The 2012-phenomenon and the (new) age of hyperobjects

Johan Normark, Department of Historical Studies, University of Gothenburg

Paper presented at the Association of Art Historian’s 40th Conference at the Royal College of
Art, London. 11 April, 2014.

Introduction
My presentation today shall deal with the contemporary public view of a specific object, the
so-called Maya Long Count Calendar.

The Maya
The Maya is a term used to describe 29 closely related languages and ethnic groups that
make up 6-7 million people in Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, Honduras and El Salvador. When I
talk about the ancient Maya I refer to the people living in the same geographical area before
the Spanish conquest in the early 16th century in the southern part of Mesoamerica. The
Classic Maya period, when the Long Count calendar primarily was used, ended with the so-
called Maya collapse between AD 750 and 1050.

2012 and Mayanism

The public view of the ancient and contemporary Maya culture is affected by stereotypes,
exoticism, and ethnocentrism. Nowhere is this clearer than in the so-called 2012-
phenomenon or 2012-meme. It is a mixture of New Age beliefs about a transformation of
consciousness, apocalyptic speculations regarding the end of the world through cataclysmic
events caused by either super volcanoes, polar shifts, the fictional planet Nibiru, etc. Other
ingredients include Atlantis, creationism, aliens, numerology, conspiracy theories including
the Illuminati that will install a new world order. All this is part of what anthropologist John
Hoopes (2011) calls Mayanism and he traces its origin all the way back to Christopher
Columbus. The 2012-phenomenon itself is less than 50 years old. Even though the supposed
end date passed on December 21, 2012, the 2012-phenomenon has not ceased to exist. It
still maintains attraction and it will likely change focus in the years to come.

The Long Count

From an academic point of view the 2012-phenomenon has only superficial connections to
the ancient Maya and their Long Count. I shall briefly describe the basics in this calendar as I
suspect most of you are not familiar with how it works. I follow anthropologist Kevin Birth’s
argument that clocks and calendars in general are necromantic objects because they use
units of time created a long time ago in another context but they still affect the way much
later people perceive time. For example, the 60 seconds and 60 minutes we are used to are
based on Babylonian mathematics. The ancient Maya used many calendars but the
December 21, 2012 date only relates to the so-called Long Count calendar that ceased to be
used on public Maya monuments in the 10th century AD. It was a calendar strongly
connected with the divine kingship. Both Long Count and kingship disappeared around the
same time.
The Long Count has five units or periods: kin (1 day), winal (20 days), tun (18 winals or
360 days), katun (20 tuns), and baktun (20 katuns). A Long Count date records the number of
days which have passed since the beginning of the calendar. It began on the 11th of August

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3114 BC if we use the so-called GMT-correlation constant between the Long Count and the
Gregorian calendar. This creation date coincides with what some people assume is the end
of a preceding “cycle” of 13 baktuns because the beginning of the calendar is recorded as 13
baktun rather than as 0 baktun. The fact that the calendar began on 13 baktun has led
academic Mayanists and New Agers alike to argue that the Long Count should end and/or
restart on 13 baktun, assuming that it was cyclical like other calendars used by the Maya and
other Mesoamerican people like the later Aztecs. 13 baktuns equals roughly 5125 years or
1,872,000 days to be exact.
However, a look at how the calendar actually is structured one sees that it is not
cyclical but rather cumulative. It consists of columns where time periods are stacked on top
of each other, each larger than the one below. In some inscriptions deities carry time periods
on their back like people carrying a load. Time is a burden.

Dates beyond 2012

At the site of Palenque there is a recorded date that would equal AD 4772 in the Gregorian
calendar. Stela 1 at Coba, where 24 units of the Long Count are mentioned, has led Maya
epigrapher David Stuart to argue that the total length of the Long Count is over 71.8 x 10 27
(octillion) years. However, this may be a much later elaboration of the original Long Count.
In any case, there was no intended end of the Long Count in 2012.

