Information is Beautiful examines several claims made by 2012 believers and finds their claims lacking.

Information is Beautiful: 2012: The End Of The World?

Mary Dery writes:

Pinchbeck, like New Age thinkers all the way back to Madame Blavatsky, preaches a refried gospel of ancient wisdom and mystical, supra-rational knowledge. In 2007, he told The New York Times that “the rational, empirical worldview…has reached its expiration date…we’re on the verge of transitioning to a dispensation of consciousness that’s more intuitive, mystical, and shamanic.”

Well, somebody say “Amen”! There’s entirely too much rationalism and empiricism clouding the American mind these days, in a nation where, according to the Harris and other polls, 42% of Republicans are convinced President Obama wasn’t born in the United States, 10% of the nation’s voters are certain he’s a Muslim, and 61% of the population believe in the Virgin birth but only 47% believe in Darwinian evolution. [...]

When I asked her what she thought of Pinchbeck’s invocation of Mayan beliefs, and of the 2012-ers’ use of the Maya in general, she was blunt. “What makes me angriest about Pinchbeck’s bogus, profiteering bullshit isn’t so much him, but the fact that that many people are racist enough to believe any asshole white guy who declares himself an expert in Mayan culture. Did it ever occur to anyone to ask practicing Maya priests out in the villages? [...] It absolutely enrages me that while people I know in Guatemala, traditional priests, are struggling to figure out how to provide clean drinking water to their families, how to feed their communities, how to avoid being shot by the gangs and thieves that plague the roads more than ever—while they’re struggling to survive and keep their communities intact, assholes like Pinchbeck are making a buck off of white man’s parodies of their culture.”

h+: 2012: Carnival of Bunkum

(via Chris Arkenberg)

See also: Tracing the origins of the 2012 phenomenon

Eat The Lion: The Viking Youth Chat with Daniel Pinchbeck.

RU Sirius Show: Nick Douglas, Valleywag

NeoFiles Show: Who is the ‘I’ that wants to be Immortal?

RU Sirius Show: Yay, Anal!! Violet Blue Returns

NeoFiles Show: Eddie Codel & Ryan Junell Return

Above is the first part, Key 23 has links to the next two portions.

See also:

Rolling Stone: The New Psychedelic Elite

and

New York Metro: The End of the World As They Know It.

R.U. and company interview neoshaman Daniel Pinchbeck about his new book 2012 : The Return of Quetzalcoatl.

Mp3 on R.U. Sirius Show.

Disinfo has posted the first two chapters of Daniel Pinchbeck’s new book 2012 : The Return of Quetzalcoatl:

Chapter 1.

Chapter 2.

Daniel Pinchbeck, and the fine folks at FutureHi, are starting a project called Metacine: a Magazine for the New Edge. It’s about stuff like Burning Man and, like Future Hi, “new” psychedelic culture.

It sounds a lot like Mondo 2000, a magazine for the new edge that ran sporadically from the late 80s (under the title Reality Hackers) until around 1997. It had articles about Burning Man, raves, designer drugs, smart drugs, etc. and basically spawned the magazine Wired. Burning Man’s been going for nearly 2 decades now. Nothing new there. All the sustainable bio future stuff they’re talking about on the Metacine web site? Sounds like Mother Earth News or the Whole Earth Catalog.

So what’s “new edge” about all of this? I don’t think there’s anything wrong with any of what they’re doing. I’m excited about all of it, honestly. But trying to package it up as some sort of new movement sounds like journalese to me. I’ve been as guilty as anyone else about this. Just look through the Technoccult archives and you’ll find plenty of evidence.

Why this obsession with doing “new” things? Finding the trends, the edge, blah blah blah blah blah. Seems like we’re all still stuck in the past, rambling about sustainable energy and Leary’s 8 circuit model and all that. But is that really such a bad thing?

Then there’s Jason Louv’s attempt to create a new occult ultraculture. Rather than trying to document a new culture, Jason’s trying to will a new one into existence with his book. I admire what he’s doing, and I know he’s doing it for the right reasons. He wants to see a new generation of socially consciousness occultists. It actually reminds me a lot of Terrence McKenna’s stuff though, about the role of shaman as a healer for the community. McKenna called his vision of the future an “archaic revival,” because everything he expected to occur was actually ancient.

Don’t get me wrong, I have a lot of respect for Jason and for the Future-Hi cats, and I’m sure Pinchbeck has the best intentions. I’ll be pre-ordered Generation Hex and will probably be a Metacine subscriber. But I’m worried that an obsession with novelty and “the next big thing” will only hurt all our long term goals, stunt our personal development by making us trend whores, and blind us to realms of less glamorous possibility.

The new issue of NeoFiles is up. Will Block interviews R.U. about his new book, R.U. interviews Daniel Pinchbeck, plus critiques of transhumanism and “smart homes.” No interview with Howard Bloom, though…

Link.

Recent Aurthor Magazine article republished on FutureHi:

One of the most beautiful aspects of Burning Man is the wide-open expanse of the desert itself, which seems to represent the infinite potential available to the liberated human imagination. While I was bicycling across the playa one night, enjoying the laser lights and carnival displays of the festival from a distance, I thought that the shift to a new planetary culture, and a new form of nonhierarchical social organization matching our new level of mind, does not have to be a cataclysmic or destructive one. The transition could occur in a manner similar to the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the Soviet Empire ? a sudden piffle, and a shocking surrender. However, for this to happen, the new paradigm must already be in place, at least as an undercurrent. Lacking a model or an imprint, the collapse of the current system will result in a world resembling that of the Road Warrior films, without the occasional flickers of irony.

Link.

If you haven’t seen it yet, New World Disorder # 3 is out. Contents include:

The Way In is the Way Out: An Interview With Daniel Pinchbeck

Lovelights@Leary-Eisner.Com by Bruce Eisner and Timothy Leary

From Proletariat to Soulitariat: An Interview With Pat Kane by Phil Leggiere

Messiahs in the Strem by William H. Kennedy

Conspiratorial Recollections: An Interview With Adam Gorightly

Zero Ground by Mac Tonnies

Dreamachines, Wishing Machines or Feraliminal Lycanthropizers, Anyone? An Interview With David Woodard by Jan Bruun

The Shia Girl by Michael Muhammad Knight

Parallax Empire /// Burning Ground by Adrian Gargett

murderous_disillusionment / CH@OS by Kenji Siratori

Centripetal Culture and Blackout by Jason Lubyk

Reviews of Adam Gorightly’s The Prankster and the Conspiracy: The Story of Kerry Thornley and How He Inspired the Counterculture and Kenji Siratori’s Blood Electric

And the weekly NWD blog is still rocking too!

Link.

I’d never heard of this guy before, but I like this quote about Burning man:

Burning Man is the post-modern continuation of those ancient festivals-it is a miraculous manifestation of the “Archaic Revival” described by Terence McKenna. On an occult level, I almost suspect that Burning Man is creating a model, on the astral plane, for how all human communities will exist in the future. One amazing aspect of Burning Man is how the event penetrates into one’s dream life-after going there, I dreamt about some version of it almost every night for many months afterwards. I know that many people have the same reaction. How could the egalitarian, freedom-oriented, cashless, utopian form of Burning Man be implemented in a more permanent way, or on a larger scale? I have no clue.

Link (via New World Disorder)