Willamette Week| News| Lead Story

Two weeks ago, Powell's City of Books hosted a Year 2000 summit, a standing-room-only gathering of survivalists, Bible thumpers, New Age hippies and gigageeks. Most of them had come to hear about the global chaos they fear will be caused by widespread computer failure on Jan. 1, 2000.

In the musty atmosphere of Powell's Purple Room, the paranoia was almost palpable. Two middle-aged matrons from Clark County, clad in stretch pant suits and waving survivalist literature, demanded to know how soon after Y2K the government would call out the troops.

A lanky Marine sergeant, his freshly mowed head gleaming, leaned out from the stacks of books to respond. "I never heard of this Y2 whatever before," he drawled, "but if we take over, you liberals ain't gonna like it."

Then, a self-described "rainbow gypsy" named Jason Gibson grabbed the mike. His face dusted with glitter and framed by a floppy purple velvet cap, Gibson shared Y2K advice he had learned from Hopi elders, urging those in attendance to form "crystal earth pods" and head to the hills. He invited people to join him at a Planet Art Network meeting, where they could get their galactic signature decoded and learn the real cause of Y2K.

As bizarre as the meeting seemed, it was made even stranger by the presence of Dick Hofland, the City of Portland's Y2K specialist. Wearing a starched button-down shirt and gold-rimmed reading glasses, Hofland looked every inch the bureaucrat's bureaucrat. What made Hofland's presence at Powell's strange was that he, the most conventional guy in the room, agreed with much of what was said.

Rather than concentrating on how much software can be fixed in the next 400 days, people wanted to talk about what Y2K really means. In essence, the argument that Gibson and others made was that we have become far too reliant on computers.

As the meeting ended, Hofland, whose remarks all afternoon had been purely factual, turned philosophical. "Y2K will be a catalyst that gets people to take more responsibility for their lives and build community," he said. "And that's a good thing."

For two years, Hofland's job has been to coordinate all the city agencies as they prepare for the millennium. The city faces four key areas of vulnerability, he says: the police data record system, 911 and emergency services, the water supply and outside vendors, Hofland's biggest source of concern. The vendors who worry him most he calls "the iron triangle"--electrical utilities, telecommunication companies and banks.

Hofland believes larger companies are making progress; he's more concerned about small and medium-sized businesses that can't afford expensive software fixes. Overall, he sees Y2K as a gargantuan project-management problem rather than an uncontrollable catastrophe. "The technical solution for Y2K is very, very simple," he says. "The difficulty is the number of places it can occur."

Hofland has inventoried the city's systems and is now testing them to see if they'll crash in 2000. So far, he's determined that about 80 percent of the systems are compliant--up from 60 percent a year ago. For a couple of reasons, he says, Portland is less susceptible to widespread disruption of services than many cities are.

First, unlike cities that rely on computerized pumping systems, our water system is gravity-fed. Second, the Bonneville Power Administration, which supplies most of the city's electricity, can be restarted and run manually if necessary. However, Portland is connected to the Western Power Grid, which links all cities this side of the Rockies. Even if the BPA is OK, failures on the grid could turn out the lights locally.

After two years of debugging, Hofland is optimistic, but he's also a realist. "There is no silver bullet," he says. "Not Bill Gates, not Apple Computer."

A recent congressional report on Y2K stated that "It is now clear that a large number of Federal computers systems simply will not be prepared for January 1, 2000. At the same time, the utilities industry, the financial services industry, the telecommunications industry, vital modes of transportation and other indispensable industrial sectors are all at risk."

Last week, The New York Times and USA Today ran front-page stories warning of the social upheaval that could result from the failure of such systems. Closer to home, Sen. Gordon Smith, a member of the Senate's Special Committee on Y2K, told a recent gathering in Hood River that he was worried about how the problem might affect other countries, especially those with nuclear weapons.

Wall Street is worried as well. Edward Yardeni, chief economist at Deutsche Bank Securities and one of the Street's most respected forecasters, predicted earlier this year that Y2K will cause a global recession. Only two weeks ago, the Federal Reserve announced plans to print $50 billion in extra currency in the next year. Fed officials arrived at this figure by assuming that each of the country's 100 million households might withdraw an extra $500 ahead of Y2K. Officials say they want to ensure there will be enough cash on hand if there's a pre-millennial run on the banks.

Some Portlanders are preparing with even more urgency. Hidden among the used-car lots and chain stores on 82nd Avenue is an immaculate, cavernous building known as the Bishop's Storehouse. Its principal purpose has been to supply needy Mormons with subsidized food. Part of the facility contains a dry-pack cannery, where church members buy and can dehydrated food. For the past decade, only church members used the cannery. Today, it's busier than Toys 'R' Us the day after Thanksgiving. Business is up more than 400 percent, says Bishop's Storehouse director Lou Sponseller, who attributes the increase to non-Mormons. "Y2K is unquestionably the driving force," he says.