Brief history of the 2012-phenomenon

You have just seen how the Maya Long Count appeared in Maya art and writing.
Unfortunately, those images of the calendar are not the ones that have become associated
with the 2012-phenomenon. If one Google “Maya calendar” one will see plenty of images of
the Aztec Calendar Stone. This monument has nothing to do with the Maya Long Count
calendar and 2012 whatsoever. However, it is actually instrumental in the birth of the 2012-
phenomenon and its associated apocalyptic and New Age fantasies. According to the Aztecs
they lived in the fifth Sun/creation/World Age and four earlier creations presumably
predated the current one.
This was pointed out by the archaeologist Michael Coe when he, in 1966, was the first
to publish the Gregorian date for the modern 13 Baktun. Thus, an academic Mayanist
unfortunately related the Maya Long Count to the Aztec Five Suns cosmology.
It was the New Ager Frank Waters (1975) who first argued that if one multiplies the
five suns with 13 baktuns that equals more or less the length of the Platonic year of 25,800
years. This relates to an astronomical phenomenon called precession of the equinoxes which
is central in New Age mythology because it determines astrological ages.
John Major Jenkins later argued that it cannot be a coincidence that the 13 baktun
date in 2012 ended on a winter solstice and he worked out what has been called the galactic
alignment theory that sees the Long Count as a countdown to the event when the winter
solstice sunrise intersect with the center of the Milky Way. This event would initiate a New
Age.
Jenkins, Waters and other New Agers did not argue for an apocalypse but rather a
transformation of consciousness within a purposeful universe. However, no apocalypse or
transformation of consciousness occurred in 2012. People now look for new dates, either
following the 260-days long tzolkin calendar, or claim the whole GMT family of correlation
constants is wrong and opt for a much later “end” of the Long Count, unsupported by the
available data.

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Hyperobject
I have chosen to view the 2012-phenomenon as a hyperobject, loosely following Timothy
Morton’s use of the term. A hyperobject is not occupying a singular time and space “unit”. It
is everywhere and nowhere at the same time. The 2012-hyperobject is locally manifested in
various objects; the Aztec Calendar Stone, Monument 6 at Tortuguero which includes a
reference to the “future” 13 baktun and a descending deity called Bolon Yookte. The
hyperobject also includes the Milky Way, books like Carl Johan Calleman’s The Purposeful
Universe, crystal skulls, blogs, etc. The 2012-hyperobject is not found in each single object.
The 2012-hyperobject itself is always withdrawn. We can never reach its essence; only the
sensual object(s)/local manifestation(s) can be described. The 2012-hyperobject can
therefore be inferred and deduced but it cannot be encountered. Objects that are part of
the 2012-hyperobject are also independent of it, they are not exhausted by their relations.

Apocalypticism
This hyperobject will probably change focus in the future although apocalypticism probably
will remain a constant.Most of the apocalyptic/transformation of consciousness ideas
associated with the Long Count have been based on Western or Westernized religious and
esoteric metaphysics. Although the New Age ideas of a transformation of consciousness do
not call for a cataclysmic doomsday, they are apocalyptic in their desire for a new world,
their hope that the veil will be lifted and something hidden shall be revealed at the end of
times.
To quote Levi Bryant, the apocalyptic fantasy refers “to a real, but in disguised,
screened, or fetishized form. There is a truth in these fantasies, without a knowledge of this
truth […]. The truth of these fantasies is that we really are facing global catastrophe.
Knowledge of this truth would entail seeing how this global catastrophe is deeply linked to
capitalism, climate change, and the link between the two. Instead, within the popular
imaginary, we get a distortion of this link, presenting impending catastrophe as the result of
cosmic supernatural forces fighting a battle between good and evil” (Bryant, 2011a, original
emphasis). What better example than the “mysterious” Maya calendar in the 2012-
hyperobject, the ancient collapse of the Maya, or their said metaphysical departure into
space or another dimension, can one desire of an apocalyptic fantasy? This is the attraction
of Mayanism.
Since nothing actually happened (or will happen) that supposedly have been
prophesized by this calendar, I have used a blog of mine to convince 2012ers that this kind of
metaphysics is not what is at stake after all. Most 2012-proponents, who strongly believe in
this kind of metaphysics, condemn “materialism”, or rather dogmatic “scientific
materialism”. They would probably be skeptical to Meillassoux’s “speculative materialism”
as well, but it is to him I now shall turn.

