DOI: 10.3986/Traditio2021500304 TRADITIONES, 50/3, 2021, 75–97
This article investigates apocalyptic spirituality in the 
contemporary globalized context of re-emerging religiousness 
and New Age spirituality, in which millennial calendrical 
anxieties, a conspiracy mentality, and crisis consciousness are 
bolstered up by the visual flood of old and new electronic 
media. Two types of religious or spiritual digital environments 
are presented through their characteristic imagery: the rather 
traditional environment of Christian millennialism and the 
hyper-eclectic atmosphere of New Age networks. 
Keywords: New Age, apocalypse, spirituality, millenarism
Avtor raziskuje apokaliptično duhovnost v sodobnem 
globaliziranem kontekstu ponovno nastajajoče religioznosti 
in novodobne duhovnosti, v kateri so tisočletne tesnobe 
koledarskega leta, miselnost zarote in krizna zavest še 
podkrepljene z vizualno poplavo starih in novih elektronskih 
medijev. Dvoje religioznih ali duhovnih digitalnih okolij 
se kaže s svojimi značilnimi podobami: na eni strani 
precej tradicionalno okolje krščanskega tisočletja, na drugi 
hipereklektično ozračje omrežij new age. 
Ključne besede: new age, apokalipsa, duhovnost, milenarizem
RECOMBINANT REVELATIONS: 2012 IN MILLENARIAN 
AND NEW AGE CYBER-APOCALYPTICISM
DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF SYMBOLISM AND VISUAL RHETORIC IN TWO 
DIGITAL ENVIRONMENTS PREDICTING THE 2012 APOCALYPSE
LÁSZLÓ ATTILA HUBBES
INTRODUCTION
This article investigates apocalyptic spirituality in the contemporary globalized context of 
re-emerging religiousness and New Age spirituality, in which millennial calendrical anxi-
eties, a conspiracy mentality, and crisis consciousness are bolstered up by the visual flood 
of old and new electronic media. Two types of religious or spiritual digital environments 
are presented through their characteristic imagery: the rather traditional environment of 
Christian millennialism and the hyper-eclectic atmosphere of New Age networks. The 
main focus is on images circulating in these spaces, sometimes shared and transferred 
from one environment to the other. The high diversity of this fantastic imagery can be 
handled by a typological approach and comparative iconographic analysis. At the first 
level, an iconographic approach based on Panofsky’s (1955, 1972) three-layered model1 is 
used. At the analytical level, the archetypal criticism of Northrop Frye (2000 [1957]) offers 
an optimal first methodology, completed by Gilbert Durand’s (1999 [1963]) structures of 
the archetypal imaginary, and the second method combines the mythanalytic-semiotic 
models elaborated by Kapitány and Kapitány (1995, 2002 [2001]) and Lucian Boia’s (2000 
[1998]) schemes of the imaginary to compare and follow the changes in given images and 
1 Erwin Panofsky’s (1955, 1972) model—however much it is criticized (see de Hulster, 2007: 218–223), 
and although there are newer and more sophisticated methods for iconographic analysis (e.g., van 
Straten, 1994)—is used in this article because of its simplicity as a first (three-level) approach to the 
images investigated: representation (elements), motifs, and symbolic values.
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mythemes. The always-mutating recombinant elements (Cardone, 2007) occurring on 
the web spaces studied form and support sustainable ritual narratives (Howard, 2009) of 
various apocalyptic myths that may be approached using visual rhetorical analysis.
The study proceeds from a theoretical foundation necessary for discussing the use of 
apocalyptic pictorial rhetoric in digital social media. The key concepts are elaborated in 
the theoretical sections. First, attention is turned to the essence of apocalyptic imagery, 
understood as a visual revolution, its pictorial motifs, and recombinant traditions surviv-
ing from Middle Eastern Antiquity to the virtual environments of digital media. The 
second section briefly presents contextual aspects: it starts by discussing the problematic 
term apocalyptic, with a brief explanation of the apocalyptic paradigm and some variants 
of apocalypticism, then points out the modern re-enchantment of the world and the role 
of New Age spirituality, and finally shows how this apocalyptic milieu contributes to the 
proliferation of recombinant images as a subversive new millennial(ist) rhetoric.
The study analyzes apocalyptic imagery through two examples chosen from dozens of 
images. These two were chosen precisely due to the fact that they typically represent two 
environments of the contemporary Western apocalyptic religious mentality—the Christian 
millennialist and the New Age contexts—and because these two collages exemplify in a 
perfect manner how the principles of apocalyptic visual (visionary) composition can be 
applied today. The two examples—which both reveal the apocalyptic 2012 (and this is 
also a reason why they were chosen: doom and salvation are expressed in one single com-
position)—are submitted to a thorough semiotic, symbolic, mythological, and rhetorical 
analysis. The complex interdisciplinary analysis reveals very similar schemes and strate-
gies, such as the common characteristics of intertextuality, pictorial quotations, biblical 
allusions, actualization, the use of several different sources, and recombination of images. 
It also points out essential differences originating from diverging spiritualities, arsenals of 
motifs, and also the creators, sources, publics, and distribution of the images. The study 
concludes with the observation that all these structures and (persuasive) strategies preserve 
and continue the old recombinant manners of visual apocalyptic rhetoric in a new environ-
ment, and with the new means of the digital universe.
APOCALYPTIC IMAGERY: REVELATION AND REVOLUTION
The apocalyptic mind, with its literary and pictorial aspects of end-oriented spirituality, 
represents a fascination for contemporary popular culture. As religiosity finds its way into 
the channels of hypermedia (Campbell, 2005; Howard, 2009), the apocalyptic ideas and 
images so persistently present in popular culture also move into the social media of the digital 
environment. Pictures, stories, and argumentations of apocalyptic origin are imported and 
converted for contemporary messages in various fundamentalist, conspirationist, esoteric, 
(pseudo)scientific, or political online networks and communities. Various individuals, 
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groups, and even organizations are propagating their apocalyptic visions by making use of 
ancient fantastic images and bestiaries involving and (re)combining old motifs, and invent-
ing newer iconographic elements. Along with the texts—or even only by themselves—the 
visual elements are essential contributors to the formation of the contemporary online 
apocalyptic rhetoric of religious websites, groups, and forums. The power of apocalyptic 
rhetoric lies inherently in its images, both textual and visual alike (Farrer, 2007; Nyíri, 
2013; Hubbes, 2017).
