The Time I Discussed the End of the World with Montel Williams

One of the benefits of not organizing your books and research files (which I do not) is discovering the unexpected. Happy accidents occur during searches, sometimes taking you in unexpected directions.

I had one such instance this morning. As I was thumbing through old binders for a profile of reincarnation researcher Ian Stevenson (1918–2007), I discovered something else: the transcript of one of my first TV appearances, this one on The Montel Williams Show on November 2, 2007. I was invited on the popular daytime talk show discuss the phenomenon of 2012.

Montel and his staff couldn’t have been more gracious. But I got hit with a surprise. The producers asked me how I wanted to be identified. “Author and historian,” I replied. I was writing my first book, Occult America (2009), at the time.

When the show aired, however, below my name appeared the sole identification, “Believes the World May End In 2012.” I groaned. Years later I joked with a podcast host, “I just want to point out that they said, ‘believes the world may end’ — I’m not some wingnut.”

As Michael Murphy wrote in his 1971 metaphysical novel Golf in the Kingdom: “Play it like it lies.”

Regardless, I’m proud of the appearance and of what I said. Does it withstand the scrutiny…