Tuesday, July 19, 2011

21.12.2012 Prophecy End of the world

End of time. End of the world. The end of Mayan Long Count. The apocalypse. The end of Kali Yuga. The winter solstice 2012 is not just any solstice but the solstice of all solstices. It is the Great Solstice - a solstice of the precessional or Platonic year. It is the fountain of all solstices and all equinoxes from which the life flows and cascades from a season to season. It is the source from which the time to which we owe our existence gushes out. And it is also a payback time when such existence must be justified. Did the gift of life, which was bestowed the last time around, fulfill its purpose? What does the end date of Mayan Long count indicate? What will happen on 21.12.2012? Will it be what Tom, Harry or Sally thought and put forward in their theories or will it be what it must be? What does this date truly indicate? Is it negotiable? It indicates the end of the present order and it is NOT negotiable. 21.12.2012 is an appointment with destiny. It is an apocalypse and ascension. It is the end of the world, as we know it - nothing more and nothing less. It is a complete and comprehensive destruction of the age of Kali as a dominant force shaping all aspects of life, which is preceding the dawn of a new Golden age. Did not you know that every transformation and establishment of a new order is unfolded through the destruction of the old order? Did not you know that every action must have an equal and opposite reaction? Did not you know that everything that exists must be born and it must die? Did not you know that new life is created through death and death through life? Did you think that you would never die? Did you really think that time is infinite? Well, it doesn't really matter what anyone thought because truth is not affected by such idle theories at least. To think is not to know. The winter sun 2012 ushers into 72 days of upheavals in which the chaos following a destruction of the old order will reign before the new order is firmly set in place.

Is it going to be destruction similar to the one in Noah's time 5200 years ago or as the one in which Atlantis and many other parts of the world were obliterated 10400 years ago? No, because such destructions were only partial, allowing the seeds of the past to infiltrate the new age (see biblical book of Daniel). 21.12.2012 will be a complete; hence destruction on a much larger scale, because it is not only the birth of one out of five ages of the same precessional cycle but also the birth of a brand new precessional age. It is the birth of a larger creative cycle than the past four events and will trigger a correspondingly larger degree of destruction since the larger birth is also a more painful birth. The winter solstice 2012 will not be just a change of civilizations as in the past. It is a more essential change. It is the change of the race of man similar to the one 26000 years ago in which the Neanderthal race could not justify its existence. It stipulates the demise of the present race supporting its life through the brutalities of Kali and ushering into existence a future race thriving on justice of the Golden age (Ma'at). Is it the time of ascension? It is certain ascension only for the earth. The certain planetary ascension creates only a possibility for ascension of man and all the life in the earth's environment. It depends on the level of adaptation to such new environment whether man will follow the suit.

The eventual ascension depends on the degree of harmony between man and his environment. It depends on the amount of concord existing between the spirit of man and the spirit of his creator. It depends whether his heart and his mind converge or diverge. It depends whether man's life has a purpose or not. The ascension of man is conditional upon his willingness to accept the truth and the immutability of the upcoming change. The ascension of Earth is impersonal but ascension of man is a personal responsibility. A bend in the road will be the end of the road for the present race unless it is willing to make a righteous turn. Will one make a turn if one cannot even see the bend? How can one see what lays ahead if one is only willing to look back? Is there a future in the past? Remember that although all are invited, only few are chosen, because only few are willing to accept the invitation. Only few have the time and will to see the grand scheme of life. Only few are willing to sacrifice the personal illusion of the world and embrace the world's impersonal truth. Only few are willing to exchange their unjust beliefs for the just truth. One's life is one's personal responsibility. The ascension of life is a personal responsibility to act in time. It is not an ascent but a descent, which is a choice by default to act consciously. Kali must harvest what Kali planted in an age of Kali. Any different outcome requires a personal effort.

Life is a personal responsibility because the creator creates through his creations. It is a personal choice to open the eyes or to keep them shut. It is a personal choice to accept or to reject the gift of life. Who is the one who chooses one's own destiny if not you? One will drown under the weight of unjust personal beliefs unless one is unburdened by the personal acceptance of an impersonal and just truth. One can float in the river of life only if his burden is not heavier than the feather of Maat. One can either repent or persist in his beliefs and the injustice he dishes on the world around him. Survival is a matter of adaptation. How can one adapt to what one is not even conscious of? The adaptation to personal beliefs is not an adaptation but a dead end road. The sustainability of life corresponds to its adaptation to the impersonal truth. Life must be just to be justified by its environment and the justice must be impersonal to be equal for all. Can a father be just if he favors only one of his many sons? The belief is always only a half-truth, which is creating intolerance and injustice. The half-truth is a deceit. The half-truth is worst than a lie, because it lies about the truth as much as it lies about the lie. Only the truth is just and wholesome. A world built on the beliefs is an ignorant world of Kali who rules through the deceits of half-truths. You can choose to embrace the new and just age by acting now or you can choose by default of acting now to follow its demise with the winter sun of 2012. Creation of life is a conscious effort that requires a coherent action. Only the decay and death happen by default.

It is not a question of what will happen on the winter solstice 2012 but what will you do about it. One is a certainty over which you have no control but the other is a freedom of choice. Will you be physically and spiritually ready or will the unfolding events catch you like a proverbial thief in the night? It is a free world. No one can or will be coerced. It is a personal liability to accept the impersonal truth. It is a personal choice whether unfolding events will predetermine one's own destiny or whether one will determine it by manipulating the events. It depends on the degree of one's awareness and that depends on his willingness to adapt. Alternatively, it depends on one's willingness to abandon personal beliefs and embrace the impersonal truth. It depends on the resistance the spirit offers to the changing environment. It depends on the weight of the heart. One must overcome the personal inertia or be overcomed by it. One either lives or dies. 21.12.2012 is the Judgment Day because only the life that is just and balanced with its environment will overcome it. Only the spirit that is in tune with the Higher Will will be justified. The twisted personal notions of justice do not determine the meaning of justice. On the contrary! That which is balanced and coherent is just. It is impersonal. It has absolutely nothing in common with anything that we might think or feel to be just (or not). The just is what is adaptable to environment and in tune with the Higher Will. The just is what is in tune with its purpose. The purposeless and selfish existence is unjust. See the world around you and all your questions about its usefulness and the kind of justice it serves should be answered.

If you want to heal the world, give it justice. Not an illusion of justice according to the subjective personal beliefs what constitutes love and fear but the real impersonal justice! World doesn't need the impotent projection of the passive love but a potent doses of the active love. It doesn't need an immaterial and inconsequential love but a tangible material love. The world needs the active creation and not the passive destruction to be healed. The fear of dispensing the real love in a disguise of projecting some imaginary love is nothing but a total absence of love that will only accelerate the decay and death of this world. The world needs the just and impersonal love - not an unjust and selfish love, which is not the love at all and it has no creative potential but serves the same destructive purpose as the fear. Love that is incapable of stirring tangible action is an abdication of love in the face of fear and has no creative purpose because it doesn't urge an adaptation to the truth; hence it doesn't stimulate an increase in awareness or the proliferation of life. An unjust personal love is selective, selfish and intolerant and it is anything but love in its inactivity. The love appears as fear and the fear as love in a world dominated by the sheer brutality of an age of Kali, which is promulgating inactivity, decay and chaos.

Would it be the justice to retain something that is unjust by its nature? Is it of any use to keep something that is useless? One cannot be of use to oneself but only to that that is outside of oneself. The purpose of a rudder is to steer the boat - it has no value if detached and on its own. What is the use of an unjust and selfish world, because it has no creative power? What is the use of a purposeless existence? Does it have the power to sustain itself when faced with its purpose? Can one's existence be justified when faced with one's creator on the day of the Lord? Can one offer a purpose in exchange for a given life? Can one repent the injustice fostered by the partiality of beliefs and accept the justice of truth? Can one adapt and justify his continued existence? Or is one's heart too inflexible and too heavy with the injustice? Apocalyptic 42-day passage of earth though a black hole of time that will start with winter sun of 2012 requires the clarity and justice of all life on earth. Why? Because only the justice is coherent; hence only the justice has a creative power of life. The injustice is incoherent randomness that is devoid of any power because all its selfish and isolated parts act against each other. The justice is not optional. It is the very essence of life. Life feeds on it.

The following is my testimony to the world, given to you as it was given to me and presented to the best of my ability. You can accept or reject it, use it or ignore it wholly or partially, remembering that every action or lack of it is commensurate with an appropriate reaction. Keep in mind that consequence of an action (or lack of it) outweighs the action alone. The truth is not negotiable but its perception is; hence one's awareness should always be a step ahead of the perception alone. Be ready to face the truth when its perception dissolves on the winter solstice 2012. You've been told in no uncertain terms by the ancient people of Sumer, Egypt, Vedantic India, by the traditions of Native Americans, by Maya, through the Biblical and Taoist traditions, yet you still choose to negotiate what is non-negotiable. You still prefer to veil an impersonal and just truth with the personal and unjust beliefs. You've chosen to veil the justice in many layers of injustice by believing that injustice is the justice and that justice is the injustice. You've coated the truth with many layers of deceit thinking that a deceit is the truth and that a truth is the deceit. Your religions and your science will reveal to you the same truth of an impersonal justice if you will but see it in an honest and just interpretation and free of the subjective and misleading beliefs. The world out there in all its multihued manifestations is staring you in the face, yet you are too afraid to stare back at it, preferring a selfish and impotent isolation instead of a mutual interaction and creation. The world offers you life, yet you are paralyzed with the terror thinking that life is death and that death is life.

It is one of the final testaments given to the world that the truth is not what one believes or theorizes. It is exactly what it is. It needs no interpretation. It has a very precise meaning and an exact purpose and so do any of its forms and manifestations. The truth is in the absence of all beliefs and disbeliefs. It is impersonal and just. This is one of the final rebukes before a final trumpet call on the winter solstice 2012 when the Maya Long count ends - and so does this world of Kali built on the illusions and injustice. Remember, it is an impersonal message - it doesn't matter whether you accept or reject it. It does not matter whether you see it as the fear mongering or as the love and concern for preservation of the fellow man. All that matters is the effect. All that matters is the action. If the love will lull you into inaction but the fear will stir you into action, let it be the fear, but if the fear will paralyze you into inaction; let it be the love, since love and fear are two personal faces of an impersonal truth. The heaven knows better than what we believe to be the love or the fear. The heaven knows that the true love is a just love and that an unjust love has the same purpose as an unjust fear. The rest of the text on this page is a preparation for what is to follow and unless one mastered it in its impersonal form, there would be little benefit of proceeding to the other pages. The truth is quantized in hierarchical sequences - it evolves step by step and one can proceed to the next step only if he is firmly footed on the previous step. Confusion will replace the understanding unless this advice is followed. One will stumble trying to manage several steps at once. It will become an obstacle for the next step thus defeating its purpose unless the step before is mastered.

Every step can confuse as much as it can enlighten because the justice is impersonal. The impersonal justice can be accepted in two conflicting personal forms - both of them serving the same ultimate purpose of building a stepped pyramid to the heaven with an apex on 21.12.2012. The pyramid is smooth only on the surface or from afar. The smooth texture of an outer macrocosm is built on the foundation of many inner hierarchical microcosmic sequences and vice versa. The uninterrupted smoothness on one side and the hierarchy of separated sequences on another side are also two personal faces of one impersonal truth. The purpose of a dualistic perception is its underlying wholeness but also vice versa, just as the purpose of an impersonal justice is a personal injustice but also vice versa. One option follows another in the serial or parallel sequential order creating a perpetual embrace of spiraling yin/yang. The wisdom and understanding are the shadows of ignorance and confusion and vice versa because the perception is dual and one exist only in contrast of its opposite. One is purpose of another and they co-exist as two intertwined partial beliefs of only one truth. One learns only through its opposite, because it is its purpose. One succeeds through the failures and fails through the successes. One prevails by surrendering and surrenders by prevailing. One lives only if supported by death and dies only if supported by life. One cannot exist separately from its opposite. One cannot exist without a purpose; hence one cannot exist separately from an environment, which is supporting him. One cannot exist in a selfish isolation from the world and the higher consciousness, which is projecting it because one is the purpose and the future of the world and its higher consciousness but only if the world and attainment of the higher consciousness is also one's purpose and one's future. The justice must be served because it's the stuff the building blocks of life are made of. Only the decay and death will prevail in the absence of justice - the decay and death on which the life feeds because life coheres what is incoherent, unifies what is separated, orders what is random and justifies what is unjust.

One can write just a short sentence or an entire book, depending on how much one thirsts for the wisdom and understanding. It doesn't really matter how extensively the subject is dealt with as long as the thirst is quenched. Many have heard about the Mayan end date on the winter solstice 2012 but few know what it means indeed. Many conflicting theories have sprung, one author competing with another in a final race before it is all over. Many eloquent words were spoken, yet mystery remains as deep as ever. Many have sensed the truth beyond the genius of Maya but many more prefer to impose their personal views, uncomfortable with the facts staring them in the face. Many see a correlation between the knowledge of Maya and remains of the similar knowledge scattered all over the world. Others do not want to see it covering the fear of truth with the wishful thinking. What is a belief but an unsubdued fear? The truth dwells in every heart yet many prefer to reject it because in their fear the life appears as death and the death as life. In all honesty everyone should know the truth but many prefer deceitful beliefs to an honest truth in a dishonest world. It is the fear of truth, which is hiding behind the appearance of a justified belief. A world without the beliefs, suppositions and theories is an honest world that is free of fear. A world in which personal beliefs overshadow an honest truth is a brutal, loveless and unjust world of Kali. How can anyone dare to interpret the Mayan end date if they haven't got a clue what kind of knowledge they had? How can one interpret something that one has no understanding of? How can one figure out their calendars or the correlation between the astronomical cycles and the creative cycles of earth they imply, without knowing what they knew? If you do not understand the process than at least accept its honest results. Isn't the purpose to deceive one's heart when an end is interpreted as not really an end? Isn't the purpose to justify personal fears when the theories are put forward, in which the finality of the present order on 21.12.2012 is not really final? Is the suppression of truth beyond a layer of deceit not the purpose when a non-negotiable certainty is made to appear as a mere possibility?