It may seem controversial that the lush imagery of Western apocalypticism was 
essentially rooted in the non-iconic culture of ancient Judaism (see Bychkov, 1981), where 
figurative images are banned by suppressive religious rigor (Exodus 20:4–6). (However, 
as Kristóf Nyíri (2011) explains, based on David Freedberg’s The Power of Images and 
David Gelernter’s Judaism: A Way of Being, Judaism actually has a passionate affection for 
images, and the will for figurative images cannot be suppressed.)2 Heavenly images pre-
sented replete with blinding angelic apparitions, heavenly throne rooms, and cataclysmic 
landscapes, together with nightmarish demons, sprang from an aural–textual tradition 
in which religious rigor banned every figurative visual expression. Hubbes (2008, 2017) 
proposes that, paradoxically, the apocalyptic imagination was the catalyst of the visual turn 
in late biblical times: “through apocalyptic imagery, visions not only gained legitimacy but 
they acquired a particular force in the Jewish mentality repugnant of any (even if ‘only’ 
literary) imagery” (Hubbes, 2008: 84–85). The apocalyptic imaginary in itself by its very 
concrete revelatory nature of imagining, showing (originally by description) the unseen, 
the unimaginable, represents a pictorial turn in the ancient Judaic context. Austin Farrer 
(2007 [1949]) names this turn a “rebirth of images” (although he involves in this “rebirth” 
a Christian reinterpretation of the old biblical imagery). Revelation thus can be conceived 
as a “revolution of the eye” by which the spectacular, at least at the level of mental images, 
gradually invaded the anti-iconic ancient Israelite and later Christian cultic environments 
between the third century BC and the third century AD. It may also be interpreted as a 
reconquering of religious expression by the visual imagination or a resurfacing of suppressed 
images—in fact, recycling the Canaanite, Egyptian, Mesopotamian, and Persian imageries,3 
completed with elements of the newer Greco-Roman pictorial traditions (Hubbes, 2008).
The special imagery of the apocalypse(s) is a product of a highly visual thinking built 
upon the cognitive metaphors (Lakoff, Johnson, 1980) of analogical logic (Hamvas, N.d. 
[1994]). In this sense, the apocalypse is no less than showing what is hidden (or rather, 
projecting the invisible) by analogical images.
Thus, relying on the projections of the imagination, apocalyptic imagery produces and 
reproduces fantastic representations that gain strong expressiveness by combining images of 
2 See the exact references in Nyíri (2011: 88–89); in English, see Nyíri (2013).
3 On the role of Canaanite, Mesopotamian, and Babylonian pictorial traditions in the formation of 
apocalyptic imagery see Homsher 2005, and for biblical iconography in general see Keel 1972; Keel, 
Uehlinger 1998; de Hulster 2007.
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the real and the uncanny, the monstrous, and the desirable. Northrop Frye (1957) empha-
sizes the organization of these images according to an archetypal grammar into opposed 
apocalyptic and demonic mythical structures of the imaginary (Frye, 1957: 139).4 Austin 
Farrer (1949) points out a radical transformation of the Old Testament matrix of images 
into new reinterpreted structures and symbolic patterns in Christian revelation, and D. H. 
Lawrence (1932) gives a detailed and sharply critical overview of how the fantastic figures 
of Middle Eastern imagery and Babylonian astrology fused into intricate complex apoca-
lyptic allegories. This strange complexity makes apocalyptic imagery extremely spectacular 
with grandiose scenery and hosts of sometimes unrecognizably collaged bricolage-beings 
(such as cherubs, tetramorphs, and scorpion-tailed-lion-headed horses) that might well be 
most eye-catching, but at the same time are mind-bogglingly difficult to interpret due to 
the abstract symbolism5 of any elementary detail (e.g., eyes, horns, wings, tails, etc.). This 
sophisticated symbolic prophetic-visionary language has always been allusive, obscure, and 
nevertheless very captivating not only for religious seers and audiences. It also provided a 
rich treasury for art and literature from the earliest times, excelling in creations of great 
beauty and grim grotesquery in painting, sculpture, poetry, music, or film, and digital 
multimedia technology has only added to the possibilities of expression inherent in its 
revelatory character.
BASIC CONCEPTS: THE APOCALYPTIC PARADIGM, MODERN RE-
ENCHANTMENT OF THE WORLD, NEW AGE, RECOMBINANT IMAGES, 
AND SUBVERSIVE MEMES
Before turning to the analytical work proper, some brief definitions must be elaborated 
regarding the basic concepts or ideas supporting the investigation; namely, the paradigmatic 
nature of the apocalyptic, the recent re-emergence of religiosity, the millenarian thread in 
New Age spirituality, and the rhetorical use of recombining visual and narrative elements, 
including the notion of internet memes.
4 It is important to note that the term apocalyptic used in this study diverges from Northrop Frye’s 
terminology elaborated in The Anatomy of Criticism (1957). In Frye’s interpretation, the imagery of 
the “apocalyptic world, the heaven of religion, presents, in the first place, the categories of reality in 
the forms of human desire, as indicated by the forms they assume under the work of human civi-
lization” (Frye, 1957: 141), whereas “[o]pposed to apocalyptic symbolism is the presentation of the 
world that desire totally rejects: the world of the nightmare and the scapegoat, of bondage and pain 
and confusion” (ibid.: 147) However, as the analysis of the images shows, the collage pictures would 
lend themselves to Frye’s approach as well, encompassing both desirable, apocalyptic imageries and 
undesirable, demonic ones.
5 Also, as Jean Borella explains in his Crisis of Religious Symbolism (1990) concerning the accessibility 
of religious symbols for modern interpretation, this is due to the loss of the transcendental (or meta-
physical) referent.
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With regard to the concept of “the apocalyptic,” the use of the terms apocalypse, 
apocalyptic, and their derivatives in the academic literature is at least problematic. As Hubbes 
(2016) explains, the core of the problem lies in the paradigmatic nature of a distinct kind of 
mentality or structure of the imaginary, regardless of its different manifestations, as atypical 
as they may appear, and also regardless of how these are termed by various authors. Although 
there is much debate in several fields (e.g., Collins, 1979, 2003; Hanson, 1992; Grabbe, 
2003; dePriest, N.d.) regarding these latter aspects either in terms of interpretation or in 
applying the proper terminology to given genres or phenomena, still we can clearly delimit 
the realm of apocalyptic studies: it is anything that pertains to the apocalyptic paradigm. 
According to Hubbes, the apocalyptic paradigm denotes a common religious worldview 
that acts as a reciprocally influencing model of and model for reality, built upon a basic 
set of beliefs, like the linear development of human history, which is to be disrupted by 
an imminent divine intervention; a theodicy-oriented rejection of the world, inseparable 
from certain fears of destruction and hopes for salvation and regeneration for the elect, 
being expressed in and manifested through apocalyptic works and movements, messianic, 
millenarian, and utopian ideas, and often (but not necessarily) going hand-in-hand with 
phenomena of subversiveness, fanatic exaltation, fundamentalism, dualistic exclusivism, 
paranoia and scapegoating, or demonizing. It is a conglomerate leading to events that provoke 
massive, radical, long-term changes in a given society or culture (Hubbes, 2016: 148–149).
