Will a pole shift occur in 2012 and cause catastrophe? Some people think so. 2012 is just around the corner, and brings with it all sorts of speculation and predictions of what will happen to the earth, and one of those events is this pole shift. The earth rotates on two axes: one at the North Pole; one at the South Pole. Visualize the earth rotating in space, even tilting, and the point of rotation on one “end” is the North Pole; the other end the South Pole.
A pole shift is when the axes of rotation change location. If this is difficult to conceptualize, picture an apple placed upright on a table. Picture a toothpick being driven through it vertically, being inserted smack in the middle top of the apple, the part that dips inward. The toothpick exits through the opposite end, the center of the knobby bottom of the apple. Pick up the apple and tilt it a bit. Now, hold both ends of the toothpick and rotate. Watch the apple rotate. The axes of rotation are where the toothpick enters and exits: the “poles” of the apple. Now, insert the toothpick in the middle of the apple and push it all the way through. Repeat the drill. The apple still rotates, but note the shifted locations of the axes of rotation.
Pole shifts have occurred in the past, but supposedly only by 1 degree every million years. Some doomsday or over-imaginative 2012 predictors say that 2012 will initiate a quicker, more dramatic pole shift, taking place in just weeks, days or even hours, causing massive destruction such as earthquakes and tsunamis. So I interviewed a 2012 expert, John Major Jenkins, who’s been investigating the 2012 topic for almost 20 years, and author of the 1998 book, “Maya Cosmogenesis 2012.”
JH: So will 2012 bring about any kind of pole shift?
JJ: The science behind this idea has not been demonstrated; it’s speculation. There are two different types of pole shifts. First and most reasonable to consider is a shift of the magnetic poles. Reverse magnetized rocks, first hypothesized by Oliver Reiser in the 1930s, have been found in lava flows, indicating that the earth’s magnetic poles have indeed shifted and reversed in the geological past.
However, the evidence indicates that the shift interval is much, much greater than a precession cycle. Thus, it’s hard to conceive how the galactic alignments, which can be considered to happen once every half precession (13,000 years) and full precession (26,000 years), are related to this.
Second is a physical shifting of the poles. Of course the north celestial pole DOES shift, with precession, and in fact ancient myths of the shifting poles likely refer to precessional shifting rather than a dramatic and sudden shifting. Like the first example above, evidence does not point to precession being related to a sudden physical shift of the poles. Both these ideas in my opinion miss the point of what 2012 is about and what the galactic alignment is about.
JH: The galactic alignment that’s associated with 2012 will also supposedly take the earth into a massive asteroid field. Is this true?
JJ: The galactic alignment is not the physical passage of our solar system through the galactic mid-plane. This idea, which I’ve traced back to Arguelles (see Swimme’s intro to “The Mayan Factor”) and the earlier Photon Belt idea, is not at all the same, similar, or related to the galactic alignment. Furthermore, although the spinning motion of the spiral arms does appear to move our solar system above and below the mid-plane over many millions of years, the idea that such a process is and can be connected to 2012 is deeply flawed.
First, the process of passing through an asteroid-rich mid-plane would take on the order of a million years! How then should we distinguish any difference between 2012 and 2280, or 1932, or even 50,000 BC? It’s an absurd position to take and maintain. Second, according to astrophysicists, our solar system is not located on the mid-plane right now; it is far above it. Again, this process is NOT the same as the galactic alignment, which is the precession-caused alignment of the December solstice sun with the galactic equator (visually, the dark rift in the Milky Way).
JH: Another 2012 speculation is that the earth will stop rotating, then reverse.
JJ: People associate all kinds of things with 2012 because they indulge in sci-fi speculations, cool stoner ideas, or don’t really care that much to engage the cogent and demonstrable information about it.
JH: What about these claims that there are no prophecies pertaining to the period after 2012, suggesting that after 2012, there will be nothing at all?
JJ: This is largely a modern manufactured idea, with implications that the media loves to repeat ad nauseum. For the Maya, the cycle-ending of 2012 is zone of free will opportunity for transformation and renewal. The “prophecy” for 2012, which we can read in the Maya Creation Myth (the Popol Vuh), describes an archetypal/symbolic situation as 2012 approaches, namely, that self-serving greed will be ruling and running the world.
Then, humanity has the chance to place ego back into right relationship with the true unity consciousness. But free will and sacrificing illusions are the keys to the efficacy of this possibility. Thus, the future is uncertain. Futurists who make definitive declarations about “what WILL happen” in 2012 are what I call predictators. And that’s not how Maya prophecy works. It’s not even how reality works.
To better understand the 2012 precession, “cycles” and galactic alignment, please read my other interview with John Major Jenkins, which presents the galactic alignment of 2012 in a more detailed format – Here.
