What time is the world supposed to end?

It is 12/21/12 at long last, I just noticed, after paying some some attention to the real, albeit mini, apocalypse that is Draco the Blizzard. I was going to note that the world hasn't ended, but there's the question of what time the Mayans pinpointed on this Day of Days:

I know the world isn't really going to end today, and I think it's absolutely ridiculous that anyone would believe it is. But my 11-year-old brother thinks it's going to end, and I want to be able to go scream "I told you so!" in his face as soon as possible.

Thanks.

ABC is checking midnight in each of the world's time zones. Weather prediction noted:



I like NASA's reassuring web page. Excerpt:

Q: Does the Mayan calendar end in December 2012?

A: Just as the calendar you have on your kitchen wall does not cease to exist after December 31, the Mayan calendar does not cease to exist on December 21, 2012. This date is the end of the Mayan long-count period but then — just as your calendar begins again on January 1 — another long-count period begins for the Mayan calendar.

Wikipedia has a huge article on the somewhat larger topic "2012 phenomenon." Excerpt:

Many assertions about the year 2012 form part of Mayanism, a non-codified collection of New Age beliefs about ancient Maya wisdom and spirituality.... Archaeoastronomer Anthony Aveni says that while the idea of "balancing the cosmos" was prominent in ancient Maya literature, the 2012 phenomenon does not draw from those traditions. Instead, it is bound up with American concepts such as the New Age movement, millenarianism, and the belief in secret knowledge from distant times and places. Established themes found in 2012 literature include "suspicion towards mainstream Western culture", the idea of spiritual evolution, and the possibility of leading the world into the New Age by individual example or by a group's joined consciousness. 

Is there a bigger crock than secret knowledge from distant times and places?

"Corporate America has its own religions, and one of them is Myers-Briggs."

Yea, even as there are 12 signs of the zodiac in Astrology, there are 16 personality types in Myers-Briggs.

Academics would contend that... Myers-Briggs... [is] about belief much more than scientific evidence. And it’s administered by leadership coaches who, by and large, have no formal education in the science of psychology. 

“People like it because it reveals something they didn’t know about themselves or others,” says [Adam Grant, a professor of industrial psychology at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School]. “That could be true of a horoscope, too.”

Even Katharine Downing Myers concedes that “psychologists had no use for the indicator; they felt that Jung was a crazy mystic.”

And yet the psychological community has been reticent to speak up too vocally against it. The fact is, many psychology professors do lucrative side work as organizational consultants. And as taboo as it is to praise Myers-Briggs in U.S. academia, it’s equally taboo to disparage it in corporate America.

Maybe if it were understood to be more of a religion/religion substitute, corporate America could overcome its embarrassing dependency on this pseudoscience.

"Bishop Robert Morlino cracks down on Madison nuns for espousing 'New Ageism' and 'indifferentism.'"

Sisters Maureen McDonnell and Lynn Lisbeth — Sinsinawa Dominicans — are in trouble for their interfaith spirituality center Wisdom's Well.

"Indifferentism" is "the belief that no one religion or philosophy is superior to another."

15,000 journalists cover 5,000 delegates in what Dana Milbank calls a "media lovefest."

Yikes.

I’ve had my deltoids massaged in candlelight by a licensed therapist; had a foaming pore cleanser and mask applied to my face by an aesthetician; been instructed in the Warrior, Half-Sun Salute and Dancer poses by a yoga instructor; and crawled into a hanging cocoon for a “meditative snooze.” I worked up quite an appetite doing all this, so I ordered vegan corn chowder and gluten-free chicken chile verde washed down with Fiji water — all courtesy of the Huffington Post.

And yet we know the hotels you have to sleep in are horrible and bedbug-infested, not that I'd envy this time-wasting nonsense if I didn't know that. Personally, I'm glad to be in Madison, Wisconsin, blogging the convention by watching it on C-SPAN.

The Tony Robbins fire-walkers who got burned must have slowed down and stopped.

