Product Description

Cross James Merrill, H. P. Lovecraft, and Carlos Castaneda -each imbued with a twenty-first-century aptitude for quantum theory and existential psychology-and you get the voice of Daniel Pinchbeck. And yet, nothing quite prepares us for the lucidity, rationale, and informed audacity of this seeker, skeptic, and cartographer of hidden realms.

Throughout the 1990s, Pinchbeck had been a member of New York's literary select. He wrote for publications such as The New York Times Magazine, Esquire, and Harper's Bazaar. His first book, Breaking Open the Head, was heralded as the most significant on psychedelic experimentation since the work of Terence McKenna.

But slowly something happened: Rather than writing from a journalistic remove, Pinchbeck-his literary powers at their peak-began to participate in the shamanic and metaphysical belief systems he was encountering. As his psyche and body opened to new experience, disparate threads and occurrences made sense like never before: Humanity, every sign pointed, is precariously balanced between greater self-potential and environmental disaster. The Mayan calendar's "end date" of 2012 seems to define our present age: It heralds the end of one way of existence and the return of another, in which the serpent god Quetzalcoatl reigns anew, bringing with him an unimaginably ancient-yet, to us, wholly new-way of living.

A result not just of study but also of participation, 2012 tells the tale of a single man in whose trials we ultimately recognize our own hopes and anxieties about modern life.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #37012 in Books
• Published on: 2006-05-04
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 416 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Pinchbeck, journalist and author of the drug-riddled psychonaut investigation Breaking Open the Head, has set out to create an "extravagant thought experiment" centering around the Mayan prophecy that 2012 will bring about the end of the world as we know it, "the conclusion of a vast evolutionary cycle, and the potential gateway to a higher level of manifestation." More specifically, Pinchbeck's claim is that we are in the final stages of a fundamental global shift from a society based on materiality to one based on spirituality. Intermittently fascinating, especially in his autobiographical interludes, Pinchbeck tackles Stonehenge and the Burning Man festival, crop circles and globalization, modern hallucinogens and the ancient prophesy of the Plumed Serpent featured in his subtitle. His description of difficult-to-translate experiences, like his experimentation with a little-known hallucinogenic drug called dripropyltryptamine (DPT), are striking for their lucidity: "For several weeks after taking DPT, I picked up flickering hypnagogic imagery when I closed my eyes at night ... In one scene, I entered a column of fire rising from the center of Stonehenge again and again, feeling myself pleasantly annihilated by the flames each time." Pinchbeck's teleological exploration can overwhelm, and his meandering focus can frustrate, but as a thought experiment, Pinchbeck's exotic epic is a paradigm-buster capable of forcing the most cynical reader outside her comfort zone.
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From the Back Cover

"Daniel Pinchbeck's 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl is a dazzling kaleidoscopic journey through the quixotic hinterlands of consciousness, crop circles, and ancient prophecy, as well as an intriguing and deeply personal odyssey of transformation. 2012 presents a compelling and complex teleological argument, weaving together the twilit realms of the human imagination and the harsh realities of accelerated global catastrophe. Its conclusions are surprisingly robust, original, and thankfully optimistic."
- Sting

"A daring and intriguing, sometimes deeply disturbing, very well researched and extremely readable book that puts an entirely new slant on 2012. From quantum physics to aliens, from crop circles to reincarnation, from shamanic hallucinogens to Rudolf Steiner, from the Amazon jungle to Stonehenge, from fragments of jaundiced autobiography to the ending of worlds, Pinchbeck takes us on a mind-bending, paradigm-rattling ride."
- Graham Hancock

"Few things are more difficult to convey in writing than the epiphanic drug experience or the mystical vision, and it is to Pinchbeck's credit as a writer that he is able to articulate these visions so clearly and memorably."
_ Geoff Dyer, Los Angeles Times

"Pinchbeck's reporting is fascinating and entertaining." - Brian Doherty, Washington Post Book World (front page)

"The author is not some hippy-dippy hedonist staggering down the road of excess but rather a skeptical philosopher of consciousness seeking the enlightened path." - Troy Patterson, Entertainment Weekly

About the Author
Daniel Pinchbeck is one of the founders of Open City, an art and literary journal. He was a 1999-2000 Fellow of the National Arts Journalism Program at Columbia University and has written for many leading magazines.

Customer Reviews

Well Written; Well Researched
I was phenomenally impressed with Daniel Pinchbeck's Breaking Open the Head, so when 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl was published, I jumped on purchasing it as soon as I could.