The Mayan understanding of astronomical cycles and their correlation with the creative cycles of earth is beyond the grasp of modern science. How can one justly interpret such superior knowledge with such vastly inferior tools of modern science? Shouldn't one backtrack his misguided efforts and try to justify the modern age from a Mayan perspective rather than vice versa. How can the present savagery and spiritual barbarism do justice to the past refinement of thought? Is a cave man in a position to justify the refinements of French cuisine or the intricacies of game of chess? Why should it be presumed that a later age is somehow more advanced then the one before when the history clearly shows that an evolution is a two-way street and that reversals are just as often as are advances? Doesn't the law of relativity, which we should have digested by now, equalize both possibilities? Doesn't such an arrogant attitude disguises an underlying ignorance and projects the fear as a valid belief? Is it an honest interpretation serving justice to the wisdom of Maya or to the present age? An end that's not an end is a complete distortion of truth - it's a belief driven to a point of insanity. It is the suicidal use of a sword intended for the defensive purpose. Such insane interpretations do not clarify but obscure. They serve no justice. Mayan knowledge of cycles goes back to the times before man walked the earth or even before the present universe came into existence; hence they are not just the astronomical cycles of the present universe but also the cycles of time transcending its present incarnation and its presently visible size. The understanding Maya had goes beyond the horizons and boundaries imposed by the modern understanding, because they knew that all boundaries are relative and that a larger and more comprehensive reality lurks just beyond the horizons.

Relativity as formulated by A. Einstein and the subsequent quantum laws are only a rediscovery of the long lost wisdom known by the Maya and all over the ancient world. The Maya were just the last one to remember them. Those who understand that the fractality principle is the foundation of the Mayan time cycles will also know that the Sumerian division of a day into 24 hrs and an hour into 60 min, the Egyptian Sothic cycles or the Vedic Yugas are formulated on the same principles. They predict the same outcome, as does the Mayan Long count - the end on the winter solstice 2012. It is not this or that or maybe. The end means the end. They could not know such vast cycles of time that are transcending all the physical boundaries of the present universe just by the observations. How can one observe something that is beyond the means of physical observations? Physical observation was obviously only a secondary tool in the gathering of information. The primary tool was an abstract understanding that they gained through the spiritual maturity. Their knowledge of the cycles reveals an understanding not only of particular isolated astronomical cycles but also of the essential fractal pattern explaining how the different cycles recursively nest one within the other. They understood not only the cycles but also the cycle of all cycles. They understood with an utmost precision the underlying infinite polynomial structure reflected in every finite and particular cycle, form or manifestation. They knew the fractal causality of all cycles, which is the causal thread connecting all cycles as one. They knew the abstract pattern beyond all particular cycles.

They knew what everyone knew in the past lost long ago - that time of the world below reflects as space in the world above and vice versa. They understood space/time relativity. They knew that astronomical cycles are intrinsically connected with the cycles of creation on Earth because everything is connected with everything else into a coherent whole through an unbroken causal thread. It was no secret that everything reflects everything else, which is the truth revealed only recently by the contemporary physical theories such as the holographic principle, quantum tunneling, Everett's many worlds interpretation and the other principles of quantum physics. The ancient world understood that analogy and similarity reveals the larger truth. It is a common sense that the size of a cycle is proportional with its duration. The larger cycle must have a larger period of an uninterrupted evolution but it must also begin and end with a proportionally larger moment of creation and destruction. The cycles must end because all that has a beginning must also have an end. Everything has a beginning and an end because an infinite reality manifests only in the finite (quantized) forms. It is a dual world in which the finiteness of a form on one level is supported by its infinity on the next level. They can only co-exist in a symbiosis with each other. Everything must have the boundaries in space and in time, where boundaries of time (duration) are inversely proportional with the spatial boundaries (size). Where is the justice when ignorance in the age of Kali judges the lost wisdom of time? It is an abomination of justice. An honest truth is covered with many layers of deceit in the age of Kali ruled by the fearful materialistic and selfish beliefs. Just as the gold is found under many layers of dirt, even the truth will be found safely stored under many layers of deceit.

One can choose to ignore an honest truth and to surrender to the fear by accepting untested beliefs only at one's own peril. It is a free world. What will take the precedence - a personal belief or an everlasting impersonal truth? 21.12.2012 is the end not of one but of two recursive cycles. It means exactly that - the end, two times over! The end of an astronomical cycle of the universe is the end of a creative cycle on earth since the time below is a holographic shadow of the space above. There is no mystery here. It is the end of the world, as we know it. Earth will tremble, shake and rip open along all its latent and patent faults. It will be scorched from below and from above. The remaining ashes, which are not washed away by the churning seas, will be scattered in all directions by the four winds. Earth will turn inside out and upside down. The old lands will sink below and the new lands will rise above. It has been done many times before and it will be done yet again on 21.12.2012. It is an apocalypse. It doesn't matter what you believe or disbelieve - it will still happen at the appointed time. The modern technology is sustained by the knowledge and manipulation of the quantum laws. Do you believe your TV or a microwave oven to be real? Is there any doubt that a tree is a tree? Is the reality a set of incoherent and uncertain possibilities or a set of coherent certainties? Is it both? It is what it is. It attains different shades only in different personal interpretations, depending on the purpose of every certain appearance. If there is no doubt that your TV, a mobile phone or your PC function immaculately, why should you doubt that the winter solstice 2012 is anything else but the end of the world, as we know it? The end of the present order in 2012 and the functioning of your electronic gadgets are the effects of the same cause. They are the inevitable outcomes of the quantum law of succession. Moreover, the entire existence is liable to the universality of the quantum laws. The end on the winter solstice is an outcome of the quantum physics.

Quantum law stipulates and the modern technology based on its stipulations confirms it, that an orbiting dense body periodically changes the quantum states through an instant quantum leap. Two different and separate levels of reality are briefly bridged in an intense quantum leap. The product of a series of frequencies excited by such recursive changes is the spectral pattern of energy specific for particular form of matter (different elements). There is absolutely nothing to exclude large cosmic bodies from the universality of the quantum law. A body such as Earth is but a particle of the surrounding four-dimensional universe in the same manner that an electron is a particle of three-dimensional earthly matter. The fact that we have 10 planets (incl. asteroid belt) instead of a cloud of an evenly dispersed fine dust orbiting Sun testifies to the contrary. Every finite manifestation and form of this world testifies to the universality of the quantum laws. Everything that has a finite size or a finite duration acts as a confirmation of the validity of quantum laws. An abstract law cannot be limited by its particular appearances. If the quantum law works for the microcosm, and we know that it does, than it must be applicable across the board. It is not the law of an atom but the universal law, because an atom is made of the same space and time as the universe. The difference is only relative, which is the difference in scale - the brief moment of time in a small space will acts as a long period of time in a large space.

The self-same variations of Bode's 3/2 harmonization, responsible for the number and distances of orbiting planets are just as much responsible for the sequential structure of an atom or for the quantized nature of the astronomical time cycles. Kepler's law of motion or Newton's inverse square gravitational law are only its further derivatives and ultimately so are all the laws of the modern physics (Bode's periodicity, its fractal space/time derivatives and the spiraling gravitational cohesion they generate through the mutual interaction is discussed at length in the book Prophet's manual). Every true law is infinite. It cannot be limited by finite manifestations. Quantum law is the universal law applicable across the board. The relativity is also the universal law. They are two faces of only the one universal law of fractality known to the all the ancient world. It is implied in the description of the world, which is as above so below, or in the notion that one creates only in one's own image. The apocalyptic change of Earth's environment is the quantum leap between the recursive quantum states or an instant transition between the two cycles of creation in the fullness of time or the completion of a cycle. Biblical book of Daniel gives that time as time and a half time, which is 3/2 time testifying not only to the universality but also to the antiquity of the knowledge of Bode's 3/2-harmonization and its quantum effects. Bode's periodicity, rediscovered by the 18th century astronomers, is an extremely old knowledge whose origins are lost in the mist of time.

The stars, galaxies or the entire universes are progressively larger and denser cosmic bodies. It is fractal recursion of dense bodies. The surrounding environment of one dense body is a dense body on a larger scale. They are all liable to the universality of quantum law just as an atom or its nucleus is. The different dense bodies - from the particles of microcosm to the series of cosmic bodies, are recursive holographic projections of an abstract (immaterial) particle in a succession of different quantum states creating a pattern resembling the interacting waves created by a disturbance of the calm waters. It is only a relative difference in scales, which is a difference in time separating the large from the small space. The relativity is the universal law because it is an aspect of the quantum law or alternatively, the quantum law is universal because it is a particular aspect of the relativity. An infinitesimally small instant of time on a small scale requires an infinitely large period of time on a large scale. The world around us in all its shapes and sizes testifies that macrocosm follows the same quantum principle as the microcosm does. Even a sunflower, an anthill, the flight of flock of birds or a shape of a cloud testifies to its universality. All the world needs is an honest and just interpretation to reveal its deepest secrets instead of misguided and unjust beliefs. Actually, there are no secrets - they are an illusion created by the beliefs. Everything lays bare in front of our eyes if we would but open them.

Gravity and its inversely proportional subsequent derivatives of matter and energy (or the size and motion as per the particle/wave duality) are always quantized into the discrete units with strict boundaries and the exact points of a beginning and an end, regardless of their relative size, motion or density. To presume otherwise is to deny validity to another universal law - the Einstein's relativity. The size or motion is a relative or comparative quantity and in all its honesty it cannot affect universality of any other law. How can the universal and absolute law be somehow limited by the relative quantities such as size, motion or density, because such relative quantities depend directly on universality of such law? The quantum law and relativity (as well as any other law) are universal and valid across the board, regardless of the relative physicality of the particular form or manifestation, as the Maya and all the ancients knew only too well - even if they have different names for them commonly translated "as above so below" or "as in heaven so on earth". Who is a primitive savage then and who is a sophisticated savant? Who is the master and who is the servant here? Who is to judge whom? Are we going to judge the wisdom of the ancients or are they going to pass a judgment over us? Their so-called "prophecies", about which we have no idea where they come from and what do they mean, testify that it is ancients of long forgotten past who will pass judgment over us and not vice versa, however we would like to believe otherwise. Our knowledge and technology might have a broader applicability but at the cost of its materialistic shallowness. In contrast, the ancient knowledge was the more selective but it run much deeper. Although their technology was less widespread, it was based on a more potent energy than the present technology. It is ancients of long forgotten past that reached the stars, not us.

The knowledge of cosmic cycles and their creative purposes known to the Maya and all the ancients of the long forgotten past are the result of an understanding of the universality of the quantum laws and the relativity of its applications. Moreover, they understood that the underlying essence of the quantum and all the other laws is fractality. All the laws are only the different derivatives of fractality, regardless if they are physical or non-physical (spiritual laws). Although such knowledge is partially preserved in the sacred geometry and numerology, its true meaning was lost. The cosmic cycles replicate the quantum states of an orbiting electron on a grand scale. They are the stepped sequences of the serial time periods separating the parallel spatial densities. They begin and end with a quantum leap - an instant change of the spin and the density of the orbiting body. They also knew, as the modern physicists also know, that period between two subsequent quantum states (time cycles) is determined by its precessional motion, regardless of the size or density of a massive body. Everything that revolves also has the precessional motion because of inertia of the massive body. The weight must slow down the motion. Such gradual collapse of the motion is its precessional motion. An orbiting electron has a precession and so does every planet, star or a galaxy. Even the wheel of a car has the precession else it will spin ad infinitum. What is the precession but the gradual negation (reversal) of orbital or rotation? What is the precession but the duration of time, which is limitation of time? The precession is time of time or an accelerated time (gravity); hence a shadow below of 4D (solar) space above, because double time is space just as double negation is affirmation. The precession is the limitation that slices the linear flow of time into discrete units (quanta) with precisely determined points of beginning and end of each quantum state or each relative incarnation of orbiting particle. It is the quantum of the surrounding solar space (4D) doubling as the time period of the embedded Earth (3D). The quantum of solar space or alternatively the duration of the present time is � precession, because the smallest unit of 4D spacetime is � (just as the smallest unit of subsequent 5D and 6D cosmic densities is 1/5 and 1/6 thus determining yet larger cycles of time).

The modern physics knows all too well that a period between two subsequent quantum states is � orbital precession. It is as above, so below - all the time between two successive quantum states or between two successive incarnations of a massive body is � orbital precession, which is a period of exactly 5200 years of 360 days each in context of the orbiting earth. Since rotational regression (precession of equinoxes) is 5/4-fractal succession following on heels of orbital precession (perihelion advance), one 26000-year creative cycle of earth consists of 5 different rotational incarnations or 5 different worlds (or suns). The cycle is repeatable in 4x5=20-folds units, well known to the students of the Maya, thus creating yet larger so-called Milankovich astronomical cycle underlying yet larger 104000-year creative cycle of earth (the regression of precession or the precession of precession). The Maya along with the entire ancient world knew quantum laws long before Dirac, De Broglie or Bohr. There is never anything new under the sun. The present rotational incarnation of earth expires with winter sun 2012. It is also the end of the present orbital incarnation unlike the past four events, because it is the end of a precessional cycle, which is also � of a larger 104000-year cycle. Earth must change not only rotational frequency as in the past four events but also its orbital frequency in order to remain in coherent or justified state. The balance of forces must change in every cardinal point of the precessional wave (�). You can argue about it just as you can argue with your PC, your TV, your phone, walls of your house or anything else that exists. It is madness to presume it any other way.

