Linda M. Potter
The man behind the questions (and their provocative answers) is scientist and seer, Gregg Braden. “The best minds of our time are telling us and the science is telling us that we are facing a time unlike any other in 5,000 years of recorded human history. The greatest challenges that human civilizations have ever faced are converging on a single generation. We’re faced with problems that have to be solved within the next 8–10 years for us to survive.” he says.
A former geologist and aerospace computer systems designer, Braden has devoted the last 22 years to researching ancient wisdom traditions, studying the ice cores in Antarctica and working for Global Coherence. Time is running out, he says, as we approach one of the most pivotal periods in the history of civilization. Braden is the New York Times bestselling author of such groundbreaking books as The Divine Matrix and The Spontaneous Healing of Belief and others. Now he adds yet another paradigm-shattering book to his impressive resume: Fractal Time: The Secret of 2012 and a New World Age. I’ve had the pleasure of interviewing Gregg Braden three times previously, but have never found him more focused and passionate about rewriting the future as he was on this occasion.
Linda Potter: Let’s begin by talking about your new book, Fractal Time. Could you give us some insights into how it came about?
Gregg Braden: First, a little background. Ancient texts and traditions have always viewed our lives, our relationship to the earth and the cosmos in terms of cycles. They viewed time as a great wave of energy that pulses through the universe on a regular, cyclic rhythmic basis. Each time it reappears, the pulse carries patterns of energy from the past which we experience time and time again. What modern science now is beginning to understand is that the ancients were right and we do, in fact, live cycles within cycles within cycles. Fractal Time was an opportunity for me to marry the best science of the day with the wisdom of our past to give a greater depth and meaning to the changes we are seeing today. It’s no secret that something is happening. We all sense that life is not business as usual on planet earth. We’re living unprecedented changes in our civilization. Many individuals tell me they are living unprecedented changes in their personal lives as well. So my question is, “Could these two things be related?” Is it possible that the changes that come with the great cycles on the planetary level could be triggering cycles of changes in our personal lives as well?
LP: Where do we begin looking for those answers?
GB: I think it is important to begin with facts, and it is a fact that we are living the end of a rare and mysterious cycle of time that began 5,125 years ago in the year 3114 B.C. and completes with a rare astronomical event that occurs on December 21, 2012 A.D. It’s a fact that this 5,125 year cycle has occurred in the past a number of times. Ancient and indigenous traditions, specifically Mesoamerican traditions, identify at least four of these cycles leading up to the cycle that we’re experiencing now. It’s a fact that each time cycles were completed and new cycles began, they were accompanied by conditions of change that were catastrophic for the people living during that time. It is a fact that when we overlay cycles of time on the archaeological history of our planet (gleaned from studying the ice cores of Antarctica and the sea floor sediments in the oceans), what we find is that some civilizations in our past collapsed when they reached the point in their cycles where we find ourselves in our cycle today. We find that the cycles are intense, and we’re definitely living in one of those intense cycles. However, they also appear to be brief. We are a rare generation living at an equally rare period of time where we’re straddling the world that has been in one cycle with the world that is emerging because of the birth of the next cycle. We’re the generation that is living that transition. I think it’s helpful to know, to be able to go into the past and see we what we can realistically expect.
LP: What kinds of planetary changes are we talking about, and how did they lead to the destruction of earlier civilizations? Can we escape that same fate?
GB: Specifically, those were changes in climate, in temperature, in seasons which impacted their ability to do simple life-sustaining things like growing food. So they started to fight each other for the vestiges of these disappearing resources, and in their fighting everyone lost — no one won – and the civilizations collapsed and disappeared. We’ve got to ask ourselves, are we making the same mistake today? Are we fighting one another in our fear of a changing world? And, if so, can we recognize it and change things before we go the way of those past civilizations? This is the value of understanding the past. What I’m seeing happening — and I admit I’m an optimist — is the changes in our world are driving the governments and nations of our planet to work together with greater levels of cooperation because we need to get through the cycles. I think the outcome is that we’ll continue to work together even though the cycles no longer demand it, because we find that we’re better people and we have a better world when we work together. In that way, I think we will fulfill the 2012 prophecies that say the world will never be the same again, that it’s the end of the world as we’ve known it.
LP: You talk a lot about cycles and their importance in determining our future. How does science explain these cyclic patterns and the resulting planetary changes?
GB: There are two key scientific discoveries that have helped us understand what is happening. The first is the discovery that there is a powerful source of energy at the center of our Milky Way galaxy. It is a powerful magnetic field that ebbs and flows and has a profound effect upon life on Earth. Some peer-reviewed scientific journals are now linking what they call biodiversity, the rise and fall of life on earth and the changes in life on earth with this powerful field of energy.
The second discovery is that our location (proximity) to this field of energy determines how strongly we are influenced by it. Our orbit around the core of Milky Way Galaxy is not a perfect circle. If it were, the energy would be the same all the time. Rather, it is an ellipse, an elongated circle. When you see an elongated circle drawn around the point of energy at the core, you can see that there are places along that orbit where we’re closer to that source of energy than others. When we are closer, the influence of that energy is more pronounced than when we’re at points that are further away. We happen to be at a point in the cycle right now where the magnetic field is lessened, and we have more energy from the sun influencing our planet. That energy heats up the ocean, heats up the atmosphere, melts the ice, causes sea levels to rise, and triggers changes in weather patterns. As a result, the climate changes.
