2012 survival guide

8/3/2019 2012 Survival Guide

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JonathanCAINER

2012 2 0 1 2 Survival Guide



2012 Survival Guide

By Jonathan Cainer



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With thanks to…

M.W. P.R. V.L

All inquirers & all inspirers

© Jonathan Cainer

Cover illustration by Nick Ellwood



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Contents

What is special and different about 2012?

What about planet X?

Will we really align with the Galactic Centre?

What about the "end of the Mayan calendar"?

Will the world economic system collapse?

Will we make contact with aliens?

Will there be earthquakes, tornadoes, tsumanis and droughts?

Will the Antichrist appear?

Will the Earth collide with a giant comet or meteor?

What and when is The Age of Aquarius?

What about the transit of Venus?

Will solar flares destroy our communications?

What if we survive 2012 unscathed but it all goes wrong in 2013?



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Introduction

I've seen some pretty big "end of the world" scare stories in my time. I

particularly recall being deluged with mail in the run-up to 1999.

This, many people insisted, was when Nostrodamus had told us the

world was due to end. I gave out as much reassurance as I could, but I

felt like one man trying to run up a descending escalator. It was

almost as if somehow, people truly wanted the news to be bad. They

were half hoping the end really was nigh. They were buying right in

to the doom and the gloom and, when you told them that there really

wasn't any, their face filled with a weird mixture of disappointment

and disbelief.

2012 has now become just as notorious in the minds of many

people and it is not just the usual suspects who have jumped aboard

the bad news bandwagon. The internet has made it easier for people to

spread far-fetched theories and terrify millions with pseudo scientificgobbledegook. Journalists, looking for a sexy headline, have picked

up on these stories and help draw them to the attention of an even

wider audience. And now we've got something else to muddy the

water - for the threat of economic disaster hangs over our heads and,



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according to the so-called experts, this is neither a fantasy nor even a

false fear. Ah, the experts. How we love them.

Somebody wise once said that an expert is simply someone who

knows 2% more than the rest of us do. I do not mean to undermine

their authority but as you will see from the rest of this book, I simply

have to assert my own astrological judgement - which is that 2012 is

actually going to be a surprisingly good year.



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What is special and different about 2012?

2012 contains a most unusual transit of Venus and hardly ever in

history has there been a more auspicious alignment to bless all our

lives. We can argue that the doom and gloom surrounding this year is

an asset, not a drawback. As financial institutions teeter on the brink

of collapse, de-stabilising governments the world over in the process,

millions are getting a wake-up call. Do they want to be woken up? Of

course not. None of us ever want to be woken up. All of us resent the

alarm clock when first we hear it. Nor, usually, do we want to be

sobered up. If we are drunk, we far prefer to carry on rolling around

in our own little bubble of distraction and merriment. The fact

remains though, that for as long as we can all remember, most of the

world has been sleeping while a few have been getting wildly

intoxicated. The sleepers are those who just go along with whatever

life seems to expect of them. They accept the rules of engagement as

they are currently being followed in the great game of money. They

pay their rent or their mortgage, they use their credit card, they earn

their crust. They worry about debt, they struggle to make their income

match their expenditure and they somehow feel so ashamed of their

own need to borrow that they will accept the most outrageous terms

when taking out a loan. They are more inclined to be grateful for

being taken on trust than to question the extent to which they are



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being taken for a ride. Meanwhile, in the halls of high finance,

amazing sums of money are being gambled on a series of ludicrous

propositions. The people at the "top of the pile" are drunk with high

numbers. The people at the "bottom of the pile" are all but sleep-

walking. Meanwhile, for years, a few voices have piped up with the

words "This is unfair and unsustainable". If those voices are heard at

all, people agree and then shrug their shoulders. "It may be unfair, it

may be unsustainable, but what can we do? It is the way of the

world." For a full explanation of what to expect during this year of

great change, see the section on global finance. For now, let me

suggest one reassuring thought. The fact that everything seems to be

falling apart is not, in itself, a bad thing. If some of it actually does

collapse, that is not necessarily so bad either. It may be the only way

to bring about the waking up and the sobering up which this world

has needed for so long. Obviously, if it brings us to the point where

we are all starving and suffering, that would be very bad indeed. But

that is not going to happen. It simply is not going to get so bad. Once

we all realise this and relax (as we will, slowly, during the course of

the year) we will find we are living in better times; times which are

not only prosperous but which are altogether more equable. Much the

same can be said about another fear which has, in recent years, been

prominent in the minds of millions. What's going to happen about

climate change? Here too, there has long been a need for a waking up



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and a sobering up. Here too, that's precisely what's going to happen in

2012. We must all take care in the course of this pivotal year to

understand the difference between the moaning of a person who is

being roused from their slumbers and the complaint of someone who

is truly facing a dreadful threat. Despite all you may have heard and

all that you may continue to hear, it is my pleasure, as your astrologer,

to tell you it is all going to be ok.



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What about planet X, planet Nibiru or the Brown

Dwarf Star with the 3600 year orbit?

Ah yes, what about them? If you really want to give yourself an

uncomfortable afternoon, Google any or all of the above. There are

hundreds of internet pages dedicated to these topics. Well, I should

really say to THIS topic, for the Brown Dwarf, Nibiru and Planet X

are all pretty much one and the same idea. I am only going to give

you a very potted summary; if you want to know more about it,

you will have to go take yourself a ride on the magical search engine

of cyberspace, through twisted tunnels that lead to the websites of

the weird.

If you take such a journey, you’ll soon discover the basic idea.

Supposedly, there's this enormous celestial object moving on a very

slow orbit around our sun. It takes 3,600 years for it to complete one

rotation. Even if this true, that’s mighty gradual. It makes slow

moving Neptune look like the champion athlete, Hussein Bolt! The

mega-planet has been lost and forgotten for centuries but now, it is

back. Any moment now, we’re not only going to see it, we’re going to

feel it because it is so darned big, it will exert a humungous

gravitational pull on our own planet.



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Legend has it that this mysterious monster has cleverly managed

to hide itself from the eyes of conventional science by adopting a

cunning disguise. Our astronomers cannot see it because it is right in

front of their eyes. They are so busy looking for teeny little things on

the far-side of the galaxy that they have completely ignored this

gigantic hunk. Last time it came near enough to us to affect our

gravity, a flood came rolling in and that nice Mr Noah had to build his

ark in a tearing rush.

Fortunately, the ancient Sumerians were fully aware of the back

story to this biblical tale and left us warnings in a series of scrolls and

carvings which weren’t (but could have been) titled, "Urgent Alert to

Folk of the Future." These went on to say, in not quite so many words

that "If you ever happen to find yourself living in the early part of the

21st century, you should be very, very worried because the nasty

flood-causing planet is coming back."

Sadly, nobody speaks ancient Sumerian anymore. Even more

sadly, nobody knows where these ancient scrolls and stone-carvings

are or indeed, if they ever really existed. Thankfully this very nice

chap called Zecharia Sitchin published a book in 1976 in which he

found the scrolls (at least in his imagination) and in the same



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imagination, he translated them all for us. How he became an expert

in ancient Sumerian we don't quite know… I expect the explanation

would be in the same Sumerian text if only Zecharia were still around

to translate it for us. Anyway, he warned us about Nibiru's previous

visit and now it is back again, woe betide us all.

Now I know what you're thinking. This makes no sense. Even if

such an object could really exist, by traveling on a trajectory that

takes 3,600 years to circle the Sun, it simply couldn't move fast

enough in a single year to get to a point where it could loom so large

in our sky. Given that nobody can see it now, it certainly couldn't get

close enough, quick enough to knock the Earth off its orbit, cause us



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to wobble on our axis or exert such a strong gravitational pull that we

start rotating in the other direction. We'd have to see it coming. And

so far, nobody has seen anything.

"Not so," say our lovely friends the conspiracy theorists. "You

are thinking like one of the millions who have had their brains washed

in the mainstream. Just look at all the earthquakes we've been having

lately. And consider all those other terrible disasters. Planet X has

caused all that. The scientists can see this perfectly well. They know

exactly where the mega-planet is. They know too that it is getting

closer and closer every day and it is only a matter of time until we are

all doomed. They even know what some of the Internet sites claim to

know; that it’s not really a planet but a ‘Brown Dwarf star’. But they

are not telling anyone because they have been sworn to secrecy by the

government. The authorities don't want us to panic, you see. Armed

guards have been placed on 24 hour watch outside the home of every

astronomer and sky-watcher on the Earth. If they ever try to break

ranks and tell us the truth, they are going to be disconnected from the

internet and then locked in a room and forced to watch endless re-runs

of Family Guy until they lose their minds and come out screaming.

Through this method of control and suppression the

C.I.A/K.J.B/M.I.6/A.S.I.S have ensured a total media black-out. The



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only people clever enough to break-through are those wise souls

behind the internet sites that you found when you went Googling.

Thank goodness they exist." Or something like that. Yawn.

Is it all complete and utter nonsense? You’ll have to reach your

own conclusion. I hate to be judgemental. I believe that an open mind

is the key to an open heart. I really can’t bring myself to be dismissive

of such a story, especially given the fact that I am an astrologer and

many people can be equally dismissive of all that I do and all that I

believe in. I have no right to stand up and point the finger of ridicule.

I may be inclined to think that this story makes about as much sense

as someone standing up and saying "If you want to lose weight, eat

nothing but pizzas and cream cakes and make sure that you never

exercise." But probably, someone, somewhere, reckons this is the

very regime we all need to follow. I bet someone, somewhere, is

willing to stand up and testify to the number of pounds that they shed

overnight when they took this advice. Probably somewhere too,

there’s a website that reckons the earth is going to tilt on its orbit once

the population of pizza eaters gets past a certain point. We can’t rule

this kind of thing out. But nor, really, do we need to plan our lives

around it.



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Will we really align with the centre of the galaxy

at the end of December 2012?

No. Not really. Well, kind of. The centre of the galaxy is a distant

point in the Milky Way that our Solar system revolves around. Just as

we go round the Sun, the Sun goes round the Galactic Centre. It’s a

journey just as slow as the one being taken by Mr Zecharia Sitchin’s

monster planet but it is scientific fact, not pseudo scientific fantasy.

