Mayan Calendar: What is driving the evolution of consciousness described by the Mayan Calendar? - I

What is driving the evolution of consciousness described by the Mayan Calendar?

How is the Mayan Long Count to be explained? Why did this ancient people, that were the most mathematically advanced of their day, choose to use a chronology that consisted of thirteen different periods of 144,000 days each, starting on August 11, 3114, BC and ending on December 21, AD 2012? On a more fundamental level three different types of answers have been given to this question, a materialist, a spiritual and what might be called a pseudo-spiritual, answers that are linked to different world views. In the materialist world view the astronomical, physical cycles are seen as primary to the spiritual whereas in the spiritual world view they are seen as secondary.

A physical or spiritual basis of the Mayan Calendar?
The first is the standard anthropological explanation that says that the beginning date for the Long Count was chosen because of some myth that lacked a real meaning. The choice of baktuns, katuns and tuns, etc. for following time is then simply explained by the Mayan way of counting, which used twenty as a base. According to this line of reasoning they choose the number twenty as the basis for counting because it corresponds to the sum of fingers and toes on a human being. And in this view the celebration of katun shifts etc. is in principle no different from our own celebrations of centuries and millenniums. The tzolkin, intimately linked to, and synchronized with, the Long Count is seen as a reflection of the human gestation period rather than the other way around. This may be described as the standard academic view. It is also a materialist view, where the Long Count is seen merely as way of keeping track of physical time and where the counting system is seen as based on material factors such as the number of toes, fingers etc.

The first suggestions in modern times that the Mayan calendar was really a reflection of changing ages were probably those forwarded by Frank Waters in his Mexico Mystique of 1975 and by Peter Balin in his Flight of the Feathered Serpent in the same year. Balin saw the Venus passages at the end of the Cycle, while Waters1 sought explanations to the beginning and end-dates of the Long Count in their horoscopes. Nonetheless, Waters made the crucial observation that the beginning date of the Long Count was not all that different from the beginning of the Jewish calendar. He also pointed out that this was the time when the first higher civilizations emerged on this planet. These were very important steps towards finding the reality basis of the Mayan calendar.

Jose´ Argüelles took the next major step in The Mayan Factor where he outlined several crucial ideas for the future understanding of the Mayan calendar. There he emphasized the Mayan cycles of 260 and 360 days, and the fact that these lacked physical correspondents. He also suggested that human history was the result of a galactic beam of thirteen baktuns that created the seasons of human history, and made an initial description of how this manifested. In this, Argüelles took major steps away from the astrological perspective towards a spiritual explanation where the archetypal influences of the tzolkin symbols were seen as playing a primary role. His explanation to why the Great Cycle had started at the point that it did was however vague and implied the existence of some kind of active seeding by a galactic federation, rather than an evolving divine plan. Argüelles was the first in modern time to systematically work on the deeper meaning of the Mayan calendar and presented an alternative interpretation to that of the academic by suggesting that the Great Cycle caused the spiritual evolution of humanity. This line of thinking may be called the spiritual interpretation of the Mayan calendar.

The present work essentially belongs to the same paradigm, but introduces three key facets that are crucial for our understanding of the Mayan calendar. First, it shows that the Great Cycle is just one of nine different major creation cycles, where the first goes all the way back to the Big Bang. Second, it identifies the holographic projections of the World Tree on the galactic, planetary and human levels. Third, it unifies the Mayan calendar with the Old World creation story and so identifies the thirteen Heavens of the Maya with the Seven DAYS and Six NIGHTS of God's creation.

A Pseudo-Spiritual Basis of the Mayan Calendar
Then there is an explanation to the Mayan calendar that may be called the pseudo-spiritual. This recognizes the existence of different qualities and energies linked to the various time cycles of the Maya, but seeks to base these upon the physical reality. This is fairly common today where we are all still affected by the materialist planetary frame of consciousness and a more spiritual, galactic consciousness is only beginning to emerge. An example of such a pseudo-spiritual interpretation is Argüelles1 later work with the Dreamspell, where he departs from the Mayan tzolkin count and places more emphasis on the astronomical year than on the spiritual qualities of the days.

Another example is provided by John Major Jenkins book Maya Cosmogenesis 2012, where the author seeks to ground the Mayan Great Cycle, and its changing energies, in the 26,000-year astronomical cycle that the earth undergoes because of precession. Both writers thus seek to adapt the spiritual cycles to the astronomical rather than the other way around, something that I believe can only lead to a dead end. The Dreamspell calendar was discussed in the previous Appendix IV and the present Appendix will be devoted to Jenkins1 theories and the astrological Doctrine of the World Ages generally. The three types of explanations, the materialist, the spiritual and the pseudo-spiritual have widely different consequences and for this reason this is not a question of merely an academic interest.