It is worth adding that an implicit religious character may be discovered even in sci-
entific, materialistic, and/or secular apocalyptic world views, which is important because 
people tend to believe that apocalypticism occurs only in religious contexts. Although this 
is definitely not the case—just consider the numerous apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic 
movies—religiosity is nonetheless a significant constituent in any linear concept of time 
involving some conviction about the end-of-the-world idea, or a “sense of an ending” 
(Kermode, 1967).
On the other hand, religion is neither unconditionally apocalyptic (quite the opposite) 
nor absolutely constitutive for contemporary global culture. With regard to religion, apoca-
lypticism is characteristic predominantly of the Abrahamic monotheisms,6 which have a 
linear concept of time and an idea of a final judgement. In contrast, the polytheistic and even 
older animistic religions have a cyclical or atemporal concept of time and, as a consequence, 
are not so much centered on eschatological, millennial, or apocalyptic myth—or, at least, 
such narratives do not constitute the essence of those creeds.7 With regard to modernity 
(and implicitly the postmodern world of globalization), the world is generally considered 
6 Persian religions, such as Zoroastrianism, Mazdaism, and Zurvanism, as well as later syncretistic reli-
gious systems as Manichaeism or the more recent Bahá’i, are also to be taken into account because 
of their linear and proto- or quasi-apocalyptic time-view.
7 Of course, there are significant exceptions, such as the Hindu concept of Kali Yuga, the Maitreya in 
Buddhism, the Native American Ghost Dance movement, and the cargo cults of Melanesia, to name 
only a few.
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disenchanted in Weberian terms (Jenkins, 2012); that is, a secularized, nonreligious society. 
Nonetheless, a counter-phenomenon of re-enchantment is also present (Partridge, 2004, 
2005; Jenkins 2012). Re-sacralization, a revitalized sense of transcendence adapted to the 
modern world, is observable in countless new pseudo-religious patterns such as urban leg-
ends, conspiracy theories, occult racism, science(-fiction) utopianism, UFO mythologies, 
parapsychology, and alternative medicine. These converge into a colorful popular (oc)culture 
sometimes labeled New Age spirituality, which permeates elite, middle, and peripheral socie-
ties alike in the form of “stigmatized knowledge” (Barkun, 2003; see also Partridge, 2015). 
This highly eclectic reemerging religiousness is combined with a generalized suspicion and 
aversion towards rationalism, science, and contemporary social establishments (Hubbes, 
2012), a phenomenon termed conspirituality by Ward and Voas (2011).
In the second half of the twentieth century, approaching the end of the millennium, 
apocalyptic ideas (both religious and secular) gradually permeated this reenchanted milieu 
(Wojcik, 1997) of postmodern culture, especially its countercultural/occultural segments 
described above, leading to what Andrew Fergus Wilson (2016) describes as an “apocalyptic 
milieu.”8 It is in this general modern countercultural apocalyptic context that one has to 
understand New Age apocalypticism, which at first sight may appear self-contradictory. Not 
only is the New Age generally regarded as a spiritual movement rather than as a religion 
proper, but its syncretistic construction is built upon various ancient esoteric teachings, 
Eastern wisdom traditions, modern Western spiritism, and countercultural ideologies as 
well as contemporary fringe sciences (“stigmatized knowledge,” as Barkun (2003) terms this 
conglomerate), none of which excel in apocalyptic thinking. However, as several researchers 
(among others, Hanegraaff, 1996; Barkun, 2003; Defesche, 2007; Wilson, 2016) point out, 
there are multiple connections between apocalypticism (or millennialism) and New Age, 
especially with regard to the envisioned coming astrological Age of Aquarius.
In a sense that is synonymic with the concept of the apocalyptic, Michael Barkun 
distinguishes three types of millennialism: in addition to the traditional religious and 
secular-ideological millennialism (i.e., apocalypticism), he proposes a third, improvisational 
type, which “is by definition an act of bricolage, wherein disparate elements are drawn 
together in new combinations” relying “simultaneously on Eastern and Western religion, 
New Age ideas and esotericism, and radical politics, without any sense that the resulting 
mélange contains incompatible elements” (Barkun, 2003: 11). This improvisational nature 
is characteristic of the New Age discourses concerning the apocalyptic year 2012, where 
syncretistic esoteric spirituality turns toward a millennial mentality and fuses with various 
recombinant apocalyptic images and narratives, creating a brand-new type of (suspicious 
and aversive “conspiritual”) apocalypticism.
One more concept is yet to be explained in close relation to this last phenomenon of 
improvisational New Age millennialism: the idea of recombinant apocalyptic narratives 
8 Based on the term cultic milieu, coined by Colin Campbell (1972)
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in cyberspace proposed by Dino Enrico Cardone (2007). Adapted and further developed 
here, I apply it on the one hand to the web-rhetorical use of images, and on the other 
hand to the similar syncretistic nature of New Age discourses. Cardone assigns an intense 
subversiveness to the online recombinant apocalyptic narratives, both because of the 
inherent subversive nature of apocalyptic rhetoric and also because of the relative lack of 
gatekeeping functions on the internet (Cardone, 2007). In a similar way, this subversive 
character of rhetoric may be extended to New Age narratives to a certain extent, especially 
in the “conspiritual” discourses (Ward, Voas, 2011), where New Age ideas are mixed with 
conspiracy theories, ufology, paranormal phenomena, or pseudo-sciences. Again, textual 
narratives are not singular in terms of their subversive quality because Cardone (2007: 
149–151) emphasizes that images serve as an even better means of unsettling persuasion.
The recombination of images is an old apocalyptic tradition (Hubbes, 2017), which is 
enhanced by the possibilities offered by the means of the new digital technologies, ensuring 
easy editing, combination, and wide, unrestricted distribution for the newly created visual 
works (Cardone, 2007). The most convenient (and trendiest) examples of these image 
recombinations are internet memes, including the apocalyptic memes that circulate in 
social media (Vacker, 2012; Huntington, 2015; Konior, 2019). Visual memes on the inter-
net—both in the classic sense (Dawkins, 1979), in which case they may be considered ideas 
or motifs) and according to newer interpretations (Davison, 2012; Shifman, 2014)—are 
instantaneous, ephemeral, and highly variable minute digital works of art (Bown, Bristow, 
2019), and, as such, they possess strong argumentative and persuasive rhetorical power 
(Huntington, 2013), and they are polysemantic (Babič, 2020); they are visual rhetoric at 
the highest level (Hubbes, 2017). Not only are these meme-images persuasive devices of 
visual rhetoric, but, in accordance with Cardone’s assertions concerning the subversive-
ness of recombinant apocalyptic narratives, they can also be considered subversive forms 
of argumentation. Because memes “may be viewed as a form of subversive communication 
in a participatory media culture” (Huntington, 2013: n.p.), these observations also apply to 
the recombinant apocalyptic visual memes, even more characteristically in both traditional 
millennialist and New Age environments.
