2012: Top 5 Doomsday Websites

The oldest. The scariest. The most Christian. The most New Age. The root source. See the sites that predict the end of the world and how to save yourself.

1. December212012.org. "Prepare to LIVE or Prepare to DIE," says the banner at December 212012.org, showing in blood-red the countdown to unspecified global disaster. Based in Bullitt County, Kentucky (Bigfoot territory), December212012.org calls itself "the official site," maybe because it is one of the oldest 2012 sites and it also owns December212012.com., .net, and .info, all of them sources of alarmist 2012 reports and a video predicting that a solar "electronic hurricane" will fritz all our devices and ignite volcanoes. "The average American doesn't even realize he is helpless," it intones. So stock up: The 2012 shop carries T-shirts ("Shift Happens"), and "2012 The End" beer steins and teddy bears. Follow its other links to survival kits, and, my favorite, non-GMO "survival seeds," sealed in what looks like a commuter coffee cup, for $37.95. Add your name to a list of 2012 "believers."

2. 2012apocalypse.net will scare you witless with mushroom clouds and eerie coincidences. It whips together the Mayans, astrology, Revelations, NASA (the sun "did a flip" in 2001 and will do it again in 2012), and the prophecies of Nostradamus to argue that 2012 is "a point of destruction and near annihilation which transitions into a world of spirituality never experienced on earth. World peace after a costly lesson for mankind and its creatures." Ultimately, the site says, stretching coincidence as far as it will go, the "costly lesson" will be the fault of an "Evil Trinity" of Middle Eastern leaders.

3. EndoftheWorld2012.net looks nefarious, and describes 2012's potential for biological warfare or a disastrous brush with an earth-sized planet named Nibiru. But eventually it points out that even if we ARE living in the End Times, the Bible, the ultimate authority, says we will not know the day or hour of our end, and if we think it's 2012 it probably isn't. Even Harold Camping gets scolded for presuming to predict the Rapture. Now then, site visitors: Armageddon or not, we will all die, so the main issue is: Are you Christian, saved, and going to heaven? The site's Good Person Test will bare the truth.

4. 2012-Spiritual-Growth-Prophecies.com is for those who call troubled children "Indigo" or "Crystal" children, or otherwise try to make a chaotic universe seem like a pleasantly scented suburban home. This site interprets current natural and political catastrophes as "a cleansing" needed before 2012 brings a calm New Age of spiritual growth and unity. But it also says that if you must, you can survive on blue-green algae and whole-grain salt. This "positivity" site, with many long articles by a self-actualized author, can be mined for real gems, such as a YouTube interview with a Mayan elder, which appears to be authentic.

5. Lawoftime.org. Dr. Jose Arguelles, who died in March, is the person most often credited with sparking 2012 mania with his 1987 book The Mayan Factor: Path Beyond Technology. His opinions about 2012 survive him at his website, Lawoftime.org. Arguelles believed that our current calendar created "the whole structure of civilization" that is now "coming apart at the seams," and in 2012 we must return to the 13-month lunar calendar to clean out the "karmic logjam" in the "noosphere" or cloud of thought that surrounds our planet. He left us a free 28-page 2012 transitional spiritual survival guide, downloadable as a PDF. It says to get a lunar calendar and meditate. His site sells no T-shirts, only books and almanacs.

Sylvia Sky writes about occult and spiritual matters. Copyright 2011 by Sylvia Sky.