Our Sun aligns with this centre of the galaxy every year around this

time and it has been doing so for the past 20 years at least. It will



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continue to do so for many years to come. Someone somewhere has

seized on this fact and then twisted it and made it sound special for

2012. But to say that there's anything important about the particular

alignment in 2012 is stretching the point way too far. It's just a regular

late December thing. To make a big deal out of it is like saying the

world should prepare because in February there will be a great festival

when people all over the world declare their love for one another,

gifts are exchanged, cards are sent and many find themselves falling

into a deep embrace. Well, yes, that's true, but it happens every year;

it's called Valentine's Day.



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What is this "end of the Mayan calendar" really

all about?

The Mayans were a civilisation who lived in the Northern part of

South America. In particular, they occupied the territory that we today

know as Mexico. They are not to be confused with the Aztecs or the

Incans although they have many traits and beliefs in common and

there are some indications to suggest that they measured time in

similar ways.



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The Mayans were a very clever bunch, responsible for someimpressive architecture - not least a series of enormous pyramids

some of which still stand. Pyramids, clearly, were once very popular

around the world. We know that they also existed in China because

they show up in aerial reconnaissance photographs of remote parts of

this region. Usually, though, when we think of pyramids we imagine

the kind we see in Egypt with smooth sides reaching all the way to the

top. The Mayan pyramids tend to be stepped. But it is easy to imagine

how those steps might once have been filled in to create a similarly

smooth surface. Perhaps they once were. Even so, we know that



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Mayan pyramids were constructed quite a long while later than their

Egyptian counterparts

Much research points to the idea that the Egyptians made

extensive use of astronomy (and thus astrology) in the design and

placement of their edifices. We also know that the Mayans looked to

the sky when they were building pyramids up from the Earth. The

most famous proof of this can be seen at Chichen Itza, a few hours

drive out of Cancun. There, a pyramid has been cleverly positioned to

catch the rays of the setting Sun, these cause a shadow to fall slowly

across the face of the building. At different times of the year, the

shadow takes up more or less of the pyramid’s face. On the day of the

Equinox, the shadow is longest. Just a tiny slither of a light is left

towards the very edge of a raised partition that stands proud of the

pyramid steps. As the Sun goes down the light begins to appear at the

top left and it slowly makes its way down to the very bottom - at

ground level. This gives rise to a wonderful optical illusion. It looks

for all the world, like a snake slowly appearing out of nowhere and

slithering down the side.



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To enhance the vision, the Mayans

created a sculpture of a snake's head at

the very foot of the pyramid so that on

the day in question, when the line of

light reaches the ground it meets up

perfectly with this carving. The serpent or, in particular, the feathered

serpent was an important mythological creature to the people of this

area, who identified it as one of their most powerful sky Gods,

Quetzcoatl. Quetzcoatl was also the name they gave to Venus. - or at

least to Venus as it appeared in the morning sky. Venus, as I'm sure

you know, is sometimes an evening star and sometimes a morning

star. We only ever see it at dusk or dawn because Venus (when

viewed from Earth) is never far from the Sun. Generally, it is up when

the Sun is up and down when the Sun is down. When it follows the

Sun down, we get to glimpse it for an hour or three as darkness falls

and makes it visible. When it comes up just before the Sun, we only

see it until the Sun has risen. The Sun is so bright in the sky that it

drowns out the light of all other celestial bodies apart from the Moon

(if the moon happens to be up during the day.) We never see Venus

during the hours of daylight. Well, when I say never, I mean almost

never. In 2012 we get to glimpse it in daylight... but for more on that,

you need to read another chapter of this very book.



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It has been suggested by some historians that the Mayans did

not understand that Venus, the evening star, and Venus, the morning

star, were one and the same. That's why they had two different names

for the one heavenly body. But then much has been suggested by

many historians and a great deal of it is deeply unreliable. This

indeed, poses one of the biggest problems for a researcher trying to

understand what the Mayans really knew and what they believed. The

world, it seems, is full of expert historians who have wildly differing

theories about this civilisation. They can get away with saying pretty

much what they like because they have hardly any written

information to draw on.

When the Spanish conquered this part of the world, back in the

early 16th century, they systematically destroyed every text and

written record. They were, they believed, doing the world a great

favour by stamping out the heathen, pagan religion of the land and

replacing it with Christianity. There's nothing new about this kind of

shockingly arrogant behaviour. It is, sadly, what religions have done

to other religions right around the globe since time immemorial. But

the Mayans were treated to an extraordinarily nasty insult to go with

their injury. A Spanish Bishop called Diego de Landa Calderón took

personal responsibilty for eradicating most of the Mayan knowledge

and tradition. Not only did he destroy the ancient writings, he



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persecuted the priests and elders. Once he had rid the world of all

written information and murdered those who had learned the oral

tradition, he then set about writing his own “History of the Mayans".

It is hard to think of a more untrustworthy source of information. It

would be like a priest, deciding that Harry Potter was blasphemous,

gathering up every copy of every book and every movie, burning

them all, sentencing JK Rowling to solitary confinement in prison for

life... and then writing his own description of life at Hogwarts. But

sadly Diego’s dodgy description is about the only source that’s left;

The History of the Mayan people, as told by the religious zealot who

persecuted them almost to extinction.

Historians ever since have had no option but to refer back to his

work since it’s pretty much all they’ve got. Some take it as the truth.

Others take it with a pinch of salt. The best and most hopeful

interpretation we can place on Diego’s behaviour involves him having

a sudden, late life change of heart. Perhaps, with all that blood on his

hands, he suddenly felt truly dreadful and set about atoning for his

many sins by writing down the most accurate summary of Mayan

culture and belief. A less favourable image involves him burying this

noble ancient tradition and then defecating on the grave by listing a

whole bunch of accusations against the Mayans in order to justify his



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own unspeakable actions. Whichever view they care to take, none can

be sure of the real truth.

Thus, we have to be very careful when we hear the tourist

guides telling us that the Mayans were barbaric and inhumane.

They may have been - or they may not have been - but the Christians

most certainly were! We’ll never be really sure whether Mayan

children were actually brought up with flat-boards tied to their heads

in order to give them pointed skulls or how accurate are the similarly

arresting images of young Mayan males threading cord through their

foreskins and traveling in procession, one tied to the other. Some of

this may have been true, some of this may not have been. But we can

see one very good reason for questioning the perceived wisdom in the

way historians recount the relationship of this civilisation with the

planet Venus.

If, as we are authoritatively told in some books, the Mayans

could not tell Venus the evening star from Venus the morning star,

how come they knew about the 242 year cycle of Venus transits - and

why did they base their famous "long count" calendar on this

exceptional phenomenon, a good 500 years before any astronomer in

the West was even aware of it? And why too, if their understanding of



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the sky was so "primitive and silly" did they go to all the trouble of

creating the pyramid at Chichen Itza, where the descending serpent of

light and shadow can still be seen, in perfect alignment on the

Equinox, to this very day?

The Mayan calendar is about all that we have left, in written

form, of their wisdom and knowledge. Our understanding of it is not

complete. The only other points of reference we have access to are the

various totems carved with signs and symbols that can be found

around some ancient Mayan settlements. From these we can glean a

little something of what they knew and what they thought. But it is a

bit like trying to piece together the history of modern Western

civilisation from a few "Keep Off the Grass" and "This Way to the

Exit" signs.

The only other hope of attaining true insight into the Mayan

mentality must come from the Mayans themselves. The Christians

wiped out many of their priests, elders and teachers but they did not

quite manage to kill off the entire population - although they came

pretty close to it. When they weren't rounding them up and killing

them, they were giving them the flu, and various other illnesses to



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which these people had never been previously exposed and thus for

which they had no immunity.

Still, though, in modern Spanish speaking Mexico there are

pockets of population where the ancient Mayan language continues to

be spoken - and where at least some of the old traditions are faithfully

upheld. One of these is the tradition of visiting the Pyramid of the

Serpent on the day of the Equinox. If you ever go there you’ll find,

amongst the Western tourists, hippy travellers and rainbow people

(for all of whom this is a popular attraction) indigenous families who

have clearly walked to the site from their villages, some great distance

away. The women carry their children on their backs along with

provisions for the journey and the families camp out overnight in

eager anticipation of the serpent’s appearance. There are also some

who proclaim themselves to be Mayan elders, teachers and holders of

wisdom. They have at least some of the oral tradition but it can be

difficult, in conversation with them, to know whether what they are

telling you is an accurate reflection of their ancestors’ view or a

carefully concocted pastiche that blends a little Mayan folklore with

some native North American imagery and a fairly large helping of

New Age philosophy.



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Fuelling this suspicion is the way that the story of the Mayan

calendar seems to have changed over time. 20 years ago, most sources

seemed to be unanimous. The long-count calendar is a prophecy. It

speaks of a time when the world will end and gives a very precise

finishing point. A date that translates in our modern calendar to

December 21 2012. It certainly seems as if the Mayans had the end of

the world on their mind. But there are some who feel sure that the

Mayans had the end of the world on their mind long before that.

They claim that they were expecting their own extinction. There are

many stories told of this civilisation ritually preparing for a time

when they would be wiped off the face of the Earth. Sometimes this

is put forward as an explanation of their fatalistic response to the

Spanish invasion.

The Mayans apparently believed that one day Quetzcoatl would

return - and that he would come from the sea. Thus when the Spanish

invaders arrived, they put up no resistance. They welcomed them with

open arms expecting to greet their saviours - who promptly massacred

them. But this story raises as many questions as it answers. If the

Mayans were expecting their extinction, they got it 500 years ago

when the Spanish came. So how come they are still expecting it?

Even the end of the Earth itself could not have been as ghastly or as



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painful as the torture that the Spanish inflicted upon these people by

the thousand. And if the Mayans did think that the arrival of the

Spanish represented the dawning of a new era for them, they can't

have been using their long-count calendar properly because according

to that it wasn't supposed to happen till 2012!

Since we were first told that the Mayan calendar is due to "end"

in 2012, there has been a whole lot of back-tracking. We are now

informed that this date merely represents a moment when the Mayans

expected consciousness to change across the globe. It has now been

characterised as a time when we may come to see life on earth very

differently. One thing we can be sure of is that the Mayans thought in

terms of eras and epochs, just as conventional historians might

separate history into prehistoric, medieval and "modern" periods.

