The predicted end of the Mayan calendar has lead to a massive surge in doomsday cults throughout Mesoamerica, even among non Mayans, a reported spike in criminal ritualized murder better know as "human sacrifice" in the Aztec empire has been blamed on the 2012 hysteria, in fact more people are being sacrificed now than at anytime since it was outlawed over 150 years ago. The 2012 hysteria has had an even bigger effect in the secular culture, in fact millions of retired Mesoamericans have "cashed in" their pensions, believing that they only have 3 years left to live, and are recklessly spending their hard earned cash. I for one hope it doesn't catch on here.
Well, it all goes back to human sacrifice: the Old Believers still stick solemly by the notion that by ending human sacrifice, mankind has overthrown its contract with the Gods, and they will end the world and replace mankind. I'm not sure why they chose 2012 as the end-time, since the end of a Long Count is considered an era of celebration [1], an interval where time momentarily stops and the world begins anew. Perhaps they feel that the hinge-point of time is a good period for the Gods to call it quits on mankind.
But, please, let's not listen to the exaggerations of tabloid TV. This phenomenon is confined to the religious extremists and Old Believers, and the sort of people who believe in anything. There haven't been "millions" of retired MesoAmericans cashing in their pensions. There's over a hundred and fifty million people in the Mayan Union Of States, and perhaps 5% are Old Believers: add to that the 5% or so of your utterly gullible-believe-in-everything population you will find in every country and you have your total "susceptible" population of about 15 million, the majority of which are _not_ actually killing themselves or preparing for Hunab Ku to smite them.
Also, most of these sacrifices are in effect suicide pacts, committed by true believers upon true believers (it's estimated that roughly 2,000 of the sucides reported a year in the Maya Union before this silliness began were actually voluntary sacrifices to the Gods by Old Belivers). In the few cases where the victim is clearly not voluntary, the Maya police are cracking down hard. The impression of chaos as seen from abroad is that the Maya, like the Nipponese or the Hashiseem, admire anyone who is willing to die for a cause, no matter how stupid. So, if Old Believers willingly kill themselves to appease the Gods, the police don't interfere much. Indeed, quite a few of the followers of the Reformed Temple and the secularists and Buddhists and followers of Quetzacoatl hope that when 2012 comes and goes and nothing happens, the air will finally go out of the Old Believer movement, which they consider a bit of a national embarassment.
One other thing which annoys me about the reporting on this: people confuse the Maya _religious_ calendar, which is what this silliness is about, with the _secular_ one, which people use for appointments and so on, and is the same Chundi Calendar used by most people in East Asia and the western Americas: in that calendar 2012 is 2233 years since Qin Shi Huang unified China, and a year of no significance.
Bruce
[1] Seven Blue Rabbit, the governor of the Imperial City of Tikal, who had hoped to make a big splash with the calendar-end celebrations, was recently quoted as saying "I hope the lunatics all kill themselves off before the year, so the rest of us can have a good time in peace."