Date: 11-23-11
Host: George Noory
Guests: John Michael Greer
Appearing during the middle two hours, longtime researcher and explorer in alternative realities, John Michael Greer, discussed his new work demonstrating how history has proven that apocalyptic and revolutionary notions such as the Rapture and the Singularity will never happen, but can be used to control the masses. When people become convinced that the world is going to end on a specific date (most recently Harold Camping), "they're facing a world of disappointment, consistently, every single time," he commented.
Noteworthy about various apocalypse myths is what happens afterward-- typically "somebody's fondest daydream," such as "we're going to be raptured to heaven and then watch everyone who's ever made fun of us get the crap stomped out of them," or the landing of Space Brothers who give us free energy, and whisk us away on their spaceships, Greer outlined.
Notions of the apocalypse can be used to distract the populace from political or economic issues, he suggested, adding that the more stressed out a society is, the more likely people will turn to apocalyptic scenarios, as a kind of relief. Regarding the Mayan calendar ending in Dec. 21 2012-- "The ancient Mayans didn't actually predict that anything in particular was going to happen on that date," it's just one of many dates, or rollovers in their complicated calendar system which has all kinds of cycles that finish at different times, he explained. The Mayans weren't waiting for the Apocalypse, he continued, but the end date of 12/21/12 caught the popular imagination in recent years, and people have been grafting various cataclysmic scenarios on to it since then.