A NEW AGE APOCALYPTIC
Let me return to the unusual case of New Age apocalypticism. It is the first time one can 
acknowledge a genuine, purely apocalyptic thread produced by the New Age and dis-
seminated (thanks to the internet and popular culture) at the global level: the so-called 
Mayan apocalypse or the 2012 phenomenon (Sitler, 2006; Defesche, 2007; Gavriluță, 
2012; Wilson, 2016).
This global phenomenon builds and unites mythopoeic elements such as the ending of 
the thirteenth b’ak’tun of the pre-Columbian Mayan astronomical Long Count calendar on 
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December 21, 2012,9 ancient calculations of the Chinese I-Ching, Native American prophe-
cies, calculations of a returning mysterious Planet X or Nibiru of the Sumerian pantheon, 
a new, higher stage of human cosmic consciousness, and visions generated by psychedelic 
hallucinations (Sitler, 2006; Defesche, 2007; Wilson, 2016). New Age apocalypticism uses 
rhetoric similar to the more familiar classic Christian millennialists. It propagates a new 
era of peace, harmony, and prosperity for all of humanity, just like the biblical promise of 
the New Heaven and New Earth. What is more, it reaches back to the same set of images 
that are found in the Book of Revelation—as is the case in Stanislav Grof ’s description of 
his own experiences of the holotropic state in psychedelic therapy:
In the center of this monstrous hurricane of primordial forces were four giant 
herculean figures performing what seemed to be the ultimate cosmic saber 
dance. They had strong Mongolian features with protruding cheekbones, oblique 
eyes, and clean-shaven heads decorated by large braided ponytails. Whirling 
around in a frantic dance craze, they were swinging large weapons that looked 
like scythes or L-shaped scimitars; all four of these combined formed a rapidly 
rotating swastika […]. Then the experience opened up into an unimaginable 
panorama of scenes of destruction. In these visions, natural disasters, such as 
volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, crashing meteors, forest fires, floods and tidal 
waves, were combined with images of burning cities, entire blocks of collapsing 
high-rise buildings, mass death, and horror of wars. Heading this wave of total 
annihilation were four archetypal images of macabre riders symbolizing the end 
of the world. I realized that these were the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse 
[pestilence, war, famine, and death]. The continuing vibrations and jolts of my 
pelvis now became synchronized with the movements of this ominous horseback 
riding and I joined the dance, becoming one of them, or possibly all four of them 
at once, leaving my own identity behind. (Grof, 2010: 13–15)
This description of very familiar apocalyptic visions is a fragment of those that Grof 
intones. In context, it appears organically embedded into a larger system of New Age 
spirituality, which focuses on the doomsday event “prophesied” by the Mayan calendar for 
December 21, 2012. It shows a clear example of how old images can gain new meanings, 
extend their connotative fields, and integrate into new myths of variations by recombina-
tion with other visual elements. Below, I offer some brief analyses of such evolutions and 
recombinations used in online environments.
9 Theorized, among others, by authors such as José Argüelles (1984), Terence and Dennis McKenna 
(1975), Daniel Pinchbeck (2002, 2006, 2007), and John Major Jenkins (1998).
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TWO KINDS OF APOCALYPTIC IMAGERY?
As László Hubbes repeatedly (2011, 2017) pointed out, it is possible to distinguish two 
clearly delimited parallel apocalyptic traditions in art history:
[T]wo separate traditions influencing each other have evolved in apocalyptic art 
from the Book of Revelation. The first one is a plastic figurative line of depictions 
materializing in Last Judgments, illuminations—and interestingly, in the Dies 
Irae movements in music, Day of Wrath poems in literature and so on; while, on 
the other hand, a dramatic-narrative line—overwhelmingly present in literature, 
medieval drama, manuscript illuminations, in music by the oratories built on 
the Revelation, and—in recent times: movies—Antichrist/Armageddon stories, 
Rapture stories, and the popular culture or video games built on them. These 
two apocalyptic traditions in art can be clearly separated on the basis of their 
characteristics. (Hubbes, 2011: 60–61)
The two lines of tradition are present not only restrictively in the arts but at a more 
general level, in all the fields of symbolic representation of the apocalyptic mentality, 
including popular culture and digital social media. Online recombinant apocalyptic nar-
ratives, just like the pertaining imageries, draw naturally from both lines of tradition and 
produce new creations in both of them. However, given the high improvisational bricolage 
nature of the recombinant images, it is sometimes difficult to decide which tradition a 
given digital apocalyptic vision may belong to, and there are cases when—not unlike in 
traditional art—the elements of the two lines fuse into a complex collage, where such a 
distinction becomes impossible and irrelevant.
Having in mind these representational traditions, two images are analyzed below. 
They were selected from among a large number of visual materials collected from various 
websites as most representative of the two environments of contemporary digital religiosity 
investigated in this study: Christian millennialism and New Age–Mayan 2012 apocalypti-
cism. The reason for selecting these two images was also because they raise the question 
of whether one may speak of two distinct types of apocalyptic imagery based on the dif-
ferences between the specific apocalyptic discourses of the two different environments. 1
As a first approach to Figure 1 (Mosser, 2011),10 the classic iconographic description 
elaborated by Erwin Panofsky (1972: 5–9) offers important information. At the level of 
10 Illustration from Chris Mosser’s blog entry “What do we do now?” (http://faithandsurvival.com/?p=3257, 
image: apocalypse_080703_mn.jpg, August 30th, 2013). The illustration, posted on December 21st, 
2011, is neither the first nor an original collage image. The picture appears on both religious and 
non-religious sites, in Christian and New Age environments alike, on eighty-seven different (among 
them Arabic, Greek, Persian, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Thai, Turkish, and Urdu) websites (as 
of February 21st, 2020), and the earliest occurrence of the image (that a Google search could find) 
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pre-iconographic description, the illustration is a collage of four images with a number in 
the center overlapping all four pictures. The top left image is a painting with a central figure 
surrounded by shining clouds; in the lower part of the image, under heavy dark clouds, is a 
multitude of running, crying, and falling figures. The top right image is a photo of a ruined, 
collapsed building in the background with a man standing, leaning on what appears to be 
a mailbox. The bottom left image is a photo of a flooded area with only treetops visible. 
The bottom right image is a photo of a branch swarming with locusts.
At the second level, iconographic analysis clarifies that each of the four images rep-
resents a given sequence from the Book of Revelation. However, apart from the top left 
image, which is recognizably a painting depicting the Second Coming of Christ and the 
Last Judgment (specifically, The Last Judgment by the seventeenth-century Swiss painter 
Conrad Meyer), the images are real documentary photos representing various recent natural 
catastrophes.11 There is a suggestion that all of them occur in (expectably, or at least refer 
to) the apocalyptic year 2012, which is why the year is highlighted in the center.
