Apocalypse is reportedly round the corner
Where the doomsayers got it wrong. Or did they?
Picking up at random key phrases, catchwords, soundbites and memes, best suit to symbolize the almost schizophrenic (in scale) anxiety of the looming End of Times is an exhausting effort. You can be utterly submerged in this overabundance, glut, and deluge of pervasive scare-mongering, though it all has a perfectly explicable root cause, after all.
Not to overburden the narrative, allow me to select just three of the typical doomsday remarks: “we have passed thresholds already”; we have entered “a complex, nonlinear ‘post-truth' world of fragmentation, fracture, dissolution, and transfiguration”; “that collapse was what was driving this world mad, insane, furious, vengeful, suicidal, self-destructive”, etc.
The last warning of “collapse” comes from the mouth of a self-styled epic whistle-blower Umar Haque. Apart from the dangers of the widening great schism between the haves and the have-nots, destabilizing not only the whole “third world” but also the previously stable Anglo-Saxon empires, Haque links the catastrophic climatic changes with the ready to explode potential of social frustration fed by continuous and aggravating destitution.
“What happens when Calcutta and Bangkok and Karachi are too hot to live in? Maybe 50 million people live in those cities…alone. That's more than ten times the number of Syrian refugees who…destabilized the West. What happens when all those people begin fleeing their burning cities? What happens when ten million climate refugees make their ways through the Middle East, to Europe's doorstep? When the Amazon has been slashed and burned…making swathes of central and south America largely unlivable…desolate wastes… and tens of millions arrive at America's doorstep?”
As a follow-up to the proclaimed interdependence: “What happens when Delhi and Karachi and Calcutta run out of water? Have you ever wondered? Well, one simple answer probably is: war. Likely nuclear war.”
Some knowledgeable amateur pundit would argue that either democracies do no fight each other (a popular mantra), or that no one would risk total annihilation if weapons of mass destruction are called upon. Some other no less enlightened guru would contradict by saying: first, we recorded at least 50 cases when more or less “democratic” nations were engaged in hostilities against each other, and second, the populace has not yet experienced deprivation on such a massive planetary scale.
The somber prophet Umar Haque has a somber outlook on our future. The world will never be the same after a chain of fatal cataclysms. Be it climate-related crunch of every asset we possess as of today, or climate-change and resource-deficit provoked multiple conflicts in the format of Thomas Hobbes' gloomy stylistics of Bellum omnium contra omnes (Latin phrase meaning “The war of all against all”). Quite unfeelingly, Haque professes the outcome of the coming radical redesign of life in harsh terms:
“The world that we're inheriting is going to be a very different place than the one we're used to. It's not going to be one of three strata that barely every touch anymore – the ultra rich (Bill Gates), the merely rich (the average American), and the poor (everyone else on the globe). It's going to be a world where, instead, these three strata collide in explosive, dramatic, fatal ways – finding themselves at each others' throats.”
The very concept of humans “finding themselves at each others' throats” is hardly encouraging, despite the silent and reluctant admittance of our contemporaries (rebuke, if you can) that under the surface of diplomatic politesse this is exactly what is going in global affairs. The only relatively soothing word from Umar Haque in his essay, dated October 2019, looks like this: “The world is ending. Can we build a new one?” Meaning, the doomsayer, nonetheless, believes there is fair chance to build a new world.
The art of vague prophecies
As predicted by medieval drug-inspired prophet, 16th century French astrologer and physician by the name of Nostradamus, during the third month of the Sun, a Leopard and a Boar would have collided on the field of Mars. Gazing at the sky, the Leopard will see a flying eagle. That was it: on August 30, 2019, the Sun was doomed to expire ultimately.
When deciphered, it appears that the boar and the Leopard symbolize the disaster. Nostradamus professed that on that particular day the Sun would enter the Leo constellation, and the Earth will be hit by many hostile objects. The poles will change places and the magnetic field will vanish. Consequently, temperatures will rise, water will evaporate, and volcanoes all across the globe will start spewing furious lava.