End of the world 21.12.2012 is an effect of the same cause that drives all your technology. Moreover, it is the effect of the same cause that lends all forms of reality their existence - the past, the present and the future. It is the effect of the same cause that creates the density of matter out of the vibrations of energy! It is the underlying essence of the world holding it all together through the electromagnetic and gravitational bonds. To doubt that the winter sun 2012 will spell anything else but the death of the present order of things is commensurate with doubting one's own existence. You know what kinds of forces are unleashed during the sequential quantum changes of an orbiting electron. Multiply it by a factor of double light speed as per Einstein's E=mC� formulations and you will have a good idea of what 21.12.2012 is all about. However, the force as any other particular form of reality is impersonal and which personal shade will such an outburst of energy attain is a matter of choice. The apocalypse for the unjust one is the flower of life for the just one.

A drowning man will seek salvation in any floating straw. One sees only what one wants to see. 21.12.2012 is the moment of quantum resonance in which two different waves merge and amplify each other through resonance (eigenvalue in quantum physics). The resonance is possible only in the crests and troughs of a wave or every � curvature. It has been pointed out that the winter sun of 2012 will see resonance between ecliptic and galactic equator or resonance between the orbital and precessional gravitational waves, yet the attempts are made to discredit such 90� alignment. Every right angle is a quantum or the boundary between two subsequent quantum states, implying a quantum leap in such point when the wave changes (inverts) its direction. Every perfectly round motion is distorted by inertia of its particle and vice versa because any manifestation is a duality of particle and wave. As a consequence every motion is slightly eccentric or oblique as formulated by Kepler long ago. There is no perfect curvature - every curvature is eccentric by virtue of its participating dense body or a particle. The center of gravity never corresponds to the geometrical center; hence even such an alignment cannot be exact as pointed out. For the same reason the magnetic poles do not exactly overlie the geographical poles. Eccentricity is the essence that permits interaction between the different cycles or waves; hence it is also essential for the densities of matter that they create on the material plane. The reality will remain sterile and unchangeable without it. One must have the wisdom when to see the larger picture and when to seek truth in the small details. 21.12.2012 is the actual and not the geometrical alignment between two successive fractal waves, because the galaxy is slightly oblique just as earth or any other dense body or its motion is.

Moreover, the point of alignment due to precession of one in context of another (self-interference) changes in time, so even if the alignment is perfect in one point, all the subsequent alignments will gradually depart from that point just as the solstice/equinox points slowly rotate through the entire ecliptic in the course of a precessional cycle or as the points of sunset and sunrise change from day to day passing through the entire rotational plane in the course of one orbital cycle. Such minor discrepancy between two successive waves is a synodic/sidereal difference or a quantum, which is the essence of yet larger astronomical cycle above behaving as yet larger cycle of creation below. The next alignment on 21.12.2012 by virtue of its synodic/sideral (relative) discrepancy must be slightly advanced just as the perihelion advances in time since the Mayan Long count started with a perfect alignment 26000 years ago. One cannot be excused for failing to account for the relative difference between space and time, which is the synodic/sideral or particle/wave difference between two successive spatial densities or between two successive time cycles, in today's age when relativity is known as the physical principle for over a century. Even the setting sun doesn't set when it appears so, because light travels from sun to earth in 8 minutes, � of it reflecting in its synodic/sideral difference, then how about the galaxy that's much further away? Time on Earth below acts as space of the universe above. Relativity between two successive spatial densities, one in the embrace of another, is reflected in the amount of angular discrepancy or the amount of space/time curvature because two parallel densities curve each other in diametrically opposite directions, so even perfect alignment will appear displaced through the gravitational lens of the universe and the intermediate spacetime curvature.

Such an argument of the imperfect alignment can be made as consequential without a blink of an eye only in a shallow materialistic perspective lacking its foresight and its hindsight. Anyone who is even slightly aware of the underlying mechanism of precession (or the lunar nodal cycles for that matter) cannot fail to recognize the parallel in all astronomical cycles and all parallel densities they generate in time. It is as above so below. A stone dropped into the calm waters will stir many parallel waves nesting one within the other in infinite causal thread of the successive fractality. One inertial mass (earth) will create many harmonics in space and time (Bode's harmonization). Beyond every polynomial is infinite number of harmonics, each one a successive echo of the previous one through the infinite self-interference. Nothing exists in separation because every manifestation needs support of its reaction. Ultimately, all is connected with everything else in a perfectly balanced reality (holography). An appearance denied its cause or its effects is a shallow materialistic illusion denied its deeper meaning. Spatial discrepancy leading to the gradual shift of the cardinal points is the effect of the same underlying cause (fractality), regardless of its relative scale. It is the result of the perpetual gravitational tug of war between two successive dense bodies in their mutual yin/yang embrace, where one supports another through resistance (inertia) thus creating the spiraling flower of life. If anything, such slight asymmetry confirms rather then disproves the true alignment and its inevitable consequence - a quantum leap and an unavoidable gravitational change of the earth's environment.

The cosmically induced change of frequency (change of rotation, orbital and the spatial density) implies not only the physical change but also the change of its subsequent subtle (spiritual) harmonics; hence it ends the one and ushers into the successive creative cycle of earth. It changes the material form and its underlying consciousness. One cannot reasonably dispute and deny the same essence of life to earth and its larger cosmic environment unless one disputes the existence of all the present technology and all the manifestations of material and immaterial worlds. One will not argue with the inevitability of the quantum change on the winter solstice 2012 unless one denies the existence of the electromagnetic and gravitational bonds holding the micro and macro worlds together. One cannot fail to see clearly that such an alignment spells the end of the present order of things on 21.12.2012 established some 26000 years ago with the demise of Neanderthal; hence it spells the larger finality than any of the past four events - larger than the global inundation 5200 years ago or the collapse of Atlantean age 10400 years ago. The fiery purification at the end of precessional cycle is larger and more intense change than the past four watery purifications (see the parallel in the biblical book of Daniel). The Mayan end date of Long count ushers into two new creative cycles - it is not just a change of civilizations as the past four events but also the change of the races of man.

Man has forsaken the naked truth at the cost of his personal beliefs many times before and is doing it again. Selfishness and materialism have ruled the world before in one or another form, making man blind to the purpose of his existence and he has paid the price of his resistance to repent and accept the truth just as he is about to do it again. His personal beliefs through which he subsequently introduced deceit, brutality and violence into the world earned him expulsion from primeval Eden. The history plays itself over and over again. It is a matter of choice between discriminating personal beliefs and the indiscriminate impersonal truth. Who in his right mind can argue with truth? Truth is fractal; hence it is as above so below. The manifestations on a small scale herald the manifestations on a grand scale. The skies above foretell the course of events on earth below. Warnings are many and still it is not enough. How much is enough? How many tsunamis, who many eruptions, how many earthquakes, how many storms, how much of disintegrating climatic pattern or how much of disintegrating electromagnetic shield? How much violence, how much starvation, how many diseases and wars will be enough to wake the man from his slumber? Can anyone in his right mind think that the course of events can continue in the present spiral of decay without a drastic and fundamental change?

Events follow its course. Man at his present stage has no power to do anything about it. The warning has been given through the sacred texts of every major and minor - past or present religion of the world. God is not unfair. He doesn't discriminate according to beliefs as man does. Creator can act only justly. Warning has been given through the scientific, historical and geological evidence. You can pretend that they are not there but that will not change the truth or the course of events. End of the present creative cycle and the end of the world as we know it will still arrive on the winter solstice 2012. Believe what you want, but are you ready to face your beliefs or disbeliefs in the moment of truth? Perhaps, you believe there is no truth. Are you ready to bear the consequence? Are you ready to reap what you saw? Are you ready for the justice to be served according to your own standards? This is not yet another theory competing for dominance. It is the moment of truth. Act now or bear the consequence of your inaction. Soon the events will overtake the opportunity to make the amends. Soon a certainty will overshadow all the relative and temporary possibilities. Soon a freedom of choice will be replaced by inevitability of only one choice - to be or not to be. You life is your personal responsibility. It is not the responsibility of your government, the Pope in Rome, the Dalai Lama or your neighborhood shaman. It is not the responsibility of your parents, your spouse, your employer or your spiritual guide.

It is your responsibility to bring your mind into your heart and your heart into your mind. It is your responsibility to let the mind follow the impulse of your heart and the heart to follow the input of your mind in a creative spiraling yin/yang embrace. It is imperative that the mind knows what the heart feels and that the heart feels what the mind knows. Those, which are familiar with the ways of the East preserving the oldest wisdom of man, will know what it means. The mind incoherent with its heart creates a superstitious illusion (Maya) - an appearance without a purpose, which is not the whole truth but a deceitful half-truth. It is better to know nothing than to be guided by a half-truth because it is twice larger deceit than a straight lie, since it lies about the truth as much as it lies about the lie. The half-truth based on a superstitious belief and incomplete theories is a purposeless way of Kali Yuga, which has no place in upcoming Golden Age. The truth is whole (quantum). It either is or is not. The partial truth doesn't satisfy the creative criteria of the quantum law of succession and it must laps when its option expires. The partial truth and the partial effort create partially with the exact boundaries in space and time. It has a precise beginning and the end. It has a certain size and certain duration incapable to transcend its personal finity in the context of enveloping infinity. The partial truth is a selfish materialistically induced appearance. It is an isolation of many separate parts without the mutual cohesion or holographic bonds. It is an illusion of a fatherless son in which an effect appears without a cause and a cause appears without its effects. In the partial framework of existence the causal (karmic) bonds are interrupted by the personal selfishness generating a circular development. Such existence will end unless the causal bond between man and the environment supporting it are mended before its limited (relative or temporary) option expires 21.12.2012. It is not enough to be a potential. Potential must be realized. It is not enough to exist as a mere possibility of the new world order without reaching for the option to become its certainty.

The law is impersonal. It is a personal illusion (Maya) to interpret anything as fear or love, as life or death or as a duality of darkness and light. Wisdom on one step is but ignorance on the next step. The spirit on one level is the physical body on the successive level, because the one is a holographic shadow of another. They support each other through the mutual resistance in a perpetual spiraling embrace. The world must end because of the karmic (causal) law but also because of the law of darma (succession). The finality is neither good nor bad, because the creation is another face of destruction just as the destruction is another face of creation. One supports another through their mutual resistance. The one is the measure of another. The creation is the smallest amount of destruction just as the destruction is the smallest amount of creation - the one is quantum or an atom of which another one is made. Creation is the stuff of which the destruction is made and vice versa - one is the content filling the form of another. One without another is a purposeless appearance in which the causal thread is broken and such an illusion must end just as it has begun. Did not you know that the new world could rise only from the ashes of the old one? How can a new house be erected unless the old house is dispensed with? How can one adorn the new garment over the old one? Even the snake must periodically change its skin not to be suffocated by the overgrown one. You who believe in the ascendancy of spirit, forgetting that the spirit can perceive and express itself only through the bodily senses, are you prepared to face the weight of your beliefs? Isn't the fear induced by the thought of physical destruction a reaction of your own core disbelief? You who speak of love, is your love strong enough to overcome your underlying fear in the moment of truth? Your heavenly father doesn't care what you believe.

The only thing that matters is your actions. It is the action that speaks about who you are and your will to accept the justice in lieu of violence and crime induced by your misguided beliefs. It is the action that reveals degree of coherence between your heart and your mind. It is the actions and not the beliefs that confirm maturity of your spirit. 21.12.2012 requires action and not the words. Words alone have no purpose. Are your going to be ready to face your creator by a cheap talk and no action? Can you light the fire by talking about it? Can you reach the stars by looking at them? Can you have a child by thinking about it? Grow up. Wake up. Overcome the purposeless appearance to gain an eternal life. Fulfill the purpose of your creation. Creator creates through his creation. Be a creator and not a destroyer, because a creator is created and a destroyer is destroyed when the time is up. Coherent truth amplifies and creates life while incoherence of the selfish and separated beliefs leads to randomness and death. The only outcome of inactivity is decay. Creation and coherence of life is possible only by the conscious effort. One is responsible for the creation of one's own life through coherence with the higher will. One can be born only through a father. One can never give a birth to oneself; hence one cannot know the truth through a selfish thought and a personal belief but only through the impersonal thought of his creator. Intuition without a conscious knowledge, just as a consciousness without the intuitive truth is a deceitful half-truth. Such belief must be surmounted in the interest of preservation of life, which is the purpose of creation, and also the purpose of man. What is given has the use only if it is accepted too. The one lacking the support of its opposite must eventually collapse under its own weight. Man must conquer the illusion or the illusion will conquer man.

Imagine the world in which there are no roads and no directions, and every vehicle chooses its own personal direction. It is a chaotic world in which no one would reach his destination. Is it any different with your random beliefs and half-baked theories, where everyone is fostering one's own direction of thought irrespective of the fundamental pattern supporting all of them? Isn't a belief only an appearance, when denied its rightful purpose? What is the use of a spanner if one forgot what is it for? Can one exist separated from the environment supporting it? Can a tree grow without the roots firmly planted in the ground? Can the beliefs exist without the support of underlying truth? The one can walk anywhere he chooses, but can one walk denied the support of earth under his feet? The consequences of walking in the clouds are obvious. The end result of many incoherent beliefs is a complete confusion and absence of any underlying truth. But is that a true picture of the world? World is a causal duality in which every effect has a cause and every appearance has a purpose; hence even incoherence of shattered beliefs has a reaction of an underlying coherent truth supporting all of them. See beyond the appearance. See beyond the horizons of your personal beliefs - but before they lapse with the winter sun of 2012, because it is too late to act once a hungry lion pounces on top of you.

