Media reports suggest that Pope Benedict XVI (Joseph Ratzinger) will not remain pontiff in 2012. His successor, according to a c. 16th prophesy, will be Petrus Romanus – the last pope and, depending on who you believe, the Antichrist.

Amongst all the hullabaloo around the Mayan Long Count, another equally spurious / seismic prophesy for 2012 has been ignored. In 1139, Malachy, Archbishop of Armagh, was summoned to Rome by Pope Innocent II. There he supposedly experienced a vision of future popes, which he recorded as a sequence of cryptic phrases. This manuscript was then deposited in the Roman Archive, and thereafter forgotten about until its rediscovery in 1590.
This is the standard explanation, at least. The document forecasts 112 future popes, each accompanied by a short Latin motto. Apart from the total number of popes forecast before the last pontiff, the only connection …

If you’re going to call your book ‘Living in the End Times’, there is a danger you’ll be regarded as an evangelical Christian or 2012 doom-sayer.

Slavoj Zizek is neither, but his book does deal with some fairly apocalyptic topics. He is a social theorist, cultural critic and ‘the world’s hippest philosopher‘ (as well as an alleged anti-Semitic left-wing zealot.) The reason for his popularity is based on his ability to engage with big philosophical questions by leveraging popular culture, and by examining current affairs.

The aforementioned book deals with what Zizek sees as four key drivers for a coming apocalypse: the worldwide ecological crisis; imbalances within the economic system; the biogenetic revolution; and exploding social divisions and ruptures. He is therefore of interest to this blog as some of his opinions intersect with 2012 eschatology (although Zizek gives no specific date for the zero-point.)

Apart …

Here’s my first piece of speculative fiction for this project. It’s written in the style of a newspaper weekend magazine article and is set in June 2012, when events that started in 2011 have recurred in a more amplified, extreme manner. I think the scenario is actually quite likely, although I don’t advocate the killing of bankers… What I did want to illustrate is how non-violent ideological movements such as Occupy could combine with other extreme expressions of dissent, to rapidly become a powerful revolutionary force; once mass rioting is directed by an agenda then anything can happen.

David Walton is an authority on the 2012 phenomenon, and an advocate of what he calls ‘the ecstatic doorway to consciousness evolution’. This is the point at which, on 21st December 2012, he believes humankind will undergo a significant and positive step-change in its evolution. He sits …