I suspect many of you will enjoy the comments on Erik Davis' new essay on the Dreamspell, at Reality Sandwich. The dialogue is between myself, Erik, John Major Jenkins, and others. Of course anyone is invited to join. Here is a direct link:

www.realitysandwich.com/node/358

From Erik's comments:
Valuable systems can come out of this fusion of number and the visionary imagination, and I think some of Arguelles' stuff is sometimes powerful. Clearly a numerological/archetypal system like the I Ching is an amazement. And I enjoy reading some of your speculations as well. But I don't understand what is gained by arguing and believing that the wizards of a rather bloody jungle culture foretold our moment of rising c02 levels and suicide bombers and Burning Man.
It seems to me that *we* constellate our archetype of apocalypse--and that the whole memetic industry of 2012 speculation is too often a symptom of that process, rather than a clarification of it.

From Jenkins' comments:
Can the galactic alignment, which empirically occurs in the alignment zone 1980 to 2016 AD, trigger change and shifts in consciousness? I don't know, maybe. Why don't scientists take a look? Because they are so turned off by how the 2012 topic is constantly framed through distorted filters - scientists can't even get a handle on what the galactic alignment is. Kudos to Ben Anastas at the New York Times for framing the topic in, finally, a more or less accurate way, and giving some acknowledgment to the pioneering work I've done. Now, having said all that, in regard to the changes happening on the planet, isn't it interesting that the galactic alignment - a once in a 26,000-year alignment - happens during an exceedingly bizarre period of human history (1980 - 2016 AD)? The ancient Maya encoded into their traditions a belief that such a time would be attended by transformation and renewal, but, following the teachihg in their creation myth, the outcome is ultimately a function of to what degree we, and all beings suffering from ego limitation, can sacrifice our illusions - the illusions that keep consciousness fixated to states of self delusion. That topic is best reserved for another day.

From my comments:
I am not sure that “*we* constellate our archetype of apocalypse.” From a nondual perspective, it is happening both within and outside of us - for instance, on the cosmological level as the “galactic alignment” that fascinated the Mayans. From a Jungian perspective, we have two choices when archetypal processes are constellating in the collective: We can be their unconscious victims, or we can consciously work with the archetypes and seek to embody their positive and transformative aspects. We can choose to be creative participants in the process or to reject and ignore it entirely, but this decision may have real consequences for us, as individuals and as a society.