Western astrologers also have this concept. See our chapter on the

Age of Aquarius later in this book. The Mayans had a different way

of counting and a different definition of what constitutes an ‘era’, but

they were definitely aware that at different times, different values and

beliefs would prevail. It’s pretty clear that the date December 21,

2012 marks a point on the Mayan calendar when they expected one of

these rare "changeovers".



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There is no evidence to suggest that they anticipated the date

itself to be important in anything other than symbolic terms. Had the

priests and leaders of this ancient culture still been in the business of

constructing totems, towers or pyramids, they might well have

chosen to begin work on one, on this auspicious occasion.



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Will the world economic system collapse in 2012?

No, but astrologers feel that Pluto's ongoing right-angle to Uranus

suggests it will soon adapt and evolve at a rate much faster than many

people feel comfortable with. A time of such change has long been

predicted and follows naturally from the upheavals that began in 2008

with the "credit crunch". It was then that the banks and financiers

began to lose some of the air of unimpeachable authority that they had



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previously exuded. There are now fears that within 2012 we will see

the collapse of more banks, institutions, currencies and even nations.

Those fears are, of course, self-perpetuating. The more people who

expect things to go wrong, the greater the chance that they will.

Recession, in essence, is no more complicated than influenza. It is just

as contagious and it might be best thought of as an illness that gets

into people. Once we start believing in it, we see the symptoms

everywhere and they simply serve to make us feel worse. Most people

get better from influenza. They get better from recession too but it can

take a lot longer and the strange thing is that they all seem to get

better at roughly the same time. Only on closer investigation do we

find that there are pockets of improvement, areas of business or even

just geographical areas where the problems don't hit as hard or last as

long, if they even take hold at all. In times gone by, people would

travel in search of work. For some, during a recession it may be an

option. But even if our geographical circumstances are too fixed to

change, we can all travel to a different place in our mind. Especially

now we are all so connected by way of websites and social networks,

we can pick and choose the company we keep and associate more

with those who take an optimistic view of the world's situation. The

odd truth is that simply by making this inner-journey, we can

immediately start to feel a bit more hopeful - and recession is all

about lack of hope.



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Recession may be best thought of as a psychological ailment

that affects millions of people at the same time. Because we are

surrounded by fellow "sufferers", we tend to feel that it is not

something we can cure ourselves of. We talk dismally about the

"current climate" and we let this inform the decisions we make. Thus

we make pessimistic decisions and assume that we will have no

money to spend. In the very act of doing this, we take away even

more opportunities from the collective table. Naturally enough, for all

of is, this increases the expectation of bleak times ahead. Effectively,

rather like money itself, recession is a form of mass delusion. We

don't question this so much during the so-called good times. But we

are, perhaps, vaguely aware that money is silly. If you've got some

pieces of paper in your pocket, you can consider yourself well-off. If

you haven't, you must be poor. Access to these precious pieces of

paper is highly restricted, there are only certain routes by which you

can get them. Why can't we all just have as many pieces of paper as

we need. "Oh goodness no," we are told by those who claim to know

such things, "The world just doesn't work like that!"

But during the so-called good times there are always at least

some optimists who insist that if you want to go out and earn an

endless amount of those pieces of paper, you can always find a way.

The people who preach and teach "abundance consciousness" are very



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insistent about that. The whole notion becomes easier to envisage

when you stop thinking about pieces of paper and start thinking about

plastic. Where is most of your money? The likelihood is, you don't

keep it at home. There is none under your mattress. It is in a bank

account somewhere. What form does it take in that bank account? Is

there a little drawer somewhere in a central bank, surrounded by

guards and dogs, carefully labelled with your name and filled with all

the notes that belong to you? No! There are just some numbers on a

file, in a computer. You are paid in those numbers, you go shopping

with those numbers and you sit around worrying desperately when it

seems that those numbers just don't add up.

So why should those numbers mean anything at all? Why can't

we all just trade in some other numbers instead? Why can't you just

pick a number out of thin air and say, "this is my number"? Because

not enough of us are willing to believe that such a thing is possible.

We believe only in the numbers that the banks and credit card

companies keep track of. How real are they? Not very, in one way.

They are real simply because we all agree to believe that they are real.

What else is money then other than the ultimate manifestation of a

shared belief system? We may not all agree about our religion. We

may have different names for God or we may choose to declare that

we have no faith in the creator whatsoever. Those beliefs represent



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our personal prerogatives. But financial beliefs are seemingly non-

negotiable. They are universal. They are far and away the beliefs that

are taken most seriously by the most people on this earth.

You can say "I no longer believe in this" and you can refuse, to

the best of your ability, to deal with money in your day to day life.

But the other believers won't let you get off that lightly. They will

evaluate you in terms of those numbers whether you want them to or

not. We might well ask though, what would happen if one day

millions of people just woke up in the morning and said, "Why do we

believe in this? It is not like it does us any great favours." The answer

is, in theory, that if enough people stop believing in money, money

would no longer have such a powerful hold over the world. It is an

illusion, a belief, a thing with no true substance that exists only

because so many people choose to see it as real. What's interesting

about a recession is that it highlights that very truth in reverse.

Suddenly people stop believing quite so much. Sadly, they don't just

stop believing in money and start celebrating. They just come to

believe that there isn't very much money, that soon there may be even

less and that life, therefore, is hardly worth living any more.

Ultimately it is an illusion within the illusion. But it doesn't seem that

way when you are trying to put food on your table.



33

There are some who say that the whole illusion of money, both

good and bad, inflationary and recessionary, needs to be shattered.

They believe we would be better off without it. These people get very

excited during a recession. They anticipate a time of great change and

come-uppance. They think the rich will be made poor (and that will

serve them right) while the poor will be freed from lives of quasi-

slavery; struggling and striving to earn their small share of an unfair

and artificial cake. A few people might lose their pensions, they

figure, and more might lose their jobs. But surely, that's a small price

to pay for changing the world into a fairer and better place.

There are others who are terrified of the damage that a recession

may do. If people stop spending, manufacturers will have to stop

manufacturing. Companies will have to stop trading. Governments

will have less profits to tax and thus less money to pay for the roads,

schools and hospitals on which we all rely. Worse still, they will have

less money with which to support the very poorest and most

disadvantaged in our communities. Thus the gap between rich and

poor will grow even wider, society will become even more unfair and

a growing number of disenfranchised individuals will become willing

to resort to desperate measures. And if the banks collapse, if the

governments cannot afford to pay their bills then the life-savings of

millions will also disappear, vastly increasing the number of people



34

who now need to rely on the state for support. That's the very state

which may no longer be in a position to help them. If this happens, so

the argument goes, before we know it, civilisation will collapse, we

will all have to go back to living in caves and hunting for dinosaurs.

This is likely to prove particular tricky because there aren't any

dinosaurs anymore.

These observers may not want a recession to happen but their

fear of what could occur should it take place, is a part of the reason

why every so often recessions do take place. Let us go back to the

point we have already made several times. Money is a fantasy that we

all subscribe to. Good times occur when we collectively imagine

ourselves to be prosperous. A time of wealth is still a dream but it is

the kind of dream that most people enjoy dreaming. Recession is

really also nothing other than a dream that we are much more inclined

to see as a nightmare.

So where is the cure for this collective malaise? It lies

somewhere within the possibility of an awakening. We have to stop

asking the question, "How do we get out of the bad dream and back

into the good dream?" Instead we have to ask, "Is there some way that

we could spend less of our time asleep?" That's one reason why



35

previous economic downturns and slowdowns have been described as

a wake up call. The question we began attempting to answer many

paragraphs ago was; will the world's economic system collapse in

2012? The answer is no, it won't. But it may come closer towards a

collapse than we have ever seen it come before. It may be that this

provides the wake up call to end all wake up calls. It may also be that

so many people decide they have had enough of the dream, that they

actually do, finally, wake up and start looking, seriously, at other

ways to reward merit and endeavour. Think, for example, how large

corporations supposedly exist to serve their share-holders. Everything

is fine as long as they make a profit. Everything is terrible if they

don't. Does it matter whether what they make is good for the world

and the people in it? Does it matter how green they are or how well

they pay their workers? Or how happy their employers are? Or what

difference they may make to their customers’ quality of life? Not so

much as you'd notice. Only one arbiter determines success or failure.

Isn't that woefully primitive? Isn't it a deeply divisive, desperately

unimaginative, outdated mechanism of measurement?

Might not the world, as it settles into the 21st century, be ready

for a more sophisticated system of evaluation and exchange? Think,

for example of how, once, people were happy to divide the world into



36

"good" and "evil". There were few grey areas. We had either heroes

or villains, angels or demons. Some people still like to think along

these lines. It comforts them and shelters them from the wind of

confusion. Yet most of us know now that any attempt to divide the

world into good and evil is, automatically, evil! Even if you have

every reason to count yourself amongst the good, the moment you

start pointing at someone else and declaring them to be "evil", you are

no longer being quite so good. In fact, by making such a harsh

judgement, you are affectively aligning yourself with what can only

be described as an evil force! The concept of evil simply doesn't allow

for nuance, or for the influence of an exceptional circumstance, for

mitigation, explanation, understanding or forgiveness.

It is to be hoped that as we settle into the 21st century, we are all

growing out of that age-old paradigm "our side good; your side bad".

Ever so slowly, it is getting harder for us to wage wars with each

other on that basis. But the people with the most to lose from this

long-awaited evolution of consciousness are the arms manufacturers.

Have you any idea how much money is made through the sale of

weapons? There are influential people all over the world with a strong

vested interest in the continuation of conflict. Whenever nations

mistrust other nations, how they must rub their hands together with



37

glee. People with these vested interests can't see past the need to make

and sell more guns, tanks and rockets. The more they sell, the more

money they make and who in this world can argue with that?

Certainly not the governments. They are funded in some large part by

the very firms who make the most money out of bloodshed.

So what might we, the human race as a whole, the collective

consciousness of the entire planet, be secretly wishing for? Might we

not all be inwardly yearning for a time when such groups lose their

iron grip on the people in power? How could this ever come about?

