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.

CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 3.5 based on 112 reviews)

Awful

I bought it thinking it was going to be interesting - it is hard to read because it is so bad.

My father picked it up and read a few pages and had to put it down because it was so bad.

Don't waste your time or money - not really about 2012, more about the author and whatever ego/mind trip he was on.
September 10, 2008

Lame Lame Lame

I thought that this book was going to be about 2012, but instead it was some annoying guy justifying his drug habit. I wish I had kept my money and bought something of substance.
July 28, 2008

2012

I found this book very interesting and very well written. The interesting with Pinchbeck is his backgrund in the intellectual art milieu of New York combined with a later interest in the occult, new spirituality and mysticism. 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl is sort of a spiritual and intellectual biography. We follow Daniel on his travels and thoughts, to Stonhenge to look for crop circles, to the amazonas to try hallucinogenic mushroooms and so on. Driven by a frustration over the shallowness and crudeness of "western" "materialism" he seeks new and/or alternative world views.
What I like is Pinchbecks openness towards "the other side". He actually tries it all: drugs, crop circles, meditation, 2012 "prophesies", mayan calendar stuff and so on, with an open but inteligent mind. Often his reasoning is interesting to follow, sometimes it gets a bit too longwinded. I also like that he does not give the reader a new philosophy or ontology or religion or system of beliefs. Rather, as I read him, it is an attempt to shake a little the ingrained view of reality we usually take for granted. Is the established conception of reality so obvious? Or is there something fundamental that we can't see? And if so, can alternative world views give us a hint? 2012 opens up windows to alternative and fascinating ideas, described by someone with a foot in mainstream acedemic discourse as well. Which I think is unusual.
New age-fans or seekers of a belief system will probably find 2012 too ambiguous. Rather I think this book is intended for sceptical readers with an open mind.
July 24, 2008

Fascinating Read!

This is probably the best book I've read on the topic of 2012. I couldn't put it down! Definitely worth purchasing. Much more interesting than "Breaking Open The Head."
July 03, 2008

It's not 2012. It is 1960

I am not here to tell you if this is a good or a bad book. You have many other reviews for that. I am here to tell you only one thing: if you want to read about the year 2012 and all the events that might happen on this year, THIS IS NOT THE RIGHT BOOK. The author keeps telling you about his own experiences with this or that drug, in this or that country. So, for 2012 information, look somewhere else.
June 25, 2008

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