The 2012 meme--epitomized by Hollywood’s 2012 Conference on Saturday March 1st--holds a mixed bag. Like all forms of spiritualism, it pools of murky waters with which challenges you to judge “truth” from “goddamn nonsense.” It might be as valid a form of knowledge-seeking as any other path, or it can turn into one more damn movement-religion to tell people how to think.
If this is a ‘movement’, it’s not exactly an organized one. But the 2012 meme has certainly a new focal point for New Agey scenesters to gobble up the next batch of promises.
I hate to be so cynical. I’m desperately looking for that SOMETHING myself, and it’s this endless quest that brought me to this Hollywood event four years, nine months, and twenty days before Singularity point. But, as Jordan Maxwell told us: “Don’t ever trust anyone who knows the truth. Trust those that are looking for the truth.” Sage advice. Yet, that goes for him too.
It was quite the immersion of ideas, and I’m glad I attended. And hell, for me, it was free. Amongst these wayward souls, brought up on apocalyptic memeagry, waiting for that crisis to bring us together (and if there is environmental catastrophe any time soon, y’know, the West Coast is probably the absolute worst place to be). Here in Hollywood, the very substance of holly-wood representing the wand of the magician you see . . .
I woke up with little sleep at 6:00 AM (on most nights this would be my bedtime), with a plan to begin my two-hour public trans early and make it there by 9 AM. My LA route: Long Beach bus to Blue line South Central train to Red line Hollywood train. It’s a ridiculous lifestyle in LA County with no car, but I make do. Except when I don’t; I’m lazy in the mornings and I ran late, missing every damn bus and train connection and didn’t arrive until 10:00. I cursed myself in the 7th Street/Downtown Metro connecting station as I read my Pinchbeck book and wished time wasn’t against me. But I needn’t have worried, after I got off the train at Hollywood and Vine I was greeted at the Ricardo Montalban Theatre with long lines and total chaos. They started over an hour late. I’m glad I didn’t go early; Eastern Spiritualist or not I am easily bored, impatient, and hate arriving anywhere too early.
After a complex web of figuring out who it is I talk to for the volunteering gig, I snuck inside and talked to an organizer Karin--who I’d only corresponded with via email so far, and then I got a free tshirt. I still get to keep the shirt to this day. Time to kill until my shift, and I wandered. Surrounding the indoor theatre-area were New Agey types with everything for sale. Mediums and healers, teas, expensive chocolate, and various figures peddling their books. Republic magazine was for sale, plastered with images of Ron Paul. Very interesting how these circles overlap, when New Age extreme leftists join hands with paleo-conservative-libertarians-conspiracists. (Later at the end of the night a speaker would mention Ron Paul and the crowd clapped in an uproar, this writer included.)
My usher shift didn’t start until 1:00 and so I grabbed the first downstairs orchestra empty seat I found and watched this Timewave 2013 documentary film, an apparent sequel to 2012: the Odyssey (which I haven’t seen). Personally presented by the filmmaker Sharon Rose, it detailed her experiences in Peru with Native shamans, interpolated interviews with Daniel Pinchbeck and others, and of course recordings of Terence McKenna. (“Scientists can’t even explain the birth of the universe. The Big Bang theory is preposterous. It’s as if they are saying ‘just give us this one free miracle’ and we’ll explain the rest. But why must a miracle Singularity happen at the beginning of time, why not the end?”) Then, as if by synchronous providence, at the very line: “I learned to enjoy the moment,” the film cut off! Computer error, or too much energy to short-circuit the fusage, or somesuch, and the projector turned black. Sharon Rose was a pro of a presenter and came on stage ready for filler-speech. “AHHHH,” all hundreds of us sang during the meditation exercises. They never got the movie to work.
Next was anthropologist Dr. Alberto Villoldo who brought with him a native shaman of Peru. They prayed for us, and extolled the virtues of shamanism, and why everyone is going to love each other, and Western materialism’s “cult of death” is going to go away, and all that nice positive futurism that’s been going around. Just wait a few years for the Galactic Alignment and all will be well! A constant theme . . .