There are some who say that a recession could be the only force



38

significant enough to shift all of us, even such entrenched individuals.

But we must be careful with this line of thought. It is a sad but true

historical fact that when a nation is in a recession or a depression the

quickest and most effective way to get out of that trouble, is to go to

war. Suddenly all arguments against the spending of resources are

counteracted by the greater weight of the perceived need to put up a

spirited defence. Pension companies know this as do the people who

work in the top corridors of all the great financial institutions. When

they take our pensions, our savings and the money that we have paid

into our various life-assurance schemes they put them into "safe

places" where they can be sure of a return even in troubled times. And

who are the corporations most likely to provide such a return? Almost

invariably they are the ones who deal in methods of death and

destruction. So the question is not, will the system collapse? We've

already been clear, but I'll say it again. No, it won't. A much more

interesting question though is; as it comes perilously close to collapse

and we all start getting frightened - what desire for change will this

awaken in the hearts and minds of millions?

Will we all just be desperate for a return to employment and

apparent prosperity, even if it comes at the expense of spiritual

progress? Or will people start to forge alternative ways of interacting



39

materially with one another? Will the masses rise up in protest against

the narrow thinking politicians whose woeful lack of imagination has

lead them into this trouble in the first place? Will things get so bad

that people start thinking of radical options and embracing

progressive ideas? Here again, the answer is probably not. The true

driver of positive change is, was and always will be inspiration not

terror. The progress that may yet come will be driven by a memory of

how bad things got, but they really don't need to get much worse than

they already are in order for that to start happening.

So here now is the most important question of all regarding

money and the world in 2012. If the whole thing is a collective

fantasy involving billions of people worldwide, what difference can

you as an individual make to any of it? The answer is as joyous as it is

surprising. If you are willing to overcome your own fear and to forget

about your own desire for supposed security and economic assurance,

you can start running in the opposite direction to all who are heading,

lemming-like, towards the cliff of despair. Simply by refusing to be

afraid you can challenge the expectation. The minute you start to do

this, you will notice you are not alone. How many people does it take

to run in the opposite direction before the whole crowd turn round and

start following the new leaders? Far less than you might imagine. You



40

can, if you choose, play a very big part in helping the world come far

away from the brink of economic collapse. But you have to make that

choice. You have to commit to it. You have to start actively seeking

out the company of others who are trying to make a similar choice.

You have to stop listening to fear, even when you are faced with

palpable, tangible examples of how much power fear seems to be

exerting over the world. Even when surrounded by people who are (or

seem to be in danger of) losing their jobs, their savings, even their

faith in life, you have to hang on to your own view of the bright side

and keep your own candle of hope burning brightly. That's actually all

it takes to beat a recession, but I'm not trying to kid you that it's easy!

It isn't easy. But it can be done. The clear astrological implication is

that such a turn around is possible. You just need to choose to be a

part of it.



41

Will we make contact with aliens?

Astrologically we are going through a phase during which "almost

anything is possible". Towards the end of 2011, scientists nervouslydeclared that they had (they thought) discovered a sub-atomic particle

that could travel faster than light. According to all conventional

wisdom this is simply impossible. Some people are excitedly hoping

for the experiment to be repeated and "proven". Others are keen for

new evidence to emerge, confirming that some great mistake has been



42

made. I can confidently predict that no definitive answer, either way,

will be reached during 2012. I'm also prepared to prophesy that

eventually this record-breaking, mind-blowing, paradigm-shifting,

neutrino will be found. And with that, the laws of physics as we know

them will all have to be re-written. The very same cosmic climate that

now brings the world so much upheaval and uncertainty is causing

people in almost every walk of life to re-think their ideas. We now

know that there is water on the Moon and on Mars, while Venus has

an ozone layer. 20 years ago all of these ideas would have been

considered unthinkable. Still though, there is a great social stigma

attached to "belief in aliens". If you say you have seen a UFO, you are

likely to be dismissed as, at best, an eccentric with wild ideas or, at

worst, a person in need of psychiatric help. So I had best be careful

what I say. There are though, some people who feel very strongly that

aliens are already walking amongst us. And yes, they have taken on

human form. The way they see it, we all of us come into this world

from another world, so far away that we can hardly remember where

it is or what it is like. We do not belong here, we are only visitors and

one day we will return just as suddenly and mysteriously as we

arrived. What are you and I but aliens? Yet we are so caught up in the

idea that we "belong" to this world, that we find it hard to think in

such terms. We don't just speak about our ancestors as if they were

extensions of ourselves, we speak similarly about the people who



43

used to live in the same land that we do. We identify so strongly with

the culture into which we were born that we can hardly see where it

ends and we begin. We identify with the struggles and battles that

were fought by previous generations. We don't say "THEY used to

think that" or "They used to do that". We say, "WE used think it - or

do it". But even if you belong to no other world than this one how

could you be sure that your last visit to this earth, or your next one,

will take place in the same land, the same culture, the same family?

The human race still has a long way to go before it properly sees itself

as one race. Once it has passed this first basic test in intelligent

understanding, it may yet get itself into a position where sentient

beings from elsewhere in the galaxy consider us worth talking to!



44

Will there be earthquakes, tornadoes, tsumanis

and droughts?

Sadly, yes there will. There may even be more of these than usual. In

astrological terms, the ongoing right-angle between Pluto and Uranus

is a classic suggestion of increased seismic activity and it also heralds

sudden, dramatic weather changes. But we must see this in

perspective. There are natural disasters even when the cosmos is

comparatively quiet. We tend to see more under circumstances like

the current ones, but this does not mean that we should be expecting

problems at every turn. The vast majority of people on this earth will,



45

in 2012 and 2013, go about their business, leading normal lives

without once encountering anything more radical than some slightly

unusual or unseasonal weather.

But our world is growing ever more connected. Where once, we

hardly knew about physical challenges faced by people in distant

lands, we now see their trials and tribulations reported in great detail

on the news and on the web. We don't just read about disasters, we

don't even just see photos. We see live broadcasts. We feel far more

involved and at one level that's a wonderful thing. It suggests that we

are becoming more sympathetic to one another. It also means that we

are more inclined to see other people’s problems as our own. We

may, for example think there is more war these days than there used

to be. There isn't. But we are more aware of what war there is. We

care more. We identify more. We are far less inclined to put up a

psychological barrier and say "Oh, that's just something that's

happening to those strangers over in that distant place." Naturally

enough, this means that we can't help but think, "If it is happening

over there, perhaps it is going to happen over here too." Another way

to look at this is to think of what happens when you are in a very dark

room. It may be a terrible mess but you can't see it so it doesn't bother

you much. As the light begins to come through the curtains or even as



46

the curtains are drawn back, the first thing you notice is how much

cleaning up needs to happen.

Ignorance represented a kind of bliss. Knowledge now

represents a duty to do something constructive. As we become more

aware of conflicts abroad, we suspect that the world must be getting

worse. But it is potentially getting a lot better. It is the same, to some

extent with corruption, with suffering, with deprivation and with

disaster. Apart, that is, from one thing. Where we can now see man-

made problems taking effect, we can choose to become part of the

solution. We can join campaigns and lend our energies to efforts to

"clean up" the world.

We don't feel quite so empowered when we become aware of

natural disasters taking place. We become more afraid. We recognise

that nature is a powerful and unpredictable force. None of this though

means that nature is any more powerful or unpredictable than it

ever was.

There probably are going to be more natural disasters around the

world over the next two years than there have been in the last few



47

years. But we will hopefully become more adept, if not at anticipating

and avoiding the impact of these, at least at organising ourselves into

task forces who can go out and help. All this is for the good. But it

does mean that more of us will be prone to worry and to care. It is

right that we should be more caring. It is not right that we should

therefore expect more trouble in our own backyard.



48

Will the antichrist appear?

People who do bad things practically never see themselves as bad

people. The more we judge them as "bad", the more at risk we

ourselves become of displaying "bad qualities".

That is the problem with overly simplistic notions like "good

and bad". None of us are entirely good. None of us are entirely bad.

Some people though, might consider this a controversial statement.

What about Hitler? What about a mass murderer? What about

someone who gives way to some dreadful impulse and causes untold

harm? Perhaps I should revise this statement. Perhaps I should say,



49

none of us are entirely bad but some of us do such bad things it then

becomes almost impossible to see the good that remains within them.

Then, though, we must explore the idea that none of us are entirely

good. Are some of us really so good that it becomes difficult to see

what could possibly be bad about us?

Here we have to be careful. Most, though not all, of the people

we might characterise as bad tend to see themselves as good. They

have reasons and justifications for their actions and they believe

wholeheartedly in these. We can even argue that what makes a person

"bad" is at least partially their own inability to see that they are doing

something bad. So what about somebody who sees themselves as

good? If they simply can't see what's bad about themselves, isn't that

bad too? Let's leave that question gloriously unanswered for the

moment and turn our attention to some of the people in this world that

we tend to see as unequivocally, inarguably good. Say, for example,

Mother Theresa. Or perhaps, more to the point, Jesus.

Millions of people, all over the world, believe that Christ is the

ultimate manifestation of all that is good. They believe that nothing he

ever did or said was bad. They are entitled to that belief, of course.

They may well be right. But in refusing to accept that anyone could



50

have no bad in them, they are taking a very big leap of faith. Implied

in this faith, amongst other things, is the idea that if someone else

doesn't believe in the same thing that they believe in, that person is

either bad or is subscribing to an idea that must be considered bad -

and therefore they must be well on the way to badness. The word

"antichrist" means precisely what it says. Someone who opposes the

teachings of Christ. Unless, that is, an antichrist is worse than that.

Someone who declares their own commitment to Christ but then uses

that faith to justify actions and attitudes that embody the very

opposite of whatever Jesus stood for. This is all very tricky territory. I

can feel myself getting bogged down in it with each sentence that I

write. I sincerely hope that I haven't lost, upset or offended you so far.

Stick with me, please. Over the last 2,000 years, many terrible things

have been done in the name of Christ and Christianity. Dreadful wars

have been waged. Horrible punishments have been inflicted. From our

more enlightened perspective in this modern day and age, we can look

back on many historical figures and accuse them of having been anti

Christ. Yet some of these people saw themselves as being completely

and utterly pro-Christ.

