Apollyon Rising 2012: The Lost Symbol Found and the Final Mystery of the Great Seal Revealed

This book was released to follow the hotly anticipated disaster movie "2012", which started worldwide theatrical release November 13. NASA's senior scientist for its Astrobiology Institute, David Morrison in a Skeptic Magazine article responded angrily recently to the film's viral marketing campaign, saying it exploits people's fears about the end of the Mayan "long count" calendar, Dec. 21, 2012, as leading to global catastrophe. This comes despite the fact that in 2006, NASA published a report of its own by Mausumi Dikpati of the National Center for Atmospheric Research on what could be the most apocalyptic solar storm since records began approximately four hundred years ago, scheduled to reach solar maximum in the year 2012.

According to internationally recognized researcher and author of Apollyon Rising 2012: The Lost Symbol Found and the Final Mystery of the Great Seal Revealed, Thomas Horn, the biggest secrets related to the year 2012 and the so-called 'new order of the ages' have been hidden in plain sight for over two-hundred years in Washington DC and at the Vatican. That secret has to do with what numerous ancient societies (and there were plenty according to Horn) believed about this year--that it forecast when "the gods" would return to earth, heralding the start of a new pagan golden age.

"From Christians to New Agers, skeptics to historians, the world is presently enthralled with the meaning of the year 2012," Horn says. "In general, the excitement [or dread, as the case may be] surrounds a variety of predictions made by ancient and modern sources concerning a portentous moment in time. Mankind is on course toward unprecedented global upheaval, according to these experts, when the earth and all life on it will undergo transformation marked by the end of the thirteenth baktun of the Mesoamerican Mayan Long Count. "

The exact end date of the Mayan calendar is December 21, 2012, when during the winter solstice at 11:11 GMT (Greenwich Mean Time) the sun will align with the galactic center of the Milky Way galaxy, an event that occurs only every thirteen thousand years. The precession of the equinoxes will conclude a twenty-six-thousand-year cycle, bringing the astrological Age of Pisces to an end and introducing the beginning of Aquarius, when the next cycle begins and the sun rises out of the mouth of the Ouroboros (great serpent of the Milky Way).

"This is the sun rising in Sagittarius, the centaur with a bow--the symbol for Nimrod coming out from the mouth of Leviathan and the sun `god' rising again--Nimrod/Osiris/Apollo," Horn adds.

Like the Aztec and Inca, the Maya believed earth seasons and celestial cycles were affected by otherworldly and prophetic importance. Mayan priests interpreted such activity and coupled it with the mathematics of their calendars, making predictions based on the terrestrial and celestial cycles.

So far, the only known Mayan inscription that elaborates on the specific significance behind the end of the thirteenth baktun--December 21, 2012--was discovered on Monument 6 at Tortuguero, in Tabasco, Mexico. Though defaced from area construction and previous looting of the archaeological location, scholars were able to partially translate the monument, finding that it refers to a year 2012 return of Bolon Yokte K'u, the underworld lord who represents the solar system and his nine support gods.

The Maya were not alone among ancient cultures in this knowledge, says Horn. For instance, the Hindu Kali Yuga calendar started approximately during the Mayan Fifth Great Cycle and also predicts global earth changes around the year 2012. The Cherokee Indians likewise viewed the date 2012 as significant. The "Cherokee Rattlesnake Prophecies," also known as the "Chickamaugan Prophecy" or the "Cherokee Star Constellation Prophecies," are part of a series of apocalyptic prophecies made by members of the Cherokee tribe during 1811-1812. The prophecies are very similar to Mesoamerican belief, and are viewed by scholars as likely referring to the return of the feathered serpent god Quetzalcoatl in the year 2012. Like the Maya, the Cherokee calendar ends mysteriously in the year 2012 when astronomical phenomena related to Jupiter, Venus, Orion, and Pleiades cause the "powers" of the star systems to "awaken." These nearly 200-year old prophecies conclude with, "And the Cherokee calendar shall end in the year 2012...[with] the coming of the Pale One once again."

Much of the published work by Horn in Apollyon Rising 2012 seems to be unprecedented in the 2012 research community. For instance his shocking revelation that the "Vaera" section of the Zohar--a collection of books written in medieval Aramaic over seven hundred years ago--includes "The signs heralding Mashiach," or "The coming of the Messiah" with the fascinating date for "his" appearance set in late 2012.

But of all such disclosures, it is the layout of Washington DC, the "secrets of the Capitol Dome" as Horn calls them, and especially the Great Seal of the United States and its direct connection to the year 2012 that most will find fascinating.

For instance, Horn provides evidence that early Freemasons and those working with them were aware of the Mesoamerican belief system and the calendar ending date of 2012, actually incorporating it directly into the design of the Capital Dome in Washington DC, as can be vividly observed in the commissioned artwork of Constantino Brumidi.

Horn provides other surprising connections to the year 2012 in the Capitol Dome and structures immediately surrounding D.C., ultimately laying the groundwork for what he calls "the true lost symbol, which Dan Brown completely missed." This symbol is connected to the Capitol Dome as the ancient structural representation of the womb of Isis, and the Obelisk, the ancient representation of the erect male phallus of Osiris. How this is connected to the year 2012 and the return of Osiris/Apollo/Nimrod in Apollyon Rising 2012 is disturbing, especially the magic square in the base of the Washington Monument that "binds" the Bible's influence.

Another remarkable connection between the founding of the United States and the Mayan end date 2012 in Horn's research is that the Maya themselves recognized a link between the number thirteen and the years 1776 and 2012 in cycles and illustrations in a way that academic Richard N. Luxton found to be similar to prophecies of the "Christian Last Judgment." Luxton translated and annotated The Book of Chumayel: The Counsel Book of the Yucatec Maya 1539-1638.

Religious ceremonies and prophecies accompanied Mayan katuns, and Luxton's connection to the "Christian Last Judgment" and the thirteen katuns (a katun is approximately 19.7 years) between 1776 and 2012 is drawn from the prophecies of the Mayan prophet Chilam Balam. Written down in about the year 1595, the oracular Chilam Balam, or "jaguar" shaman, said the end of this period would witness the judgment of God in the form of social collapse, epidemics, plagues, and famine.

Horn concludes that 1776 was not only an important year in American History, but a clock ticking downward 13 cycles of time ending in the year 2012. This is when a prophecy (richly detailed in this new book) encoded on the Great Seal about the return of Osiris/Apollo may be fulfilled, and a new pagan age begins. In Apollyon Rising 2012, Horn discusses how this god (Apollo) is identified in several places in the New Testament as the "spirit" that will inhabit Antichrist and give rise to the novus ordo seclorum or "new order of the ages," exactly what the Maya, Toltec, Aztec, Cherokee and others said will occur in the year 2012.

Consequently, NASA may be right. 2012 may not represent the end of the world. It may signal the beginning of the end.