Monday, May 19, 2008

The Myth of the Crystal Skulls

For those of you who stomached the biased Crystal Skulls reporting on SciFi last night. God bless ya. I clicked it off halfway through, unable to handle yet another nebulous, unsubstatiated claim. There was a real dearth of counterpoint (of which there is plenty) and perhaps it came later in the episode. I will have to catch a rerun when I feel more up to it.

I grew aggravated every time someone said, unchecked, that the Maya predicted the world will end in 2012. This is not what they predict. This is when their calendar runs out. The most the Maya have said about this time is that it will be one of change. Sure, I suppose one could argue that means total global destruction by a supposed Planet-X .

This theory about the end of the world arose from an art historian and avid new-ager named Jose Arguelles who was a proponent of Harmonic Convergence and who culled some aspects of his theories from non-Mayan sources such as the I Ching. In addition to having miscalculated the calendar (he did not compensate for leap years), he claims he is "heir of the legacy of Pacal Votan and the instrument of his prophecy, Telektonon".

Most Mayan scholars refute such unsupported claims. As for the skulls themselves, the most "authentic" are not even rendered in any artistic style familiar to the Maya. Of course, true believers will say this is because they were made by Atlanteans or Extra Terrestrials but without proof, these are just words.

The following conversation humorously illustrates the futility in debating the topic with true-believers:

Her: The world will suffer a cataclysmic event in 2012.
Me: Why do you say that?
Her: Because the Mayans predicted it.
Me: And how do you know the Mayans are correct?
Her: Because they were colonized by the Atlanteans.
Me: And how do you know that?
Her: You can tell by comparative palmistry.

6 comments:

RRRGroup said...

C;

The SciFi Crystal Skulls "show" was just awful...and I'm surpised that NBC's Lester Holt was involved.

It wasn't just nebulous, as you note, but far-fetched in extremis.

The world should end in 2012 just to cleanse us stupid humans from the Earth so some intelligent species (marmosets, for example) can have the place.

RR

Cullan Hudson said...

Yes, it was an egregious display of journalism run amok. As for Mr. Holt, I can only assume that rising gas prices and housing woes contributed to his decision. But SciFi is owned by NBC, which is in turn owned by GE so it may be that he had no choice, as it were; he had to do it cuz the bosses said so or he wouldn't get that new washer and dryer set he'd been eyeing for some time now.

Cullan Hudson said...

Though I must confess, this in no way diminishes my dying need to see Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls. :-)

RRRGroup said...

Yah,

The Indiana Jones movie shouldn't be punished because of the SciFI debacle.

RR

The Stout said...

I had this recorded on my DVR. I guess I save the room on the hard drive and erase...still going to the movie!!!

Chris said...

Yes I totally agree, very bad show, I got tired of it too and had to turn it off and onto something else! Huggs!