The Maya Say It's Forty Seven Thousand-y O' Clock, Pt. I

Relax - it's happening all over the world:

BEIJING (AP) -- Officials say a man who went into a school in central China and stabbed 23 children last week was "psychologically affected" by doomsday predictions.

And it's all over nothing:

John Carlson, director of the Centre for Archaeoastronomy at the University of Maryland, is one of only a dozen or so active researchers on the Mayan calendrical system. "I often get asked what's going to happen on the day. I say lots of things are going to happen. Some people will be born. Some people will die. A car headlight will burn out. There will be earthquakes, like there are every day. And none of this will have anything to do with the ancient Mayan calendar," he says. 

Lest there be any doubt, he speaks the next lines loudly and slowly: "There are no ancient Maya prophecies for anything to happen on this date. There. Are. None."

So the response will always the same:

For every person who takes the fantasy seriously – to call it a prophecy is an overstatement – scores more find it harmless fun. For others, the end of the world is a business opportunity.

Because the source is always the same, too:

In 1966, the US archaeologist Michael Coe wrote The Maya and, in a section about the calendar, mentioned the word Armageddon. Carlson says that was a key moment. "It was Michael Coe who planted this meme in modern culture," he says. From then on, the idea was embraced by New Agers, and spread farther through the internet.

Good ol' NewAgers, claiming "peace, harmony, and blah blah blah," but, instead - just like with their anti-vaccine jihad - leading directly to the unnecessary deaths of (at least) scores of children.

Great belief system they've got there.

Yes Siree Bob, I think it's safe to say they've got some "magic" in the air now.

To be cont'd,…