So, what is an antichrist? Whatever definition you choose to

settle on, it is certainly nothing new. The world has seen many



51

influential leaders onto whom it is perfectly possible to fix that label.

From an astrological point of view, there is absolutely no reason to

expect the imminent emergence of another such figure. Depending on

how you care to look at it, the world is already full of folk who fit that

bill or it is no more full of it than it ever has been. Or the whole idea

is just a nonsense. From a "consciousness" point of view, we are

living in times of awakening awareness. More and more people are

beginning to suspect that if any idea or principle is "anti Christ" it is

the notion that "antichrist" can exist.

This takes us right back to the whole debate about good versus

bad. If it cannot be good to refuse to see the good in anyone, no

matter how "bad" they may be, then it must be bad to think that

anyone is completely and totally good in every possible respect. Too

often we look at the world as if we are looking at a movie. We

experience an almost primeval urge to identify heroes and villains.

We want the distinction between those characters to be black and

white, crystal clear, beyond all discussion and debate. Otherwise, how

do we know who to cheer for and who to hiss at? Each of us,

individually, must wrestle with our own conscience. We must ask

ourselves, "Is it ever really fair to be so dogmatic and judgmental?"



52

Shades of grey are never as pleasing to look at, especially when

they are shades of grey within ourselves. But we can argue that we

show a much greater level of maturity when we are willing to

acknowledge their existence. More and more people are starting to see

those shades of grey and, as they do, the potential power of both a

Christ-like figure and a so-called "antichrist" diminishes dramatically.



53

Will the Earth collide with a giant comet or meteor?

No. Small meteors collide with us all the time. Planet Earth is, after

all, a spaceship. We are all passengers looking out through the

window that we call the sky. Our ship travels through parts of space



54

that are heavily populated with celestial debris. At various points in

the year, particularly August and November, we make contact with

hundreds or thousands of those small chunks of rock. They burn up in

our atmosphere. We call them shooting stars. Every so often stray

celestial objects come relatively near to us. Some of them don't

completely disintegrate. Meteors land quite regularly. Very rarely do

they ever hit anyone or cause any substantial damage.

Such events will continue throughout 2012 and long beyond.

There remains a small chance that one of these days a much bigger

object may appear in our sky and that we may have reason to worry

about a possible collision. But if that were ever to be the case, we

would know about it. It would be detected in plenty of time and

governments would work together to deploy the very technology with

which they usually wage war to reduce the size of such an intruder.

Science and astrology don't always agree but on this subject there is

unanimity. Nothing like that is coming our way, now or in the

foreseeable future. Whatever else we may choose to lie awake at night

worrying about, we really don't need to let it be this thought.



55

What and when is The Age of Aquarius?

"The Age of Aquarius" is a song from the musical Hair. It was

inspired by a phenomenon well-known to astrologers and astronomers

alike. We call it the Precession of the Equinoxes. I'm going to precis

this quickly and roughly or I will end up writing an entire book. One

good reason why I shouldn't do that is that my friend Terry

Mackinnell has just written one; The Dawning. It is published by

Xlibris, it is available on Amazon and it is 400 pages long. If you

want to know what I think about this subject, I think pretty much what

he thinks! And, as he explains himself very well, I can't see much

point in re-inventing the wheel. The idea comes from the fact that the

stars in our sky move very slowly over a long period of time. They

also, of course, appear to move very quickly each and every night. As

dusk deepens we see one constellation on the horizon and during the

course of the evening we watch as it rises and then eventually sets

over in the west. But the reason for this is not the fact that the stars are

moving. It happens because we are moving. And what we see, when

we look at the sky reflects the spinning of the great, big round rock

below our feet.



56

Other than the fact that they go up and come down every night,

those stars don't change their position. Or rather, they do, but they do

it so slowly that we can't see it happening. Happily, there have been

people on the Earth, watching the heavens for thousands of years

now. Some of them have left notes and detailed measurements. Others

have been extremely clever and perceptive. They have worked out

that the Earth has a little wobble in the way that it spins. When I was a

kid, I used to have a spinning top. I don't know if they make such toys

anymore; if they do I'm going to get some for my grandchildren to

play with. You pump the little handle at the top a few times and it

starts whizzing round wildly. Then gradually it runs out of energy.

Just before it comes to a halt, it slows down and begins to turn with a

distinct wobble. That's pretty much what the Earth is doing although it

doesn't spin anywhere near so fast or we'd all be dreadfully dizzy.

This is not happening because we are slowing down (so there's no

need to worry). But our wobble, in principle, is a bit like that wobble.

As the top spins, the handle on the top stands still. As you watch it

during the phase when the top is slowing down and wobbling, you

can see the handle beginning to describe a kind of circle. If you stuck

a giant pencil on the top of the handle and fixed it so that the point on

the pencil touched the ceiling of your room, it would draw a little

series of circles that would all join together to make one big circle.



57

If the Earth is a spinning-top, then the North Pole is like the handle. It

points up at the sky and lines up with a star that currently, we call the

North Star. As our North Pole describes that same sort of circle, over

thousands of years this causes our pole to align with a different star.

The pole star that we see today and that sailors navigate by is called

Polaris. It is not the same star as the one that they looked at a few

thousand years ago when they were trying to establish where North

might be. It isn't just the North Star that changes over time.

Approximately every 2,150 years the Sun's position, at the time of the

Equinox, will have moved into a new zodiac constellation. Thus over

25,800 years (give or take) the Equinox moves through each of the 12

constellations. The precession takes place in reverse order. It leads us

backwards through the zodiac. That's why astrologers now talk of us

leaving the age of Pisces and not, as you might expect, entering the

Age of Aries but instead, entering the Age of Aquarius. The Age of

Aries is believed to have happened between about 2,000BC and 0AD,

but these dates are very rough and my friend Terry has his own take

on this topic.

By the way, this precession of the Equinoxes is also the

technical reason why the zodiac constellations don't line up with the

zodiac signs that we use in modern astrology. It is this apparent

anomaly that causes astronomers to scoff at astrology. "What silly



58

billies those astrologers are," say the astronomers smugly, "they say

the Moon is in Leo tonight, but if you look at the sky you can clearly

see that the Moon is showing up against the constellation of Cancer!

They must be as blind as bats as well as stupid and superstitious."

Actually we know full well what constellation the Moon is in

but we don't use constellations to measure the sky. We very

deliberately take 12 equal divisions of the ecliptic (the sun's apparent

path around the Earth) and (even though we also know that the Sun

doesn't go round the Earth) we define our zodiac according to those

measurements. We do this because we know about the precession of



59

the Equinoxes and we feel that it is more important to take these into

account than to stick with the strictly visual information in the night

sky. We astrologers have known about this for thousands of years.

The ancient Greeks (and in particular, a rather clever fellow called

Hipparchus) studied precession, as did the Babylonians before them.

So the next time you hear somebody dissing astrology for this reason,

please feel free to show them what you have just read, or direct them

to Terry's book, or just do what I do; roll your eyes, draw a deep

breath and pray to the God of patience.

Anyway, where were we? Ah yes, the Age of Aquarius. You

really must want to know about this if you have managed to wade

through the last few paragraphs. I commend you on your curiosity and

commitment. The excitement, expressed in that musical, centres on

the idea that right now we are in a process of transition between one

age and another. It hangs on the belief that we are entering a new age

and that perhaps it will be a golden age. That's a very appealing

proposition. It makes us feel special because it allows us to feel that

we have been born at an important time of great change. The new age

is dawning and we are here to greet it. Won't our grandchildren

admire us for that? And back in the 60’s, there were lots of other

reasons to believe that a new age might be dawning. All those hippies.



60

All those festivals. All those Beatles albums. Even, indeed, all those

stage-plays where people got naked and sang joyfully.

So when precisely should we expect this new age to dawn?

Surely if it started 40 years ago, it must be well under way by now?

Well, here I must welcome you to the world of astrological debate and

discussion. It is simply not so clear-cut. First of all, we are talking

about a dawning. Think of what happens when you watch a sunrise.

That's a very slow process. It gets light before the sun has risen in the

sky. It takes a fair while before you see the first golden rays come up

above the horizon. It takes even longer before the whole sun is up in

the sky. And if you happen to be in a forest, it can take even longer.

You may not see the sun until it has come up above the height of the

trees. That's just one morning. One sunrise. One dawning. Here we

are talking about a dawning that takes 2,150 years. Let's do a quick

calculation. Suppose a daily dawn covers a couple of hours. That's

one twelfth of a 24 hour cycle. One twelfth of a 2,150 year cycle is

going to take more like 180 years. Assuming you are not in a forest.

So with all that in mind, can we now return to the question "How far

into the dawning of the Age of Aquarius are we now?"

Er… not quite.



61

Remember I told you that astrologers, in their daily work, don't

use constellations because we prefer to refer to equal divisions of the

ecliptic, measured from the Equinox? Well, there's another jolly good

reason why we like to use those equal divisions. The constellations

are not equally spaced. Nor are they even of equal size. Those little

"join the dots" pictures in the sky are all well and good but you can

spend forever arguing about where they each begin and end and

precisely how many dots need to be joined into each of the symbols.

Even if you can reach agreement on this matter, you've still got the

problem of what to do with the gap between each constellation. If, for

example, there's a gap between the end of the Scales and the

beginning of the Scorpion, whose gap is it? Does it belong to Libra or

Scorpio? Or is it, as some people suggest (and others refute

insistently) a kind of grey area or no-man’s land? Remember, we're

not talking here about the zodiac signs that you and I look at each day

when we want to see our forecast. We are looking at the

constellations, which have the same names as our zodiac signs but are

in different positions. Most modern astrologers only ever even think

about these when they are considering the question of the astrological

ages. As soon as they do, the same old debates begin.



62

"Is that bit of sky up there a part of Pisces or a part of

Aquarius?" The moment you ask a question like that, you get all the

experts murmuring. They become like rabbis, earnestly discussing a

part of the Old Testament and trying to work out what God really

meant - or like philosophers, determined to establish how many

angels can dance on the head of a pin - or even like judges on the X

Factor, wondering who to put through to next week's competition.

