Christ & the Maya Calendar: 2012 & the Coming of the Antichrist

NOTE: In light of several postings in response to this excerpt, I have appended below a statement that I hope all readers will take under consideration. Thank you.

One of the many marvelous things about Reality Sandwich is that it takes quite seriously the significance of dreams and other forms of visionary experience. Indeed, visionary experience is at the very heart of this community. The most talked about “dream” of our age is that millennia old dream that gave rise to the Long Count of the Maya Calendar, which culminates in the end date of December 21, 2012. We do not know and cannot even begin to speculate about the identity of the individual who may have first had the waking vision that hinted at some as yet undetermined future revolution in human history. . .

Throughout history, cultures have compared dreams, brought them into conversation with each other in an effort to discern their higher meanings. My new book, written with my friend Robert Powell, Christ and the Maya Calendar: 2012 and the Coming of the Antichrist (Lindisfarne/Steiner Books), approaches the significance of 2012 by exploring the dreams and visions from: ancient Persian and Hindu myth; the Book of Revelation; Rudolf Steiner’s spiritual research; and Vladimir Solovyov's turn-of-the-century vision of the coming of the Antichrist. From these variegated visions, a completely new context for grasping the end date of the Maya calendar emerges.

Though quite isolated from these visionary streams, Jeane Dixon's February 5, 1962 visionary experience holds a critical place in the conversation about the meaning of 2012. Below is an excerpt from Christ and the Maya Calendar that discusses Dixon’s dream and asks us what role we will choose to play in the cosmic and human drama foreseen by the Mayan astronomer-priests so many centuries ago. I look forward to conversation with Reality Sandwich readers about this unfolding dream and its importance to humanity.

At 2 AM on February 5, 1962, amidst a rare “stellium” (cluster) of the seven classical planets (plus Chiron) in the sign of Capricorn, there was a total eclipse of the sun whose path of totality passed over Indonesia, New Guinea, and the eastern Pacific Ocean. At 7:17 AM, as she readied herself to greet the rising sun by reciting the 23rd Psalm, American psychic Jeane Dixon beheld this picture:

The bare-limb trees of the city had given way to an endless desert scene, broiled by a relentless sun. Glowing like an enormous ball of fire, the sun had cracked the horizon, emitting brilliant rays of scintillating light, which seemed to attract the earth like a magic wand. The sun’s rays parted, facilitating the appearance of the Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaten and Queen Nefertiti. But my eyes were drawn to the new-born-child she tenderly cradled in her other arm. He was wrapped in soiled, ragged swaddling clothes, in stark contrast to the magnificently arrayed royal couple. I then became aware of a multitude of people that appeared. I witnessed Nefertiti hand the child to the people. Instantly rays of sunlight burst forth from the little boy, which blended with the brilliance of the sun. My eyes once more focused on the baby. By now he had grown to manhood, and a small cross, which had formed above his head enlarged and expanded until it covered the earth in all directions. Suffering people, of all races, knelt in worshipful adoration, lifting their arms and offering their hearts to him. (Jeane Dixon, My Life and Prophecies (New York: William Morrow & Company, 1969), pp. 178-179)

Jeane Dixon – whose elegant Washington, D.C. townhouse was less than a mile from the White House – looked over at her bedside clock to see the time, and then recorded her waking vision. Her first impression was that she had witnessed the birth of a great king who would revolutionize the world. At the end of her vision, however, she saw that while most people followed the man, a small group followed a narrow path away from him. By 1969, when she published My Life and Prophecies, the “Washington Seeress” had concluded that the man in the flowing robe was the Antichrist, who would “form a new all-embracing doctrine based on his almighty power.”

Though the February 1962 vision was interpreted by Jeane Dixon as that of a child born in the Middle East, Dixon had other visions connecting this individual to America:

I have seen a “government within a government” develop in the United States within the last few years . . . I see this “government within a government” being controlled and financed by a well-oiled political “machine” of one of our leading political families. With their eye on the White House, I see them discredit any man who occupies it without their approval, no matter how good his political programs may be.

They will --- through political intimidation, propaganda, and illegal sixth-column activities --- make every effort to show the nation that only their man, the one who heads their “machine,” has the sole right to occupy the White House. Their campaign is going to cause great harm to our nation both here and abroad.

I “see” this group succeed in taking over de facto control of the country. They will give rise to an upheaval in our social structure as never before seen. They will bring about increased social unrest and great discontent. Foreign subversive elements will --- as they did in the 1960s --- infiltrate the unruly factions and cause renewed fighting on the nation’s campuses and in racial ghettos.