Incoherence paralyzes all separate actions into an overall inaction but coherence amplifies the effect of each action with every other action. The strength is in unity and cohesion; the weakness is in disunity and incoherence of all the little selfish parts. The difference between incoherence of separated beliefs lacking a causal thread binding them into a coherent whole, and coherence in which all the beliefs coalesce into the one underlying truth, is the difference between order and chaos. It is the difference between the conscious and unconscious or the difference between life and death. Incoherent beliefs devoid of the underlying truth are an evolutionary dead end road, because the truth ends with an appearance without ever exposing its true purpose. Did not Christ say that you could see the kingdom of my father only through me? Doesn't it mean that one needs to follow the explicit outer guidance rather than the unreliable inner belief? The road is always a narrow path cut through the vast field. Do you think he said you must worship him as a person or you must accept his message as the truth beyond and above all the personal beliefs? Is that statement and the message any different than a message contained in one or another form in all the past and present religions? It is a free world. A choice is to rely on the personal belief or to accept the truth. The choice is to believe in an appearance or to find its purpose. The choice is to live or die. You can believe whatever you fancy about the Mayan end date on 21.12.2012, but the truth is that it spells the physical end of the world as a precondition of the spiritual renewal.

It is a destruction and cataclysm beyond all your imagination and yet only such destruction will cleanse the world of its accumulated negative karma of the materialistic and selfish existence. The cataclysmic end of an astronomical cycle as seen in the quantum leap of an orbiting electron only on a grand scale is not a theory or a personal belief but an impersonal truth. Such destruction on a large scale is the very fountain of life on the small scale just as the similar destructions on the smaller scales are the very fountain of life on a large scale. You can think what you want but the truth will still remain what it is. The truth is the very negation of all your beliefs. The truth is what remains when all the beliefs and all the disbeliefs are taken out an appearance. You can either believe it or you can know it. You have a choice to desist from the interpretations and accept the facts in all their honesty or to twist them to fit your personal moulds. The consequence will be commensurate with your choice, because your future depends on your present actions. It doesn't truly matter if you accept facts by believing in their honesty or you choose to dig for deeper truth. It is a personal choice.

The following text is a web published account delving into the very essence beyond the apparent facts; hence drink from its well if your thirst is insatiable. A word of caution though - much of the material presented here is of a highly technical nature and not suitable for everyone. If the result is all that matters to you than understand that world ends with winter solstice 2012. There is no ifs or buts. It is not open to the interpretations and speculations unless one tries to deceive oneself and the rest of the world. One can interpret it honestly only if one knows what its creators knew. You will find what they knew in here but if it doesn't resonate with your pattern of thinking than you can find its complete meaning in biblical revelations as much as in the Vedantic, Sumerian, native Indian, Egyptian and many other descriptions of the end of the world, its causes and its implications. Whatever you do, understand that this is one of the last calls for action and that very soon the course of events will accelerate beyond your ability to make any corrections. Whatever is your present spiritual maturity; remember that inactivity breeds only chaos, decay and death. Life is a conscious effort. It doesn't just happen! Creator creates through his creation. Only a coherent effort is creative; hence act coherently in unison with the higher will. Incoherence of selfish parts and personal beliefs ends with the boundaries imposed by personal limitations. Incoherence will not filter beyond the winter solstice 2012. Spiritual awareness is mature only if it is coherent with the higher will. Spirituality without a purpose is just another materialistic deceit and an appearance without a purpose or life beyond its final cut-off date. Act responsibly! Act now while there is still time, because time ends on 21.12.2012. Beyond that date there is only an unadulterated cosmic space yet to be transformed by a quantum event on 21.12.2012 in the next creative cycle of time.

The following text is an impersonal message. It has no personal value for its messenger. Its purpose as far as permitted is not competitive but complementary with all the presented scientific theories and with all the religious beliefs (or the lack of them). We claim no ownership or rights and we accept no liability. Use it or ignore it at your own discretion. It doesn't matter if you react to its content with love or with fear, with acceptance or with rejection, because an impersonal truth can attain many personal hues. The intention is not in fortifying the appearances of dualistic divisions but the very essence on which such divisions rest, which is the underlying wholeness of truth. Only the whole can be divided. This testament is not final. The book is divided in 11 chapters. The 12th and the final chapter will be your own response to it! It is the sister site of Prophet's manual, where the earlier published information can be gathered. There are no copyrights on either of them and their content can be freely and unconditionally disseminated.

2012: Beginning of the End or Why the World Won't End?

Remember the Y2K scare? It came and went without much of a whimper because of adequate planning and analysis of the situation. Impressive movie special effects aside, Dec. 21, 2012, won't be the end of the world as we know. It will, however, be another winter solstice.

Much like Y2K, 2012 has been analyzed and the science of the end of the Earth thoroughly studied. Contrary to some of the common beliefs out there, the science behind the end of the world quickly unravels when pinned down to the 2012 timeline. Below, NASA Scientists answer several questions that we're frequently asked regarding 2012.

Question (Q): Are there any threats to the Earth in 2012? Many Internet websites say the world will end in December 2012.
Answer (A): Nothing bad will happen to the Earth in 2012. Our planet has been getting along just fine for more than 4 billion years, and credible scientists worldwide know of no threat associated with 2012.

Q: What is the origin of the prediction that the world will end in 2012?
A: The story started with claims that Nibiru, a supposed planet discovered by the Sumerians, is headed toward Earth. This catastrophe was initially predicted for May 2003, but when nothing happened the doomsday date was moved forward to December 2012. Then these two fables were linked to the end of one of the cycles in the ancient Mayan calendar at the winter solstice in 2012 -- hence the predicted doomsday date of December 21, 2012.

Q: Does the Mayan calendar end in December 2012?
A: Just as the calendar you have on your kitchen wall does not cease to exist after December 31, the Mayan calendar does not cease to exist on December 21, 2012. This date is the end of the Mayan long-count period but then -- just as your calendar begins again on January 1 -- another long-count period begins for the Mayan calendar.

Q: Could phenomena occur where planets align in a way that impacts Earth?
A: There are no planetary alignments in the next few decades, Earth will not cross the galactic plane in 2012, and even if these alignments were to occur, their effects on the Earth would be negligible. Each December the Earth and sun align with the approximate center of the Milky Way Galaxy but that is an annual event of no consequence.

"There apparently is a great deal of interest in celestial bodies, and their locations and trajectories at the end of the calendar year 2012. Now, I for one love a good book or movie as much as the next guy. But the stuff flying around through cyberspace, TV and the movies is not based on science. There is even a fake NASA news release out there..."
- Don Yeomans, NASA senior research scientist
Q: Is there a planet or brown dwarf called Nibiru or Planet X or Eris that is approaching the Earth and threatening our planet with widespread destruction?
A: Nibiru and other stories about wayward planets are an Internet hoax. There is no factual basis for these claims. If Nibiru or Planet X were real and headed for an encounter with the Earth in 2012, astronomers would have been tracking it for at least the past decade, and it would be visible by now to the naked eye. Obviously, it does not exist. Eris is real, but it is a dwarf planet similar to Pluto that will remain in the outer solar system; the closest it can come to Earth is about 4 billion miles.

Q: What is the polar shift theory? Is it true that the earth’s crust does a 180-degree rotation around the core in a matter of days if not hours?
A: A reversal in the rotation of Earth is impossible. There are slow movements of the continents (for example Antarctica was near the equator hundreds of millions of years ago), but that is irrelevant to claims of reversal of the rotational poles. However, many of the disaster websites pull a bait-and-shift to fool people. They claim a relationship between the rotation and the magnetic polarity of Earth, which does change irregularly, with a magnetic reversal taking place every 400,000 years on average. As far as we know, such a magnetic reversal doesn’t cause any harm to life on Earth. A magnetic reversal is very unlikely to happen in the next few millennia, anyway.

The Blue Marble: Next GenerationEarth, as seen in the Blue Marble: Next Generation collection of images, showing the color of the planet's surface in high resolution. This image shows South America from September 2004. Q: Is the Earth in danger of being hit by a meteor in 2012?
A: The Earth has always been subject to impacts by comets and asteroids, although big hits are very rare. The last big impact was 65 million years ago, and that led to the extinction of the dinosaurs. Today NASA astronomers are carrying out a survey called the Spaceguard Survey to find any large near-Earth asteroids long before they hit. We have already determined that there are no threatening asteroids as large as the one that killed the dinosaurs. All this work is done openly with the discoveries posted every day on the NASA NEO Program Office website, so you can see for yourself that nothing is predicted to hit in 2012.

Q: How do NASA scientists feel about claims of pending doomsday?
A: For any claims of disaster or dramatic changes in 2012, where is the science? Where is the evidence? There is none, and for all the fictional assertions, whether they are made in books, movies, documentaries or over the Internet, we cannot change that simple fact. There is no credible evidence for any of the assertions made in support of unusual events taking place in December 2012.

Q: Is there a danger from giant solar storms predicted for 2012?
A: Solar activity has a regular cycle, with peaks approximately every 11 years. Near these activity peaks, solar flares can cause some interruption of satellite communications, although engineers are learning how to build electronics that are protected against most solar storms. But there is no special risk associated with 2012. The next solar maximum will occur in the 2012-2014 time frame and is predicted to be an average solar cycle, no different than previous cycles throughout history.

Thursday, September 10, 2009

QUESTION - What do we believe?

Will each of the end of the world 2012 dooms day prophecies and predictions end up being like other failed prophecies and predictions about the end of the world?

THE ULITMATE ANSWER:

As with the test of any true prophecy or prediction, time will tell.

OUR ANSWER:

Having said that, this website does NOT believe that any predictions about an end of the world 2012 dooms day for the earth are true. Even biblical prophecies about the end of the world do not give a 2012 end of the world date. In fact, no specific expiry date for earth is even suggested. What the Bible does say however is that you will be able to see a sequence of events that will lead up to the world's destruction. This includes an increase in "natural" and "man-made" disasters (which you can read about in the papers). Accoring to Bible prophecy, ALL life on earth will come to the edge of extinction! This is before something even more fearful than any December 21 2012 doomsday prediction will happen.

Biblical prophecies state clearly that we will NOT know the time. They do NOT contain any end of the world 2012 predictions. But they DO say that THERE WILL BE AN END TO THIS WORLD and that, SUDDEN DESTRUCTION WILL COME LIKE A THIEF I THE NIGHT! "For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape." (1 Thessalonians 5:3).

Finally, while we believe that..

(a) it is wise to consider reasonable potential causes of world wide catastrophic destruction and that

(b) any perceived threats from solar flares, other planets, metors, nuclear war etc, must be seriously and responsibly investigated and that

(c) we should all do our part to "save the world".....

(d) if you a Christian, meditate on this verse from Jeremiah 10:2 "Thus saith the LORD, Learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the heathen are dismayed at them."

http://www.endoftheworld2012.net/

2012 FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)

by Mark Van Stone

Is the world really going to end? Did the Maya really believe the world would end?

There is nothing in the Maya or Aztec or ancient Mesoamerican prophecy to suggest that they prophesied a sudden or major change of any sort in 2012. The notion of a "Great Cycle" coming to an end is completely a modern invention.

Maya inscriptions that predict the future consistently show that they expected life to go on pretty much the same forever. At Palenque, for instance, they predicted that people in the year 4772 AD would be celebrating the anniversary of the coronation of their great king Pakal.

Of course, astronomers expect the Sun will eventually blow up into a red giant, then collapse and eventually burn out, but not for several billion years. Although the Maya did cast some predictions into the far distant future, we have not yet discovered any that reach that far. As to whether our world will end in 2012, the answer is, well, yes and no. Americans' sense of invulnerability ended on 9-11-2001. Everything is getting darker and more desperate. Wall Street is crashing. The prospect of peace in the Middle East dims year by year. Some Russian nuclear weapons are unaccounted for. Oil consumption has outstripped our oil production capability. Don't even start with global warming or overpopulation. By any measure, the world after 2012 will certainly look much different than it does today. Statistically, some significant change for the worse is bound to happen in 2012 –or in 2011, or 2013, or 2020, or whatever year you choose.

Even if we were to find evidence of actual Maya prophecies about 2012, that doesn't make them true. Apparently all of Christendom expected Jesus to return in the year 1000, for example. And maybe the most important question to ask was voiced to me by Bill Saturno, discoverer of the San Bartolo murals. If the Maya were such skilled prophets, how could they have missed the Conquest? "Didn't see that one coming, did they?" The single most devastating disaster to befall the peoples of the Americas of all time, and not a word about it in the entire corpus of Mayan prophetic literature.

Is the Maya Calendar really more accurate than ours?

Depends how you define "accurate."

Their Solar calendar of 365 days did not count leap-years, so it was far less-synchronized with the actual tropical year of 365.2422 days than the Gregorian calendar that we use (400 Gregorian years = 146,097 days; giving an average year of 365.2425 days).

Their 260-day sacred calendar has been in use without interruption for at least 2300 years, but then, so has our weekday cycle of 7 days. "Tradition" is not the same thing as "accuracy."



Teeple (1906) found evidence that convinced him that the astronomers at Palenque recognized that the slow drift out of synchronization between the Maya 365-day calendar and the actual tropical year would take 1508 Haabs (years of 365 days) to come back into synchronization (1507 tropical years). This correction factor would come closer to 365.2422 days than the Gregorian calendar does. (This evidence consists of a distance number of slightly over 754 Haabs, almost precisely half of 1508. The "Triad Progenitor," a.k.a. "Lady Beastie," gave birth to GI, GII, and GIII 754 years and some months after the Era date 13.0.0.0.0 4 Ajaw 8 Kumk'u, for example.) So one could claim that the Maya were conscious of precisely how inaccurate their Haab cycle was with regard to the tropical year, but I don't think that amounts to saying their calendar was that accurate. We know how inaccurate the Gregorian calendar is, too, with far greater precision.