Meanwhile I noticed Daniel Pinchbeck sitting nearby me from across the aisle, recognizing the writer from online footage and photographs. I took out the library book from my bag and wondered a good time to approach. The keynote speaker I was on the lookout for, the very name that caught my eye when I first saw the advertising poster walking past the Montalban Theatre a month back and vowed to attend this conference. Daniel Pinchbeck is the esteemed author of 2012: the Return of Quatzelcoatl. I’ve been eagerly reading it lately, though I must confess I’m only halfway through, and it details Daniel’s quest as a New York journalist researching shamanistic traditions and experimenting with all manners of psychedelics. The book delves into a thousand subjects, jumping from African tribes to crop circles to new age healing seminars to Burning Man, overall a mix of memoir with extended quotations/summaries from Daniel’s eclectic reading mix. A bit unfocused, but a fascinating journey.
He stepped out and I rushed to follow. “Daniel Pinchbeck! Would you sign my book?” “I don’t know,” he said. “It’s not my book, it’s a library book. How cool would it be to sign it to your future anonymous readers?” He autographed away, and drew a cute snake (Quetzelcoatl as Saturday morning cartoon). Then he hurried away, eager to see Dr. Villoldo’s presentation and get away from me.
I find myself kind of annoying when I approach my favorite minor celebrities in real-life. (It’s usually authors who are my greatest idols--I have yet to care about meeting some movie star. But writers aren’t usually too famous in the grand scheme and have no need to be snobby.) Be it at a book signing, comic convention, or comedy club (not including rock stars--I might see the occasional famous musician in real-life but they’re usually vastly separated by stage), when I meet someone whose work I respect I can’t help but take the opportunity to ask them as many questions as I can fit. At a convention or wherever, they’re usually busy and there are many others demanding attention. yet I pester and pester; asking what they’re interested in, the backstory on their art, and most of all what advice they’d offer me as a writer. Hit or miss, I always try, and every so often perceived as annoying.
Daniel Pinchbeck, according to his wikipedia birthdate, is in his early forties. He comes across as if in his twenties, and doesn’t act as a scholar but another hip young soul with long hair. A quiet sort of voice, articulate and intelligent, but not overly confident. He’s tall, he slouches--according to his book he suffers from moderate scoliosis. Bad teeth.
A perfect vision of what I imagine all the new intellectuals need to be. A philosophical countercultural writer, knee-deep in the quest for knowledge as it takes him to all the weird places in the world, but very much at home in the big-city’s depravity. To write thick well-bibliographed academic tomes about taking drugs, and getting away with it.
Listening to his speeches about these shamanic subjects and how they relate to the future of human evolution via 2012, I get the sense Daniel takes it with a grain of salt. Sure he spoke with passion about crop circles, but as audience members asked him questions about aliens and Infinite One-ness he tended to shrug them off as irrelevant. “I don’t know,” he admitted. Just trying to figure it out. On the subject of conspiriology, he described the NOW/Illuminati theories as interesting but “off-putting”, and endorses Obama so he can’t that distraught with the System; and when Jordan Maxwell in the ending group panel session stated that the world and government is controlled by “very dark forces which have been controlling this world for six thousand years,” Daniel coldly retorted with: “You can live in that movie if you want to, but I don’t want to live in that movie. That’s a terrible movie.” I appreciate his skepticism, his ill-at-ease (at least, his relative skepticism when compared to this lot), his perspective.
I asked a question during the back-and-forth audience session, about the subject of currencies. He mentioned the nature of currencies as part of the problems of the world, local currencies might be coming to play and in medieval times negative-interest currencies had an impact as unhoardable. “Are you familiar with Neal Stephenson?” I asked. Only one person clapped. “I don’t have time to read fiction anymore,” Daniel answered. “Well,” I said, “Neal Stephenson’s brand of futurist science fiction, Snow Crash and Cryptonomicon, has a pervading theme that the internet can change society and collapse government by bringing about multiple competing currencies that exist online. Maybe that’s how we’ll escape from the hold of the Federal Reserve.” “I don’t know about that,” he said, “why do they have to the competing, why not collaborative currencies? Next question.” I was cut off. Not his subject of expertise.