All of the evil in the masses will be swept toward an unknown frenzy by this “machine” . . . (Ibid, pp. 167-168)

His disciples . . .will have the power and the propaganda machine of the United States backing them, advancing his cause beyond anything ever thought possible. The social and religious chaos generated by this political machine throughout the United States will prepare the nation for the coming of the prophet of the Antichrist. This political unit of the East will be the tool of the serpent in delivering the masses to him…With teaching and propaganda the prophet will cause people not merely to accept the Antichrist but rather to desire him with positive enthusiasm to create the conditions of his coming and to participate in organizing the frightful and terrifying despotism of his World Empire. (Ibid, pp. 168-169)

Dixon’s scenario was nuanced rather than literalistic, saying that the miracles, signs, and wonders that Revelations attributed to the Antichrist and his prophet would not be supernatural events but “the prodigies of science and human achievements.” She pointed particularly to the “fire from heaven” spoken of by John, which she saw as the ultimate symbol of the conquest of Nature. “The ideological and falsely scientific prophet” would advance an anti-Christian science perfectly tailored to modern materialism. Finally, she anticipated a full victorious reign of the Antichrist and his prophet, who would be “specific and identifiable persons!” (Ibid, p. 170)

Dixon’s celebrity had always been based on the fact that the “specific and identifiable persons” in her visions were almost always noteworthy national and international figures, usually from the world of politics. She gained her initial fame for having successfully predicted the assassinations of Mahatma Gandhi, John and Robert Kennedy, and Martin Luther King, Jr.; the death of Secretary of State John Foster Dulles. Believing her faculty of prophecy to have been given by God, Dixon attributed any errors in her predictions to her own mistakes in interpretation. Calling her perceptions “revelations from God,” she claimed to hear the voices of Christ and angels, but she never claimed to be able to call up her gift of prophecy at will. The many documented cases in which Dixon described important future events in uncanny detail cannot be simply explained away. Though she made considerable effort to discern it, the most important detail – the actual timing of the Antichrist’s appearance – eluded Jeane Dixon. Believing that she had witnessed his birth in 1962, she thought that the Antichrist would appear in 1992, as a Satanic echo of the fact that Christ’s ministry began in his 30th year.

Another prophetic voice – the Russian philosopher, poet, and founder of Russian Sophiology, Vladimir Solovyov – wrote of a similar scenario in his War, Progress, and the End of History: Three Conversations Including a Short Story of the Anti-Christ. (Paul Marshall Allen’s excellent biography, Vladimir Soloviev: Russian Mystic (New York: Steiner Books, 1978), pp. 366-410 contains the Short Story of the Anti-Christ.) Finished on Easter Sunday, 1900, just a few months before he died, the book is a series of dialogues between five members of the Russian intelligentsia, held in the garden of a villa in the Alps. Solovyov’s prefatory question sets the tone for the book: “Is evil only a natural defect, an imperfection disappearing by itself with the growth of good, or is it a real power, ruling our world by means of temptations, so that to fight it successfully assistance must be found in another sphere of being?” The way that Solovyov describes it, the individual who becomes the Antichrist writes a bestselling book – The Open Way to World Peace and Welfare. He is a good person, a very high being, when he writes this book, but then he goes for a walk one night, and a presence promises him that he can become world ruler. Something like this happened to 29½-year-old Adolf Hitler, who became possessed after losing consciousness in a trench on the frontline at Ypres in October 1918 after a mustard gas attack. Temporarily blinded by the mustard gas, Hitler recovered in a German military hospital and then discovered that through the power of the word he could mesmerize people.

As mentioned in Revelations, Chapter 13, it says that the Antichrist shall reign for “two and forty months”. According to astronomical research, in particular on account of the longest solar eclipse of the century occurring on that day, it is possible that the starting date for this reign could fall on or around July 22, 2009, when Pluto will be at 6½° Sagittarius, just ½° away from where it was at the historical event of the baptism in the Jordan on September 23, AD 29 (6°53’ Sagittarius), thus mimicking Christ’s incarnation at the baptism. Accordingly, July 22, 2009 may be the counter-image of the baptism, the solar eclipse presenting the possibility that Ahriman, as prophesied by Steiner, (“Before only a part of the third millennium of the post-Christian era has elapsed, there will be in the West an actual incarnation of Ahriman – Ahriman in the flesh.” This prophetic statement relating to now was made in a lecture held on November 1, 1919 – Rudolf Steiner, The Incarnation of Ahriman: The Embodiment of Evil on Earth, (London: Rudolf Steiner Press, 2006), p. 37) will descend into a human being, just as Christ entered into Jesus of Nazareth. Ahriman’s three-and-a-half year “ministry” would then begin and would last until December 21, 2012 – the end of the Mayan calendar.