In Portland, the most unusual approach to Y2K can be found in a low-slung bungalow on Southeast 47th Avenue. From the outside, the house--sheathed in aluminum siding, its porch covered by Astroturf--is unremarkable. Inside, the ambience is more earthy, harking back to a groovier time. Feeble winter light barely penetrates the dank living room. The aromas of scented candles mingle with the smell of damp soil. In the kitchen, a wall of shelves supports Amazonian trays of organic sprouts--garlic, alfalfa and bean.

This bungalow, called the "Goddess House" by its inhabitants, is the unofficial world headquarters of the Planet Art Network, a group that believes Y2K is about much more than computers crashing.

PAN members, who range from didjeridu crafters to civil-rights lawyers, hug each other a lot. They are an earnest bunch who use Bragg liquid aminos sauce instead of salt on their whole foods and who believe in communal living for reasons other than free love. Some look like time travelers from '60s communes, and others appear perfectly strait-laced; all greet each other with the Mayan salutation "In Lake'Ch," which means "I am another you."

Every 13 days the group gathers at "crystal meetings" at a warehouse on Southeast 10th Avenue. There, they purify themselves with the smoke from burnt sage, share their feelings, sing and dance. When someone utters a profundity, others raise their palms to shoulder height, wiggle their fingers and say, "Ho!" Judging from a recent crystal meeting, it seems members spend a lot of time nurturing themselves.

PAN's founder is José Arguelles, a former art history professor at University of California-Davis. Arguelles has written several books, including The Mayan Factor and Surfers of the Zuvuya, which form the ideological backbone of PAN. Last month, Arguelles, 59, moved here from Arizona.

"I think he senses this is where the energy is at," explains Gibson, the 29-year-old rainbow gypsy and former telecommunications entrepreneur who spoke at the Powell's summit.

No concrete statistics are available, but local PAN members estimate that the group has over 300 members in Portland and 45,000 to 60,000 worldwide. Like Baywatch and the music of John Tesh, PAN is reputed to be enormously popular in foreign countries, in particular Japan, Brazil and Chile.

Arguelles, who declined to be interviewed for this article, is best known for staging an event called the Harmonic Convergence in 1987. Derided by The New Republic as the "moronic convergence," the event was an attempt to bring together spiritual seekers at holy spots all over the world.

For the past four years, Arguelles (also known to his followers as Valum Votan and by his galactic signature, Blue Spectral Monkey) has been preaching that humankind has fallen progressively out of sync with nature. He dates the decline to 1582, when Pope Gregory XIII adopted the Gregorian calendar, the 12-month, 365-day version that became the world standard.

Arguelles advocates the adoption of his 13 Moon calendar, which is derived from the ancient Mayan calendar and corresponds to natural cycles. Each day in the PAN year has a unique name. For instance, this newspaper hit the streets on White Overtone Mirror.

Arguelles contends that by abandoning "12:60 time," as he calls the 12-month, 60-second system, and adopting the 13 Moon calendar, humankind will return to a balanced relationship with the earth. "The very essence of all of modern civilization, the 12:60 timing frequency is an error in time, a manifest illusion, a dark spell held together by money and machine," he writes.

In the past few months, PAN has seized on Y2K as a metaphor for its message. The group agrees with more mainstream observers that computers will crash. Unlike these people, however, PAN thinks that the crash, while initially threatening stability and order, will ultimately make the world a better place.

One of the most fervent believers in the possibility of transformation is the spiritual head of the Goddess House, a tattooed 21-year-old named Eden Sky. For the past four years, Sky has constructed the fiendishly complicated 13 Moon calendar and instructed members in its proper use. "Y2K is the result of a misunderstanding of time," she says, "but it's an opportunity to shift our consciousness."

Arguelles' writings and Sky's calendars provide the theoretical framework for PAN, but when it comes to forming a plan of action for Y2K, the group's leaders are Gibson and an ascetic figure who calls himself Justin Time. They are the same age, 29, but in other respects are as different as Arguelles and Bill Gates.

Given to wearing a purple serape, rust-colored high-top moccasins and a wispy goatee, the emaciated Time radiates spirituality. Or maybe he's just hungry. He makes didjeridus for pay and lives in a Zen retreat in the Columbia Gorge. A decade ago, he bailed out of the University of Oregon. After backpacking around Asia for years, he returned to Oregon and started an import business. Before long, the Gulf War soured him on the American way of life.

If Time looks like a smaller, smilier version of David Carradine, Gibson looks more like Brad Pitt on a mushroom trip. Gibson's life has changed a lot since he joined PAN. He split with his girlfriend of eight years because, he says, her consciousness lagged far behind her interest in material goods. Although he still carries a cell phone, he has abandoned the telecommunications firm he founded. "In March, I got the word it was time to go to Arizona to sit spirit with the Hopis," he explains, "so I dropped the business and headed down there."