Well, I tried. If the central banks are the problem, if that’s your cause, if that’s your revolution, might I suggest Kongbucks and New Yen and Metaversal capitalism to replace the hollow Federal Reserve notes we now use? Neal’s meme I wanted to spread to these people, but I don’t know if they cared. Anyways, what fascinates me about Neal Stephenson’s work is not that he wants a cause to change the world, no marches holding up signs that demand global anarcho-capitalism; but that the patterns of the world do what they do on their own. Meme infestation or not, if it occurs it will occur naturally.
I certainly sensed an impatience on the part of Pinchbeck during mine and others’ questions. I don’t blame him. Hundreds of people throwing out ideas, many of them quite crazy, and he’s only one man to keep up. When I last saw him smoking outdoors, I apologized, “I know you’re busy Mr. Pinchbeck, but one last thing. I’m an aspiring writer. I wonder if you would read this short story I wrote, it’s about occult themes, a 411 operator out to destroy the world with Burroughs technology.” (411, an old story of mine I recently rewrote for a new round of submissions) “No,” he said, “I don’t have time. Email me.” I held out the printout and pleaded, “But wouldn’t you prefer a hard copy if you’re really going to read it? Just take it, humor me, and if you throw it away I won’t even know.” “Fine.” Yay, I won, and he took my story. Though annoying as I might be, I’m glad I didn’t accept no, at least this leaves a chance for correspondence. I’d be grateful for input, though I’m realistic and the guy is fairly overwhelmingly busy (and did I make a good impression?), but it’s always worth it try.
And other speakers: John Major Jenkins’ Power Point presentation was most factual in decoding the Mayan pyramids and expressing the numerology thereof, though honestly his speech was one I saw the least of, and then I went out to eat for lunch Baja Fresh on Sunset.
Jay Weidner, husband to Sharon Rose, runs Sacred Mysteries DVDs and gave an interesting take about his personal journey from atheist to seeker. I respected that he pleaded ignorance on just what specifically will occur in 2012. Audience members wanted to ask about terrorism and global government and Illuministic anxiety, but he wasn’t interested in spreading fear because “nobody knows what’s going to happen.” Let’s just do our best to evolve, and interpret that 2012 as an empowering event. And I learned, according to him at least, that 26 is an important number--Sun takes 26,000 year rotation. Here comes Chapel Perilous and these silly thoughts: Hmm, I turn 26 this month, and on Easter Sunday . . .
Yogi Harijiwan Khalsa impressed me greatly. An LA local, I wasn’t aware of his work until the event. White guy in a turban and robe, with a Brooklyn-ish sort of big city accent. “Kundalini Yoga is my business,” he told me. He started out with gong music and mantra, “OM,” and told of another ancient mantra invented in this region: “whatever.” What a sense of humor, a hilarious guy. Though certainly a spiritualist, a different mindset than the New Agey othersa as he mocked global warming and Al Gore and even referenced David Icke’s work. Aware of the Illuminati, and happy to mock them. “A guy told me to get a bunker and hoard food and gold for 2012. He said to me a very wise thing: save the ketchup.” You can’t worry about these things, you just have to do your best to expand your consciousness and individually evolve. When he spoke of the coming consciousness shift as expressed through generation gaps through recent cultural history, he cited the Sex Pistols. Quite impressed, I talked to him afterwards in the halls, and got a card, and I will have to make the time to attend one of his yoga classes when I get the chance.
I worked as usher through the mid-day presentations. Very simple work; given a seating chart and flashlight keychain and standing next to the door and telling people (some of them speakers themselves) not to block the doorway. No flash photography.
The cheaper seats were the upstairs mezzanine, and many tried to steal downstairs orchestra seats. I didn’t care, as long as they didn’t sit where someone else’s seat was. (And earlier I met with some friends--Herwig actually knows Daniel Pinchbeck and took the backcover photo in the book. He got in free through contacts and I looked the other way as he stole orchestra seats!) There were other rules that I wasn’t interested in enforcing, such as not to bring drinks into the theatre. Overall I did a decent job of it I suppose, but I’m not getting paid here and I wasn’t trying to let any petty power go to my head.