Just keep moving and you won't get hurt. Don't blame Tony Robbins. Blame those losers who didn't do it right.

Thousands participated in the walk, which stretched down 24 lanes, each around eight feet long.

The linked NYT article — "A Self-Improvement Quest That Led to Burned Feet" — doesn't mention the number of people who "reported second- or third-degree burns" until the very end. (The number is: 20 (out of 6,000).) The article stresses the positive:

“It transformed people’s lives in a single night,” said Carolynn Graves, 50, a real estate agent from Toronto, who crossed the coals without injury. “It’s a metaphor for facing your fears and accomplishing your goals.”

Ms. Graves suggested that the people who burned their feet “were out of state,” a term that participants said meant having the proper mental attitude.

Out of state? Great phrase. In my line of work, it's what we say about people who will have to pay much more tuition. The state you need to be in to not get burned is Wisconsin. In this self-confidence cult business, the "state" you need to be in is — what? — really believing that you won't get burned?

The sister of one of the burn victims "said Mr. Robbins had 'worked all night to prepare people' before the walk. If some people were injured, she said, 'it’s not his fault.'" Now, now, let's think about this. People are responsible for themselves. If you got a poor outcome, it's because you didn't do it right. You were given an education, and then it was up to you. Think about the people who did walk across the coals without getting burned. Are you going to say it wasn't really them? It was their teacher that did that? It was Tony Robbins? They didn't walk across those coals? Tony Robbins gets credit for that?

"Tony Robbins event ends in disaster as 21 people are treated for burns after walking on 2,000-degree hot coals."

"Robbins was hosting a four-day gathering called 'Unleash the Power Within.'"

Unleash the stupidity within.

Witnesses say on Thursday, a crowd went to a park where 12 lanes of hot coals were on the grass....

Witness Jonathan Correll says he heard "wails of pain and screams of agony"...

"First one person, then a couple minutes later another one, and there was just a line of people walking on that fire. It was just bizarre, man."

I only have one question: Do you have what it takes to be a regional manager?

And let's go back to 1995:

[I]t should come as no surprise that even President Clinton and Hillary Rodham Clinton invited a trio of self-help gurus to Camp David just before the new year.

Anthony Robbins, the best-selling, self-described "peak performance coach," Marianne Williamson, the prophet of love whose devotees include Oprah Winfrey and Elizabeth Taylor, and Dr. Steven R. Covey, author of one of the most successful books on management ever — "Seven Habits of Highly Effective People" — all refuse to divulge the substance of their meeting with the Clintons. Mr. Covey said only that it was "marvelous."

Did the Clintons scamper over hot coals? I agree that would be marvelous.

Pundits quickly speculated about a White House so bereft of ideas it had to seek them in the transcendent. Mrs. Clinton downplayed the meeting, and later complained in a letter to the editor of Esquire, to be published in April, that she was not "tight" with Ms. Williamson, who was merely one of many religious and spiritual advisers invited to meet the Clintons.

Merely one of many purveyors of bullshit that the Clintons consorted with. Noted. Also noted: Steven R. Covey was buried today.

"A rapidly increasing stream of New Age believers – or esoterics, as locals call them – have descended..."

"... in their camper van-loads on the usually picturesque and tranquil Pyrenean village of Bugarach."

They believe that when apocalypse strikes on 21 December this year, the aliens waiting in their spacecraft inside Pic de Bugarach will save all the humans near by and beam them off to the next age....

Further, rumours persist that the country's late president François Mitterrand was transported by helicopter on to the peak, while the Nazis, and, later, Israel's Mossad, performed mysterious digs there. Now the nearby village is awash with New Agers, who have boosted the local economy, though their naked group climbs up to the peak have raised concerns as well as eyebrows. Among other oddities, some hikers have been spotted scaling the mountain carrying a ball with a golden ring, strung together by a single thread.

Meanwhile, the aliens inside the Pic de Bugarach are saying: Do we really need to take these nearby humans? Can't we gather some further away humans? These people seem like idiots.

