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| The Quickening is a documentary that mashes several beliefs into a single mess of New Age apocalypticism and conspiracy theory. |
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| The Quickening is a film that is based on the 2012 mythos, but sets the actual date for October 28th, 2011. |
The Quickening is a New Age documentary created by Awakening As One. Like most material promoting 2012, it mashes well-known religions together into a jumbled up mess of nonsense with a large sprinkling of pseudoscience.
Mistakes & Criticisms
Near the beginning, the film displays the statement "Our Evolution has begun" as white text on a black background. Biologically and culturally speaking, humans have always been evolving. There has never been a point in our history when we weren't.
The film claims that "time is accelerating" and this is "marked by the increasing intensity of global events" which are allegedly happening more often than ever. The narrator claims that the "simplest explanation" behind the acceleration is that the planet's vibrational frequency is rising.
Uh, no.
- As the world becomes more populated, of course riots and wars going to increase. It has nothing to do with "the acceleration of time." It's the fact that more people means more shortages, and more shortages means more riots and wars.
- Some disasters, such as floods, droughts, wildfires, extreme weather events, etc. have been increasing, but this is due to global warming affecting our weather patterns, not an "acceleration of time."
- Earthquakes have not been increasing at all.
The narrator claims that nearly every planet in our solar system has been warming up. In fact, there is no unified warming of any kind going on in our solar system. Go here for more information.
The narrator claims that "it is commonly understood both within the realms of science and spirituality that everything has come from one, and that to one we shall return."
The narrator is basically trying to link the Big Crunch, which is one of many end-of-the-universe scenarios posited by science, with the glamorous return-to-oneness scenario she's yapping about. Of course, the expansion and potential contraction of the universe and the state of humanity are as unrelated as asters and astronomy.
Furthermore, the Big Crunch is no longer a seriously-considered scenario because the expansion of the universe is accelerating rather than slowing down.
Even if the Big Crunch happened or started to happen, it would not be in our lifetimes - it would be billions of years into the future.
The film basically says that trying to strive for peace by affecting change in the world is pointless because everyone has a different idea of how the world should be. Instead, we should all just learn to "be at peace with the way things are" because everything is perfect as it is right now, and everything exists as part of the divine plan. What horrible philosophy! Can you imagine trying to say this with a straight face to someone who lives with an abusive spouse? To a child who is repeatedly raped by a relative? Or someone in a North Korean prison camp?
You'd have to be a complete monster.
The film goes into the Mayan calendar/prediction nonsense, which has already been dealt with here and here.
The interpretation of the meaning of the steps on the pyramid is of course New Age eisegesis, not actual Mayan lore.
The documentary says that in times past, new concepts that appeared in the collective consciousness took longer to spread around, but as time went on started to get around faster and faster. They attribute this to their "acceleration of time," which is redundant in light of advances in technology have made it increasingly easier to communicate over large distances. (Parsimony is apparently not their strongsuit.) Then they give themselves a safety net by saying that some people say it's not time that's speeding up, but the amount of information we're processing. Duhhhh.
It brings up the Hopi prophecies, which are dealt with here.
The earth has never spun counter-clockwise. Any event that could reverse the Earth's rotation thus would completely destroy the Earth.
It brings up the claim that comet Elenin is either a brown dwarf star or is being followed by one. This is utter nonsense. A brown dwarf is about the size of Jupiter, and furthermore, produce their own light. Such an object would be highly visible by not only NASA, but also by the tens of thousands of amateur astronomers out there years before it was even close to reaching Earth.
Planetary alignments do not cause earthquakes. Phil Plait explains why here.
They claim that the world systems could be completely topped in a week to ten days. They claim that "all it would take is another staged terrorist attack in an American city similar to that of 9/11." Except 9/11 was never staged, it was simply exploited by the American government, who used the panic and fear the attacks generated to rally American support for invading and occupying Iraq.
Suitcase nukes, though used in fiction, are incredibly unlikely weapons in reality.
Contrary to what the documentary says, people would not be so desperate for salvation after the collapse of society they would take up any religion the government offered; they would turn to their own faiths or whatever faith they were most familiar with, similar to what happened after 9/11. If the government attempted to instate a one-world religion, it would have two effects - 1: make pretty much everyone angry, and 2: cause an increase of Christian converts because OMG IT WAS TOTALLY PREDICTED IN THE BIBLE.
The world's forces coming together to defeat fake aliens and uniting in a one world government is absurd. Rival governments and leaders simply do not trust each other enough to assume that any strange and new crafts would really be extraterrestrial in origin. They would seize any fallen "alien" crafts they could get their hands on and take them in for study. When they realized that there is no evidence of extraterrestrial origin for these crafts, they would be quick to get the word out.
Microchip implants, if they ever happened, would not be placed in the hand, as the illustration they show implies. It would be much too likely for the implant to get damaged, lost, or even stolen. In reality, microchip implants are placed in far more secure locations, such as between the shoulder blades.
Jesus was not all peace and love.