Entering into deeper details of the iconographic analysis, as Panofsky suggests, one can 
accurately identify each of the elements in the composition based on knowledge of biblical 
traditions. Meyer’s inserted painting, like all classical Last Judgment compositions in art, 
shows Jesus Christ returning in glory in Heaven, angels announcing the Second Coming, and 
the resurrection of the dead, some of them rising to Heaven, while others are dragged down 
into the fires of Hell by devils. The sequence of the other pictures points to the narrative line 
of apocalyptic representations. They evoke various episodes from the Book of Revelation 
and other biblical apocalyptic texts. The second image in the composition (top right) refers 
to an earthquake, evoking several lines from the Book of Revelation, such as: “At that very 
hour there was a severe earthquake and a tenth of the city collapsed. Seven thousand people 
were killed in the earthquake, and the survivors were terrified and gave glory to the God 
of heaven” (Rev. 11:13; see also Rev. 6:12; 8:5; 11:19; 16:18). The third image (bottom left) 
depicts a severe flood. Although it is not directly from the Book of Revelation, it neverthe-
less points to another apocalyptic event, Noah’s Flood, evoked several times throughout 
the scriptures, especially in the so-called “little apocalypse,”12 exemplified in these verses: 
But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor 
the Son, but only the Father. As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the 
was attached to an article by Christine Brouwer: “Will the World End in 2012?” from July 3rd, 2008 
(http://abcnews.go.com/author-/christine_brouwer#45_date; as of March 10th, 2020, it does not 
show up on the website), and it also seems to have borrowed the illustration from an unknown source.
11 Concerning the argumentative power of visual representations of natural disasters, see Eszter Deli’s 
(2018) work Visual Rhetoric in Disaster News Communications.
12 With the term “little apocalypse,” theologians refer to the Olivet discourse, presented in the synoptic 
Gospels, namely in Matthew 24–25, Mark 13, and Luke 21, where Jesus warns his disciples about 
the signs of the end and the tribulations they must suffer before his Second Coming.
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coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating 
and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered 
the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came 
and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. 
(Matt. 24:36–39)
The fourth picture (bottom right), shows a close-up image of locusts, reminiscent 
of another tribulation of apocalyptic connotations (one of the ten plagues sent by God as 
warning and punishment upon Egypt, described in Exodus 10), also an explicit suggestion 
to the infernal army of demonized locusts:
And out of the smoke locusts came down on the earth and were given power like 
that of scorpions of the earth. They were told not to harm the grass of the earth 
or any plant or tree, but only those people who did not have the seal of God on 
their foreheads. They were not allowed to kill them but only to torture them for 
five months. And the agony they suffered was like that of the sting of a scorpion 
when it strikes. During those days people will seek death but will not find it; 
they will long to die, but death will elude them. The locusts looked like horses 
Figure 1. Signs of apocalypse. Collage from faithandsurvival.com (Chris Mosser © 2011. Image 
Courtesy of faithandsurvival.com).
OBE SLIKI V TEM ČLANKU 
JE TREBA ZAMENJATI Z 
BOLJŠIMI (nista primerni niti 
za splet)
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RECOMBINANT REVELATIONS: 2012 IN MILLENARIAN AND NEW AGE CYBER-APOCALYPTICISM
prepared for battle. On their heads they wore something like crowns of gold, and 
their faces resembled human faces. (Rev. 9:3–7)
As for the last element, the number 2012 imprinted over the four pictures of the col-
lage is an “extra-biblical” import, from the New Age spiritual environment, referring to 
the Mayan apocalypse discourses. One can also observe here that the collage uses elements 
from both the dramatic Last Judgment tradition (explicitly inserting a Last Judgment 
painting) and the Revelation narrative line tradition (the three documentary photos of an 
earthquake, a flood, and locusts).
At the third level, from an iconological aspect, one finds that the collage, published 
on a Christian millennialist/survivalist website,13 is intended to be a warning and a call for 
repentance. By displaying the catastrophic images in a sequence, it is composed to provide 
evidence for the signs of the end as they are prophesied in the Book of Revelation. They 
are preceded by the painting of Christ’s Second Coming as a clear call for repentance to 
sinners (and possible referral to premillennialist or postmillennialist milieu) and also of 
hope for born-again Christians.
Looking at this collage with the method of archetypal and symbol analysis, some 
principal archetypes must be highlighted in conjunction with the symbols by which they 
are expressed. According to Frye’s (1957) typology, the photo components of the collage 
belong to the category of demonic imagery due to their catastrophic content. The painting 
of the Second Coming pertains to what Frye labels as apocalyptic within this same typol-
ogy. Following Durand’s (1999 [1963]) archetypal classification, the definitions turn out 
to be more varied: two of them (the collapsed houses and the flood) fall under the diurnal 
reign of images with nyctomorphic, malign connotations, and the locusts, which also 
belong to the diurnal reign, represent sinister chthonic, theriomorphic forces. The Second 
Coming image is predominantly diurnal imagery, with strong diairetic (dividing) features, 
and both ascensional aspects (Christ shining above the clouds and rainbow, saints rising 
to Heaven, and angels) and catamorphic ones (the damned falling and dragged down into 
Hell, and devils).
As principal symbols, for each component image one can identify (top left) the Savior, 
the Judge, the Heavenly King (represented by Christ), light, clouds, people (resurrected, beati-
fied, and damned), angels, and devils; (top right) houses, ruins, and man (victim); (bottom 
left) flood: malefic water, trees (garden), and houses; and (bottom right) locusts. In Jungian 
terms (see Ostow, 1995; Edinger, 2002),14 these symbols together are emphatic expressions 
of the apocalyptic complex or, in Edinger’s formulation, the archetype of the Apocalypse.
13 Available at http://faithandsurvival.com/?p=3257.
14 Carl Jung’s psychoanalytical approach to apocalyptic spirituality was applied by two of his followers 
in significant works dedicated to the phenomenon: Edward F. Edinger’s Archetype of the Apocalypse: 
Divine Vengeance, Terrorism and the End of the World (2002) and Mortimer Ostow’s Ultimate Intimacy: 
The Psychodynamics of Jewish Mysticism (1995), in particular, chapter two: “The Apocalyptic Complex”.