In a "personal development seminar," Chantal Lavigne "was accidentally 'cooked to death' during a class called 'Dying in Consciousness.'"

This happened in Canada last year:

Participants were wrapped in mud and plastic, covered with blankets, and left immobilized for about nine hours. Cardboard boxes were placed over their heads and they were encouraged to hyperventilate. Lavigne died of hyperthermia when her body was unable to dissipate heat properly.

The seminar was held at a spa called Ferme Reine de la Paix and organized by Gabrielle “Séréna” Fréchette. In her work as holistic healer, Fréchette channels “Melchizedek,” a mysterious king and priest that appears in the book of Genesis. Lavigne had already completed 85 personal development seminars at the spa, for which she paid more than $18,900....

In audio recordings of the session, Fréchette allegedly states, “The time has come for this body of death that you believe is yours… Death is freedom… death is the truth.”

"Many people say I want to kill myself because I do this."

"People can say what they want. I do it because I want to be cured."

Electric therapy, via lying on railroad tracks, in Indonesia, where "many practice a form of Islam that is mixed with superstition and traditional beliefs, including voodoo-like treatments to ward off spells and illnesses." So... it's not New Age. It's Old Age.

At the New Age Café...

... keep your grip on reality.

(Photograph location: Charles City, Iowa.)

ADDED: A reader emails:

I have been following your blog for quite a while, but never posted....

The reason I am writing to you today is to remark that I lived in Charles City, Iowa in 1966-1968. When I lived there, I lived in the house you photographed with the New Age Realty sign in front of it.

A little history about the house. It is a 1 bedroom house with an unfinished attic. I lived there with my 4 brothers and my parents. All 5 of us boys slept in the unfinished attic,

In May of 1968 a very large tornado tore through the town of about 10,000. Over 1/3 of the structures in the town were demolished beyond repair. The little brick house lost some of its roof and all its windows, but the structure survived intact. It has been a business of one sort or another for at least the past 30 years.

Cool! I love when stuff like this happens.

Sweat lodge guru guilty of negligent homicide.

Not guilty of manslaughter.

Prosecutors argued that the lodge, made of willow trees and branches and covered with tarpaulins and blankets, was heated to a perilously high temperature, causing the participants to suffer dehydration and heatstroke....

Event participants paid up to $10,000 to seek "new areas of consciousness" at the October 2009 Spiritual Warrior retreat in the desert... Many had attended previous James Ray International seminars.

New Age nail polish nonsense.

"SpaRitual Nail Lacquers fuse the disciplines of color therapy with numerology to deliver vibrant pigments, which have the power to nurture, ignite, soothe or seduce, and convey unique messages with numerological value and meaning. Each blend is formulated for superior shine, with a quick drying time and flawless coverage. Packaged in Italian crafted bottles from recycled glass, these sleek bottles feature a patented Plum Cap™ for non-slip grip and custom brushes for optimal application of lacquer."

(I hesitate to link, but if you want to convince yourself that text represents real commerce click here.)

"Hello, my name is Eric and I'm a recovering male."

I love the monologue "The Recovering Male" from Eric Bogosian's "Pounding Nails into the Floor with My Head." (Read its here.) (Get the CD.) Key line: "I'm just a man with a penis. And for that I'm sorry."

I'm reading those 3 1/2 pages this morning, because I don't have the patience to watch 8+ minutes of this. Both have the same theme, and both make me laugh, but one is brilliant, compressed writing by an artist, and the other is blather by men who are not artists and who are not trying to be funny. Also, reading that monologue does not cause a mind-rottting music soundtrack to play.

I did watch a couple minutes of that video, which I know you were talking about in the Flower Bird Café. There is a violence against women in this world that is different from the violence against men in ways that are important to address, but that video is too awful to focus us on what matters. There's way too much new-age nonsense about "energy." That's patent idiocy, and a man trying to suck up to women by blabbing about energy... needs some better suck-up lines.