Actually, Nostradamus' book Les Propheties (The Prophecies), published for the first time in 1555, contained an even more worrisome prediction for the grace year 2019. One of his quatrains (verses), overall there are 353 of them, described in metaphorical way the grim future:
“In the city of God, there will be a great thunder. Two brothers torn apart by Chaos while the fortress endures. The great leader will succumb The third big war will begin when the big city is burning. ”
By consensus, these lines are regarded as a warning of the Third World War that would kick off in 2019. Moreover, the most common interpretation of this metaphorical verse claims that Nostradamus previewed the war between the United States and Russia:
“Twice put up and twice cast down, the East will also weaken the West. Its adversary after several battles chased by sea will fail at time of need.”
The adoration fan club of the French astrologer strongly believes that he did profess the Great Fire of London in 1666, the death of Henry II, and the rise of Adolf Hitler. On top of it, Nostradamus allegedly foresaw the A-bombing by the United States of two Japanese citied, Hiroshima and Nagasaki:
“Near the gates and within two cities There will be scourges the like of which was never seen, Famine within plague, people put out by steel, Crying to the great immortal God for relief.”
Yet, how can we shake off the uneasy deja vu suspicion since the wording of the quatrains is as vague as the ambiguous prophecies of the oracles in ancient Greece, like the one offered by priestess to Apollo at Delphi, Pythia.
Turning Armageddon into a self-fulfilling prophecy?
Doomsday premonition thrives and proliferates. The well-established cult of UFOlogists is just one of the ‘schools of prophecy”, unevenly split between the optimist and pessimists with the latter conjuring up, like the concluding king of Babylon, the punishing hand on the wall with the warning of a hostile takeover by aliens who would turn earthlings into slaves.
Another cult of doomsayers leans towards a sinister, merciless, all-embracing pandemic provoked by a mutated toxic virus. All affected would go berserk, spew aggressive hormones, and become true zombies. After all, we find in Zechariah 14:12 a verdict on those who fought against the kingdom of God:
“… and those who fought against the kingdom of Jerusalem will feel their eye sockets empty and their tongues will melt in their mouths as long as they stand .”
Similarly, Nostradamus predicted, “entrants will come out of their tombs.”
Astrophysicists reserve a somewhat more credible scenario for us. They foretold the longest night in several millennia. The chilling night was to last for about 6 days in December 2019. The culprit would be a formidable unprecedented ‘magnetic storm' simply blocking sunlight access to the surface of the planet. Consequently, all electronic equipment, from server to personal computers, and battery-powered kitchen utensils, would go defunct. Darkness and cold would reign supreme.
The Earth would be temporarily but comprehensively… disabled. Will our civilization survive an inclusive and meticulous technological Apocalypse?
Then again, we might either ignore or pay due attention to the Book of Revelation, or the Apocalypse as the final segment of the New Testament, with a no less mind-boggling and scary prediction:
“Then I looked and saw a pale horse. Its rider's name was Death, and Hades followed close behind. And they were given authority over a fourth of the earth, to kill by sword, by famine, by plague, and by the beasts of the earth.”
Stubbornly subscribing to a variety of conflicting views, scholars point out that the style and wording of The Revelation starkly differs from the biblical texts. The identity of the actual author remains a dark mystery, although the book is commonly attributed to John the Apostle or John of Patmos.
Whoever he or she was, the crucial element of the prophecy is the name of the location where the final ‘battle royal' will happen between the forces of Good and Evil in the vicinity of nearby Mount (Har) Megiddo, found in contemporary Israel. Here, the first ever-recorded battle erupted in the 15th century BC when the Egyptian forces under the command of Pharaoh Thutmose III defeated a rebellious coalition of Canaanite vassal states led by the king of Kadesh. The event became known as The Battle of Megiddo.
The final battle will happen at Armageddon, the Greek transliteration of the Hebrew “Har Megiddo” and meaning “Mountain of Assembly” , as John the Apostle predicted. The canonical explanation postulates that Armageddon, not as place but a happening will feature “ God's just and holy wrath poured out against unrepentant sinners, led by Satan, in a literal end-of-the-world final confrontation .” As the end-result, the scripture celebrates “divine obliteration of God's enemies” and the ultimate triumph of good over evil.