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LÁSZLÓ ATTILA HUBBES
Taking the collage as the representation of a myth following the methodology of 
Kapitány and Kapitány (2002), it is a composition following the patterns of medieval 
pictorial compositions15 of a classical mythic narrative; namely, the Christian story of the 
Apocalypse and Last Judgment, as described in the Book of Revelation (primarily based 
on Rev. 20:11–15). It also reminds one of the tribulations (earthquakes, floods, and locust 
plagues) to be suffered by the world before Christ’s Second Coming (Rev. 6:12, 8:5, 9:3–7, 
11:13–19, 16:18, as well as Matt. 24:36–39). In Lucian Boia’s (2000: 17–19) interpretation 
of the patterns of the imaginary, six major archetypal constructions (of his proposed eight 
structures)16 may be recognized: the primary archetype of an invisible, transcendental 
world; the hope (and fears) of the afterlife; the strangeness of the physical world through 
the menaces of natural disasters;17 the scouring of the future; escape from the world (from 
history); and the dualist structures of confrontation of opposites. Although the apocalyptic 
mentality actually encompasses all eight schemes (to variable degrees), the analyzed collage 
image explicitly refers to the six named above. The inserted Last Judgment painting by itself 
evokes transcendental reality (Heaven, God, and angels), the hopes (of salvation) and dreads 
(of damnation) concerning the individual fate in the afterlife following the Last Judgment, 
which is to happen soon (2012), ending the suffering and evils of this earthly history; it also 
depicts the grand cosmic oppositions (this world versus Paradise, and Heaven versus Hell). 
The sequence of the other three images refers to Boia’s first, third, and fourth archetypal 
15 According to Hubbes, the classic composition of the Last Judgment depictions follows a very strict 
pattern from the earliest Byzantine mosaics through the Gothic sculpted portals to the late Romantic, 
and even modern paintings:
[…] the Pantokrator-scene, the row of saints and/or angels, Michael archangel, and, very 
prominently, the Tartaros with the damned falling into it, organized into two or three registers. 
By contrast, the East maintains the larger composition prescribed by its icon-theology, even in 
the larger and more complex Parousias. Especially from the Renaissance on, the West tends to 
return to this more or less “simplified” set of motifs, using rather only the Maiestas Domini-
composition with the angelic hosts and the interceding Virgin and John the Baptist, the figure 
of Michael archangel, the general resurrection and finally the souls going either to Heaven or 
to Hell, but unlike their Eastern counterparts, these Last Judgments are not divided in stripes 
and sectors any more, while the classic left-right, up-down spatial division is further maintained. 
(Hubbes, 2016: 38)
16 Lucian Boia enlists eight archetypical universal structures of the human imaginary that “highlight a 
certain structural permanence surpassing cultural and historical boundaries: [1.] belief in an essen-
tially superior reality that governs the material world; [2.] hope in the afterlife; [3.] the wish to ensure 
the greatest possible coherence for the world and for the communities; [4.] amazement and uneasi-
ness over the diversity of the world, especially concerning the Other’s otherness; [5.] striving to grasp 
the origin, essence, and reason of the world; [6.] the strategies to control individual fate, history, and 
future; or, contrarily, [7.] refusal of history, and the attempt to escape into an immutable harmonic 
time; and finally, [8.] the dialectic of the collision and synthesis of the opposing agencies” (Boia, 
2000: 19).
17 Cf. in this regard, especially chapter one in Elemér Hankiss’ Fears & Symbols: Understanding the Role 
of Fear in Western Civilization (2001), where he explains the fears caused by the strangeness of the 
world we live in due to the threatening dangers of our natural environment.
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RECOMBINANT REVELATIONS: 2012 IN MILLENARIAN AND NEW AGE CYBER-APOCALYPTICISM
schemes; namely, the unbearable strangeness of this world, in which natural disasters are 
interpreted both as signs of the approaching end and as tribulations (punishments) sent by 
God to try the perseverance of the faithful (or for the evil ways of this world).
The last approach relies on visual rhetoric and discourse analysis. According to Dino 
Enrico Cardone (2007: 5, 8), who interprets contemporary online apocalypticism as sub-
versive recombinant narratives, this image is a perfect example of his view. The editors 
combined documentary photos of present cataclysmic events to represent old apocalyptic 
narratives in an actualizing manner. Their purpose was to unsettle and persuade the internet 
audience to reform. The realism of the photos is meant to be a strong argument: this is 
going to happen very soon, in the coming end-time year of 2012. As a powerful instrument 
of (rhetorical) pathos and logic (Deli, 2019), the pictures are combined into an inductive 
logical succession to reinforce the introductory image of the Second Coming calling for 
repentance and preparation for the Last Judgment (and/or Rapture in the interpretation 
of dispensationalist millennialism).
In the last instance, to sustain the persuasive and subversive power of the 2012 Apocalypse 
image, I wish to point out some external factors as well. Due to the strong actualizing 
message, partly because of the year 2012 superimposed over the four pictures, the col-
lage started on the path to memeification, turning into a successful meme. As mentioned 
earlier,18 the image was shared and reused on at least eighty-seven different (among them 
American, Arabic, Greek, Italian, Latvian, Persian, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Thai, 
Turkish, and Urdu) websites between 2008 and 2020. Although absolutely unaltered in 
every new appearance, it nevertheless manifested high variability in the aspect of its use: 
among the multitude of websites publishing this image as an illustration, one can find 
Christian millennialist, “prepper” survivalist, or esoteric (New Age) sites, Buddhist or 
ecologist blogs, entertainment video channels, news portals, and skeptical personal social 
media profiles in both religious and secular contexts. Far from being only an image strictly 
targeted at faithful audiences and used in the ritual deliberations of the virtual ecclesia 
(Howard, 2009), the 2012 Apocalypse collage escaped its millennialist environment and 
spread out in the worldwide public arena of discourses. 2
Figure 2, taken from Valum Votan’s (a.k.a. José Argüelles) 2000 website,19 which 
contains articles related to 2012 and New Age prophecies, is a multilayered collage. From 
an iconographic aspect, I look at two distinct layers of this collage: the background images 
and the foreground elements.
On the left side, the viewer follows these steps: 1) First, we see a stone carving, an 
unrecognizable human figure. 2) Through iconographic consideration, we may assume 
that it shows a Mesoamerican, possibly a Mayan stone sarcophagus lid carving representing 
18 See note 9 above.
19 Illustration taken from José Argüelles’ 2002 article “Revelation Prophecies: The Bible and Pacal 
Votan” on his own website LawofTime.org (http://www.lawoftime.org/timeshipearth/articlesbyvv/
revelation-prophecies.html).
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LÁSZLÓ ATTILA HUBBES
King Pacal Votan / K’inich Janaab’ Pakal (603–683, the great ajaw or ruler of the Mayan 
city state of Palenque). This is important because Pacal Votan is one of the most notorious 
paleoastronauts made famous (“created”) by Erich von Däniken (1968), turned into an 
iconic figure for the New Age connected to pseudoarcheology, and later indirectly (but 
inevitably) to the Mayan apocalypse. 3) At an iconologic level, its primary function is 
allusive: by showing a Mayan ajaw, it is intended to refer to the presumed ancient Mayan 
prophecy concerning December 21, 2012 as an apocalyptic date. This may be precisely the 
reason why José Argüelles / Valum Votan used the figure of King Pacal Votan (considered 
by him a prophet of the coming New Age).20 The background picture on the left is more 
meaningful in connection with the next paired image and the frontal composition.