But even if you extract the crap music and the new-age quasi-religion, you've got men apologizing for manliness. But they are not apologizing for their own manliness. They are purporting to apologize for other men, whom they are demonizing. Really what you've got are the insufficiently manly men, who think that by insulting other men, they will get the women.

But they will not get the women, because they are insufficiently manly. And it's a particularly pussy move to group all the manly men together for the purposes of trying to promote unmanly men. The violent, hateful, abusive men belong in a class by themselves, and to group them with all the other men who are more manly than you is self-serving and specious.

Now, take your bogus energy and get out of here.

Is anyone watching OWN?

Do you even know what it is?

When I started watching OWN, a couple of days after it began, on January 1st, I truly thought I was watching reruns from other cable channels.... From what I’ve seen so far, it’s numbingly unimaginative and middle of the road. What that road is, and where it’s going, and why we need to be on it remains to be seen. Promoting the channel, [Oprah] Winfrey likes to say that it will air nothing that will keep you from sleeping at night. “The intention of this channel is to bring good energy”...

Oh, but Oprah, the very idea of energy keeps me up at night.

The very first episode of Skeptoid was about the horror that is energy...

Energy is a measurement of something's ability to perform work. Given this context, when spiritualists talk about your body's energy fields, they're really saying nothing that's even remotely meaningful. Yet this kind of talk has become so pervasive in our society that the vast majority of Americans accept that energy exists as a self-contained force, floating around in glowing clouds, and can be commanded by spiritualist adepts to do just about anything....

Young Ezra Klein found himself in a strange predicament.

He'd said something utterly banal. It's what everyone around him has been saying for years. He must have expected that people would either ignore him or shrug him off as a man with no original or interesting ideas. And suddenly he's getting derided, called an idiot or worse. How can that happen?!

The banal thing was that reading the text of the Constitution doesn't get you to the answers to the difficult questions that arise today. The text must be interpreted, and political preferences will tend to pull people along toward the interpretation they want.

Don Surber says (via Instapundit):

Ezra Klein made the biggest mistake that can be made by a liberal — progressive — socialist — communist — no labelist — whatever the heck they call themselves on the 31st of the month.

He was being honest.

He does not believe in the Constitution.

He is cynical about it and he projects that same cynicism onto those who disagree with him.

Now, Klein walked right into that criticism. He stated the banality with an off-handed, wise-guy flippancy. That was red meat for the kind of conservative who likes to stress the constitutional text.

And now we see the value of this notion of reading the text out loud on the House floor. It sets up a trap for people like Klein to say things that let conservatives — like Don Surber — rail against the lefties.

Does that mean that I, like Klein, think reading the Constitution on the floor of the House is a "gimmick"?

In marketing language, a gimmick is a unique or quirky special feature that makes something "stand out"... [T]he special feature is typically thought to be of little relevance or use.... [A] gimmick is a special feature for the sake of having a special feature. It began... as a slang term for something that a con artist or magician had his assistant manipulate to make appearances different from reality.

In the musical "Gypsy," the experienced strippers advise young Gypsy Rose Lee that she has to get a gimmick:



I wouldn't use the word "gimmick" for what the GOP has proposed. But, like stripping, it is theatrical. It's a performance. A performance of belief. I think of the point in the church service when everyone reads the Apostles' Creed out loud. Obviously, many people say it who don't believe it, and you could keep silent and still believe it. But don't mock the ritual unless you're good at predicting the reaction and how you'll respond to that and you have some good reason for wanting the exchange.

Back to Surber:

For 8 years, the Left’s railed against Bush shredding the Constitution, a phrase which came to mean nothing....

See how much Surber is like Klein? He's accusing the other side of saying the words, but not really believing. But Surber has done better at picking his fight. He's got he hypocrisy angle: All those times you lefties acted all aghast at what Bush was doing? You must admit that was all theater, right?

ADDED:

Michelle Obama: "It means all the world to us to know that there are prayer circles out there and people who are keeping the spirits clean around us"

Keeping the spirits clean?

