Having previously read a bit about The Great Year, a documentary narrated by James Earl Jones (so you KNOW that shit is gonna be serious) I was stoked to see it on Dailygrail the other day up for streaming on the always radtacular Google Video. Anyone interested in 2012, ancient civilizations, and Zeitgeist-type intrigue should take an hour and check this shit out. Here’s the pitch from the DVD one sheet:

The Great Year, is the term that some ancient civilizations use to describe the slow precession of the equinox through the twelve houses of the ancient zodiac, a period that takes about 24,000 years. Different cultures refer to this cycle by different names including: the Platonic year, Perfect year, Yuga cycle, Ages of Man or just the equinoctial cycle, but one thing is clear, it was known to virtually every ancient culture throughout the globe. In their epic work Hamlet’s Mill Giorgio de Santillana and Hertha von Dechend document the great year tale and point out it was the number one topic woven into myths and folklore around the ancient world. Why were our ancestors so fascinated by this subject that they memorized stories that were passed down for thousands of years and built megalithic structures on every continent to monitor this movement? We think it is because the tales are true! That is, as the Sun curves through space carrying the Earth with it, our bodies and our planet move to a region where they are affected by different cosmic forces that indirectly result in the rise and fall of civilization. As mans consciousness expands and contracts, and the cycle plays out, just like a solar year with its seasons, it results in great ages of enlightenment and dark ages of misery. Indeed, the archaeological record shows a broad decline of ancient civilizations beginning about 5000 years ago, a long world wide dark age and then finally a rise in consciousness with the renaissance continuing to the present day. Were the tales and myths and stone henges really just for amusement and farming? Or is Hamlet’s Mill correct: folklore is the scientific language of ancient times, and they were trying tell us of the dark days to come, and trying desparetly to preserve knowledge in the pyramids and megaliths and temples so carefully aligned to the heavens incorporating sophisticated mathematical principles.This is the story of the Great Year and new scientific evidence to support it. Recent solar system studies seem to indicate that precession is indeed caused by a curving motion of our sun through space. While not yet widely accepted, if true it a startling finding confirming the wisdom of the ancients. 

Though it remains somewhat secretive, many of Britain’s major financial institutions have begun employing astrologers to help navigate the currently rife-with-peril financial markets. Maybe the US should start giving that shit a try:

Christeen is one of a growing, albeit secretive, network of astrologers who work for seemingly conservative British institutions such as high street banks, City investment funds and retailers. Desperate to avoid financial meltdown in the ongoing ‘credit crunch’ and to spot fashions and consumer trends before they start, these institutions have turned to the stars to divine the future.

“Most academics distrust astrology and regard it as mumbo-jumbo,” she says. “The thing is, it works. Nobody’s sure how it works but it does. Most of my clients are businesspeople who are very canny. If it didn’t work for them, then why would they use it?”

The story goes on to recount the astrological affinities of Hitler, Ronald Reagan and Boris Yeltsin among others and ends with, of course, the speculation that all planetary signs are pointing towards….wait for it…2012! as being a time of immense upheaval:

“In 2012 we’ll be entering the precession of the equinoxes, which is the most important thing that’s happened in the last 26,000 years. That suggests that something mega is going to happen. There will be a huge change in the world’s psychology caused by a huge natural disaster or a massive change in spiritual beliefs. We have an interesting four years ahead of us.”

A useful meme indeed!

Emarketer predicts that there will 108 million people creating user generated content by 2012:

The number of people who create so-called “user-generated” content will rise from 77 million in 2007 to 108 million in 2012. More baffling yet, the ranks of people who consume this content will only rise from 94 million in 2007 to 130 million by 2012.

“US Internet users are creating and consuming user-generated content in record numbers,” says Paul Verna, eMarketer Senior Analyst and author of the new report, User-Generated Content: In Pursuit of Ad Dollars, “across an ever-expanding range of online content that includes video, audio, personal profiles, avatars, photo sharing, Wiki entries and product reviews.”

Beyond written blogs, established media outlets like CNN and MSNBC, as well as startups like video aggregator YouNewsTV, are empowering consumers to submit video clips and still images of unfolding events.

“Since many of the growing numbers of Internet users creating social media are also consuming it, this is a content chain that feeds on itself,” says Mr. Verna. “There is a seemingly infinite demand for content, and there are legions of Internet users armed with laptops, cell phones and digital cameras ready to deliver.”

That’s a lot of “fat kid with light saber” videos…

Despite being one of the foremost recent repopularizers of the idea that the year 2012, which marks the end of the 13th cycle of the Mayan Longcount Calendar, will bring about some sort of apocalyptic event, author Daniel Pinchbeck doesn’t seem so sure in a recent article posted to his Reality Sandwich website in which he calls 2012 a “useful meme:”

My view is that “2012″ is useful as a meme if it helps us to catalyze a shift in global culture and consciousness. Rather than fretting about what may or may not happen on that date, we should concentrate on the work that needs to be done now, on an inner as well as outer level.

Oh well. I wasn’t really looking forward to that kind of crazy shit anyway. Bird gods and all that.

Apparently, the Denver International Airport is not just a big ass airport. Depending on who you ask, it’s also a centerpiece of Masonic plans for a new world order; the facade of a vast underground lair housing human slaves, a race of reptile overlords or an Ark-like safe haven for the chosen few to be used during the forthcoming apocalypse; or just another purposely cryptic propaganda tool used to divert people’s attention from more mundane, but no less terrifying, corporate/government schemes. All things being equal, I’m gonna pull for the Reptile Overlords one. Anyway, you should watch this video, to learn more about the seemingly bizarre things cracking at DIA:

Not everyone’s convinced though. And, I’ll admit, some of that shit sounds zany. But even the biggest skeptic has to admit that some of the shit at Denver International is a little bizarre. Such as:

The Masonic Capstone in the airport’s “Great Hall” (a term also used by Masons to reference their lodges) that was dedicated by the New World Airports Commission, and features some supremely alienesque artwork

As shown in depth in the video above, some of the artwork at the airport is a little on the “dark” side, showing among other things, a gas masked, “Nazi” type soldier standing in the foreground of a destroyed, burning city surrounded by women holding dead babies

Dead children in coffins, including a Jewish girl with a star of David on her chest, holding a bible and shamrocks

And even Quetzalcoatl makes a surprise appearance. 2012 anyone? Someone call Daniel Pinchbeck ASAP

If you’ve taken a moment to download Issue #8 of the amazing Synthesis Digital (which of course you have) and read Ryan Prado’s amazing cover story on post-emo hellions Circa Survive, you might find yourself wondering what the F all this shit about Daniel Pinchbeck and 2012 and apocalypse is all about. The above video is something of a primer to Pinchbeck’s bizarre, but somewhat enthralling view of the future and the past. For more check out his new website, Reality Sandwich.