The sun set and it grew dark outdoors, and then came the ending group panel questionnaire. Pinchbeck and Jay Weidner and Sharon Rose and others were joined by a late Jordan Maxwell--the arch conspiriologist recently made more famous by the viral Zeitgeist film so popular online nowadays. Many of the questions delved into NWO/Illuminati theories, “I know Secret Service agents and they tell me World War II is scheduled soon!” quite pessimistic (maybe true, maybe not. Who knows anymore?), and the speakers struggled to combine optimism with environmental catastrophe and/or Illuminati takeover. One very poignant statement by Pinchbeck: “The military have families too, and they don’t want this future,” which very much deserved a clap.
One point of interest to me: West-bashing. I’m tired of it. One kid asked why “people of color vibrate at a higher frequency, and why the European male is so devolved.” Come on, is that a necessary question? Most of the panelists were ‘European males’ anyways. Firstly, what does “vibrating at higher frequency” specifically mean? What constitutes low frequencies to be bad? Or is this yet another meaningless New Agey term tirelessly thrown out? “The West is inherently materialist,” they said, “and the East has had more practice, but we’re catching up.”
All cultures of the Earth are yin and yang and contain positive and negative within the whole. ALL. African slavers that sold their people to European slavers are not spiritual. Mayans are hip now, but the Aztecs that sacrificed 250,000 people a year were not spiritual. Communist Chinese who are the greatest human rights abusers in the history of the world don’t display very Taoist tendencies in my opinion. Zen or not, Samurai feudalism or WWII Imperialist or modern poppy, Japanese culture seems to be fairly good at materialism from what I can tell.
The crimes of Western Civilization and the Christian religion have been very well-documented, and is not up for debate. But our own traditions of the Bible and Hermeticism and such still contain much philosophical truth. Cross-refference Qabbalah with yogic chackras, or go to a Wiccan meeting, or whatever your interest is. But to disregard all of the West as decedent is juvenile and unnecessary. The world is what it is, history already happened, and let us make the most of today without wallowing in lost idealistic nostalgias. In this writer’s opinion, at least, cross-cultural pollination is the key to memetic evolution and to dwell in anti-West sentiments is not going to be helpful. Sorry. We are individuals who have a grand palette of mystical traditions to grow upon. We are not bound by racial Karma. We are all flawed humans. Let’s move on.
Most of these questions were terribly long and drawn-out, the stoner kids droning on and on and on until they got to the point: “What do you want me to do in 2012?” These Indigo kids want so much to believe in something. And therein lies the danger. It’s much harder to figure out for yourself how you’re going to make the world a better place; it’s much easier to find a guru to tell you what to do. And this is what makes me pessimistic, not because of the speakers, but because of the New Agey audience who are trying so hard to find a religion to believe in. Maybe that’s not the point. Maybe this so-called “movement” should stay unorganized. This emerging subculture . . . Burners and techno-hippies and cyber-spiritualists . . . kids that smoke pot right on Hollywood Blvd beneath the forgotten sidewalk stars and hook themselves up to Tesla machines and can’t wait to camp out in the Black Rock desert for the summer. On the one hand it’s a beautiful group, on the other hand it can be so naïve. Mysticism as I understand it, by way of RA Wilson and Crowley, should contain a healthy dose of skepticism.
Years and years of esoteric research and I still don’t know what to believe. I don’t even feel like I’m close to any subjective or objective “Truths.” Like Mr. Wilson says, through Chapel Perilous you emerge with a choice of paranoia or extreme agnosticism. The Chaoist approach to playing with beliefs appeals to me. The pseudo-religious approach of believing everything channeled through this psychic, or whatever, does not.
Immersed in ideaspace, burnt out on conjecture, and what the hell am I to do with it all? I am interested in metaprogramming. I am interested in DNA shamanism. I am interested in interpreting the universe with new states of consciousness, in archetypes and gnosis and psychedelia and magic and new philosophies that come with any and every path. I’m very open to learning something new. But until I’m proven wrong with direct experience, I don’t think I believe in any of this shit.
So what will happen on December 21st? Biosphere damaged beyond repair? Galactic equatorial alignment causing pole shift and an end of civilization? UFOs come crashing down and only the Reptilian Illuminati can save us? Singularity and then a complete end of time? Well, I guess my point is: I don’t bloody know. Repeating one speaker, “Hopefully it’ll be a nice day.”
And so, without securing a floor to crash on in the city, I took back the long train ride alone late into midnight, read my books, didn’t pay for the transfer and got away with it, and went home, went to sleep. Long day.