Meillassoux’s speculative materialism

According to Meillassoux creationism and fanaticism are products of Western critical reason.
To me, that is also the case with New Age. Correlationism erased dogmatism in Western
philosophy and this has led to the incapability of distinguishing rationalism from irrational
ideas like New Age. However, both 2012ers and academic Mayanists rely on necessary
entities and to Meillassoux this is a true dogma in classical metaphysics, rationalism, and

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New Age. It is the need of a necessary entity that exists beyond time and space from where
everything else can be derived, such as the laws of nature, God or consciousness.
Meillassoux’s use of set-theory would imply that the parts of the 2012-hyperobject are
greater than the term that define the whole of which they are part. There can therefore
never be a true transcendent order that controls all its parts. There are no necessary entities
that defines the whole. The galactic alignment does not define the whole 2012-phenomenon
even though some proponents like to think that is the case.
Meillassoux does not accept he Principle of Sufficient Reason in which everything is
necessary because everything has a reason for being what it is. Meillassoux wants to
uncover an absolute necessity that does not reinstall an absolute necessary entity. He wishes
to develop an absolute knowledge where the things-in-themselves exist without reason and
that they also can change at any time for no reason at all. In his metaphysics of absolute
contingency anything can happen without reason and without warning.
Meillassoux’s absolute is not the subject-object correlate but the facticity of the
correlate. Facticity describes conditions that control a domain of correlation without
themselves being explainable from rational perspectives. We know that the correlate exists
but not that it has to exist.
Can facticity itself be factial? Factiality, or the Principle of Unreason, describes the
speculative essence of facticity, i.e. the facticity of everything cannot be thought as a fact.
Whereas facticity means that the correlate can be described but not deduced, factiality
means that facticity itself can be deduced. Facticity itself is therefore necessary. Meillassoux
converts facticity into contingency and only contingency is necessary.
Hyper-Chaos/super-Chaos is Meillassoux’s term for absolute contingency. It is a time
consisting of discontinuous instants which could, without any reason whatsoever, change
and reorder causes and effects of the universe ex nihilo. Usually ex nihilo emergence
demands a transcendence that exceeds the rational comprehension of processes. It moves
by sudden jumps that appear to be governed by a transcendent God, like many ideas
proposed by 2012ers. However, Meillassoux suggests sudden leaps into the immanent
rational world. To him, a miracle or the end of the earth, is rather the manifestation of
the inexistence of God since any rupture shows that there is no overseeing order that
controls becoming.

Meillassoux’s Worlds, Advents and Symbols

Meillassoux divides the World into stages of Advent. An advent is something without reason
and radically novel in relation to what existed before. There are four Advents of orders that
rupture becoming and those are matter, life, thought and justice. The fourth has not yet
emerged and it may never emerge. In a way, this perspective shares similarity with World
Age cosmology among the Aztecs.
Thus, Meillassoux sees the progression from matter to life and to thought as a series of
sudden leaps or advents that were not contained in what came before. This means that
there is no historical depth of what exists and of the composition of things themselves.
Hence, Meillassoux’s explanation (or non-explanation) of how life and consciousness
emerged is not supported by science and it appears to be similar to creationism according to
his critiques. Superficially this is similar ideas proposed by the Swedish 2012er Carl Johan
Calleman. He merges the Maya Long Count with creationism and proposes a discontinuous
evolution where each species is a novel creation caused by a necessary transcendent order.
Meillassoux, on the other hand, argues that suspicion against the idea of origin is linked to