Nobody can give you a definitive answer. They can just tell you their

opinion. So we might as well put it out to the public and invite them

to vote.

Many different dates have been suggested for the start of the

Age of Aquarius. Some say we should take the beginning of the

industrial revolution. Others think it more appropriate to start with the

moment when we first put a man on the Moon. Yet more people feel

that we won't be living in a new age until we start putting women on

the Moon, and stop leaving it all up to the men. There are those who

believe that the new age only really began when Tim Berners Lee

invented the internet.

My own personal opinion (and I know I shouldn't really add to

the confusion by throwing it in here but hey, this is my article and I



63

am writing it) is that we can marry it all up to the moment in 1781

when William Hershel discovered a new planet called Uranus and just

a few months later the very first hot air balloons were invented, giving

us all the potential power of flight.

Actually, when I say that this is my opinion, it is what my

opinion used to be until I read Terry Mackinell's book. Terry reckons

that if we are going to use any technological breakthrough as our

marker point, we have to take into account the invention of the

printing press. That takes us back to the middle of the 15th century.

When he first mentioned this to me, I felt a bit cross. I wanted to say

"Don't be so silly." But I didn't. He's a big chap and he's an Australian

too. It is never a good idea to argue with an Aussie. Anyway, I'm glad

I didn't because the more I think about it, the more sense I see it in it.

From a practical point of view, it works. There's your first glimmer of

light. There's information finally able to make its way to the masses.

The people who got access to those very first books must have felt

just as liberated and amazed in their time as we feel when we type a

question into Google and get back a half-decent answer. You can, if

you want to get poetic about it, see the whole of the internet as a kind

of echo of that printing press discovery. The same note on a musical

scale, now being played louder at a higher octave.



64

Or, if you really want to start wearing puffy sleeves and giving

your hair a poet's perm, you could see the printing press as the first

glimmer of light after a long spell of darkness and the internet as that

same light, now much intensified, rising high in the sky and touching

everyone with heat and radiance. And when you stop to think about

the symbolism of Aquarius, it all figures. What does the water-bearer

keep in his (or her) urn? It is not plain old H2O. It is liquid, drawn

from the fountain of knowledge. Is this what the prophets meant when

they told us to look forward to an age of enlightenment? Apparently

so. That's a little disappointing for those who were hoping to see a

time when swords turned into plough-shares and lions laid down with

lambs. We are still a long distance from world peace and nor have we

found a way to share universal love. But then, I don't suppose that the

reality would have made the old song so exciting, "When the moon is

in the seventh house and Jupiter aligns with Mars, then this will be an

email planet and we'll all have Facebook in our cars."

It is beginning to look very much as if we are already in the Age

of Aquarius and it is way past the dawning now. We may not be any

smarter than our ancestors were but we are undoubtedly better

informed. We are also a lot better connected. The great hope for

humanity is, perhaps, that as we evolve further we will reach a point

where we are truly driven by reason and understanding and that this



65

becomes the force that helps us all to end war and suffering. As we

discover more about who we really are and how we are relating to

each other, we may recognise the need to treat our planet with more

respect and become more appreciative too of our fellow human

beings. Maybe what catapults the whole of the human race into an era

of higher consciousness will be increased intelligence rather than a

deeper sense of love.

Terry Mackinnel



66

What about the transit of Venus?

The most exciting thing about 2012 is the rare transit of Venus that

will take place on 6th June. This, to all intents and purposes, is a kind

of eclipse but normally, when we use the word eclipse we think of the

Sun, the Moon and perhaps the shadow of the Earth.



67

The Moon has nothing to do with this big event. The stars of this

celestial show are due to be Venus and the Sun. Venus, of course, is

the planet of love. Venus is named after the Roman Goddess of

Love, the same Goddess of Love who was envisaged by the Greeks

as Aphrodite.

Venus wasn't just any old Goddess, she was the ultimate. The

most beautiful, captivating, seductive manifestation of femininity; the

most wonderful female fantasy figure, all flowing locks and glorious

figure, shapely and comely, soft, sensuous and girly. One brief look

into her eyes could steal the heart of any man… or woman. Long

before the world had heard of Marilyn Monroe, she was the supreme

centrefold, the perfect pin-up; the dream woman. And she was, of

course, made entirely of dreams. These were the days before movies,

photographs, even oil paintings. Nobody could say exactly what she

looked like because everybody saw her differently. Artists and

sculptors spent centuries attempting to capture her essence and create

her image. But none would ever dare to claim that they had shown the

world her true form for she was (and is) a Goddess. Deities may

briefly take the shape of a mortal but they live forever in our

imaginations. They do not age, they are not flawed and they

encapsulate our own deepest hopes and wishes.



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What does Venus look like? If you want to see her, you must

look into your soul. She is a part of you. She belongs to you. She is

your own idea of the ideal woman. Whenever men fall hopelessly in

love, it is at the moment they gaze upon their partner or potential

partner and find themselves no longer able to recognise her for who

she is. Somehow, she has transformed herself before their very eyes

into their own living, breathing version of that eternal legend.

Whenever relationships crumble it is at least partly because Venus is

no longer so easily visible within the beloved. Thus Venus is a spirit,

a whim, a fancy, a fantasy. No woman has ever managed to

completely embody this endless desirability. But all have secretly

aspired to do this, many have consciously tried and some have come

surprisingly close.

What else can Venus do other than captivate and mesmerise?

She can reward and inspire. This is why she has also become

associated with the gift of creativity. She is the artist's vision, the

writer's idea, the composer's melody, the poet's elusive muse. She

does not simply represent physical attraction and earthly love, she

symbolises the joy and magic of spontaneous invention. Whenever

you are making something, creating something, conjuring a notion

from the ether of the unknown and bringing it into physical



69

being, you are effectively embracing (and being embraced by)

Venus herself.

All of us can say that at some magical moment of our lives, we

have known her. None of us can claim that we own her. Venus comes

and goes from our lives. She visits but she does not take up residence.

She takes us for a journey but we can never take her for granted. In

this respect, she is a little like luck. We all know what it is to be

lucky, but none of us know how to keep hold of fortune and make it

do our bidding. There are though, some who say that Venus and the

love she awakens in our hearts, counts for far more than luck. Luck

turns up in our lives, works a little magic and leaves. Venus turns up

in our lives, inspires us to work a little magic of our own and then

leaves us with a tantalising memory. For the rest of our lives we can

look at the picture we have painted, hum the song that has come into

our heart or pursue the idea that she has blessed us with. We may

wonder how we did it and feel bemused by the depth of inner talent

that we once tapped into. We may then understand why it is said that

Venus can gratify yet she can never satisfy. But those legacies of an

Venusian visit can still last a life-time. They may inspire a symphony

that millions will willingly pay to hear. Or even a business plan that

proves profitable year after year. The world may contain starving

artists but none of these can truly be considered poor, for they are all



70

aware of the incredible wealth that Venus has blessed them with. All

this goes some way to explain the traditional connection between

Venus, the planet of Love, and opulence, luxury, comfort and

sensuality. Nothing is more Venusian than an expensive, exquisite

item. If it is the finest, if it is the best, if it is priceless beyond measure

and precious beyond belief it, whatever it is, belongs to Venus.

It isn't hard to see why Venus the Goddess has given her name

to Venus the planet. For much of the year you can see Venus in the

sky, shortly after the sun has gone down. This is the planet so bright

that it shines. When, in 1806, the sisters Ann and Jane Taylor

published their song "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star", it was the planet

Venus that they were referring to. But Venus is not always an evening

star, sometimes she is visible early in the morning, just before the Sun

rises. It is very important to understand this if you want to know why

this rare transit of Venus is so meaningful. The orbit of this planet

keeps it, on average, 108 million km away from the centre of our solar

system. But the Earth is at an average distance of 150 million km. So

we are always further away from the Sun than Venus. No matter

where we are in our orbit or Venus is in her orbit, it always looks to

us as if Venus is near the Sun in the sky. What happens to an object

that is close to the Sun from our perspective? It becomes invisible!

When the Sun is up, it shines with a light so bright that all else is



71

obscured. The sky turns blue and against the back-drop of the blue

sky, not a single planet or star can be seen. We only see Venus if she

happens to be up just a little bit before the Sun or if she happens to

stay up a little bit after it. She may still be up, long after she has

vanished from our view, but the daylight stops us from seeing her.

During a transit of Venus, that changes. A transit, like an

eclipse, requires two celestial bodies to be not just near each other,

but slap bang on top of each other. (Well, I'm talking about how they

look when we see them from here, not actually how they are in the

sky, but you take my point.) Once a century or so, we can actually see

Venus travelling right across the face of the Sun. She looks no bigger

than a tiny black dot; a strange, sleepy spider or a bewildered beetle

crawling gradually along the face of the great fireball. She can only be

seen for a few short hours. You can't even look at this without

wearing special eclipse glasses or making one of those funny

cardboard cameras that they tell you how to make in activity books

for boys. But it is an amazing thing to witness and scientists get

terribly excited about it. It allows them to make all sorts of

measurements. And, because it happens less than once a century,

some never live to see it at all, while others consider themselves lucky

to be experiencing a once in a life-time phenomenon.



72

Even when it happens, it cannot be seen from everywhere on

Earth. You may have to travel some long way to catch it. That's why,

in 1769, Captain James Cook found himself visiting Tahiti and

making a series of careful observations as he watched the transit of

Venus on June 3. Later on that very same journey, he discovered

Australia. The text-books don't make much of this. They just give you

the information in a very matter of fact way. They say, "First he

watched the transit of Venus, and then he discovered a brand new

continent." We astrologers are inclined to read a much deeper level of

symbolic cause and effect into the whole expedition.

To see a transit of Venus is to be deeply and powerfully blessed.

