While walking passed Union Square's mega bookstore, I was struck by a streak of green caught in my peripheral vision. After a brief pause, I walked backward to align myself with the cover, which had teased my rushing eye. The jacket, I could swear, swelled and rested, as if daring me to determine whether an inanimate object might possess life. Like a key to some previously unrecognized door within myself, this book has often guided me to vistas I had not known required my attention, but leave me unquestionably different.

Pretty mind blowing leap into the many different cultural propehcies that point to 2012 as an "endtime" or tipping point in the evolution for human consciousness.
Also dabbles into quantum physics, various time/space concepts, and how human expectations can affect physical outcomes.
I have to admit that I didn't like this book as much as I did his first book "Breaking Open the Head".
The first part of this book is excellent with a very objective and thought provoking approach to the subject matter.
But then towards the end, the entire book kind of shifts gears and gets more into what was going on in the personal life of the author as he was writing the novel. Kind of a pity-party for himself...
Still a great book overall!

Will blow your mind, but in a good sort of way. Weaves together such seemingly divergent topics as crop circles, Carl Jung, Burning Man, Rudolf Steiner, and more post millennial strangeness, into a seamless memoir that retains its readability while still remaining among the more thought provoking journeys one can undertake through words. A worthy successor to Breaking Open The Head, and anyone who enjoyed that fantastic treatise on psychedelics and neoshamanism will enjoy this book as well.

What I learned from this book: The world will probably not come to an end on December 21, 2012, but something strange is definitely in the air, and it would seem we are rushing towards some sort of...event, which hopefully will be more satisfying then THE HAPPENING. Now maybe the world will end on that day. We'll just have to wait and see.

Either way, I'm not going to quit smoking until December 22, 2012.

Goodreads should have a shelf called "quit reading." That's where I'd put this book. The dude can't write - sentences go on and on with no direction. I think this is mostly cuz every other sentence contains some long quote by someone else. His main authorial tact is to string these together to illustrate... what, I'm not sure. I guess he's read a lot of interesting books. So, I quit reading this one and am going to those sources. I wouldn't have been allowed to this liberally quote source material in high school. My teacher would have sent my paper back asking for some of my own ideas - Pinchbeck doesn't have many. It's unfortunate cuz the subject is interesting and deserves a more thoughtful and insightful treatment.

Daniel Pinchbeck documents his own exploration into the theories of December 21, 2012, among other things. This book was a frustrating read at times as I do not agree with some of the things he subjected himself to, but it is his life and he is an interesting character. He writes well, and he explains his theory well. He is not an expert on "2012ology" but he is the first author I have come across that shot a theory out there that hit close to home. He insists the "change" that is coming will be some kind of "transformation of consciousness". Who knows, maybe we'll all end up being able to read each others minds. (This is not something he specifically suggests, but I'm sure he's enterained the thought of it.)

Before reading this book, I assumed it would be an embarrassing read, aimed at forwarding some sort of New Age agenda, or perhaps a dry treatise on a manifestation of apocalypse ideology in popular culture.

I found that, while I couldn't really stand the author's self-centered ranting on the demands of monogamous relationships, I really enjoyed reading this. It opened up my mind to certain aspects of mysticism and I understood, because of the way the book is presented, that you can be a casual to extremely interested observer of 'dumb hippy stuff' without having to degrade the ideas presented as ridiculous or untrue. Instead, fundamentalist acceptance of this somewhat pervasive discourse is no different than the uncritical acceptance of the tenets of organized religion or belief that scientific discovery is the key to human salvation. Both are widely practiced, but probably not preferable. Likewise, one doesn't have to fully buy into the radical aspects of the mythology surrounding the year 2012 to get a good education of the who, what, where, when and why.

Pinchbeck is a journalist, which is apparent in this book. He also states that he a 'generalist' and makes no claims to be an expert on any of the topics he attempts to interpret for the audience. But he goes on many personal interludes, to add his own ideas and reactions while keeping somewhat objective in his presentation of ideas. He provides biographical information about his family and other close relationships. I wouldn't say that he presents himself as a particularly likable guy, and his writing isn't particularly likable either. (It's very good at times, though.) But, because I had this biographical information, I was able to read this book knowing the author was in a process of discovery both of himself and of his subject matter, a process which probably couldn't cumulate into anything convincing enough to come off as prosthelytizing.

While it's clear that Pinchbeck fully believes that something will change with human consciousness near the date December 21, 2012, he never fully commits to exactly what it is. It centers around the concept that Carl Jung's 'collective consciousness' will manifest itself concretely into a human mind soup called the noosphere, but doesn't give an indication about how metaphorical or intense or sudden this will be, just that it will happen.

Without having the book on me, and having read it a few years ago, I can only give a partial summary. Pinchbeck discusses the Mayans, their calendar and how their warriors fought with their minds, so were unprepared when the Spanish decided that it was more effective to eliminate enemies with weapons. I giggled a little bit at that image. He also discusses that their calendar predicted the end of their civilization, and 2012 is the next cycle after that 'civilization end point'. He does a lot of experimenting with psychedelics. I wasn't totally excited about these passages, but he did an okay job of writing about something that doesn't seem easy to put into words. He also interviews several important figures from almost every aspect of the 2012 mythology, including the author of several books based loosely on Mayan mythology and calendar, José Argüelles, who is probably the only person Pinchbeck comes pretty close to calling bullshit on. What else... he loves to talk (babble) about German philosopher Martin Heidegger, also Carl Jung. I liked his writing on Terrence McKenna. I am sort of intrigued by McKenna, but not enough to try to figure out what he's talking about. DP can do it for me. Burning Man he finds isn't quite the forward thinking festival he thought it would be, but he ends up getting something out of his experience.

