Tory Shepherd: All signs point to... the end of the world

THANKS to extensive symbolism in the Bible people can pick up meaning in almost anything they want. Often they find the end of times, writes Tory Shepherd.

THE end is nigh. Again, damnit.

It seems as though, according to people who can see “the truth”, the world is on the brink of imploding every couple of years. We leap from one vision of impending doom to the next, with barely time to catch up on the latest zombie flicks in between.

The most recent predicted date? September 23. That’s right, just a couple of days to clean out the sock drawer, repent, or build a bunker.

This incarnation of The End Of The World is actually a reincarnation of the 2012 Mayan Apocalypse — remember that one?

Believers mangled Mayan history and (mis) interpreted the end of a calendar cycle — known as the Long Count calendar — to claim that the ancient race had actually picked the date of the end of the world. December 21, 2012.

The credulous then mashed that together with a mainstay of the Doomsdayers, which is the idea that a planet is hurtling towards Earth, and will collide with our blue-green home, spelling the end of civilisation.

That imaginary planet is known as Nibiru or, more imaginatively, Planet X. Mayan scholars scoffed at them and NASA declared it impossible.

But the thing about conspiracy theories is they’re like Arnold Schwarzenegger. Practically indestructible and awfully likely to come back. And Planet X is back, this time with biblical inspiration.

Earth and asteroid colliding — just one of the many ways predicted to bring on the end of civilisation. Pic: NASA)

Thanks to the lush and extensive symbolism in the Bible — from dragons to lambs to burning bushes — people can pick up symbols and numbers to mean almost anything they want. And often they find the end times.

Christian “numerologist” David Meade reportedly refers to the Old Testament, and a section in the book of Isaiah that reads: “See, the Day of the Lord is coming — a cruel day, with wrath and fierce anger — to make the land desolate and destroy the sinners within it.”

Meade is gaining plenty of publicity. There is a reason Armageddon fever has struck again. Look around the world.

Wars and famines and earthquakes and the skies opening up.

Millions watched in August as the moon blacked out the sun. The first full solar eclipse in a century.

It didn’t escape Meade’s attention. Again, he points to the Bible: “The Stars of Heaven and their constellations will not show their light. The rising Sun will be darkened and the Moon will not give its light.”

Meade connects this phrase to the “33 Convergence”. Because he spent a lot of time finding the number 33.

Just like Arnie in The Terminator, Planet X is back. (Pic: Terminator 2)

He reportedly said: “When the eclipse begins on August 21, the sunrise will be dark, just as Isaiah predicts… the Moon involved is called a black moon. These occur about every 33 months.

“In the Bible, the divine name of Elohim appears 33 times in Genesis… the eclipse will start in Lincoln Beach, Oregon — the 33rd state — and end on the 33rd degree of Charleston, South Carolina. Such a solar eclipse has not occurred since 1918, which is 99 years — or 33 times three.”

It’s amazing what you can come up with if you mix and mash a lot of disparate information together.

And if you have a book to sell. Unsurprisingly Meade has a new tome out, Planet X — the 2017 Arrival. There is suspiciously little information about Meade, otherwise.

Swags of the world’s biggest publications have been giving him and his predictions airtime. But if you research him, it seems as though this book and prediction are by far the biggest thing he’s ever done.

His prophecy — which I’ll wager will be dead wrong — is what has now made him famous and put his book on the map.

For all we really know, the whole thing is a cynical exercise by a self-published author to get some free PR.

There’s a pattern with those predicting the end of the world. (This doesn’t necessarily apply to Meade, we’ll see).

There’s often a relatively unknown preacher, pseudoscientist, or researcher.

They’ve gone down the rabbit hole, collating scraps of information in their chosen field, and correlating them according to their own internal logic.

The planet Nibiru is supposed to be crashing into Earth. (Pic: Supplied)

Often they’ll then write a book. Start a website. Effectively, they’re setting up a business.

Some of them go on to set themselves up as gurus, taking money from frightened people, offering salvation.

So far, all of them have been wrong about the destruction of humanity, and it’s hard to find anyone who has admitted that.

Instead, they rework the date. Maybe they just need a little readjustment. Whacko, another lucrative prophecy.

They have no trouble concocting proof. From the eclipse to Hurricane Harvey, your run-of-the-mill earthquakes and some extraordinary flooding, it’s easy to spot a sign of the apocalypse.

So don’t let the internet outliers get to you. There’s no killer planet flying towards us, no hidden code in the Bible or in the Mayan calendar.

There are enough real threats out there; don’t get sucked into the fake ones.

If you find yourself listening to YouTube clips about the apocalypse, and starting to see signs everywhere, just keep your wallet shut, and say to yourself: “Armageddon outta here!”.

Tory Shepherd is political editor of the Adelaide Advertiser.