8/17/2012

August 17: The Harmonic Convergence

August 16-17, 1987, was the date of the "Harmonic Convergence" as popularized by the artist Jose Arguelles, a spearheading force behind the earlier Whole Earth Festival and Earth Day celebrations. Arguelles' idea was that during this period people around Earth should meditate together in a vague consciousness-raising experiment. If gatherings of 144,000 could be achieved at certain world "power centers" like Mount Shasta, CA, he claimed, then a new era would dawn. It's unclear why Arguelles picked the number 144,000, but this does happen to be the number of saved Israelites according to the Book of Revelation. (A dozen thousand for each of the dozen tribes of Israel).

The prompt for the Harmonic Convergence was an alignment of six planets, also coinciding with the closing of multiple "hell" cycles (Arguelles' term) in the Mayan calendar. In that sense, the Harmonic Convergence bears a resemblance to the current obsession with the 12/21/12 close of the Mayan long-count calendar.

Much-ballyhooed at the time, the Harmonic Convergence was soon forgotten after nothing noteworthy happened during it.