Their moon cycle alternating 29 with 30 days came close to the actual lunar month of 29.5306 days. They made it even more "accurate" by simply adjusting it by observation. That is, if the new moon appeared a day early, they simply declared the cycle to have 29 days rather than 30. Lounsbury showed they did notice a pattern in these discrepancies, however: in Copan they appear to have recognized a cycle of 149 moons = 4400 days, while the Palenque astronomers used a different cycle with 81 lunations equaling 2392 days. The later Dresden Eclipse Pages are based on the Palenque cycle multiplied by five: 405 moons = 11,960 days. All these factors come very close to the acutal value of a lunation; the latter two within a thousandth of a percent (9.3 x 10-6, or 9.3 millionths).

Ancient Maya astronomers also were apparently aware of the very long astronomical cycle we call Precession of the Equinoxes (ca. 25,800 years), and their approximation of it (26,021 years) was accurate within 1.6%. This, too, is not quite the same as possessing a superior calendar. Although it is technically incorrect to say the ancient Maya had a "more accurate calendar than we do," one must respect that the precision of their observations and their astronomical recordkeeping were astonishingly accurate. However, they were no more precise than the ancient Greeks, and considerably less accurate than our modern measurements.

Claiming that the Maya calendar was "more accurate" than the Gregorian implies, of course, that they had access to knowledge superior to our own, knowledge of a highly esoteric or even extra-terrestrial nature. This is simply not true. They simply used the tools they had at hand, and their penetrating, persistent intelligence to do the best they could. An advantage they possessed was a clearer, darker sky than we of the Industrial Age will ever see again (except the lucky few who travel in space).

Who were the Maya?

Almost any book on their art or culture will provide a more detailed answer.

The Maya are but one of many Mesoamerican ethnic groups. Like most ethnicities, they share a common language family and certain physical characteristics. Depending how you count, there are from 22 to 30 Maya languages in use, many of them endangered or threatened: the well-known Lacandones, for example, number perhaps 600 souls, mostly living in two villages in their eponymous Lacandon Forest.

In Classic times, ca. 100 - 900 AD/CE, Maya never referred to themselves as a single people. Like the denizens of Greek city-states, their identities, their loyalties lay with their local polity rather than with the race as a whole; one was a citizen of Tikál, of Calakmul, or of Piedras Negras rather than a "Maya."

After the Conquest, power shifted from local Maya rulers to distant Spanish overlords and their local officials, then to distant Mexican, Honduran, and Belizean overlords, and to local plantation owners. In many places, the hard life of the peasants changed little. They adjusted their religious practices as much as was necessary to placate their Catholic masters, and continued to do what they do best: endure.

When and where did the Maya live?

In Classic times, the Maya occupied much the same territory that they do today: All of the Yucatán peninsula, Guatemala, and Belize, plus neighboring areas: the eastern half of Tabasco and Chiapas, and the northwest regions of Honduras and El Salvador. (See Map)

A Mayan-speaking population, the Huasteca, occupy northern Veracruz, separated from the main Mayan-speaking region by several hundred miles. Perhaps a large population of Maya picked up and migrated west during the Early Formative. Just as likely, Mayan-speakers once stretched in a swath along the entire southern Gulf Coast –including the Olmec Heartland– and later populations intruded, separating them some time before the Classic Period. At any rate, they separated before the "heartland" Maya acquired writing; the Huastecs appear to have been innocent of hieroglyphs.

As for when, the Classic period was called "Classic" because of the Maya, whose apogee falls roughly between 250 and 800 AD/CE. However, growing evidence shows that the Maya had distinct cultural features and civilization as early as the Late Preclassic, usually dated ca. 400 BC/BCE - 250 AD/CE.

Here is a list of the major divisions of Mesoamerican eras, with their dominant cultures:


1800/1500 - 900 BC/BCE: Early Preclassic or Early Formative
Olmec: San Lorenzo. "Olmec Horizon" (i.e., the dominance of Olmec artistic conventions and cultural influence) spreads across Mesoamerica.
Valley of México: "pretty lady" statuettes of Tlatilco, "babies" of Las Bocas, et al.

900 - 300 BC/BCE: Middle Preclassic or Middle Formative
Olmec: La Venta. "Olmec Horizon" reaches from El Salvador to Guerrero
Central Méxican Olmec: Chalcatzingo.
Olmec Guerrero: Teopanticuanitlán. Juxtlahuaca and Oxtotilán cave murals.
Oaxaca: Monte Albán I.

400 - 300 BC/BCE: The "Late Preclassic Collapse"
"Olmec Horizon," i.e., the dominance of Olmec artistic conventions and cultural influence, disappears across Mesoamerica. The following era was characterized by a proliferation of small, independent city-states.

300 BC/BCE - 200 AD/CE: Late Preclassic or Late Formative
East: (Maya and Isthmian) Kaminajuyú, Izapa, Chiapa de Corzo, Takalik Abaj, El Mirador, San Bartolo, La Mojarra, Cerros. Also, underneath most Classic Maya cities lie Late Formative beginnings.
Central México: Short-lived Cuicuilco, and the beginning of Teotihuacán.
West: Mexcala, Colima, Chupícuaro
Oaxaca: Monte Albán II

200 - 600 AD/CE: Early Classic
East: Maya
Central México: dominant Teotihuacán, Cholula. (Teotihuacán falls ca. 650)
Oaxaca: Monte Albán III
Gulf Coast: Remojadas
West: Mezcala, Colima, Nayarit, Jalisco, Michoacán

600 - 900 AD/CE: Late Classic
East: Maya
Central México: Cacaxtla, Xochicalco, and other startups
Oaxaca: Monte Albán IV
Gulf Coast: Veracruz/El Tajín, Huasteca
West: Colima, Nayarit, Jalisco, Michoacán

800 - 1050 AD/CE: Terminal Classic
East: Southern Maya cities fall, but Yucatán flourishes: Chichén Itzá, Uxmál, Kabáh, Labná, Sayíl, Tulúm, et al.
The rest of Mesoamerica suffers a general Collapse.

900 - 1350 AD/CE: Early Postclassic
East: Chichén joins the Lost Cities club: abandoned about 1000 AD/CE. Mayapán and other minor Maya city-states preserve a faint echo of Maya greatness
Oaxaca: Mixteca (Monte Albán V)
Central México/Puebla: Cholula reoccupied, Tula Hidalgo

1350 - 1520's: Late Postclassic
Central México: Mexica/Aztec hegemony. Other states: Cholula, Tlaxcala, et al. The rest of Mesoamerica dotted with civilized states, many dominated by Aztec.
East: independent but small-time Maya city-states.

1520's - 1560's: Early Colonial
Cortez, Alvarado, et al. conquer most of New Spain, doing their best to extirpate the old cultures and enslave the population. Construction of hundreds of major churches begins.
East: In the central Petén region of Guatemala, the Maya kingdom of Tayasal remained independent of Spanish control until 1697.

Where did the Maya civilization go?

The Maya Classic era stuttered to an end during the eighth and ninth centuries AD/CE. There are many theories as to the main cause of the Collapse –prolonged drought, overpopulation, ecological destruction, epidemics, endemic warfare, et al.–, but I think it was a combination of all these; the main disagreement among scholars concerns not which of them was the most critical, but what proportion of the blame one might assign to each. There were three severe droughts in this period, ca. 800, 850 and 900 AD/CE, each lasting five or ten years, and these must have devastated life in the cities whose existence depended on local agriculture. However, some cities had a reliable water source anyway. Many cities made vicious war on their neighbors, perhaps partly driven by hunger. And it is certain that the Maya just as stupidly raped their environment as we are doing. Just the production of their prodigious quantities of stucco and mortar burned up hundreds of square miles of forest. No doubt there existed Maya Cassandras, as far-sighted and as widely ignored as our Sierra Club, who tried to forestall the destruction.

In any case, as the infrastructure and societal safety nets disintegrated, populations moved elsewhere, to Chichén or other places where there was work or food to be found. The jungle, even in drought, was quick to reclaim the cities, choking irrigation canals, prying apart stone walls, cracking the plaza pavements. After a few years, the destruction is so advanced that the dispersed former denizens of Palenque (799 AD/CE), then Tikál (889 AD/CE), then Toniná (909 AD/CE), chose to start afresh rather than try to rebuild their abandoned cities. Later still, they abandoned Chichén too, and built new capitals at Mayapán and even later, at Tihó (Mérida), each an increasingly-humble echo of its forebears. Villages were increasingly on their own.

Yet the Conquest was slow and inconsistent. Though Guatemala was officially conquered in the 1530's, the small, remote kingdom of Tayasal (on an island on Lake Petén Itzá, across from the airport-city of Flores) remained independent until 1697. Even after the takeover, various districts suffered varying levels of domination and freedom. Some governors and priests were more tolerant than others, allowing a number of ancient traditions (such as the 260-day calendar) to continue to the present day, to the delight of enthnographers.

Centuries after the Conquest, there were more upheavals. Yucatecan Maya drove out their Mexican overlords for about a century during the Caste Wars; the Zapatistas form a modern echo of their struggle for self-determination. The massacre of hundreds of Maya villages under Rios Montt in Guatemala during the 1980's was just a very visible manifestation of a long-running battle for ethnic domination of the indigenous majority by a Castellano minority. Despite these repeated setbacks (reminiscent of the travails of the Jews or Tibetans), the Maya people endure. Most of the approximately six million Maya are today bilingual and bicultural, with the largest groups being the Quiché (or K'iché) of the Guatemalan Highlands, and about two million speaking Yucatecan Mayan. Though you will find Maya language and traditions better preserved out in the country, you'll also hear it spoken on the streets in the metropolis of Mérida, capital of Yucatán. The "purest" Maya culture can be found in remote villages tucked about the highlands of Guatemala, where Christian and nationalistic sterilization lay lightly upon the land. The delayed conquest of Tayasal indicates just how remote these villages have always been.

Yet they endure. Today's population of six million may even surpass that of all the cities of the Classic period. Now, if they can cultivate the kind of ethnic pride we find in, say, Armenia (or expatriate Armenians), with newspapers, websites and television stations in their languages, they will surely prevail.

Why do you say "Maya Calendar" when everyone else says "Mayan Calendar"?

Some years ago, Maya scholars decided that the adjective "Mayan" should be used exclusively to refer to Mayan language and languages. For everything else, the adjective or noun is "Maya." Thus, "Maya Calendar," "Maya art," "Maya culture," "Maya ideas," "the Ancient Maya," but "Yucatec Mayan," "Mayan words," "Mayan speech," and "…in spoken Mayan." Those who continue to misuse the word "Mayan" in other contexts just haven't gotten the memo.

What is Hunab Ku?

The Mayan phrase Hunab Ku or Junab K'u, means "one god." The concept apparently existed, though rarely mentioned, in pre-Columbian Maya thought, but it was naturally seized upon by Christian missionaries to describe their God, and so entered Colonial Maya literature. (The phrase does not exist, for example, anywhere in the hieroglyphic corpus, nor, as far as I know, in any "pure" Maya texts such as the Popol Vuh, The Books of Chilam Balam, or the Ritual of the Bacabs.)

The term has entered the vocabulary of 2012 millennialists as the reading of a sort of "ancient Mayan glyph", a Maya "Yin-Yang" (Figure 1). Prof. John Hoopes has tracked this motif through history, and apparently Spanish friars introduced these designs to weavers in the American Southwest from México. The design first appears in the Codex Magliabechiano, a central Mexican (likely Aztec) manuscript from the end of the 16th century, and seems to have been associated with a festival of labrets (worn in a piercing through the lower lip). Zelia Nuttal's facsimiles of this codex provide models for modern Mexican artists, and it was at a weaver's shop in Oaxaca that José Argüelles first appropriated it.

Figure 1. The modern version
of the "Hunab Ku" glyph.
Figure 2. Textile (mantle) designs illustrated in the Codex Magliabechiano, ca. 1600. Of the annotation manta de agua de araña, Boone notes "The scribe misread (the Nahuatl word) teçacatl (labret or lip plug) as tocalatl, an approximation of 'spider water.' " Apparently this design was worn specifically at a festival devoted to the wearing of lip plugs… Something people in our culture would never have imagined.

In his conversational thread about this symbol, Dr. Hoopes says, "In other words, Catholic missionaries of Colonial Mexico were attempting to use the concept of "Hunab Ku" (which they may well have invented) for the "one true God." … It's a bit ironic that this concept, a tool of Christian ideologues who sought to destroy traditional Maya culture, has been adopted by others who are now claiming to "discover" and celebrate it."

(Images from folio 5 verso (#22) of a facsimile of the Codex Magliabecchano published by Zelia Nuttall in "The Book of the Life of the Ancient Mexicans, Containing an Account of Their Rites and Superstitions, an Anonymous Hispano-Mexican Manuscript Preserved at the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Florence, Italy" in 1903 [University of California, Berkeley]. Quotations from Boone, Elizabeth Hill (1983) The Codex Magliabechiano and the Lost Prototype of the Magliabechiano Group. Berkeley: University of California Press, cited by John Hoopes, at http://2012.tribe.net/thread/fb0eedeb-124b-4b1a-a93b-bd167201e98e , posted Fri, August 25, 2006 - 3:11 PM.)

How many people could read and write?

The concept of universal literacy is a modern one. In most societies, reading and writing, if needed at all, was confined to a class of specialists: lawyers, scholars, priests. Even societies possessing the easy-to-learn alphabet have restricted literacy to a select few, for most of history. (An early exception was Judea, where about 2000 years ago it became customary for the head of household to read from the Torah on Sabbath evening.)

