Two of the more interesting documentaries on Openfilm, Toward 2012 and Consciousness is the Key, can be viewed on Joao's channel. They're the first in a planned series of animated shorts that, according to the website postmoderntimes.com, present "new ideas about global consciousness and techniques for social and ecological transformation." Consider this blog a kind of CliffsNotes for the videos, which explore serious ideas that deserve to be expounded upon.

2012 features an in-depth interview with the writer and psychedelic guru Daniel Pinchbeck, while Consciousness is the Key is set to a hip-hop song with lyrics like "If you're livin' in the now, you can help save us" and "The apocalypse is coming." But neither film comes out and says what all this is about: namely, that Pinchbeck has predicted the world will end soon. How soon? I'm glad you asked, because Pinchbeck knows exactly when: on December 21, 2012, the day the Mayan calendar runs out.

Daniel Pinchbeck: prophet or drug casualty?

This information was of some interest to me when I first heard about it in a Rolling Stone profile of Pinchbeck (which you should read, by the way). I'll be 32 in 2012, with another good 15 years left before I start feeling really old. For the world to come to an end when I'm in my early 30s would be… annoying.

The psychoanalytic arguments against Pinchbeck's theory are easy to pin down. He'll be 46 in 2012, an age when he'll be too old for the drug and youth culture he's become such an integral part of. His prediction may just be the ultimate manifestation of a midlife crisis. The drugs he's taken - including LSD, mushrooms and peyote - have caused him to have visions that he says make him a prophet, but that we could dismiss as simple hallucinations. And so on.

What intrigues me about Pinchbeck's writings isn't the apocalyptic prediction at the center of them. Rather, it's the fact that they come out of a real and palpable anxiety about the world. Few would argue that humanity is in a great place at the dawn of the 21st Century. Technology has made many of our lives easier, but it hasn't put an end to war, poverty and pollution. In some cases, it could be argued that technology has exacerbated those problems.

So what's so bad about Pinchbeck saying the world's going to end? His message is basically to get green, expand your mind and make way for the coming psychic revolution. If threatening doomsday is what kicks the world's ass into shape, then so be it.

The only problem is that those with absolute truth on their side can justify anything, including turning violent against the nonbelievers. Fundamentalism is always bad, whether it's being preached by eggheads with peyote or religious followers with sacred texts.

Still, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe Pinchbeck and his admirers have tapped into something transformative that's beyond my way of thinking. I'm certainly open to the possibility. One of Pinchbeck's predictions - made years ago - was that our economy would collapse in the year 2008. What you're hearing now is the sound of this writer coughing nervously.