These days, Gibson and Time are preparing for Y2K. Their vision of the millennium is dark. They believe that Portland will be without food, heat or functioning banks. Sewage will run unchecked into the rivers, and garbage will pile up in the streets. When electricity and telecommunications and distribution systems get wiped out by computer failure, they say, the three days of food stored on supermarket shelves will soon be exhausted. Refrigerators won't work, and trains won't run. Energy markets will be disrupted; natural gas and oil will be scarce. People will be cold. Many will have guns. Gangs will roam the city. "I believe this planet is going to go through a very serious loss of life," says Gibson.

The only way to avoid a bummer of a millennium, they say, is to return to sustainable living. No more agri-chemicals, toxic waste or mistreatment of indigenous peoples. But--and this is where they differ from the survivalists--change must be made collectively, not by huddling in separate bunkers.

"It makes no sense for individuals to prepare without community involvement," Time says. "Unless communities prepare collectively, there will be a lot of suffering."

Y2K--and where to be on New Year's Day 2000--is the main topic of conversation at the Goddess House these days. Sky wants to remain in Portland because she believes her highest calling is to serve as a peacemaker. Gibson, however, plans to flee town and says he will be armed.

"Some of us have genetic memory chips which recall tribal ways," he explains. "Some of the people that I've been studying with are armed to the hilt. We've lost the sense of what it's like to be a warrior society."

When Gibson leaves Portland, he'll have a lot of choices. According to Time, PAN members either own or can use at least six rural "homelands" across Oregon. They won't divulge addresses, but the homelands range from 12 to 250 acres and are in the Gorge, Mount Angel and Ashland and on the coast. Elsewhere, mostly in Montana, Arizona and Texas, the group says it has access to several thousand acres of land.

Arguelles has suggested that 13 is the optimum number for the "crystal pods" of people who will go back to the land. Ideally, members of each pod will be specialists--butcher, baker, candlestick maker, etc.--but the essential criterion, Gibson says, is that "they must have energy that fits."

They must also learn skills such as how to make fire from scratch. Although it's not obvious how Y2K imperils the world supply of matches, a PAN posse recently road tripped out to the Gorge to bang flint against rock. In addition, members are learning how to identify useful plants and employ alternative energy sources. As a result of Y2K disruptions, they believe our monetary system will collapse and that their skills will save them. "People are accustomed to buying what they need with money," Time says. "We're going to find out what money can't buy."

PAN's message of sustainability encompasses many ideas that are fairly mainstream: organic farming, respect for the environment and the importance of community. But the movement's ideological stew of New Age beliefs, Hopi wisdom and Mayan worship of nature challenges comprehension. Members tend to obscure the sensible parts of their message with a mind-numbing reliance on Trekkie-like jargon (PAN folks don't simply talk--they "download energy packets") and some puzzling inconsistencies.

Where PAN really careens off the deep end is in its conspiracy theories. To some members, Y2K is more than a giant computer malfunction and a symbol of over-reliance on machines; it is, they claim, actually part of a grand plan of global domination by sinister forces. "Y2K is a conspiracy between government and big business to consolidate power and establish a New World Order," Gibson says.

The New World Order is, of course, a favorite catch-all of the ultra right. For it to crop up in PAN's quiver of arguments is somewhat surprising, given the group's liberal leanings.

But the inclusion of far-right conspiracy theories is not PAN's only contradiction. Despite his technophobia, Arguelles communicates with his followers via e-mail every 13 days. Members see no irony; such communication is just a rung on the evolutionary ladder. "E-mail is a baby step toward telepathy," Sky says. In the 13 Moon calendar, Arguelles, an advocate of vegetarianism, is pictured wearing a leather jacket.

Arguelles has tried to peddle his calendar to a broader audience, reportedly making presentations to the United Nations and the Vatican, neither of which has adopted it yet (probably because they're part of the New World Order). He does claim some level of acceptance from two organizations: Louis Farrakhan's Nation of Islam and the Rinri movement of Japan, a group that wants to make telepathy the international form of communication.

Dick Hofland isn't going to rush out and join PAN. He isn't even interested in his galactic signature. Gibson and Time, he believes, overestimate the consequences of Y2K. "Something won't go right," Hofland says. "But I think it will be trivial, rapidly repairable anomalies rather than systemic breakdown." Competition will force industry to be Y2K-compliant, he believes, and government agencies will get the job done--at least locally.

Still, he finds a lot to like in PAN's insistence that people take responsibility for themselves and lead more sustainable lives. When asked by an audience member at Powell's whether the best response to Y2K isn't moving to the country and getting some protection, Hofland replied, "Well, I live in Yamhill County, I've got a big dog, and I've got a gun."

He was half-joking--he's had the dog and gun and lived in Yamhill for years--but he takes the threat of Y2K disruptions seriously. "Y2K won't be the end of the world as we know it," Hofland says, "but it will tell us how we're all interconnected."

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Willamette Week | originally published December 2, 1998