We have no explicit information about Maya literacy rates, but we can make an estimate by comparing with Japan, whose writing system is closely comparable to Maya. It takes a Japanese schoolchild twelve solid years to learn to write; we Americans learn the basics in a year or two… most of us. (Despite this, Japan has a higher literacy rate than the USA.) It is only when a nation prioritizes full literacy that they come anywhere near achieving it.

In ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, where scribe school also lasted twelve years, the scribal class was a tightly-controlled elite. (In Egypt, however, it was the one profession which allowed a talented individual to rise above his traditional class.) Full-literacy rates there were in single digits, maybe not even 1%. I am sure that a similar situation obtained among the Maya. However, Egyptian religious and political architecture was paved with hieroglyphs; the temples at Thebes looked like Times Square. Maya public spaces displayed a like profusion of inscriptions; what with stelae, stucco, murals, and roofcombs, perhaps even more than Egypt. It is not difficult to learn to recognize a few hieroglyphs, say, the name of a god or king. Doubtless there were a number of people with this slight degree of literacy; perhaps Maya businessmen could sign their names.

The modern Maya may provide a clue. Daykeepers and other living cultural repositories exist in almost every village; even desperately poor communities have them. This tradition of esteem for literacy is deeply-rooted. During their ascendancy, 1300 years ago, the Maya literate class might have been surprisingly large indeed.

Were they on drugs?

Altered States and Religion (This Section Rated R for Drug Use … Don't try these at home!)

A word must be said about the role of hallucinatory drugs in ancient America. First, the native American pharmacoepia was far richer than that of the Old World. Europe and Asia had poppies, alcohol, and about 30 other ways to get high. The Americas, by contrast, produce about a hundred species of plants and animals with mind-altering capability, according to my Anthropology 101 class. Foremost is tobacco; in the potent concentrations smoked and ingested by indigenous peoples (dozens of times more powerful than unfiltered Camels®), nicotine is a powerful intoxicant. Mountain laurel seeds, datura, "locoweed," coca, various alcoholic drinks, peyote and other mushrooms, all were employed in travel-to-the-Otherworld rituals. Trance-dancing, sleeplessness, bloodletting1, and sensory deprivation (easily achieved in caves) also produce hallucinations integral to many Native American rites, such as the well-known coming-of-age Vision Quest. One of the most surprising hallucinogens is toad poison, collected from the large Bufo Marinis, known to Floridians as "cane toads." Toads have been worshiped (and shamans have been transforming into jaguars, snakes, and other power-creatures) since Olmec times, ca. 1200 BCE. It should come as no surprise that many native religions involve ritual hallucinations and/or intoxication.

In a recent interview with Gnostic Media (available as of this writing as a podcast:
http://gnosticmedia.podOmatic.com/entry/2008-11-10T20_44_37-08_00), Prof. John Hoopes (citing Peter Furst) describes a couple of the more interesting of the entheogenic drugs used in Mesoamerica (from Greek entheos, "inspired by the gods"):

The "cane toad" Bufo Marinis produces powerful hallucinogens in its skin: Bufotenine (5-Hydroxy-Dimethyltryptamine) and 5-Methoxy N, N, Dimethyltryptamine, called DMT's. Toad altars and other works of art are found in Olmec, Maya, and Aztec contexts.

The White Lotus (nymphaea alba) is a hallucinogenic waterlily which appears profusely in Maya art, often attached to, or draped on, a jaguar. Since jaguars are swimming cats, this charming image occasionally appears in nature. Perhaps the drug was used in rituals (well-documented in Olmec figurines) of shamans transforming into jaguars.

Psilocybin mushrooms and their desert-cousin Peyote: the latter is well-known from the popular Teachings of Don Juan books by Carlos Castañeda. Ololiuhqui (Rivea corymbosa) (morning glory) produces LSA (Lysergic Acid Amide), related to LSD. The Aztec name for the drug was tlitliltzin. (Also, the sap from the vine chemically "vulcanizes" rubber, giving their balls more bounce).

Cohoba, a kind of snuff made from mimosa seeds (known in South America as yopo or ayahuasca) contains DMT. It was widely used in South America, but its use is not proven in ancient Mesoamerica

A shaman (from Tunguskan, a Siberian language) is a special kind of priest, known to Christians as a "medicine man" or "witch doctor." S/he performs spiritual duties, from healing and divination to marriage counseling, by entering an altered state, and confronting the gods/supernaturals/spiritual forces directly. It is not an enviable job; privations, tedious rituals, powerful drugs and mental dangers are involved. In some situations, several celebrants enter an altered state, but usually that task is restricted to the shaman or ruler. (In some Maya locales or some situations, the ruler and shaman were one.) In most cultures, however, intoxication is carefully regulated or restricted to specific ceremonies and events. There is little doubt that many Maya religious rituals involved altered states.

An uncommon but notably peculiar feature of Maya intoxication practices involved the use of enemas. Most intoxicants are absorbed through the mucous membranes, those shiny, wet surfaces and passages in our eyes, noses, and mouths. When one ingests a liter of pulque or whiskey, a substantial portion of the alcohol in it is digested (by our ever-efficient saliva and stomach juices) before it has the chance to make us drunk. Somehow (the mind recoils at imagining just how), ancient celebrants discovered that the mucous membranes in the anus offered no such impediments; drugs squirted in there can be twice as effective as when taken by mouth. Several ancient Maya vase-paintings portray enema ceremonies, as well as depictions of more ordinary intoxication (check out the Kerr Vase Database).

Among the many people anticipating the "2012 Transformation" are a number of psychedelic-revivalists (echoes of the 1960's), who do their best to emulate Indigenous American hallucinogenic religious experiences.

What role did blood sacrifice play in Maya culture?

Mel Gibson's heart-wrenching vision of bodies-rolling-down-steps in mind-numbing quantities is accurate to a point. But this assembly-line mass-murder is a picture of Aztec, not Maya practice. The Christian Conquistadores, appalled, found ample motivation to destroy the priests, their shrines, their libraries and idols with enthusiastic ferocity.
Why, we ask, did they do it? Why did Mesoamericans deliberately extinguish so many lives, so many bright futures? Mesoamericans believed, as we all do, that sacrifice is always for the greater good. Simply put, they traded blood for rain, life for life. In particular the Aztecs believed that the Sun had been set in motion at the latest Creation specifically by the gods offering their own blood, and that continued blood sacrifice —preferably noble blood— was necessary to keep the sun in motion. They believed that as long as humanity continued these practices, this Creation would continue, and Destruction averted. (León-Portillo, p. 45, citing Sahagún, II, 16ff)
Unlike the Aztec, Maya blood sacrifice did not involve wholesale slaughter of dozens of captives. They did torture and kill captives, though fairly rarely, and on a personal and individual scale. Images of captive-taking and sacrifice in Maya art rarely portray more than a single captive being humiliated or killed, the Bonampak murals notwithstanding. (Lord 'Bird-Jaguar' of Yaxchilan proudly wore the title "He of 20 Captives," though those of his rivals who carried analogous epithets were proud enough of "three captives" or "five captives." It appears that even the bloodiest of Maya sacrifice ceremonies probably did not involve more than a handful of captive sacrifices.)
But much more often, Maya kings, six centuries prior, offered their own blood to the gods. One of their most disturbing deities is called God A' (pronounced A-prime), often portrayed cutting his own head off (see Kerr Maya Vases), symbol of supreme self-sacrifice, but most rulers were practical enough not to follow his example literally. Instead they practiced bloodletting, periodically piercing themselves to produce the sacred fluid. (Some Maya still do this; a farmer will sanctify the corners of each new milpa [cornfield] with a few drops of blood from his earlobe.) This the nobles did publicly, to dedicate new construction, celebrate holidays, to bless any significant undertaking. Through long practice, they developed procedures which provided a maximum of sacred blood with the minimum of risk and pain. They discovered the two places that best tolerate repeated piercing: the tongue and the penis.
Many of you Readers will have experienced a bad tongue cut: it bleeds profusely for a while, then heals rapidly, leaving little or no scar. The penis is the same (don't speculate too long how they learned this), and, more importantly, carries enormous symbolic power. Bleeding from his penis, a man emulates menstrual flow, and thereby mimics the mysterious creative force that only a woman has.
The blood-soaked cloth would be ritually burned, to feed the gods. Noblewomen would accompany the men, drawing rough or thorny ropes through their own tongues to aggravate the bleeding. Yaxchilan Lintel 24 portrays such a dual ritual; the rope is positioned so that blood that drips down it would collect in the ritual offering bowl, spotting and soaking strips of paper to be burned.
The most vivid and disturbing picture of penis-sacrifice comes from one of the earliest surviving works of Maya art, the San Bartolo Murals from about 50 BCE. These gods are anything but shy, and each sheds fountains of blood to impress us. The ribald Professor Schele delighted in closing lectures on this topic, "If our esteemed President had to stand on the steps of the Capitol and prick his dick every time he wanted to go to war, we'd have a lot more peace."
This notion of sacrifice, whether letting blood, killing captives, burning statues or throwing precious jade into a sacred well, was considered an investment. A Maya hieroglyph for sacrifice, the so-called "scattering glyph" (shown at right), consists of a hand letting drops fall, offering us insight into this notion. It is the gesture of sowing seeds. When one plants a grain of maize instead of eating it, the gods return the offering a thousandfold. Likewise, any gold, art, precious incense, blood or life consigned to the gods will be restored, returned, rewarded. We employ the same logic when we justify the deaths and injuries of our soldiers in wars; for the greater good. We sacrifice for our way of life. The same logic rationalizes the deaths of 50,000 Americans in highway accidents every year. Every time you start your car, you are risking becoming a sacrifice to the automobile gods, the gods of convenience. To accuse the Maya or Aztecs of inhumanity, because they practiced sacrifice, is deeply hypocritical.

Just what did the Maya prophecies actually say?

As detailed in the accompanying downloadable PDF presentation, only a few fragments of Mesoamerican prophecy survive to enlighten us, and few of these are Maya. All we have are splinters, tatters, a tiny fraction of what was once a vast and substantial literature. The ancient prophecies we have pretty much reduce to two categories: Stone inscriptions and the Books of Chilam Balam. The "Talking Crosses" of the 19th and 20th-century Caste Wars provide more recent material. (The Return of Quetzalcoatl is Aztec, not Maya, and isn't due till 2039 at the earliest.) Everything else, the "Maya Great Cycle" of 13 Bak'tuns, the Resurrection of the Hero Twins, even the Aztec "Sixth Sun," is pure conjecture, modern interpretation, or projection, an externalization of millennialist fantasies. Maya prophecies are most useful when we examine what they do not say.

Maya monumental inscriptions often predict ceremonial events. They use the future-tense verb utom, "it will happen," and nearly always predict trivial events, like, "137 years hence, it will be a Tuesday, the 200th anniversary of our king's birthday." For example (see the accompanying presentation), 7th-century tablets in Palenque's Temple of Inscriptions foretell something over 4000 years in the future. What momentous occasion was worth calculating so far ahead, and carving in stone? The 80th Calendar-Round anniversary of the coronation of Janab Pakal, the great king buried directly below. Besides the powerful numerological implications of the interval (4 x 4 x 13 x 20 x 365 days), this anniversary fell on the Maya date 1.0.0.0.0.8, eight days after a momentous period-ending.

The conjunction of these two numbers was the main event, a prophecy that only a numerologist could love. The Maya prophets tell us nothing about galactic alignments, transformations of consciousness, the fall of nations, nor even the actions of gods, kings, or priests. What can we deduce from this prediction? (1). They expected people thousands of years in the future to remember Pakal, to have much the same concerns as they themselves did. Life as they knew it would go on, far beyond 2012. (2). The Long Count calendar would not reset after 13.0.0.0.0, it would continue up past 19.0.0.0.0, to the six-digit 1.0.0.0.0.0. In other words, don't worry about 2012.

One monument –and one only–, Tortuguero Monument 6 (also shown in our presentation), does seem to predict an event on 21 December, 2012. Be warned; it is unique in many ways, and some very important scholars doubt that it really is talking about the future. Steve Houston, for example, believes the text's verb-endings imply that it is talking about then-contemporaneous events; noted archaeoastronomer Anthony Aveni agrees. However, it seems pretty straightforward, calculating with a correct distance number to "the end of 13 Pik (Bak'tuns)," using the utom verb, and then telling us, uniquely, something apparently non-trivial. Unfortunately, two of the glyphs are nearly obliterated, so the inscription tells us that on that date, Bolon Yokte' (a god of change) will descend to (from?) the "Black"-(??) and do (??).

The Book of Chilam Balam ("Interpreter-Jaguar") survives in several versions, highly customized for each community which preserves it. Some versions date from the 16th century, but most of them, including the apparently-most-coherent of the lot, the Book of Chilam Balam of Chumayel, (featured in our presentation) date from the end of the 18th century, 250 years after the Conquest. These books are products of a highly-decayed and -embattled tradition, and such works are often corrupted by various influences and the errors inherent in multiple-copies-of-copies.

For example, they confuse the 365-day year with the 360-day "year," and some refer to the old K'atun of 20 years, while others use a 24-year K'atun. Some of the dates given are simply wrong. The numbering of the K'atuns is confusing, and seems corrupt, or follow a system we don't yet understand: after describing and numbering the first five K'atuns, the Chumayel manuscript starts numbering anew, calling the sixth cycle "The first katun. Katun 1 Ahau is the seventh katun." Likewise, the next they call the "second katun," then the "third," followed by the "ninth," which puts the numbering back on track. And so on.