It has taken me a while to complete the task of finishing up this book. I had started it several months afters its publication, but had to put it down as other things had occupied my attention. The enthusiasm to pick it back up had wanned a bit, and it wasn't until a few months ago that I decided to task myself with completing the read.

Whereas Pinchbeck's Breaking Open the Head was a subjective journey into psychedelics and the spiritual nature of these indigenous catalysts - which ultimately led Pinchbeck to accept the spiritual realms - 2012 is his continued journey into the belly of the spiritual and paranormal - with continued psychedelic use - as he attempts to search for truth and find a place for himself in this new spiritual worldview. In his first book, he was a man in a mid-life crisis attempting to look for something more in his shallow post-beatnik literary New York world. In his second book, he's a newborn making discoveries and drawing conclusions in an attempt to make sense of his new knowledge. It was an interesting transition to watch him go through.

Pinchbeck is well learned; and 2012 is an excellently researched book. It offers a springboard for several points of study should the reader want to go off in any one of the many directions that this book takes. Pinchbeck brings up everything from psychic abilities, the occult, to many other fringe sciences and archeology. This book is not one that you tread lightly in. Leave the TV off. You're going to need your concentration.

Pinchbeck spends a lot of time focusing on crop circles in what is probably the most entertaining section of the book. I'm not a crop circle fan, but his work in this area does make me want to investigate some of that phenomena further.

Pinchbeck's style is very multi-tiered. He mixes normal events in his personal life with researched material as well as spiritual experiences. In this way, 2012 can be read from several different angles: as a research tome, as a spiritual investigation, and as a personal look at the psychology of the author. It wasn't until the latter 2/3's to 1/4 of the book that I felt that the third tier was overpowering the rest.

Two significant things happen in this book that affect the rest of the writing: Pinchbeck comes to his epiphany about crop circles, and he cheats on his partner by making out with another woman. Both occur at roughly the same time. When Pinchbeck has his epiphany, he makes the transition from researcher to philosopher. He takes his conclusions and runs with them, believing that he has found the key to the crop circles and trying to find someone to hear him out. This epiphany, in many ways, seems to affect his outlook on spirituality. He builts a condescending attitude towards the New Age and flippant tiredness towards events like Burning Man - an event where he decided to trip and then stretch the experience by refusing to sleep and fasting.

Furthermore, Pinchbeck begins to preach the necessity of polyamorous relationships, and seems to be trying to use indigenous relationships, and a search for a new way at viewing sexuality, as a justification for his infidelity. I know a few people who are polyamorous, and one thing I know for certain is that they accept all ideas of sexuality. They have never tried to preach the virtues or "rightness" of theirs over another's beliefs. Pinchbeck's insistance on polyamory boils to the point of a "voice" in his head demanding that he sleep with a woman who had previously turned him down or else kill himself by walking off into the wood. This is later understood by Pinchbeck to be the yearnings of a past self, but his insistence and attitude during this episode is a contradiction to the open-mindedness displayed earlier in this book.

Whether the end is near or not we'll never really know until it is upon us, but one thing that shines through dramatically in this book is the necessity to pay attention to the indigenous cultures of the past and heed their myths and stories. These people were far more in tune with the world than we ever were. They know that the environment is having issues... now it's out turn to listen and act. Daniel Pinchbeck gives us a phenomenal look at one man's journey to find his place in all this madness. Maybe it'll move some of us to do the same... and along the way, maybe we can fix some of the damage that we've done.

Vital Infromation or the Ravings of a Drug Addled Lunatic?
I picked this book up wanting to expand my understanding of the Mayan calendar and the significance of the year 2012. While I read some fascinating insight into certain beliefs and/or interpretations of the Mayan calendar system, what I mostle got was the stories of the author's use of psychedelic drugs.

While some of the material here is very informative and thought provoking, this is much more the tale of the author's own drugged out journey to what he feels is his own enlightenment.

From stories about speaking with shamanistic gods, to being taunted by "daimons", there is far too much selfish writing in this book, and it honestly takes away from Pinchbeck's credibility. After a while you get tired of reading about yet another trip the author was on and what it meant to him.

Get set, Get ready...Go!!!
Five more years!!! Even if nothing happens a lot of info
in this book is eye(mind) opening and a must read. Some
of Daniel's personal accounts could have been left out imo,
but the research he obviously did for this book was outstanding,
and took out a lot of (internet/library) leg work for myself.

Let's get ready to party like it's 2012!