Even to live in the world while a transit of Venus is taking place is to

be touched by the hand of the divine. Here, albeit briefly, is an object

of the night, revealing itself during the day. Here is the hidden,

suddenly becoming visible. Here is the stuff of our dreams presenting

itself to us in our waking world. Transits of Venus take place in pairs,

8 years apart. You get a gap of 121.5 years between one pair of

transits, then another gap of 105.5 years before you see the next pair

of transits. The world saw a pair of transits in December 1874 and

December 1882. The next transit took place on June 8th 2004. I

remember it well. It was a gloriously sunny morning and I watched it

through a special piece of welders’ glass in central London, by the



73

side of the River Thames. There was hardly a cloud in the sky and I

felt truly privileged to be witnessing this rare spectacle. In the time

that it took for Venus to slowly crawl across the face of the Sun, I

walked over the Millennium Bridge from St Paul's to the Tate Modern

and then made my way along the riverside to the London Eye,

walking backwards for much of the journey because the Sun was

behind me! I can't claim that the transit itself was so powerful that it

protected me from falling into the river. I had a friend with me who

was watching my step! Venus was still visible as I rode around the

big wheel, hardly able to take my eye off it for a moment. I felt as if I

was being blessed, as if I was gaining access to the deepest part of my

own inspiration and vision. I began to see new possibilities for myself

- and for the world. I guess you could say I was seeing new horizons

hoving into view.

My own life changed significantly in the days that followed. I

reached the end of my contract to write forecasts for the UK Daily

Mirror and returned to the Daily Mail where my predictions, in

Britain, have been appearing ever since. I also found that my own

powers of prophecy were enhanced and increased. At the time there

was much competition between London and Paris. The two cities

were vying to be the hosts of the 2012 Olympics. Paris were

considered the bookmakers favourites. Half-way round my journey on



74

the London Eye I looked over towards the docklands and felt

suddenly totally sure that those 2012 Olympics would be happening

there. I said as much in public despite raised eyebrows from several

so-called experts who told me I was going to make myself look

foolish. I foresaw several other national and international events at

roughly the same time. None of these had quite such historic

significance but all of them were right. I remember thinking "Next

time this happens, I'm going to take a notebook and pencil and a much

longer list of questions to answer." I've got my notebook and pencil

ready now. I may well travel to see this next transit of Venus. It will

be happening on June 6th and will be visible from Sydney,

Melbourne, all of New Zealand and many places across the Pacific

Ocean. From North America it can only be seen partially, at sunset.

From Britain and Europe, the Sun will rise while the transit is taking

place. It won't be visible at all for most of South America or Western

Africa. The next transit of Venus won't happen December 11th 2117

and even allowing for advances in modern medical science, I don't

expect to be around by then.

Now, in telling you how it influenced me, I am not trying to

give you the idea that the event is only any good for prophets, seers

and star-gazers. It is a highly auspicious occasion for every single

person on the face of planet Earth. It is a time when ventures can be



75

undertaken and new plans can be made, a time when we can all set-

off to explore new horizons within ourselves. Most of the

conventional astrology textbooks make little mention of the transit of

Venus but from the research that I have done, it would appear that the

second of the transits in each pair is the more powerful by far. Even if

you hardly noticed the first transit, even if little in your life changed

on or around June 8th 2004, you can expect a moment of real

revelation on or around June 6th 2012.



76

Will solar flares destroy our communications

systems and shut off all the Earth's electricity?

Have you heard of sunspots?

These are little dark markings on the face of the Sun that come

and go every so often.

You can't see them with the naked eye because, of course, you

can't look straight at the Sun. Indeed, you can’t do that, even if you’re

wearing incredibly expensive sunglasses that have been desgigned by



77

for you personally by Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana.

To study sunspots, you need to have special equipment; infra red

cameras, satellite telescopes and sensitive monitoring devices. Or at

least, that's what you need these days. In times gone by, sunspots

were measured by little wooden boxes with mirrors or pinholes in

them. You'd point them at the Sun, then project an image onto a piece

of paper or a white wall. Over the centuries, various students of the

cosmos have built and used such devices. They traced the sunspots in

pencil and watched how they changed over time. Gradually they

detected a distinct 11 year cycle in sunspot activity. The numbers of

spots rise and fall rather like a slow tide. Once every eleven years

they give us a “solar minimum”. Five and a half years later, (more or

less, give or take, it's not exact), we get a maximum. The last solar

minimum was in 2006. The last maximum was in 1999.

Somewhat to their shame, most conventional astrologers have

been slow to make use of this 11 year cycle in their predictive work.

Traditional fortune tellers tend to be more interested in the cycles of

the traditional planets. Only a few, at the cutting edge of horoscopy,

seem to recognise the potential benefits of getting more ‘Sunspot

savvy.‘ These are our academic comrades; writers and researchers

who rarely see clients and never turn out zodiac forecasts for

magazines. Every so often, they turn up at astrologers’ conventions



78

and present clever lectures, accompanied by slides full of numbers,

graphs and diagrams. They are forever telling us that if only we all

studied the sun more carefully, we might find many useful

correlations. They insist that if we paid more attention to those

appearing and disappearing sunspots, we’d have a much better

understanding of the great cyclic rhythms on Earth like the stock

markets, the weather patterns and the rate at which pandemics come

and go. The rest of us attend their lectures, nod attentively... and then

decide to carry on as normal.

Thus, these poor old pioneers are almost universally ignored.

Their fellow astrologers glaze over when they talk and the grown up

world of science won’t listen to them because what they’re talking

about is a link between what’s going on in the sky and what’s

happening here on Earth. That’s astrology, not astronomy. And as any

astronomer will tell you, with a strange mixture of glee and venom on

their face, astrology is not a fit and proper subject for any intelligent

person to study. It doesn’t matter how many graphs they’ve got on

their power point presentation or how many numbers they have been

quietly crunching. They are pursuing a ‘silly idea’. They are

effectively suggesting that you can ‘read meaning’ into the mind of

the universe. They might as well be waving a crystal ball for all the

chance they’ve got of being taken seriously by a scientist.



79

Astrologers, therefore, tend to leave the sunspots to the

astronomers who completely reject the notion that anything in the sky

might ever be ‘trying to tell us something.’ It’s a good job they don’t

know my friend Greg Sams, who recently wrote a book called “Sun

of god”. In this book, he makes an impressive case for thinking of the

Sun as a living being. Indeed, not just any old living being like a

plant, a tree or a goldfish ... but an intelligent, sensitive conscious

being, like a human. Well, not perhaps exactly like a human, because

humans aren’t always very intelligent or sensitive and nor do they live

very long... but more like the traditional idea of a deity with special

powers and a distinct tendency to live for millions of years. Greg

reckons that the ancient civilisations, who worshipped the Sun as a

god, might have had it just about right. I like Greg and I like his

thinking, too. Why can’t the Sun have thoughts and feelings? Why

can’t it make deliberate choices and take active responsibility for all

the planets that revolve around it? Why can’t it be clever enough to

know what it is doing and why it is doing it? But then, I’m an

astrologer. I believe in a universe where nothing happens by accident.

I live and breathe the idea that the cosmos is kind and caring enough

to help us all by using the planets to write messages in the sky. I know

that makes me seem extra silly in the eyes of most scientists. But I’d

like you, please, to hang on to that thought for a while. It could come

in useful.



80

Anyway, that’s enough philosophy for now. I’m trying to tell

you about what scientists currently do think, not what they don’t

think. So I’m going to have to adopt a tone of voice that shows them a

little more respect. Scientists, even the ones who believe in God,

really don’t think that the Sun is a god. Nor do they think that it

knows (or cares) about human life. They think it is simply a “thing”.

A kind of big fiery machine. A system. A process A giant nuclear

reactor that just so happens to be sitting in the sky, emanating

warmth, light and enough gravitational pull to keep the planets

moving. They are only interested in Solar physics and Solar

chemistry. If you asked them whether one day, we might be able to

predict the price of gold by studying sunspots, they’d raise their

eyebrows in despair. But if you asked them whether there’s a

connection between sunspots at their maximum and Solar flares,

they’d smile and agree. They may also add that those flares are linked

to a phenomenon they call Coronal Mass Ejection.

A Coronal Mass Ejection is called a CME for short. It is not

quite the same thing as a solar flare but there’s nothing very elegant

about the letters CME. If I use them, I am going to have to pepper the

rest of this piece with awkward initials and some of my readers are

going to notice how warm the room is, remember how little sleep they

got last night and how good it feels to have breakfast digesting in



81

their tummies. Next thing you know, I’ll be talking to myself... and

the people who are helping me market this book will be trying to sell

it as the perfect cure for insomnia. But I need your attention because

we’re talking here about what could be a very big issue. So I am

tempted to take a cheeky liberty and fudge right over the delicate

difference between a Solar Flare and a CME. If that worries you, look

it up on Wikipedia. But if that kind of thing really does worry you,

you may find the next few paragraphs even more worrying.

Solar flares (oh, go on then, CMEs) are gigantic blasts of light,

gas and radiation that leap out all the time from the surface of the Sun.

Sometimes, they happen once a day. Sometimes, they happen 5 or 6

times a day. Maybe more. We can’t see them all because even with

our super satellite telescopes, we can only see one side of the Sun at a

time. The flares that shoot out from round the back need not bother us

much. The only ones that really matter are the ones that are seemingly

aimed in the general direction of the Earth. These have an impact on

the Aurora Borealis or the Northern Lights. The Northern Lights can

usually be seen from lands that lie towards the tip of the Northern

hemisphere. They are common in places like Norway, Sweden,

Lapland and Alaska. Sometimes they come a little further South and

provide a glorious display above Scotland, Northern England and

parts of the North American continent. Similar phenomena occur in



82

the Southern hemisphere. Those lights are called the Aurora Australis.

You get them in Antartica, South America, New Zealand and, of

course, South Australia. The lights are very pretty. They are also,

probably, a danger signal. When they are at their most spectacular, the

flares (whoops, sorry, CMEs) are at their most intense. That’s when

they are most likely to have an impact on radio transmissions and may

also wreak havoc with electrical devices. Some pilots have reported

bad radio interference when flying at times of intense solar activity.

Apparently when those CMEs are really strong, they can mess with

radio signals closer to the ground. They can also mess with electrical

cables, knocking out power lines and depriving entire cities of their

energy supply.