One last thing. It bothered me that the edition I read was full of typos. For example, Pinchbeck uses the word 'antinomy', a philosophical term, several times, and it is misspelled as the chemical element antimony at least once. Some of the passages contain repeated ideas, two sentences next to each other saying exactly the same thing, but worded differently.

I would recommend this book for anyone who wants a thoroughly researched yet skeptical review of just what is the big deal? surrounding the year 2012, and doesn't care if it's far from perfect.

Time to fuck with your mind a bit. I'm all for it. Mind's were meant to be fucked with. I have been a little obsessed with 2012 for a while now and when I accidently knocked this green gem off the shelf at Barnes and Noble while looking for Chuck P's latest I gave into synchronicity and bought it.

Daniel Pinchbeck is alright. He's a competent writer and pretty intelligent, though he's no Terrence Mckenna. The book is a gathering of facts that range from Shamanism and psychedelics to crop circles and alien abductions...the usual Coast to Coast AM fare. Unfortunately this might be the books downfall. He's got me sold on a lot of things and I love his research on Jung and Neitzsche and he's got some genuine insight into the occult and alternative thinking but he lost me in more than a few areas where his pettiness and sex drive became grossly transparent while defending his actions. I also saw a video of him speaking at Burning Man in some gawdawful tye dye get-up and it just reminded me of the myriad hippies I grew up with in Santa Cruz. Fashion sense aside he is well learned and does have some useful insight on subjects that would interest you if you were to be interested in this book in the first place. He's also managed to get me to pursue further many of the personalities and concepts he approaches in the book in further detail.

The bottom line is...if your interested in 2012 and the apocolypse (which you should be) then read this. There arent a lot of books on the subject and this tome is chalk-full of interesting shit related to our future and we all need to wake the fuck up STAT. So...good job Daniel, get the word out.

After the hype of the book's cover, this was a disappointment. I was hoping for some explanation and defense of Mayan cosmology--though not really expecting it--or of McKenna's "time-line zero" theory, which I'd always thought was crazy despite my sffection for McKenna. Instead I got a lot of mumbo jumbo which basically amounted to "2012" as a metaphor for the current, on-going crisis which remains unlikely to be resolved.

I am totally indifferent to this book. It's in the 'Controversial knowledge' section at my book store. I can see why. It was in the Science section first, but I was confused as to WHY it was in the Science section. Anyways, i've read tons of books on the world ending and when it's going to end, for example: Nostradamus. My dad is quite Obsessed with him, I don't know why, I think people who predict things are scary, and should keep it to themseleves. Sure that sounds immature, but in reality, I am not sure how many people are excitingly waving their arms to have this gift or curse rather. Anyways, like I said i'm totally indifferent to it, I was confused the whole way through.. If in fact this does happen, then good for him, no one in the planet will be around to thank him.

Pinchbeck's 2012 is his journey to understand the human psyche through the use of psychedelics, explorations of crop circle's, and even analyzing alien abductions. Yes, it is just that bizarre, but many moments of synchronistic events took him there. The main theme of the book is that the end of the Mayan calendar and even the biblical apocalypse of the Book of Revelations is not the end of days but the end of an era marked by a shift in humanity’s consciousness. A shift that he believes can be reached through psychedelics as used by shamanic traditions all around the world but that is attainable by anyone who is open and willing. While he does tend to wallow in his own emotional misery due to his inability to be honest with partner and ultimately himself, he does provide a well written and interesting perspective on human awareness drawing from many different areas. Just take a look at the somewhat eclectic bibliography from anthropology and psychology to poetry and alternative science. Pinchbeck doesn’t spend a lot of time with “trip” stories, just a few snippets here and there with the exception of his final message from Quetzalcoatl. In the end, he is not the self-proclaimed messiah some accuse him of; he is just the messenger of the possible time to come and our unlimited potential to prosper in it.

I would love to meet Daniel Pinchbeck. This book is very difficult to define. It's a combination of psychotropic drug use, "New Age" spirituality, Crop Circles, UFOs, Global Warming, Daniel's relationship woes, and...the Mayan calendar! I had a hard time getting into it, but eventually was sucked into Daniel's world. I know someone like this; extremely intelligent, but emotionally stunted. This book seems to me to be Daniel's search for The Middle Path. I need to read his first book now, "Breaking Open the Head". I checked out "2012..." due to my interest in the Mayan Fifth World, but have found myself more interested in what happens in Daniel's personal life?!

I'm not done. I can't stomach the B.S. Really I'm open to all the things he talks about but he approaches them with such failure of logic, such misinformation, such utter inaccuracy that I just cant stand to read this straight through. Essentially what he's done is takin' McKenna's beautiful and mythical Timewave Zero trip and tried to dogmatize it and incorporate every freakin' "alternative" view of the universe into it. It rambles, it relies on its own authority, it insults instead of refutes. In essence it's Fox New for New Age people. If you want to know how the New Age movement functions this is a good book. If you want to why the New Age movement has made no progress and is endlessly chasing it's own tail, this is a good book. If you are seeking truth in any fashion, skip it.