Mysticism, Internet fuel Mexico’s Maya ‘Armageddon’ fears | Firstpost

Mysticism, Internet fuel Mexico’s Maya ‘Armageddon’ fears | Firstpost: When dawn breaks on Friday, according to the Maya Long Count calendar, it marks the end of the 13th bak’tun – an epoch lasting some 400 years – and the beginning of the 14th.

This fact would probably have languished in academic obscurity had not a young Maya expert named Michael Coe written in the 1960s that to the ancient Mesoamerican culture the date could herald an “Armageddon” to cleanse humanity.

Since then, the cult of 2012 has snowballed.