The new-agers have been talking for ages about the magic year 2012, which is both the end of the Mayan calendar (ooooh!) and the end of psychedelic guru Terence McKenna's "timewave zero" (aaaah!). The idea is that humanity will shift to some vague higher consciousness, though whether Wall Street is considered part of "humanity" is anyone's guess.
Given the new agers' track record — anyone remember the "harmonic convergence" of 1987? Supposedly, we are now in a New Age of Peace — I wouldn't count on waking up as a loving, caring, energy being existing in the fourth dimension on Dec. 21, 2012. These theories are, after all, based on the Mayan cosmology (and they thought ripping the beating hearts out of human sacrifices was good science), and the research of McKenna, largely inspired by DMT visions, which makes far less sense when you're not off your face.
The Mayan-calendar story has been repeated oft enough, however, that it has entered the mainstream, and — predictably — taken on apocalyptic proportions, with predictions ranging from a massive solar flare causing a polar shift, to havoc caused by a humongous black hole at the center of our galaxy.
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