Oh dear. I just said CME again, didn’t I? OK. Let’s deal with

that difference. It’s probably worth the effort. A flare is made of heat

and light. A Coronal Mass Ejection is a massive burst of “solar wind,

other light isotope plasma, and electromagnetic radiation.” That

means a CME doesn’t have to be visible. If it happens around the

same time as a flare, as it often does, you can see it coming. If not,

you’ve got to use lots of clever, expensive equipment to work out

whether it has happened or not. Until, that is, it hits the Earth’s

atmosphere and causes those skies to start twinkling like Christmas

trees. And a CME can carry terrawatts of electrical energy with it. If it



83

could only be harnessed, you could use it to boil enough water to

make a nice pot of green tea for everyone in China. No wonder things

get tricky when a CME makes contact with a power grid.

Are you worried yet? I don’t see why you should be. I haven’t

told you anything that’s new. Probably, you’re just thinking, “Well

they come our way all the time and they’re full of electricity, just like

lightning. We know how to protect our power grids and

communication systems from that. I bet that some boffins,

somewhere, know exactly how to protect us from CMEs too.”

Right. Now you can start to worry. It turns out they don’t! They don’t

usually need to because of something called the Magnetosphere. This

is a kind of invisible force field, way out in the Earth’s atmosphere. It

does all the protection for us by deflecting the worst damage that a

CME could do. Or at least, it is supposed to. But the Magnetosphere

is a bit of a new discovery. The more we find out about it, the less we

understand it. And the latest news from the world of science is that

the Magnetosphere is holy. Not Holy, like my mate Greg thinks the

Sun might be... but holy, as in full of gaping great holes. Think of it as

a torn safety net or a pierced suit of armour. It is vulnerable. And so

are we.



84

You’re still not worrying, are you? You are thinking, “Well OK

then. So that Magneto-thingummy has a few little problems. But if

they were really that bad, we’d all be goners by now.” I like your

thinking. That’s what I was thinking too, when I first began to read

those internet scare stories. But now, I’ve got to tell you why those

scare stories might actually be just a little bit, er... scary.

You’ve been reading for quite a while now. Feel free to stop for

a while and make yourself a nice hot drink. You can check your email

too if you like. I’ll still be here when you get back.

There. See. I told you I’d wait!

Right.

Let’s begin with a recap.

The Sun is lively and the Sun is moody. For years at a time, it

just sits around quietly at the centre of the Solar System, twiddling its

thumbs and doing very little. Then, once every eleven years or so,

goodness gracious! It starts spitting out great balls of fire.

So what kind of mood is the Sun in right now? It turns out that

we’re due, even overdue, for a solar maximum. It could come today.

Or tomorrow. Or some time in 2013. And it may just be that we’re



85

about to be treated to an extra special, super ferocious set of ejections.

Not all maximums, you see, are the same. Every so often, you

get a kind of maximum maximum. We had one of those back in 1859.

It really made the Northern lights look lovely but it caused a lot of

trouble to telegraph operators.

In 1859 we didn't have national power grids or radios but we did

have instant messaging... of a kind. Messages were sent manually and

slowly, from one part of the world to another, by a smart little system

called Morse Code. Telegraph operators would tap out at set of long

or short ‘beeps’, each of which translated into a single letter of the

alphabet. The person at the receiving end would listen out carefully,

clutching a pencil. They’d count the beeps, work out what letters they

were all supposed to be and then pass the message on.

Or at least, that’s what they’d do when the system was working.

Every so often, it would play up. And often, the problem would turn

out to be a Coronal Mass Ejection.

In 1859, the problem was particularly noticeable because the

CMEs were particularly strong. So, what would happen if we were to

ever get another of those ‘maximum maximums?‘ You might think



86

‘Hey, no problem. We don’t even use telegrams any more,’

But now, we use systems that are a lot more sophisticated yet a

lot more vulnerable. Our phones, our websites, our TV broadcasters

and our SatNavs all depend, to some extent, on satellites. They all

need signals that are likely to get bounced right up into space. and

then bounced right back down again.

Remember those pilots and the problems they had with their

radios? Well, they were a lot nearer to earth than those Satellites are.

The Satellites are up in space. So is the Sun!

A ‘maximum maximum‘ with a particularly angry Sun might

not just take out the electricity in a few cities for a few hours or a few

days. It could rip apart the global communication network.

Not worried? You think you’d be fine for a while without texts,

phone calls, Google maps and all your favourite Satellite TV shows?

Well, maybe you would be. You might even find life more enjoyable.

But that’s not really the issue.

You’d come across that, the moment you tried to use your credit

card. How is the store going to take your payment if the card reader



87

can’t contact the central computer to authorise the transaction? Or if

there’s no electricity to power the little screen and run the machine

that counts the notes? If you’re only trying to buy a pair of shoes, it’s

not such a big deal. But suppose you’re trying to pay for your

groceries?

Even if you’ve got a stash of cash under your mattress, the

shopkeeper isn’t going to want to keep it under his (or her) bed. He’s

going to need it to pay the wholesaler to pay for more deliveries.

Assuming that is, the wholesaler isn’t suffering from a power outage

and a communication blackout too.

As an expert in electronic transactions recently observed, “The

modern world relies heavily on the technical systems that enable

commerce. Electronic banking, ATMs, debit and credit cards are all

interwoven into electronic networks that link you and your

money with the seller. These systems are fairly well secured.

However, there is one single point of failure for all of these systems,

and that is the power. The electric transmission system.”

The ‘big fear’ is that if we hit a ‘maximum maximum’ and those

CMEs turn especially vicious, the world may have to try to remember

how it managed in the old days. But it may not be so easy to turn back



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the clock. The previous systems were built up slowly, over time. Not

everyone is going to be patient. Some may get angry. And hungry.

They may even go crazy and start to loot, pillage and steal. The forces

of law and order might not be able to contain them because the police

would not be able to use their radios or take phone calls. The

authorities may even run out of money to pay for the fuel that the

police need to keep their cars on the road.

Those who seriously expect all this to happen argue that the

only way to survive would be to build a bunker, deep underground

and fill it with enough supplies to last a year or two, because this is

how long the crisis could drag on for. You'd have to live in the

bunker, eat out of cans and then take it in turns to man a machine-gun

post so that you could mow down all the thousands of desperate

people who were trying to get their hands on some of your precious

reserves.

They are thinking about bunkers because they fear that the

banks and the governments aren’t making any plans to minimise the

problem. And if you tell them not to worry because the Solar Flares

won’t be so bad, they will point to various leaked documents and

surpressed studies that they have found, all of which suggest that it’s

not just potentially ‘that bad’... it’s worse! But then, people who think



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seriously about bunkers tend, generally, to be pessimists. And

pessimists often secretly yearn for the day when their most negative

expectations are proved true so that they can tell the world ‘I told you

so.’

OK. That’s enough ‘What if it all goes wrong?’.

It is time for some ‘What if it all goes OK?’

Nobody knows for sure what the solar cycle is about to do next.

We could indeed be about to experience a maximum maximum. But

we could also be about to enjoy a ‘minimum maximum’; a prolonged

quiet period in the rhythm of the sunspots. There’s historical evidence

to suggest that this has happened before. The sunspots don’t peak

every 11 years or so without fail. Sometimes, they skip a peak. That

might buy us a whole another eleven years to identify the weakness

and guard against it.

And even if they do peak, we’re not automatically doomed. To

do damage, those CMEs have to be pointing right at the Earth and

they’ve got to line right up with the gap in the Magnetoshpere at

exactly the right (sorry, I mean wrong) moment.

The best way to think about this is to imagine that you live by



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the side of a very busy motorway. Cars and trucks hurtle past your

home day and night. You often think ‘What would happen if one of

those drivers fell asleep at the wheel and went out of control? They

could easily crash right into your building.’ Then you re-assure

yourself that there are crash barriers all along the side of the road. If a

car went wild, it would only hit it and then be deflected. Just as you’re

about to breathe easy, you notice that one of the crash barriers is

faulty. If they were to hit it from a particular angle, it would give way.

It’s fairly likely that there will be an accident. There's a very remote

possibility that this accident could happen just where you least want it

to. But there’s a much stronger possibility that it won't.

In my view, as a professional prophet, the luck of the human

race is going to hold. We may get a wake up call. We certainly

deserve one. But if it comes, it will take the form of a near miss. We

may have some power outages and some surprising communication

problems. But these will only serve to ensure that someone starts

making some contingency plans so that if or when it really, actually,

happens we’re not so dependent on surprisingly fragile technologies.

Either you have to trust that, or you need to start digging a

bunker.



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What if we survive 2012 unscathed but find out that

it’s 2013 we really have to worry about?

2013 is going to be a fine year.

Nor need we live in dread of 2014, 2015 or indeed any other

year in the 21st century. There will, of course, be those who want to

tell us that 2012 has been only the beginning. They may well propose



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the suggestion that things can only get worse. But look around you;

what state is the world in? Things can and will only get better! What's

fascinating to me, as someone who has watched so many dates for the

"end of the world" come and go, is that I know of no other such date

on the horizon. I'm willing to bet that it won’t be long before

somebody picks another point in the future and tells us that this is the

real time that we all need to be looking out for and getting worried

about. I rather suspect that the doom mongers will next set their sites

on 2020 or perhaps, 2036. But I'm also happy to promise that the

world will survive these and all other such dates with destiny.

Our children, our grand-children and even our grand-children's

grand-children, have a fine future ahead of them.



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Afterword

In writing this book, I have expressed various opinions; some of

which are based on my experience of thirty years as an astrologer

and some of which are based only on my 54 years of being alive on

planet Earth.

The trouble with having opinions is that they tend to put the

opinion-holder at loggerheads with other people who have other

opinions. Astrologers, generally, do better when they keep their

opinions to themselves or better still, strive not to have any at all.

If you really dig deep on the internet, you can also find people who

say that in 2012, we will be visited by ascended beings from the 5thDimension who will help us all rise to an elevated level of

consciousness from which the whole world will appear

very differently.

Let’s hope they are right. It would be very nice to think that

such revelations lie in store for us all. If we do all enter such an

inspired and enlightened state, no doubt we will all see our opinions

in a new light and we’ll start leading far wiser lives.



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In anticipation of just such a shift, I apologise for the number of

opinions I have subjected you to.

But I don’t apologise for saying that the world will not end.

It really and truly won’t.

If it does... you can have your money back!

2012 survival guide

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