20 See José Argüelles / Valum Votan’s (2002) explanations in the online article “The Revelation Prophecies: 
The Bible and Pacal Votan” (http://www.lawoftime.org/timeshipearth/articlesbyvv/revelation-proph-
ecies.html). The text of the prophecy (probably also Argüelles’ own creation, but referred to as the 
“transcription of Blue Spectral Monkey”) can be found on the same webpage under the title “The 
Figure 2. Signs of Apocalypse. Collage from José Argüelles’ (Valum Votan’s lawoftime.org New Age 
2012 website. Ernest Blackwell © Image Courtesy of lawoftime.org).
OBE SLIKI V TEM ČLANKU 
JE TREBA ZAMENJATI!
90
RECOMBINANT REVELATIONS: 2012 IN MILLENARIAN AND NEW AGE CYBER-APOCALYPTICISM
The background image on the right might seem more familiar. 1) The first level is 
apparently a watercolor image representing three human figures and a white horse. 2) 
From an iconographic aspect, one can recognize a detail from William Blake’s Death on a 
Pale Horse, cast as one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. 3) At the iconologic level, 
the primary function of this image is again allusive; it represents the Book of Revelation 
(Rev. 6:8), thus pointing to the Apocalypse in Christian tradition, but it gains sense only 
in connection with the next paired image and the frontal composition.
The foreground composition appears 1) at the first, pre-iconographic level as a blue ball 
surrounded on two sides by colorful belts. 2) At the iconographic level, one can recognize 
the planet Earth seen (photographed) from space with a double rainbow bridge around 
it.21 To understand the significance of this composition, one has to know the mythical 
narratives from which the two elements are brought forth: a realistic photo (or CGI) of 
the Earth often symbolizes Mother Earth (or Gaia), especially in ecologist and, even more 
importantly, in New Age visual environments, and the rainbow (with its Biblical origins 
standing as a sign of God’s covenant with Noah and humanity, Gen, 9:13) has gradually 
grown into a universal symbol of peace and indirectly also an allegorical representation of 
New Age spirituality. Both the globe and the rainbow, however, also bear “classic” apoca-
lyptic connotations: they often appear in the iconography of Last Judgment compositions, 
serving as a throne or support for Christ as Pantocrator. 3) In an iconologic approach, Gaia 
is an allusion to all of humanity (and, more generally, all Her children: every living thing) 
and, together with the rainbow bridge, they symbolize the new era of peace and harmony 
that awaits us in the coming age of Aquarius. At this point, it is probably not irrelevant 
to mention that the double rainbow belt is displayed in a strangely familiar form around 
Gaia. One often sees figures of the Earth’s magnetic fields visualized with lines, resembling 
this image. Moreover, this is a strong reminder of the apocalyptic event of the geomagnetic 
reversal of the North and South Poles caused by a gigantic solar flare expected to happen in 
2012 (widely circulated in the New Age milieu and popular culture as well; Vacker 2012).
This foreground image overlapping both background images in the central position 
emphasizes the correlation or possibly the convergence of the two apocalyptic traditions 
and points to the same mystical event.
In terms of archetypal analysis, the left background image presents several archetypes: 
beyond the fact that these are expressions of (or rather allusions to) fantasy, exotism, and 
antiquity (emphasizing the authenticity of the ancient wisdom of the Mayans), the most 
important of these is the figure of King Pacal Votan. Due to Erich von Däniken’s (re)
interpretation (1968), he is the par excellence archetype of the ancient astronaut (seen by 
Telektonon of Pacal Votan. The Talking Stone of Prophecy Which Unites the People of the Dawn 
with the People of the Book” (https://lawoftime.org-/timeshipearth/telektonon.html).
21 It should be noted that the foreground composition image of the analyzed collage showing the Earth 
surrounded by a double rainbow serves as the background of José Argüelles’ / Valum Votan’s Law of 
Time website.
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LÁSZLÓ ATTILA HUBBES
the bestseller author and his followers as a pilot sitting in a sort of stylized space vehicle). 
In this sense, it represents two very important archetypes: the ancient wish of humans 
to ascend to the stars and, in an equally significant way, the celestial origins of humans. 
Coming closer to the explicit meaning of the image, the king figure is also an expression 
of the archetype of prophecy, interpreted by José Argüelles, who considered himself Valum 
Votan: an end time reincarnation of Pacal Votan, the Mayan prophet of the dawning new 
age of humanity. According to Frye’s archetypal typology, here there is a clear wishful 
apocalyptic imagery as far as Pacal Votan is seen as a representation of the cosmic (and 
divine) human being—almost an apotheosis (which is implicitly promised by New Age 
spirituality). In the sense of Gilbert Durand’s archetypical structures, one can recognize 
allusions to the diurnal, ascensional archetypes of the man flying to the stars and rising to 
unprecedented (spiritual) elevations. The right background image contains essential arche-
types. The main archetype is death, surrounded by its corollary archetypes of malefic time 
and violence. The fourth horseman, the pale rider, originates in the biblical Apocalypse 
(Rev. 6:7–8). As a central figure, he represents the concentration of the sinister complex of 
the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Here, it is loaded with ulterior, sedimentary sym-
bolism; nevertheless, one can uncover its archetypal basis, which belongs to the demonic 
imagery in terms of Frye’s categorization. A Durandian approach similarly assigns it to 
the terrifying realm of nyctomorphic, theriomorphic images of time in its malefic aspect. 
Together with the terrifying horse (the nightmare), it stands out as the purest personifica-
tion of death and destruction. The main symbols are the old (warrior) king, the horse, the 
scroll (or book), and the guide (or herald). Death and destruction, as bearers of the end, are 
central archetypes in the apocalyptic complex; in common perception, they erroneously 
represent the essence of the apocalypse.
For the entire composition, the planet Earth (or Gaia) with a rainbow bridge superim-
posed over the two background pictures provides a new connotation. Although the globe 
already appeared in ancient times as a representation of the totality of the world (the “whole 
round Earth” is a term occurring in many languages), the image of the planet itself is a 
newer development in the manifestation of the symbol. The rainbow, in addition to the 
biblical sense of peace and divine reconciliation, is a universally preferred symbol. All its 
connotations pertain to paradisiac (in Frye’s terms: apocalyptic) connotations. In Durand’s 
classification, the rainbow pertains to the diurnal, ascensional regime of images. In many 
cultures and traditions, the rainbow is identified as a bridge connecting the earthly and 
heavenly world. In this context, the planet Earth surrounded from both sides by a double 
rainbow bridge emphasizes the New Age character of the collage. Taken integrally, the 
symbolism of this collage is only allusive with regard to the apocalypse. Its two expressive 
background components reveal a bright and promising celestial (cosmic paradisiac) view 
of the 2012 phenomenon.
In a mythanalytic aspect, it is a new manifestation of an eschatological myth of 
emerging transcendent reality awaiting humanity at its next stage of spiritual development. 
