 1970s. The charlatans entered in, and so did money-making. My own first wake-up call was in working on a book which came out in 1994. In 1993 my American editor gently told me not to use the term "New Age"; that a lot of wise people considered the term discredited by then. So I shifted to other terms.

V

Here's another prediction: http://home.flash.net/~evt/rapture.htm

Rapture and destruction coming to you this year!

Here's another prediction: http://home.flash.net/~evt/rapture.htm

Rapture and destruction coming to you this year!

I thought at first that you were posting about the forthcoming World Cup for England? Apparently not. 🙂

It looks like a huge amount of reading and links, and I doubt any of us care to delve into it. So let's be honest: we are having a laugh at all this stuff now? 🙂 But it's a serious and necessary laugh all the same. A few years ago (if not now, I don't know), people were very seriously scared about 2012 for example, and there were threads here where others tried to calm down scared people.

In the late 1980s I somehow got contacted by a man in London who seemed very intellectual, and we exchanged letters. Even then, in the 1980s, he read some books and was totally convinced that the sea level was going to rise - then - and London would be flooded. He sold his home and went gawd knows where to live, but on higher ground in England. He was a very literate person, but couldn't manage to take his library with him. So even then, back in the 1980s, this guy put all his books up for cheap sale. Very sad to hear about, and where he is now I've no idea! That's one tale of "global warming" which never happened.

So laughter at these things is healthy. In mentioning that there could have literally been a WW3 in 1990, I'm also cautioning that "bad things can happen" - and have, many times over. But it's never the "end of the world as we know it", and basically all these stories seem to begin from religious zealots or channelers. Why, oh why, do so many people follow and believe them??

V

Christology Thread

Judy has forthrightly gone ahead and started the thread here:

https://www.healthypages.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=72118

V

Hi V

The way I look at this is like that old Sufi saying: Have faith in Allah, but don't forget to tie the camels up.

Best Wishes

RP

Everyone knows that the world will end in 2038...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_2038_problem

😉

The world is going to end in 2038? Great Scott! lol :-)))

Just read the wiki article. I'm sure this will be solved, and of course all that new software and hardware is good for the IT business. Can you imagine what technology is be like in 2038? It will make a 2010 personal computer look like a 1970's Texas Instruments calculator.

Best Wishes

RP