If July 22, 2009 truly marks the beginning of the Antichrist’s 3½-year rulership, and he is preceded by the “false prophet,” it seems almost certain that he will come on the world stage very soon, if he is not already present. Along with Revelations, two other books of the Bible – the Second Epistle to the Thessalonians and the Book of Daniel – describe the false prophet as speaking pompous words. Revelations and II Thessalonians attribute to him “miraculous signs” and say that he will deceive the people and lead them into idolatry. The Book of Daniel agrees with Revelations about the 3½-year period, suggesting that the false prophet will be destroyed at the return of Jesus Christ. All three books suggest a person of great political power and religious influence, and all point to events of global significance.

A clue as to the identity of the false prophet of the Antichrist lies in the Gospel of Luke. There it is described how, at the Annunciation, the Archangel Gabriel appeared to the Virgin Mary and told her that “the Holy Ghost shall come upon thee,” to conceive the Son of God. Gabriel also informed Mary that her cousin Elizabeth, formerly childless, was already six months pregnant. Mary visited Elizabeth in Judea, and when Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist, heard Mary’s voice, her baby leapt in her womb; this is often seen as John’s first act of prophecy. Following the principle that Satan is the “ape of God,” it is possible that the false prophet was born six months before the Antichrist, that is, on or about August 5, 1961.

The impending incarnation of Ahriman is indeed part of the Divine Plan, since Christ revealed it to John, as described in Chapter 13 of Revelations. Ahriman’s ambition and method is earthly power, power over. With the interweaving of our country’s financial concerns with those of the entire globe, we Americans as a nation find ourselves at the very threshold of “One World”. Will we choose to direct the sword of world leadership through dominance and power? Or will our hearts hearken to the Divine accord of co-operation and dynamic creativity through the synergy and abundance of the interweaving qualities of the gifts of various cultures? And will we choose perspectives which enrich the tapestry of humanity, manifesting love of Christ and the wisdom of Sophia?

AUTHORS’ STATEMENT

Rudolf Steiner’s large body of research – known as spiritual science (Anthroposophy) – has paved the way for further research encompassing thousands of volumes and numerous projects and social endeavors around the world. This book focuses upon Steiner’s indications about the return of Christ, on the one hand, and the coming of the Antichrist, on the other hand. Both events, according to Steiner, are taking place, or will take place, in our time. Our endeavor is to provide a context in which the reader can find help to be able to grasp the larger picture as to the nature of the times in which we are living. The purpose of the book is to draw attention to Christ’s return in the realm of life forces known as the etheric and also to the impending physical incarnation of Ahriman (the Antichrist being the incarnated Ahriman). The book is carefully written in the spirit of the age of the clear, critical consciousness of modern humanity to allow people to draw their own conclusions. Thus, it is not a matter of pointing the finger and pronouncing slogan-like statements. Rather, it is a matter of providing a context for the reader to arrive at a deeper grasp of what is taking place in the world at the present time, which can only be attained by way of hard study and the honest endeavor to attain to a higher level of cognition. The main point is that the coming of the Antichrist is actually the shadow side of the much greater event of Christ’s coming in the etheric realm, whereby Divine Sophia is actively working to help humanity to become aware of this greatest event of our time.
Central to Rudolf Steiner’s impulse is the development of intuitive faculties, which he named Imagination, Inspiration, and Intuition. This means that, when research is presented, people – through the exercise of their intuitive faculties – come to their own cognition of the truth and do not depend simply upon what is said by those presenting the research. The goal is – and must be – to arrive at truth for oneself, not based upon anyone else’s statements. Although, of course, the statements of others can be taken as a starting point for arriving at the truth. However, cognition of the truth depends upon the development of intuitive faculties going beyond intellectual speculation.
Since the publication of this book, various pronouncements – many of a speculative nature – have been made concerning the content of the book. The authors fully support the expression of freedom of thought and freedom of speech underlying statements about the book but obviously cannot be held responsible for the conclusions drawn by others from the research presented in this book. Their concern is truth – in the spirit of the words: “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” (John 8:32)
In relation to the Antichrist, who is referred to as the Beast in Chapter 13 of the Book of Revelation, his way – according to Chapter 13 – is prepared by the Prophet of the Beast. Nowhere in this book are statements made identifying specific individuals as the Beast (Antichrist) or as the Prophet of the Beast. Yet, in this age of the Internet, all kinds of pronouncements can be – and have been – made in the public domain. A responsible approach for modern human beings is to exercise caution and discretion in relation to such statements, and to seek – through the development of the aforementioned intuitive faculties – to arrive for oneself at the truth, together with the One who said: “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” (John 14:6)