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RECOMBINANT REVELATIONS: 2012 IN MILLENARIAN AND NEW AGE CYBER-APOCALYPTICISM
It is symbolized here by correlating the traditional apocalypse concept with the new(ly 
“discovered”) ancient Mayan “prophecy” (McKenna, McKenna, 1975 ; Argüelles, 2002), 
both brought under the unitary vision of New Age spirituality that prepares for a radical 
transformation of humanity in a new era of peaceful global cosmic consciousness. José 
Arguelles (2002) explicitly elaborates this idea in the prophetic text to which the image is 
attached as an illustration. He explains that the Book of Revelation and Pacal Votan’s pro-
phetic Book of Kin foretell the same future. “Chapter 21 [of Revelation] says: ‘And I saw a 
new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and 
there was no more sea.’ This is the fulfillment of the coming sixth sun of consciousness. 
The prophecy of Pacal Votan and Quetzalcoatl about the sixth sun says that the passage 
to the New Jerusalem, which opened in 2004, is the beginning of the establishment of 
the New Time, which is the inner sun burning within us and the new solar millennium.” 
This ancient idea of (post-)apocalyptic paradise gained a brand-new formulation in the 
Aquarian, Orientalizing spiritual trends and psychedelic quasi-religious experiments (from 
the McKenna brothers, through Argüelles, Wilcock, and Pinchback to Stanislav Grof) in 
the second half of the twentieth century in the western world.
Boia’s patterns of the imaginary fit this composition from two aspects: the archetype 
of a transcendental world (in which humanity as a whole “suffers” an apotheosis), and the 
projection of the future. Dualist archetype structures are weak or irrelevant in the image, 
which is a surprise given the two-sided composition of the picture and is also unexpected 
in apocalyptic connotations.
With regard to the persuasive power of visual rhetoric, the recombinant apocalypticism 
(Cardone, 2007) of Argüelles’ New Age Apocalypse image is neither meant to be subversive, 
nor is it such in effect. This image, although also a collage (with a more complex technique 
of juxtaposition), represents a distinguished level of bricolage work. Its author (very probably 
José Argüelles himself) used three different works of art, less known to the general public. 
On the other hand, the combined pictures, with the exception of Blake’s Death on a Pale 
Horse, do not originate from the classic pictorial tradition of apocalyptic imagery. In this 
sense, the image corresponds more aptly to Cardone’s idea of the recombinant apocalyptic 
and Barkun’s (2003) improvisational millennialism. Still—or exactly for this reason—the 
image has not become a genuine meme. Aside from Valum Votan’s Law of Time site, the 
image occurs only on two Italian New Age blogs, both with reference to José Argüelles.
Finally, even if it is a message that reaches a restricted audience, the composition 
contains a rather allusive narrative: “rejoice, all traditions point to the end of the old world 
to give room to a brighter, happier new age.”
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LÁSZLÓ ATTILA HUBBES
CONCLUSIONS
Given the limitations of this study, I can only refer to the rest of approximately a dozen 
similar images taken from millennialist and New Age contexts. Their investigation con-
vinced me again that the online apocalyptic rhetors—whatever their allegiance—utilize 
the same wide-ranging set of universal archetypal images, ingeniously recombining them 
for their own specific purposes. As a general observation, I can conclude that, although 
the basic visual elements of the applied imagery are broadly the same in both contexts, the 
manner of visual rhetoric makes the difference. Grim, terrifying, harsh images of global 
cataclysms, fleeing people, and mysterious ruins juxtaposed with soothing images of green-
ing landscapes, shining heavens, and scenes of earthly paradise abound on Christian and 
New Age websites alike. However, millennialists tend to use these same images in a rather 
menacing tone and exclusivist stance, in what Stephen O’Leary (1998) calls a “tragic frame” 
as opposed to the brighter, enthusiastic, and integrative tone of apocalyptic New Agers.
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REKOMBINANTNA RAZKRITJA: 
2012 V MILENARIJSKEM IN NOVODOBNEM KIBER-APOKALIPTIZMU:
ANALIZA DISKURZA SIMBOLIZMA IN VIZUALNE RETORIKE V DVEH 
DIGITALNIH OKOLJIH, NAPOVEDUJOČIH APOKALIPSO 2012
Avtor raziskuje apokaliptično duhovnost v sodobnem globaliziranem kontekstu ponovno nastajajoče 
religioznosti in novodobne duhovnosti, v katerih so tisočletne tesnobe koledarskega leta, miselnost 
zarote in krizna zavest še podkrepljene z vizualno poplavo starih in novih elektronskih medijev. 
Dvoje religioznih ali duhovnih digitalnih okolij se kaže z značilnimi podobami: na eni strani 
precej tradicionalno okolje krščanskega tisočletja, na drugi hipereklektično ozračje omrežij new 
age. Veliko raznovrstnost te fantastične podobe je mogoče obravnavati s tipološkim pristopom 
in primerjalno ikonografsko analizo. Na prvi ravni je uporabljen ikonografski pristop, ki se 
opira na triplastni model Panofskega (1955, 1972), druga metoda pa združuje semiotični 
model analize mita (Kapitány, Kapitány, 1995, 2002 [2001]) in sheme imaginarja Luciana 
Boie (2000 [1998]).
Avtor gleda na apokaliptične podobe kot na vizualno revolucijo; slikovni motivi in 
rekombinantne tradicije so preživele od bližnjevzhodne antike do virtualnih okolij digitalnih 
medijev. V drugem delu raziskovalec na kratko predstavi kontekstualne vidike, najprej 
problematični izraz apokaliptika, nato pa poudari sodobno novo očaranje sveta in vlogo novodobne 
duhovnosti; pokaže se, kako je to apokaliptično ozračje prispevalo k širjenju rekombinantnih 
podob kot subverzivne nove milenaristične retorike.
Študija je analiza apokaliptične podobe z dvema primeroma, izbranima izmed več deset 
slik. Izbrana sta bila prav zaradi tega, ker značilno predstavljata okolji sodobne zahodne 
apokaliptične religiozne miselnosti – krščanski milenarijski in novodobni kontekst – in ker 
kolaža na popoln način ponazarjata, kako lahko načela apokaliptične vizualne in vizionarske 
kompozicije uporabimo še danes. Kompleksna interdisciplinarna analiza razkriva zelo podobne 
sheme in strategije, npr. skupne značilnosti medbesedilnosti, slikovne citate, biblične aluzije, 
aktualizacijo, uporabo več različnih virov in rekombinacijo podob. Avtor sklene z ugotovitvijo, 
da vse te strukture in prepričevalne strategije v novem okolju in z novimi sredstvi digitalnega 
vesolja ohranjajo in nadaljujejo stare rekombinantne manire vizualne apokaliptične retorike.
Dr. László Attila Hubbes, Sapientia Hungarian University of Transylvania, hubbeslaszlo@uni.sapientia.ro