Terence McKenna's Timewave Zero Theorythe Timewave Zero software The principal device of the Timewave Zero theory is a fractal function (constructed using numerical values derived from the ancient Chinese King Wen Sequence of I Ching hexagrams) which maps time onto 'novelty'. An early version of this theory was developed by Terence McKenna (1946-2000) in the early 1970s, and was first described by him in 1974 in The Invisible Landscape. In 1986 Peter Meyer extended this initial formulation of the timewave to make it a true fractal.
Terence McKenna wrote that the theory of Timewave Zero follows from the "revealed" [to him] axiom that all phenomena are at root constellated by a wave form which is the hierarchical summation of its constituent parts, morphogenetic patterns related to those in DNA. ... We argue that the theory of the hyperspatial nature of superconductive bonds, and the experiment we devised to test that theory, yielded ... a modular wave-hierarchy theory of the nature of time that we have been able to construe, using a particular mathematical treatment of the I Ching, into a general theory of systems, which illuminates the nature of time and organism and provides an idea model which explains the interconnection of physical and psychological phenomena from the submolecular to the macrocosmic level. ... and we have assumed the most recent such epoch to have begun in 1945. The end of World War II and the development of atomic weapons and their use in war are forms of novelty whose appearance attended the shift of epochs that created the post modern world. If our understanding is correct, then the same 67+-year cycle at, or near, the end of a 4300 year cycle will terminate around the year 2012 ... During 1986-1999 Peter Meyer studied and improved the foundations of the theory of Timewave Zero and developed software to illustrate and explore this theory. He did this in collaboration with Terence McKenna, and had many discussions with him during 1986-1994 about the theory. The software was first developed for the Apple //e computer and later (in 1989) ported to MS-DOS to run on Intel PCs. In its final form, Fractal Time (version 7.10, 1999), this software ran under Windows XP with the help of the Windows emulator DOSBox.
When December 21, 2012, passed without the arrival either of space aliens or of time-travelers from the future some people claimed, rather unkindly, that this proved that Timewave Zero was a load of rubbish. But it is not generally known that a specific zero date is not implied by the theory of the Timewave. December 21 was an estimate that Terence McKenna made sometime in the 1980s, and obviously it was mistaken. So the non-arrival of the Eschaton at the end of Time in December 2012 does not imply that the theory can be dismissed as a fantasy, especially if there is a reasonable basis for proposing an alternative zero date. Such a basis is given in the article The Zero Date Reconsidered. Unfortunately for the theory, that date also proved to be false, and there is reason to believe that there is no evidence for any particular date as the zero date, as shown in Timewave Zero — the Final Explanation. Unforunately, without a definite zero date the theory has no explanatory or predictive usefulness.
History turns on a spiral, and with each turn it comes back on a new level to the initial position, from the Freemasonry of Mozart's Magic Flute to the Hermeticism of the Renaissance to the syncretism of Plutarch's Roman Empire to the New Kingdom and the reformation of Egyptian religion to the Old Kingdom and the founding of civilization. Not the least part of the fascination that history exerts over us ... is to recognize the recurrence of similar situations, to watch the parallels that occur, the patterns that unfold in familiar shapes though never precisely the same. The game has an intellectual, no less than an aesthetic, interest: we should be able to learn from these recurring situations, these patterns of events and parallels of conduct, not to make comparable mistakes. |
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