Does the author of the Revelation send us a warning of the possible Third World War? Anyway, the priests of the Thai temple on top of a hill called Khao Kala assert they did come into direct contact with extraterrestrial humanoids who disclosed the sad truth. Humankind will encounter the perils of a colossal worldwide slaughter in 2022 , the outsiders insisted. Priests revealed that the aliens displayed genuine concern over the state of the climate and nature, notifying the earthlings that it would get worse if not brought back to order.
Earth will end in fire or in ice
Noteworthy, as reported by EurekAlert, scientists detected movement of the mantle plume under the most dangerous supervolcano, and it is the Yellowstone. Molten rocks in the lower layers of the planetary mantle move southwest, but the upper flow is heading towards the doomsday volcano. Maybe it is a natural process. Maybe not.
The U.S. geological survey watchers scrupulously recorded more than 130 earthquakes in the vicinity of the Yellowstone ticking bomb in September 2019 only. Yet, the volcano could erupt either tomorrow or in 1000 years.
Steven Hawking, a great scientist also renowned for his not very encouraging prophecies, foresaw the final finale of our civilization as early as in the year 2600. As a matter of comparison:
The soothsayer Nostradamus believed the expiration of the Earth would happen in 3737, while the Balkan clairvoyant Baba Vanga fixed the date for the End of the world as 5070.
Hawking conditioned the final decay on overpopulation that will consume enormous amounts of energy and resources, and, subsequently, lead to the planet's inability to sustain the devouring hordes. By that time, global warming would reach extreme highs, ocean temperature would exceed 27 degrees, and critical amount of water vapor would evaporate and heat up the atmosphere. As a result, the Earth will turn into a fiery hell and physically unable to host humans any longer.
Steven Hawking's forecast was gloomier than anyone elses: “Death of the Earth is only a matter of time.”
Still, dissenting voices from the University of Chicago contradict the advocates of “fire” as the tool of Apocalypse. Scientists who have long studied the sea ice of Antarctica concluded that the Earth is not being sentenced to withstand global warming, but rather global cooling.
No matter whether they are right or wrong, it is worthy to resort to Robert Frost's best-known poem “Fire and Ice”, anthologized and regularly quoted:
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
Either way, fire or ice, the end is eminent. “It will be difficult enough to avoid disaster in the next hundred years, let alone the next thousand or million ,” Stephen Hawking postulated. “Our only chance of long-term survival is not to remain inward-looking on planet Earth, but to spread out into space.”
“It has always been thus”
The list of prominent doomsday forecaster would not be complete without Jeane Dixon, the American self-proclaimed astrologer. At one time, President Richard Nixon held her in high esteem. Later, she was one of many who provided advice and guidance to the wife of Ronald Reagan, Nancy.
Dixon predicted as early as May 1956 that the 1960 presidential election would be won by a Democrat “who would then go on to be assassinated or die in office though not necessarily in his first term.” She actually prophesied the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in November 1963. Dixon even tried to notify a person within the close circle of JFK of the looming grave danger. The timely warning was thoughtlessly ignored.
What is more to the point, is Dixon's prophecy on the “ mother of all battles” between Satan and Christ, due to start… in 2020. She claimed the decisive war between the forces of evil and good will last until 2037. The outcome would be disappointing: it will eventually bring about total destruction.
For those prone to be easily impressed and shocked, it is expedient to add that not all of Dixon's predictions were hitting the nail on the head. Many missed. She was wrong about the World War III to be launched in 1958, the death of Fidel Castro in 1968, and the collapse of the two-party system in the United States in 1978 (although this is exactly what we are witnessing today). Originally, Dixon declared that the End of the world would happen in 1962.
Missed close shave would-be calamities
Another good news is that we have ‘miraculously' missed several rendezvous with the final-final peril. At least, for the moment. In the grace year 2019 only, humankind faced the ultimate extermination on several occasions. Each of them would have sounded the death knell for the unique civilization on the fringes of the Milky Way Galaxy, believed to be on the outskirts of a larger supercluster of suns and stars. Yet, we survived. So, let's look in the face of the utter menace that keeps routinely scaring the wit out of the ‘divine creations.'
On August 12, 2019, earthlings were due to hear the Big Bang and experience the utmost shock after the mythical planet Nibiru crushed into us. Missed it. For the record: astronomers vehemently reject the very idea of an invisible celestial body seemingly borrowed from horror fairy-tales.
