While the general public awaits the arrival of Doomsday on December 21, 2012, David Ian Cowan and a handful of others are more interested in October 28, 2011.

Why? Based on Carl Johan Calleman’s interpretation of the Mayan Calendar, that’s the day our entire worldview changes. These won’t be earthquake and volcano changes, nothing around which to build a blockbuster movie. According to Navigating the Collapse of Time, October 28, 2011, will bring about “a re-definition of time and an appreciation of the role of the mind and its decisions in literally creating the future.”

In fact, we’ve already created our past and continually create our present. It’s all an illusion, as various enlightened ones have told us over the centuries. According to Cowan, that’s about to change. The Shift of Ages will bring us back to an awareness of ourselves as One rather than as individuals. Once we gain that big picture perspective, the collective insanity of human beings will turn to a kinder, gentler understanding that we are not only in it together – we are it.

Basing his theory upon a book by Barbara Hand Clow, Alchemy of Nine Dimensions, Cowan gives it a spiritual spin by laying out a strategy for what he calls “living in vertical time,” a concept explained through a series of images that Cowan received while meditating, and which he shares and explains in a Primer section.

“This book is not written for those who want to argue facts,” he points out early on, although that should be obvious to most readers without the warning. After all, what we have here is essentially a prophecy and there is no way to debate the merits of such a thing; we just have to wait and see who slinks quietly away when the appointed day comes and goes.

This is not to say that Navigating the Collapse of Time is your typical pointless rambling. To the contrary, Cowan has a point and he makes it through a logical progression of thought. First, he takes us through a quick explanation of the attributes of the Nine Dimensions (dimensions being “a frequency range of vibrating matter/energy/light….”): gravity, elemental biosphere, linear space and time, the astral plane, non-dual heaven, sacred geometry, sound and light, the mind of God, and time waves. For those who are wondering what happened to the tenth dimension, Cowan defines that as the totality of the previous nine.

In Cowan’s theory, the coming change is loaded with pleasant things, like the unification of all beings in spirit/mind and the release of all fear. Whether or not you’ve already begun to sense the changes, Cowan provides a chapter entitled “Practical Things You Can Do Now,” and not one of them involves sending money to a shifty foundation. Instead, these truly are practical suggestions that will benefit anyone whether October 28, 2011, brings significant change or more of the same old: get grounded, practice silence, forgive, drop the illusion of duality.

Unlike other books on similar topics, Navigating the Collapse of Time is well-written and coherent – at least, as coherent as any spirituality volume can be. Cowan makes good use of precise metaphors that seem to be clear in his mind (e.g., vertical time is “the rod of a child’s stacking toy”) and his metaphors hold together throughout.

Much of the material here closely resembles an assortment of ancient beliefs about the nature of reality. Perhaps Cowan has just rewritten the old favorites, or perhaps all these beliefs coincide because they are all true but merely shaded by the lens of different cultures. In any case, Navigating the Collapse of Time gives us an intriguing theory and some fascinating exercises for engaging the mind as we try to grasp the multi-dimensional universe.