Interview

MOOALLEM: I think one of the things about this 2012 moment that’s difficult for people to reconcile is that it’s so, well, soon.

PINCHBECK: First of all, I’m not a fundamentalist about the date. I think it might have more to do with us entering a period where we arrive at a different social paradigm or understanding of the nature of psychic reality. However, having said that, I have had a number of bizarre, almost synchronistic, experiences around that 2012 date, which indicates to me that it might be something more legitimate, like maybe we’ll be transitioning from a biological phase in evolution to a psychic phase of evolution, and maybe that date is like the hinge point where that suddenly takes off. There’s a lot of different material out there where people talk about mass congenial or spiritual awakenings happening as we approach that time—none of which I take seriously on its own, but, together, it’s almost like data that’s coming through the collective unconscious . . . I totally think we have a future on the planet. I just think that we have to get away from Western thinking, which is very much founded on dualisms.

MOOALLEM: So if there is a future, what does it look like? Is what we’re talking about here a sort of retreat from modernity? Does the future look like the past?

PINCHBECK: Now that question might involve taking seriously the ideas of someone like Buckminster Fuller, who was a design scientist. He created the geodesic dome and all of these other great patents, but he basically had this idea that you could look at all of society’s problems as design flaws, and that you could eliminate those flaws by redesigning society. Or it could involve looking at someone like Bernard Lietaer, the Belgian currency specialist who was one of the architects of the Euro. He suggested that you could have a global trading currency that would actually have a negative interest or a demurrage charge, so that the longer you held on to it, the more value it would lose. Then, instead of wanting to hoard it, you would want to share it and get it back into circulation, which might lead to more community-based values. And then the evolution of technology has had a profound effect on what it means to be a person. The fact that we’re all so constantly connected is a new thing, but it’s also an old thing, because tribes were like that, so now we’ve kind of created a new techno-tribalism on a global scale. And then I’m also interested in UFOs, extraterrestrials, and crop circles. If those things have legitimacy, then it means that there are levels of technology far beyond what we have now. You know, if UFOs are coming across the galaxy to get here, then they’re not burning coal to do it . . .

MOOALLEM: There’s this Roland Emmerich film, 2012, coming out. Were you involved with that?

PINCHBECK: Not really. But I’ve seen the preview.

MOOALLEM: How do you feel about those sorts of Armageddon-like interpretations?

PINCHBECK: I think they’re totally natural, and it reveals where most people are in their thinking. In a way, it’s almost easier to hallucinate Armageddon or apocalypse because then it’s like, “Oh, everybody is going to die anyway, so I don’t have to change anything.” Whereas if you can say goodbye to your old self and come out with a new self, then you can change everything. Maybe. I don’t know . . . Maybe I’m wrong.

MOOALLEM: I mean, this is a well-traveled road we’re standing on—one that people like Albert Hofmann and Timothy Leary and Terence Mc-Kenna all went down.

PINCHBECK: Well, individuals who are really inspirational are always what changes history. Gandhi had a bunch of good ideas, and he led a non‑violent revolution that transformed India. And so maybe what’s really radical now is not being ironic and not being distracted and not assuming that everything is a bunch of bullshit . . . So, you know, I have no idea whether it’s possible to be part of a process of global transformation, but I am amazed at how much I’ve been able to accomplish, and how much fun it’s getting to be.

MOOALLEM: Fun? What’s the most fun part for you?

PINCHBECK: I think it’s fun to change people’s ideas. It’s a process where at first there’s all this resistance and dismissiveness. But then, over time, I see people change and often their ideas tend to align more with mine. And then the parties get better . . . [laughs] But it’s always fun to be vindicated. You know, I suggested in 2006 [in 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl] that we might experience an economic meltdown in 2008 . . .

MOOALLEM: Was that about mystical vision? Or correctly reading the credit markets?

PINCHBECK: It was a combination. I was inspired by some interpretations of the Mayan calendar and I was also studying a lot about peak oil and the financial system and the case against the global economy. We have a totally unsustainable system built on massive amounts of debt . . .

MOOALLEM: So what are you doing on December 21, 2012? Do you have any special plans?

PINCHBECK: I have no idea. I mean, I would love to be maybe having tea with extraterrestrials. Friendly ones.

Photo above: Daniel Pinchbeck in Los Angeles, March 2008. Photo: Herwig Maurer.

Stephen Mooallem is Interview’s executive editor.

Read more about 2012 at Daniel Pinchbeck's blog.