LP: Is this the recurring pattern that is responsible for what we are experiencing on Earth at this time?
GB: Yes. What looks like radical changes occurring on the Earth right now are actually changes that are perfectly aligned with the changes the Earth has always seen when we reach this point in the cycle. In the past, the warming seems to be intense but brief, and it’s followed by a cooling period that lasts longer than the warming period. If we look and compare where we are now with the cycles in the past, we’re right on track with the changes that come with the end of what the Mayans called a World Age Cycle.
LP: Can we meet the physical challenges on the planet and survive the end of this World Age?
GB: I’m not that concerned about our ability to meet the challenges of the physical changes. We’re already doing it and I think we’re doing a good job. My concern is how we deal with the personal, social and cultural changes that are presented to us as a factor of the cycle. How do we respond? How do we treat one another as we go through the changes? We’re answering that question right now.
LP: You have created a very intriguing tool you call the “Time Code Calculator” that can predict when cycles will repeat. How exactly does it work?
GB: The cycles occur on a rhythmic, regular basis that we can calculate using very simple mathematics that govern much of our natural world. The same mathematics that govern the orbits of planets and the life cycles of many forms of life governs the cycles of time. Knowing that, when I wrote Fractal Time, I wanted to share with our readers that the cycles follow simple mathematics we can calculate at home on our own. We don’t need big computers to do it.
What I found was that people don’t like a lot of math in their books (he laughs). So, I moved the math to appendices at the end, and I found that they didn’t even like math at the end of their books. So what I did was automate these very simple mathematical calculations into an interactive calculator that’s available on my website. The calculator works with cultural, global and personal cycles following any one of three modalities:
Mode 1: When can we expect something in the past that happened to happen again? Mode 2: What date in the past holds the conditions we can expect for the future? Mode 3: When can we expect the conditions of a personal experience— either positive or negative — to repeat in our lives?
There are brief instructions on the website that are intended to go with the more detailed instructions that are in the book. By entering [into the calculator] an event from the past that became the seed event for a particular cycle, you can find when that cycle will repeat (again and again). Those are the fractal cycles.
LP: The calculator relies on “Seed Events” to forecast the future. How do we identify a seed event?
GB: What we know is that each cycle begins with a seed event — an event that sets in motion a pattern of energy that will continue on a rhythmic basis, again and again, until the pattern is changed. For example, in our personal lives, the first time we experience loss, hurt or betrayal, it leaves an intense emotional imprint. That first experience becomes the seed event that sets into motion a pattern of energy that will repeat again. So the cycle of that hurt, loss or betrayal — the conditions that led to that experience will show up again and again in our lives on this rhythmic, predictable basis until something changes our pattern. That doesn’t mean that the experience has to repeat, that we must be hurt, or we must be betrayed; it means the conditions are in place to make it more likely.
LP: Is the calculator’s purpose, then, to warn us of what may lie ahead?
GB: In part. But, the patterns aren’t just about bad things. They work for good things also, like success, abundance, love, caring — all of those things. But, rarely do we get stuck in patterns of joy or patterns of abundance! Mode #3 on the Calculator helps us determine those personal cycles.
LP: The Time Code Calculator predicted both 9/11 and the current economic collapse. What are other hot spots and flash points in our future that we need to be aware of?
GB: The year 2012 is important because it’s anchored in our psyche as a pivotal time. We need a specific time we can work with to anchor our thoughts, ideas, and actions around intellectually. Realistically, however, if we look at the prophecies and predictions, not just from the Mayans, but from the indigenous peoples in general, they’re all pointing to this time in history and they all say that we’re birthing a new world that emerges after 2012. What that means is that 2012 is the beginning of a new way of being. But to get to that point, all of the changes that lead to that new beginning have to happen before 2012. Rather than fearing some great apocalyptic event on 2012, what we really want to focus on are the years leading up to that date. That’s precisely what the Time Code Calculator shows us. If we look at the “seed” dates for some of the events that were the most pivotal in defining our time, we see things like:
• 1914 – the first time we had global war • 1929 – the crash of global economy • 1941 – the first time America was surprise-attacked on American soil • 1945 – the first time a nuclear weapon was used on a civilian population in war
When we look at when the cycles for these events are due to reoccur, we find that the majority of them repeat in 2010, and the global war cycle repeats in 2011. It appears that 2010 could be a pivotal year. What that means is that 2010 may be a rare, precious opportunity to redefine some of the most frightening patterns of our past, so we never have to experience those things again. I believe this generation is on the threshold of making the choice to be the generation that walks away from the use of war, for example, to solve our differences. I also believe we are about to redefine the global economy of disparity. I think 2010 is the powerful year when we all have the opportunity to participate in how those choices are made and redefine that cycle before it begins. And in that way, the global war cycle of 2011 can be obsolete. We never have to have that again. Now is the time to do whatever we’re going to do; it’s what I call a time of “graceful urgency.”
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