She's out doing politics. Fine. She drags in prayer. I don't like that, but I'm used to the political appropriation of religion in America. But what is this notion of "keeping the spirits clean"? The "spirits... around us"? Does she think we all have spirits around us, spirits that can be unclean?

What religion is that? Is she dabbling in... New Age? Is she a witch?

Now, she does pause and chuckle/scoff between the words "keeping" and "spirits," and that might suggest an ironic distance from the common folk who believe in such things. Or — listen and judge — it might mean that she's aware that it's a bit daring to let it slip that she believes we are surrounded by clean and unclean spirits that influence our fate.

"I wanted to express something in the outer world that I feel inside... We seem to have lost that understanding of the whole of nature and the universe as a living entity."

Prince Charles feels a sense of purpose.

Is that really so terrible?

"Chakra Con."

"It took these latest revelations of sexual impropriety to get anyone to question whether Al Gore - a man who, for years, made one bogus, scare-mongering thing after another - is someone trustworthy enough for us to have listened to. Again: how does that happen?"

Camille Paglia — opining on the failing libido of the American female — has something to say about "new age" and "men in shorts."

Men in shorts is, as you probably know, an Althouse theme, and New Age is the obsession of our beloved commenter Crack Emcee. Here's the Paglia:

The real culprit, originating in the 19th century, is bourgeois propriety. As respectability became the central middle-class value, censorship and repression became the norm. Victorian prudery ended the humorous sexual candor of both men and women during the agrarian era, a ribaldry chronicled from Shakespeare’s plays to the 18th-century novel. The priggish 1950s, which erased the liberated flappers of the Jazz Age from cultural memory, were simply a return to the norm.

Only the diffuse New Age movement, inspired by nature-keyed Asian practices, has preserved the radical vision of the modern sexual revolution....

Nor are husbands offering much stimulation in the male display department: visually, American men remain perpetual boys, as shown by the bulky T-shirts, loose shorts and sneakers they wear from preschool through midlife. The sexes, which used to occupy intriguingly separate worlds, are suffering from over-familiarity, a curse of the mundane. 

Paglia is dithering. Good Lord! Isn't she embarrassed to enthuse about the Rolling Stones one more time? And much as I enjoy her company in my crusade against adult men dressing like children, her inane bow to "the diffuse New Age movement, inspired by nature-keyed Asian practices" makes it all feel hit and miss.

***

On adult men looking like enlarged boys, my favorite description is still Tom Wolfe's:

[H]e had on a short-sleeved shirt that showed too much of his skinny, hairy arms, and denim shorts that showed too much of this gnarly, hairy legs. He looked for all the world like a seven-year-old who at the touch of a wand had become old, tall, bald on top, and hairy everywhere else, an ossified seven-year-old, a pair of eyeglasses with lenses thick as ice pushed up to the summit of his forehead -- unaccountably addressing thirty college students....

"He said one night he looked down and saw his white body next to her black body and couldn't take it anymore."

He was John Tesh. She was Oprah Winfrey. According to the new Kitty Kelley book about Oprah, this happened in the mid-1970s in Tennessee. The quote is (obviously) hearsay. Some other woman who dated Tesh served that up to Kelley. Really untrustworthy, because who is she, and what does she have against Tesh, who didn't stay with her? And even if she was utterly accurate about what Tesh said to her, Tesh could have been lying to her, perhaps bullshitting about how her body was better than Oprah's or some such lover's nonsense.

But let's assume Tesh and Oprah were lovers. Oprah has said they went on a date together, so there is probably some connection. What connection? In the years since the 1970s, both Tesh and Oprah have led the "New Age" movement — Oprah by seducing millions of TV-watchers into believing all manner of pseudo-scientific notions and Tesh by composing that innocuous music. Perhaps the music is not so innocuous. Perhaps Tesh has been softening the very brains into which Oprah has planted her noxious seeds. Conspiracy theory anybody? (Crack?)

***

Bonus: a slideshow of unlikely celebrities match-ups.