They contain K'atun- and year-prophecies, auguries for periods that repeat eternally; the K'atun-prophecies apply to 20-year eras that repeat every 256 years. The K'atun for the era 1992 - 2012, for example, also applies to 1736 - 1756, and to 1480 - 1500. So Columbus's voyages and the reign of Emperor Qianlong prefigure the period through which we are presently passing, and the prophecy for all three of these eras are the same: "The quetzal shall come, the green bird shall come. Ah Kantenal shall come (kante is a species of tree, source of a yellow dye). Blood-vomit shall come. Kukulcan ("Feathered Serpent" = Quetzalcoatl) shall come with them for a second time. The word of God. The Itza shall come." This prediction rivals Nostradamus for its vague and arcane assertions. It tells us nothing.

More importantly, of the 13 K'atun prophecies, most are unequivocally bad.
The first will suffer "niggardly, scant" rains;
the third "carnal sin" and "dissolute rulers."
"Harsh tidings" characterize the fourth;
"locusts, fighting," and "little profit," the fifth.
The sixth is consistently "evil."
The eighth will suffer "drought,"
the tenth from "lewd speech,"
and the 13th will have "no lucky day."

The other five are good or non-committal (the Katun 4 Ahaw prophecy quoted above is one of these). The future will be miserable, interrupted occasionally by a transient ray of hope. Now there's a forecast we can all agree with! It certainly has been true for the Maya.

The pronouncements of the "Talking Crosses" are often hopeful. Compiled during a time of profound rebellion, they tell of tribulation and triumph, projecting a day when the dominant White folks disappear from the land, leaving it to its rightful owners, the Maya. None of these forecasts proffer specific dates, beyond "Very soon, …" It is important to note that, according to Prof. Robert Sitler, who has done extensive original interviews with traditional Maya elders and such in the Highlands, that while many foresee better times a-comin', none believed that the transfer would arrive in any specific year. None assigned any important meaning to the date we call 2012.

What does 13.0.0.0.0 mean? Why is it significant?

The short answer is: The Maya Long Count calendar "started," not at zero, but at 13.0.0.0.0; and in late December 2012 it will reach 13.0.0.0.0 again for the first time in 5125 years, like a clock striking midnight. If you believe that the Maya regarded this recurrence as significant, rather than a coincidence, then perhaps they also believed coming day in 2012 might herald a new "Creation."

The long answer is: The Ancient Maya used several calendars simultaneously, just as we do. To recapitulate what I describe in the downloadable PDF presentation:

They had a 365-day solar calendar with months and days like ours, commonly known as the Haab. This calendar they shared with other Mesoamerican peoples; for example, the Aztecs, who called it Xiupohualli ("year-count"). Note that to both Mesoamericans and moderns, this is a cyclical calendar: your birthday, for example, comes around every year, as does Tax Time, planting, harvest, and Christmas. The first full day of the Maya Haab is 1 Pohp, for example; in 2009-2011, it falls on 4 April. (However, Pohp officially begins on the previous day [or perhaps evening], the "seating" of Pohp, a day whose authority is shared by Pohp and the previous "month," Wayeb.)

They also had a nine-day cycle we call "Lords of the Night," which rotated like our days of the week. We refer to these little-understood days as the G-glyphs: G1, G2, etc.

The most ancient and widespread Mesoamerican calendar was the sacred 260-day Tzolk'in ("count of days") called by the Aztecs Tonalpohualli ("count of destiny"), with its concurrently-cycling 13 numerical coefficients and 20 names (like Manik' or "Deer," Ok or "Dog," Ik' or "Wind," etc.). An example of a Tzolk'in date would be 4 Ajaw in Maya, or 2-Acatl/2-Reed in Aztec. The Maya expressed most dates as a combination of the Tzolk'in and Haab , such as "4 Ajaw 8 Kumk'u." This combination, called a Calendar Round or CR, is not unique in time, it cycles every 52 years. However, for most historical contexts it would do; most people will see only one example of any given CR in their lifetimes. Among the Aztecs, 52 years was the age to retire.

But the calendar we are concerned with here was the Long Count. It works much like our modern year-count (AD 1492 or 2009 or 2012), totaling up the days since an arbitrary "zero date," sometimes called "Era Date:" 11 (or 13) August 3114 BC/BCE. In its simplest form (in Late Formative monuments around the time of Christ, and in the Dresden Codex around the Conquest), a Long Count date was written as a five-digit (vigesimal) numeral, which we conventionally render like this: 9.7.17.12.14, or 9.14.0.0.0, for example. During the Classic period, these numbers almost never stood alone: A Long Count date like the first, from the La Esperanza or Chinkultik' Ballcourt Marker, was actually written something like:

"Tziik-Haab-?? ("The Count of Years, [presided over by the?] 'patron' of [the month] Xul"):"
"9 Pik ("bundles" of 400 years),"
"7 Winikhaab ("20-years"),"
"17 Haab ("years"),"
"12 Winik ("persons" or "months" of 20 days),"
"14 K'in ("suns" or "days"),…"

So it keeps track of elapsed time since the "Creation" or "Era Date" on 4 Ajaw 8 Kumk'u back in 3114 BC/BCE. One might think that this calendar were linear, not cyclic at all, except that the Maya consistently recorded the "Era Date" in question as 13.0.0.0.0, not the 0.0.0.0.0, we should have expected. Dates during the previous Era they render (at Palenque, for instance) as 12.x.x.x.x, clearly indicating that they considered the clock running up to Era Date as counting a previous 5125-year cycle, which for some reason was reset when the top digit reached 13, rather than continuing up to 20.

This mysterious resetting of the clock to "zero," when it reached 13 Pik back in the 32nd century BC, forms the entire basis for the belief that when it reaches 13 again, something awesome will happen. This conjecture was first voiced four decades ago by the very reputable Michael D. Coe, in his first edition of The Maya (1966):

"The idea of cyclical creations and destructions is a typical feature of Mesoamerican religions, as it is of Oriental. The Aztec, for instance, thought that the universe had passed through four such ages, and that we were now in the fifth, to be destroyed by earthquakes. The Maya thought along the same lines, in terms of eras of great length, like the Hindu kalpas. There is a suggestion that each of these measured 13 baktuns, or something less than 5,200 years, and that Armageddon would overtake the degenerate peoples of the world and all creation on the final day of the thirteenth. Thus, following the Thompson correlation, our present universe would have been created in 3113 BC, to be annihilated on December 24, 2011, when the Great Cycle of the Long Count reaches completion"

(p. 149, cited by John Hoopes — his dates are slightly "off," partly due to differences between Julian and Gregorian calendars.)

To complicate matters, some Maya monuments give dates of the 4 Ajaw 8 Kumk'u Creation with higher-order coefficients, including 8000-year (Piktun), 160,000-year (Kalabtun), 3,200,000-year (K'inchiltun) periods, and on upwards. Such dates at Coba and Yaxchilan fix the coefficients of these "long Long Count" dates all at 13. The dates at Coba have twenty-one-digits, 13.13.13.13. … 13.13.0.0.0.0, fixing Creation in a cycle some nonillions of years long (that's a number with 30 zeroes), billions of billions of times longer than the interval since the (scientifically-accepted) Big Bang. This implies that they believed that 4 Ajaw 8 Kumk'u fell on an extraordinary conjunction of 13's. They must have felt that all those 13's gave the present Creation some special significance.

What then, did the higher-order coefficients do after the 13-Pik (or 13-Bak'tuns) was reset to zero? Were they all reset? (Again, recapping the accompanying downloadable presentation, Part 2): The calendar-priests at Yaxchilan don't seem to have thought so. They provide us a 13-digit Long Count date in their present age, where the first eight digits are still frozen at 13. It did not work like a proper odometer. That is, when the Pih/Bak'tun coefficient reset from 13, it did not advance the upper digits, neither to 14, nor to zero, nor to one. Thus, at least at Yaxchilan (and probably at Coba), the higher-order time-units were entirely symbolic: the strings of 13's were not thought of as "real" time units in the same way as the last five.

The scribes and Pharisees at Palenque and Tikál did not subscribe to this interpretation of the higher orders of Time-units. Tikál has a stela carrying ananomalous Long Count date implying that they set the present era's Piktun coefficient at 19, not 13. The Palenque calendar apparently differed from both these: they call the year 4774 AD/CE "one Piktun," which can only happen if the coming year 13.0.0.0.0 (in 2012) were followed by 14.0.0.0.0 in 2407 AD, and 15.0.0.0.0 in 2801, and on up past 19.0.0.0.0 around 4370…. In other words, though they agreed on the "normal" five-digit Long Count dates, these three important Maya cities all subscribed to different ideas about what trans-Pik coefficients should be. This indicates that the original Long Count calendar, invented during the Late Formative, probably only defined the lowest five digits, never addressing the Piktuns and so forth at all.

The earliest known Long Count dates (7.16.x.x.x, between 40 and 20 BC/BCE) come from Chiapa de Corzo, Tres Zapotes, and Takalik Abaj. The last is Maya, but the other two are Isthmian, miles to the west of Mayaland. Most scholars believe the Long Count to have beeen an Isthmian, not a Maya invention, though there are those who claim its invention for Izapa, right on the border between the two peoples. Unlike the 260-day calendar, use of the Long Count was not widespread; there is no evidence that the Aztecs, Mixtecs, Zapotecs, or any other Mesoamericans ever used it.

One note of warning: we have virtually no decipherable texts from the Late Formative era, the time of the calendars' invention. John Major Jenkins, a self-described "2012ologist," points out the danger of using Classic-era texts to interpret the thinking of peoples several centuries earlier and many miles away. He contends that the differences I note between various cities' Long Count calendars are due to much later political manipulation, and ought to be ruled out of any analysis of its inventors' intentions. He firmly believes that the priests who devised the Long Count fixed its "end point" in "Era 2012" rather than some beginning event. The evidence he cites for this is not based on any text, but on his interpretations of Late Formative pictorial monuments, mostly at Izapa.

I have preferred to use centuries-too-late textual information, rather than rely on iconography, for a simple reason: In every other context, whether Biblical or Latin or Chinese, written texts convey information orders of magnitude more precisely than just pictures do. It is thanks to texts that we can identify the various avatars and gods of ancient India, although our earliest extant copies of, say, the Vedas, are at least a thousand years removed from their composition. Likewise, earliest surviving Biblical texts are centuries, millennia newer than their originals, yet we are confident that they preserve the stories without severe modification. The same is true for Classical Chinese and Greek literature: though much has been lost in the centries intervening between the origins and our texts, we know copyists have been remarkably faithful. Without the texts, we might have a little trouble identifying just what a Bacchanal represents, or who is who in the Parthenon pediments.

And the Izapa monuments – intricate, numerous, and well-preserved (in their original locations!) though they be, possess peculiar, difficult-to-interpret iconography. Many images are unique, and none preserve a trace of readable text. (I suspect that, situated on a border between linguistic groups, Izapa carvers decided to forgo public hieroglyphic inscriptions which would favor one linguistic group over another. A polyglot situation also obtained in Teotihuacán and late Chichén Itzá, multicultural metropolises which likewise avoided public inscriptions.) For an exemplary careful and reasoned interpretation of Izapa's iconography, see Guernsey. For a divergent, much more fanciful one, see Jenkins. The divergence could not happen if the pictures carried readable inscriptions. The most-clearly-recognizable of the Izapa images (Chaak fishing, Hero Twin confronting the Bird) are informed by texts written down many centuries later. Despite the passage of centuries, the written word is surprisingly conservative and reliable.

What is a Period-Ending?

The Ancient Maya Long Count calendar (see the 13.0.0.0.0 FAQ) is like an odometer. Every day its lowest digit (K'in, or "day") clicks one higher, and when that digit reaches 19, it clicks over to zero and the next, the Winal (or Winik) digit, adds one. When the Winal gets to 17 (not 19, it's uniquely anomalous), it clicks over to zero and the next one up, the Haab (or Tun, "year") adds one. (18 x 20 = 360, so a Haab is 360 days, nearly a year.) And so on. Every year, the date would end in two zeroes (e.g., 9.15.13.0.0 or 9.0.10.0.0,), while every twenty years, it would end in three (9.13.0.0.0 or 9.17.0.0.0,). The ancient Maya celebrated these "round" numbers (which always fall on a Tzolk'in date Ajaw), just as we do when we end a decade or century.
We call them Period-Endings or PE's, and the Maya had a special glyph for them, a 'hand pointing,' with a 'bead' dangling from the 'pointing index finger.' (The origin and connotation of this peculiar image is unknown. In Thompson's dictionary it is numbered T218.) It reads Tzutz, which in Mayan means, "to end," "to terminate," "to expire," and "to join."
The ancient Maya renewed things -new paint, new stucco, sometimes whole rebuildings (and probably new clothes, dishes, etc.)- every Winikhaab (just under 20 years, formerly called a K'atun), as well as its major fractions: most often every five or ten years, and sometimes on the 13th year of a Winikhaab. So we find many more PE's on dates like 9.14.10.0.0, or 9.16.5.0.0, or 9.18.13.0.0 than on, say, 9.15.7.0.0 or 9.15.18.0.0. The Maya also celebrated anniversaries, and jubilees of significant events like coronations, particularly at Winikhaab intervals. When a king reached his sixtieth birthday, he gained the title 4-Winikhaab-Ajaw ("4-K'atun Lord"), meaning he had entered the fourth 20-year-period of his life. A few kings were referred to as 3-Winikhaab-Ajaw, though I suspect that even the Maya considered this a bit pretentious, as it is no big deal to reach 40 years of age. Some, like the venerable Janahb Pakal of Palenque, were 5-Winikhaab-Ajaws. One had even made it to 6-Winikhaabs, over 98 years old.
Considering that the ancient Maya had such respect for Period Endings, and the number 13, it comes as no surprise that the date 13.0.0.0.0 provoked substantial interest on their part. What is unexplained is the why almost every ancient reference to that date is to the earlier one, back in 3114 BCE, and there is only one surviving mention of the next one, in 2012. (Tortuguero Mon. 6.) Even that one, as Steve Houston points out, only briefly projects ahead to the date, then immediately "snaps back" to the then-present, in the seventh century.

