In the mid-nineties, Daniel Pinchbeck was a leading young literati, but he’s given up that life for one premised on open-mindedness and hallucinogen use. “I realized that even if I achieved my dream of becoming a New Yorker staff writer, all that was ahead of us, still, was this void,” he said last week in a lecture based on his new book, 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl. (From Sting’s blurb: “A dazzling kaleidoscopic journey through the quixotic hinterlands of consciousness … ”) The book chronicles various prophecies—Mayan, Hopi, and some allegedly given to Pinchbeck by the Aztec snake god Quetzalcoatl—predicting the apocalypse around 2012. Though listeners were respectful, laughs greeted a question about “a safe place to avoid the apocalypse.” Pinchbeck admits to a certain overeagerness: “I used to get back from Burning Man and read poems to people,” he says, “but that was years ago.” Next: A Week of Fantasy Islands in New York City