On October 3, 2019, the Earth was supposed to collide with four asteroids simultaneously. The most formidable celestial killer was nicknamed 2007 FT3 . With a diameter of 350 meters and weight estimated to exceed 50 billion tons, the identified flying object traveled at an awesome tempo of 70 000 kilometers per hour, defying all speed limits, if any are applicable. Missed!
Had it missed not, then the worst-case scenario would have amounted to our planet deviating from its present orbit. It would trigger off an unstoppable sequence of earthquakes, volcano eruptions and affluent floods.
The same succession of abysmal disasters we find in the recent foretelling of David Montaigne who authored prophecy books like End Times and 2019: The End of the Mayan Calendar and the Countdown to Judgment Day , and Antichrist 2016-2019. Claiming he derived the exact date of the “grand finale” in the Bible, Montaigne also refers to the Mayan mythology. The pagan premordials envisaged the ‘ astronomical lineup' (the alignment of four planets near the center of the Milky Way) and the winter solstice sun as the fixed date of Doom.
To prove his point, the historian with an astrological twist quotes Revelation 6:14, “The sky was split apart like a scroll when it is rolled up, and every mountain and island were moved out of their places.”
As far as I remember, the previous “end of times”, according to the Mayan calendar, was due to happen on 21 December 2012. In fact, winter solstice sun always occurs on that day. True enough, David Montaigne candidly admits, “It may all be just a pile of meaningless coincidences .” Nonetheless…
Psychological roots of doomspeak
Living on a high-speed information autobahn takes its toll. It is all too justifiable. Don't we abhor the “new abnormality”, the hard-sell product for politicians and servile media? We are witness to the wildfire spread of apprehensive fatigue of our contemporaries due to the accelerated pace of changes, accompanied by an incessant stream of stressful negative news.
We are justifiably worried about the multiplication of adverse trends backed by monotonous occurrences of massive and often unprovoked violence on state-to-state and personal level. It all leads to the erosion of cohesion inside the communities and regulatory regimes in international affairs.
People rightfully deplore and get genuinely frustrated by the collapse of not only law and order but of moral standards, by the rise of extremism in political and religious guise, proliferation of ruinous pseudo values detrimental to traditional safeguards in a decent society, spread of intolerance and erratic behaviour sprinkled by foul language, etc.
Doesn't it coincide with the sad divinations of Russian writer, poet and Christian philosopher Daniil Andreyev? It surely does. In the flagship book “Rose of the World”, the mystic sage shared his vision of the coming of Antichrist. His advent will be accompanied (or ensured) by the cult of moral promiscuity, sexual perversion, wrongly understood tolerance, which would dilute and corrupt the Christian code of shame, and all that under the pretext of installing and celebrating individual freedom.
True, we can find strong evidence of things going wrong in a “world spinning out of control”, as Dan Brown phrased it in his mystery-thriller novel “Angels and Demons”. True, the barrage of doomsday prediction is overbearing and omnipresent. True, it is inherent to human nature to have a knee-jerk reaction to irritating, annoying and threatening news.
However, given the prevalence of the emotional underpinning of our mind, the best sugarcoated anesthetic would you… blind faith. Take comfort in the fact that the Bible dismisses all definite predictions of the Apocalypse, stating,
“But about that day and about that hour no one knows, not even the Angels of Heaven, but The Father alone” (Matthew 24:36).
The psychological roots of doomspeak are apparent since they are part and parcel of our inner self. The kind of superstitious ego, myths-oriented, mysticism-prone and emotionally-laden, that tends to fill in the void of his negligence and misunderstanding with often bizarre, and invariably, either alarming or soothing, simplistic explanations of the incomprehensible.
Well, here we are: Apocalypse is reportedly round the corner. Note that depiction: reportedly! So far, no one has ever seen, heard, or touched any solid proof of the coming End of Times. Consider this as a bona fide argument to dismiss the unnerving forecasts by doomsayers. From John of Patmos, the Mayan priests, Nostradamus to Jeane Dixon and even Baba Vanga. Dismiss and rejoice. Against all the odds and the vaguely speaking gods.
Vladimir MIKHEEV