I’m not sure where former Phillies catcher Darren Daulton is headed on December 21, 2012, but wherever it might be, I certainly hope it is a place without a Hooter’s.

From Knight Ridder’s Paul Hagen (link supplied by Repoz of Baseball Think Factory)

“I see life in a different perspective than I used to, in a way that’s different from most people see it,” Daulton, 44, told the Philadelphia Daily News Thursday after finishing a round of golf in nearby Dunedin. “There’s so much going on that we’re not really aware of. Some people are privy to this. It’s spoken of in the Bible. Some people are awakened to what’s taking place.

“We only know what we can perceive with our five senses. I have been, for whatever reason, awakened to other realms that are achievable by all of us. All I want to do is try to convey to everyone what I have witnessed.

He spoke Thursday just hours after a story about his beliefs was posted on Sports Illustrated’s Web site. But these ideas have been percolating for years, thoughts he put down on paper while serving three months in jail last summer. He recently completed a 32,000-word manuscript he hopes to have published. Tentative title: “If They Only Knew.”

He was considered a leading candidate to become the next Phillies manager after the 2000 season, but Larry Bowa got the job instead.

Around that time, he became more convinced the world was a more complex realm than most realized.

“It was four or five years (after that day in Wrigley Field) that I started seeing this other dimension,” he said. “I saw (former Phillies manager) Lee Elia, my folks, my brother running on the beach. They were all much younger. But it was real.”

If he had to boil it down to one sentence, it would be this: “We need to stop judging each other. Because every one of us is on a different path.”

But there’s more to it than peace and harmony. Daulton is convinced that the day of reckoning is coming soon. Specifically, on Dec. 21, 2012, at 11:11 a.m. Greenwich Mean Time, the chosen will simply vanish from this plane of existence.

“That will be the end of this dispensation,” he said. “I really don’t know how to explain it. I don’t know what words to use so people won’t think I’m goofy. But by Dec. 21, 2012 (the last day recorded on the Mayan calendar), people will have a pretty good idea. It’s all about consciousness and love. We have the ability to create whatever we want. We’re all made of energy.”