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the religious idea of creation. Novelty can never be true novelty if it can be explained by
what preceded it.
According to Meillassoux, the history of “Western” philosophy has been dominated by
three Symbols that all are “intra-worldly” advents and therefore do not follow the same
rules as the advents of Worlds. The cosmological symbol refers to the ancient dualism
between the terrestrial and celestial spheres. Modern physics destroyed this symbol and
most New Agers seems to have returned to this symbol. The naturalistic Symbol sets up a
difference between the natural and the social where perfection was seen in nature. This
Symbol was eventually replaced by the historical Symbol where historical processes restores
the meaning that first was stripped from the sky and then from nature. This is where we are
today. As we await a fourth World, Meillassoux proposes a fourth symbol: the factial symbol,
which is non-metaphysical. It is a world of justice.
When a Symbol begins to die several nightmares such as traditionalism and sophistical
immoralism emerges. In our time traditionalism would be the emergence of religious
fundamentalism, creationism, fascism, etc. Sophistical immoralism includes postmodernists
but would, in my view, also include the 2012-prophets that provide easy solutions by
persuasive rhetoric, etc. This is what 2012ers tend to accuse academics for but it is, in fact,
their beliefs that create irrational nightmares. According to Meillassoux the reason why all
these previous Symbols have failed is because they have been dependent on a belief in real
necessity. Reason has collapsed in favor of an irrational transcendence. The 2012-
hyperobject and all its irrationalism could be seen as an indication that Meillassoux’s
historical Symbol is beginning to die, the end of an era.
Finally in my coverage of Meillassoux, I shall point out that he proposes a fourfold
diagram of possible attitudes towards God (and the “divine” in general I assume). The first
three attitudes can all be seen in the 2012-hyperobject; (1) the first is the atheist position
which is to not believe in God because God does not exist. (2) the second is the theist
position which is to believe in God because God does exist. (3) the third is the Luciferian
position which is to not believe in God because God exists. (4) the fourth is the
Meillassouxian position which is to believe in God because God does not exist. The last one
is the virtual God, the inexistent God that may or may not come to existence in the future. If
it occurs it will be an ex nihilo event, impossible to predict. This latter option has not been
tried out by 2012ers, but with some modifications it could be adapted to their ideas.

October 2, 2027
As a whole, Meillasoux’s speculative materialism is an ontology that few people would agree
with and neither do I. I mainly agree with his critique of correlationism but from there I
rather follow the object-oriented path. So why have I described portions of Meillassoux’s
ontology? It is because 2012ers, who have sought their solutions in esoteric transcendent
metaphysics to become transrational but have utterly failed to do so, should consider
Meillassoux’s ontology as it provides a new way to relate to the divine. They only have to
await the advent when the inexistent God becomes existent. There is already a name for this
entity among 2012ers but they have mistaken him for Barack Obama, Mitt Romney, Sarah
Palin, Jesus, Satan, or whatever you can think of. The Maya name is Bolon Yookte and he is
mentioned on Monument 6 at Tortuguero. If it is not this particular deity, 2012ers could also
relate it to the end of the Fifth Sun of the Aztec calendar.
I highly doubt that post-2012ers will abandon their desire of having a date to focus on.
Even though ex nihilo events cannot be predicted in advance, why not opt for October 2,

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2027, which is the next time the Aztec calendar reaches the end of its current cycle? I am
sure one can combine the Aztec Five Suns with Meillassoux’s four Worlds. Why not? It is
entirely possible in Meillassoux’s hyper-Chaos. If the “end-of-days” prophets or New Agers
used Meillassoux’s ontology they could extend their business indefinitely. All they have to do
when a date fails is to postpone the end/transformation another 52 years. 2027 is already a
year targeted for a Biblical apocalypse. An asteroid will also pass very near Earth that year.
To conclude, it is the various beliefs associated with the 2012-hyperobject that is
orthodox since it relies on necessity. Speculations regarding polar-shifts are by necessity
loosely based on the “laws of nature”. By necessity there is a transcendent purpose of the
New Age universe, etc. So far I have not seen any 2012er go as far as to say something like
Meillassoux’s claim that the laws of universe can change at an instant and that there is a
virtual God that may come to exist ex nihilo. Hence, no “2012er”rethinks reality as
profoundly as Meillassoux does. Each 2012er is a correlationist that basically create his or
her own universe and seldom engage in a critical discourse about each other’s work, like
academics do with their colleagues’ work.
Let time tell if Meillassoux’s “divine inexistence” becomes part of a possible 2027-
hyperobject. If so, my online perturbations of the 2012-hyperobject has succeeded and
transformed it into a new hyperobject where the Aztec Calendar Stone finally can be used in
a more accurate way.