Who is Quetzalcoatl?

In Nahuatl – the Aztec language, Quetzal means "feather" and Coatl means "serpent." Thus the name of this character means, "Feathered Serpent," and that is often how he is portrayed, a snake with feathers, slithering through the sky, a god of wind and the sky itself. There is also a species of bird, eponymously called quetzal, because its most remarkable feature is its glorious tailfeathers, three times as long as its body, like a Dr. Suess creation. It also is emerald green, with a blood-red breast, and its head bears a distinctive forward-pointing crest. The leaves resemble the leaves of a maize plant; the bird could be seen as a zoological reflection of the Mesoamerican staple. These features conspired to bestow upon the bird the status of a god, and the little jewel-like quetzal retains a modern incarnation of its ancient status: National Bird of Guatemala.

In Olmec iconography, the ancestor of this sky-serpent is a snake with a raptor's beak, which many scholars call the Avian Serpent. They usually sport a distinct crest which we have nicknamed 'flame-eyebrow,' though it has nothing to do with fire iconography. Both the Harpy Eagle, largest avian predator in Mesoamerica, and the feared Fer-de-Lance viper, have little upthrust "crests" of feathers or scales just over the eye, which may have inspired this feature in Olmec representations of this god in art.

In Mayan languages, the bird and the word "feather" are both K'uk', and "serpent" is Kan or Chan, so the feathered-serpent sky deity is called K'uk'ulkan. In Mayan, the word for "sky" is also Kan or Chan, indicating an identity between the two which is not accidental. The Feathered Serpent was the embodiment of the Sky, Wind, and by extension, Breath and Music. The Aztecs conflated him with Ehecatl, their god of wind.

Both Aztec and Maya legend tell of a man, a king, bearing this name. His story is about the same mix of history and myth as our King Arthur. He was probably named for the god, and then became conflated with Him. He lived about a thousand years ago, in the Terminal Classic period, and the two stories complement each other in an interesting way. Quetzalcoatl, a wise and impossibly noble king of the Toltecs, was tricked by his evil brother into committing an atrocious incestuous sin, and sailed away to the east on a raft of snakes. About the same time, across the Gulf of México, a great king arrived from the west to rule Chichén with wisdom and prosperity for a number of years. Landa tells us he founded Mayapan as well, and other accounts credit him with "bringing the faith" to Cozumel. He later ascended to heaven. His feast was celebrated at Mayapan and later at Maní, on the last five days of the month Xul, ending on 0 Yaxk'in, on which day he was believed to descend bodily and abide among his worshippers. In the Aztec account, he promised to return on his birthday, 1-Reed. Earlier incarnations of this god had a birthday of 9-Wind. This day was profoundly important to the Maya as well; god GI of the Palenque Triad (an incarnation of Chaak) was born on 9-Wind, and later, Lord Ahkalmonaab III selected that day for his coronation in the eighth century.

Note his different calendrical associations. Motehcuzoma II was born in a 1-Reed year, and considered Quetzalcoatl his personal patron. (Unluckily, it was on his significant 52nd birthday in 1519, also a 1-Reed year, that Cortez arrived.) But most Mixtec and other communities honored him on 9-Wind, while his northern Maya festival was scheduled according to the 365-day calendar, on 16 Xul - 0 Yaxk'in. We moderns have hardly an inkling of the complex relationship of the auguries and associations of the Mesoamerican calendar days. They were far more complex than the influence-interactions of the planets in a comprehensive zodiacal horoscope you might hire a professional astrologer to cast for you today. To make matters more complex, the rules and auguries were different from place to place, sometimes radically so. Ross Hassig argues that Aztec rulers manipulated the Calendar as a political tool, and I believe that they were following a well-worn tradition in this.

What is this correlation constant?

The correlation constant is a number which connects the Maya Calendar with that used by modern astronomers. By the time of the Conquest, the Maya were no longer using the Long Count Calendar, and before long the triumphant priests and friars had pretty much stamped out what was left of the "pagan" native calendars (the 260-day and 365-day cycles, mainly), since they were intimately tied to native religions.

However, a handful of early Spanish and Maya records contain a date or two in both the Christian and Maya systems. They are not precise, however, on the order of "(the) K'atun (ending on) 13 Ajaw" landed sometime during 1539. Exacerbating the problem: a K'atun 13 Ahaw comes around every 256 years.

Astronomers date celestial events with a "star date" based originally on terrestrial days, but as independent as possible from earthly cycles. Its basic unit is the Earth day of 24 hours, and it counts only days (and fractions thereof) from a "zero" point at noon (Greenwich or Universal time), "January 1, 4713 BC, by the Julian proleptic calendar." (This date is copied from the Wikipedia article on the "Julian day;" visit that webpage or google "julian day number" to learn more.) In order to correlate a date in any calendar with any other, one begins by ascertaining the Julian day numbers (JDN) of the two calendars.

The Goodman-Martinez-Thompson's correlation constant is the JDN of its start date, 13.0.0.0.0. According to their calculations (based on cross-checking several Maya colonial documents) the GMT constant is 584,283. That is, add 584,283 days to 1st of January 4713 BC (Julian) and you arrive at 6th September 3114 BC (Julian), which correlates to 11th August 3114 BC (Gregorian), the calendar in use today. (The reason Julian and Gregorian are a little out of step has to do with their different leap year formulas. Look it up.) This correlation leads one to 21st December 2012 for the next 13.0.0.0.0.

Floyd Lounsbury, looking at the Dresden Venus Tables and some other astronomical data, later adjusted the GMT correlation constant by two days, to 584,285. He convinced Schele, Coe, and many other scholars to use his reckoning; they place the 13.0.0.0.0 dates two days later, at 13th August 3114 BC and 23rd December 2012.

There were several other correlations proposed. Spinden chose an earlier K'atun cycle (his constant is 489,383), so his date calculations are all 256 years earlier than the GMT's. If he were right, 13.0.0.0.0 came and went in 1756. Bowditch's correlation constant 394,483, is another 256 years earlier, and happens to put 13.0.0.0.0 in an era that I think highly appropriate for a Maya End of the World: 1493. There are about a dozen other estimates, but carbon-dating of the dated wooden lintels from Tikal support a GMT or GMT+2 date with about 75% assurance.

But I prefer the GMT, the one also favored by all the millennialists. The strongest evidence I have found in favor of that versus the GMT+2 is that reported by Dennis and Barbara Tedlock in Momostenango in the highlands of Guatemala. There, as recently as a decade ago, day-keepers were still using the 260-day calendar, and it fits the GMT. I suspect it is still in use, or revived, thanks to the various Maya Calendar calculation websites (such as that at http://research.famsi.org/date_mayaLC.php ).

What is the "Popol Vuh"?

The Popol Vuh is a book written some centuries ago in the Mayan Quiché/K'iche' language. The title means "Council Book" or "Book of the Community"; modern Maya orthography spells it Popol Wu'uj. Like a number of indigenous colonial documents, it owes its existence to legal insecurity: A noble family needed to establish their right to certain privileges and property. As with many lineages, their foundations lay in the legendary past, back to Creation itself. (This applies equally to the European nobility, who record their genealogy back through the kings of Babylon and Israel, to Adam and Eve.) In this case, the rulers of Quiché linked their line back to the First Parents, and apparently considered the Hero Twins Hunajpú and Xbalanqué their especial protectors.

It contains a unique account of the four Creations of the Maya world, spends the majority of its pages on the exploits of the Hero Twins (no fewer than three sets of twins take part), in the misty era before the present Creation began, then carries on through the creation of the Quiché nation and up to the year 1550. The original book, probably written in the 1550's, found its way into the hands of the parish priest of the highland Guatemala town of Xelá (better known as Chichicastenango), one Francisco Jiménez or Ximénez, who wrote out a copy for himself around 1700. His book is now preserved in the Newberry Library in Chicago, luckily, since its original vanished long ago. The original text (or perhaps its predecessor) seems to have been illustrated, and may even have been written in hieroglyphs; here and there it states things like, "We see here…", as if narrating a series of pictures.

For our purposes, the Popol Vuh's account of the four Creations reveals the ancient predecessor to the more detailed and compulsively-symmetrical Aztec Legend of the (Five) Creations (called five "Suns"), which strikingly follows it. Its list of gods responsible for Creation, for example, faintly echoes the god-lists we find in carved inscriptions (the "planters" of the Three Stone Thrones, for example) and on the Vases of the 7 Gods and of the 11 Gods. (For these, see Part 2 of our accompanying downloadable PDF presentation.) Unlike other surviving Creation stories, however, the Popol Vuh contains no calendrical dates. This is a bit surprising, considering the importance calendar dates hold in nearly every Mesoamerican culture and historical document. Also, in nearby Momostenango, the 260-day calendar has been in continuous use from very ancient times to the present. It seems unlikely in the extreme that the 1550's author of the Popol Vuh would have been ignorant of the calendar, so we are forced to the uncomfortable conclusion that he deliberately chose, for some reason, to refrain from using it. Perhaps the Spanish Colonial authority to whom he would be presenting his legal claim frowned on its use, for much the same reasons that Bishop Landa, some three to six years later, burned all the Maya books he could lay hands on. ("…they contained nothing… (but) superstition and lies of the devil…".)

Several authors have published translations of this important book, most recently Dennis and Barbara Tedlock, and Allen Christenson. Both these, as well as other editions in Spanish and English, provide insights into the original author's intended meanings. I distilled my collection of excerpts from Allen Christenson's 2000 edition, though I urge serious Readers to peruse at least a couple of different editions.

Click on the link to view a highly abbreviated version of the Maya Popol Vuh in pdf format.

Did the losers of the Ballgame get sacrificed?

The Ballgame or la Pelota was one of the most unusual features of Mesoamerican cultures. Early Formative rubber balls have survived in the springs of El Manatí, from about six inches to ten inches in diameter. Known as far north as Arizona, by the Classic period Hohokam, the game was something like a cross between soccer and volleyball. Played in an alley between shallowly-sloping walls, its object seems to have been to volley a rubber ball back and forth by hitting it with the hip or upper arm. Teams seem to have been two or three to a side. A version of the game survives to this day in Sinaloa; when you see a demonstration-for-tourists game at Cancun or Uxmal today, it is likely being played by Sinaloans.
Just as today we play rugby, American football, soccer, and other related games, la Pelota appears to have had several versions, each with somewhat different rules. For example, several surviving West Mexican statuettes portray a player holding a ball in his hand, about the size of a grapefruit or softball. Some ancient images of ballplayers (as those on the talud at Chichén Itzá's court) carry a "hand stone" (shaped like an iron for pressing clothes, but with a snake-head on it), which imply a variety of the game where they hit the ball with it. Sinaloan players wear no hip protection (they must have monster calluses), but images of most Classic-era ballplayers wear substantial yokes (or yugos) as well as chest and knee pads (usually on one knee only) and sometimes elbow pads (also often restricted to only one arm).
Ballplayers here wear yokes, kneepads and cumbersome, ornate headdresses, as they contest a medium-size ball.(Click on image for more information from Kerr's MayaVase database)
Maya ballgame images carved on stone reliefs usually label the ball with what appears to be a "gauge": 9-Nahb or 14-Nahb, or other numerals apparently indicating the ball's size -Nahb can mean "palm of the hand" (or "pool of water"), which suggests different games with different-sized balls. Some artists emblazoned the ball with a skull (those at Chichén have 'smoke' issuing from the skull's mouth), or other figures. This may indicate that the ball was properly played with a real skull, or that the rubber ball contained the severed head of a sacrifice from the last game. Images from Yaxchilan stairways show huge balls, three or four feet in diameter, bouncing down the steps, carrying an image of a trussed prisoner. Did some ballplayers actually "kick around" a poor bundled-up guy? How could anyone move a ball weighing over a hundred pounds, much less volley it?
To return to sacrifice, la Pelota was not just a game. Surely, as in Sinaloa, most games were actual contests, as meaningless and entertaining as a modern soccer match. But the games played in the Popol Vuh were in earnest; the first Hero Twins (1-Hunajpu and 7-Hunajpu) lost their heads after losing to the Lords of Death, and the second Twins (Hunajpu and Xbalanque) were burned to ashes after their game. Paralleling the Gospel story, the latter Twins went on to resurrect and defeat the Lords of Death. The Ballgames which involved sacrifice were re-enactments of this story, Passion plays; the "losers" were indeed sacrificed, but the game was fixed, its outcome predetermined. As in a Passion play, you neither expect nor root for Jesus to be saved at the last minute; his sacrifice is necessary for our Redemption. It was an honor to play the role of the Twins, and their resurrection (in another plane) was assured. So perhaps the "losers" were considered "winners" of some sort. This "game" must have been performed with some regularity, though we have no idea whether it was an annual event or happened, say, every 52 years. As it was a part of the Creation myth, one might expect it to have been celebrated at Period-Endings, every 20 years, or perhaps, in prosperous places, every five.
The famous Princeton Vase shows two scenes. On the left is a decapitation, usually thought to illustrate that of the Maize God 1-Hunajpu by grotesque Lords of Death. In a touching gesture on the other side of the vase, one of the ladies gently pokes her fellow wife's ankle to draw her attention to the grisly event. (Click on image for more information from Kerr's MayaVase database)
In any event, the Ballgame was probably played just for fun most of the time, and only sometimes ended with sacrifice. It would be hard to imagine an end-of-season elimination tournament, with all the losing teams losing their lives.

Notes

  1. Anyone who has given blood to the Blood Bank can testify that losing even a pint can cause dizziness. In the frequent bloodletting rituals common in Mesoamerica, the amounts often lost could have induced hallucinations and other altered states.
    http://www.famsi.org/research/vanstone/2012/faq.html