Okay, there’s no real prize, but Jesse, if you’d like someone to provide some balance to the doomsday madness of Patrick Geryl or the supposedly scientific scariness of Larry Joseph, you know where to find us.

So how did I become a prophet of doom? By agreeing to go on camera for syndicated “news” TV show Inside Edition. I just knew that they were going to take what I said out of context, and they did! I was explaining Larry Joseph’s ideas about massive coronal mass ejections delivering so much radiation to Earth that our satellites are knocked out, electricity grids, crippled, etc. Of course I went out of my way to say that I didn’t think there was much evidence to suggest that Larry’s theories were right, or that there was a good reason to think that December 21, 2012 would be the date on which it happens … but of course that part was edited out!

In the Cottonwood Ballroom at the Four Seasons in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, the New York neo-shaman Daniel Pinchbeck sipped Fiji water and prepared to discuss the end of the world. The Mayan calendar ends on December 21, 2012, and Pinchbeck has built a multiplatform enterprise on the notion that something drastic will happen on that date—maybe.

But 2012 is also the name of a big-budget disaster movie based on the Mayan scenarios depicted in Pinchbeck’s books. To promote the film, Sony Pictures sponsored this junket, featuring the stars and director of the movie; three 2012ologists, including Pinchbeck; and a tour of Yellowstone National Park, which the film destroys.

But nobody in the Four Seasons seemed to believe that the end was near, least of all Pinchbeck, who was once described in the Times as “equal parts Jesuit and Jim Morrison” and is known for ingesting psychedelics in the Amazon. “I’m not a fundamentalist about the date,” Pinchbeck said, and his fellow 2012ologists nodded in agreement. Yet all three continue to publish alarmist books with 2012 in the title.

“Two thousand twelve is this date, you know, which there’s a lot of ideas about,” said the director Roland Emmerich, who demolishes the White House for the second time in his career with this movie. “And we chose the destructive one.”

After giving PowerPoint presentations, the 2012ologists were dabbed with makeup and subjected to a gauntlet of five-minute television interviews. They were asked countless variations on the same question: “Will the world really end in 2012?” The 2012ologists answered, patiently at first, “Actually, the Maya never predicted any doomsday scenario” …

Daniel’s best line was right at the end of the article:

When I asked the 2012ologists how they planned to sell books in 2013, Pinchbeck glanced up from his screen and offered, with a glint of hope, “1984 still sells well.”

I hope so too!