Before discussing precession I would however like to give some words of praise for some of Jenkins work. First of all, Jenkins has made a significant contribution in clarifying the nature of the true tzolkin count, and he should to a large extent be credited with having exposed the nature of the Dreamspell as an invented count. His defence of the true 584,283-tzolkin count also against academic aberrations is impressive. Also, although he has developed his thinking outside of the beaten academic path, Jenkins knows the Maya and their myths and is very well versed in the literature about them.

Jenkins idea in Maya Cosmogenesis 2012 is essentially that the Maya had targeted the end date of their Long Count, December 21, 2012, because a specific alignment between the midwinter solstice sun and the galactic center supposedly would occur then. Thus, they would have devised the Long Count calendar to describe the last in a series of five Great Cycles (together they have a duration of 25,626 years) that would reflect the precessional cycle of the earth currently estimated at some 25,920 years. In his work, Jenkins then in practice disregards the 5,125-year long Long Count actually used by the Maya and shifts the attention to the sum of five such cycles amounting to a period of 25,625 years. The idea has caught on and many now seem to think that the Maya some 2,500 years ago had exactly determined the duration of the precessional cycle so that the Long Count end-date hit right at its end in the year 2012. To the many who believe in the astrological Doctrine of the World Ages this has had a strong appeal.

Precession and The Astrological Doctrine of The Ages
A discussion of precession and the astrological Doctrine of the World Ages is hence in its place. The phenomenon of the precession of the earth, resulting in the wobbling movement of its axis, was to my knowledge first described by the Babylonian Kidinnu in 315 BC and the Greek astronomer Hipparchus of Nicea in 130 BC. It seems however likely that a drift in the position of stars had been noted even earlier and very likely as human beings gained a long term consciousness of the passage of time around the beginning of baktun 6 (see Chapter 9) speculations about a possible link between the moving positions of the stars and the coming and going of ages began. There is no reason to believe that the Maya, who commonly aligned their buildings with the heliacal rising of stars, would be an exception to this awareness of the precession of the earth.

From the limited perspective of an inhabitant of this planet the precessional movement becomes apparent through the slow change in the points on the horizon where stars rise. This is generated by the slow wobbling movement of the earth1s axis, which is similar to the circular movement of the axis of a spinning gyroscope (or bicycle wheel) that a force has been applied to. Our own situation on earth may then be likened to that of a flea living on a spinning gyroscope whose axis wobbles. Because of this wobbling movement the outlook of the flea on the external world will gradually undergo change. Thus, the flea would experience a change in perspective when looking out, "changing ages," as the axis of the gyroscope would be pointing in different directions. This is a parallel to what the ancients did from their earth-centred perspective. The point to realize however is that these changing views of the ancients - or of the flea - do not bring about a change in consciousness. Precession only changes the external appearance of the sky.

There is thus nothing mystical about this movement which is explained by Newton1s Law of Gravitation. According to Newtonian mechanics the equation determining the precessional cycle of the earth is:

d(prec)sun/dt + d(prec)moon/dt = KPS cos (eps)

Where eps is the particular inclination of the earth1s axis (23°) and KPS is an expression of the degree of bulging of the earth. What this equation means is that the duration of the precessional cycle is directly dependent on the masses and distances of the sun, moon, and planets, the inclination of the earth1s axis and its degree of bulging. (Mars, which is smaller than the earth and at a longer distance from the sun, has a precessional cycle of some 170,000 years). The duration of the precessional cycle is thus entirely based on physical factors, which may be calculated and explained by exactly the same equations that are used to place space sonds on Mars, build skyscrapers, etc, and whose validity there is thus little reason to question. What this means is that if precession were behind the coming and going of ages, then inhabitants of a planet whose axis had another declination than our own would develop at a different rate than ourselves. On a planet with no inclination of the axis (and hence no precession) no evolution could take place. On a planet made from a non-bulging material (and hence no precession) no evolution could take place. A planet with no moon would have a considerably slower precessional movement and hence a much slower rate of the evolution of the consciousness of its inhabitants. From a creationist perspective it seems extremely unlikely that the evolution of consciousness should directly and proportionately depend on such physical factors. Yet, the astrological Doctrine of the World Ages has been based on this astronomical movement. This doctrine states that as the polar axis shifts direction as a result of the precessional movement the vernal point will point towards the different twelve signs in the Zodiac during eras each of 2160 years. Each of these eras is then called an age which shares certain qualities.

Three things stand out about this Doctrine:

A/ It is arbitrary. Thus, the vernal point at Spring Equinox determines the sign supposedly characterizing an age. But why Spring equinox? If the autumn equinox were chosen another sign would rule the ages. Jenkins has chosen the midwinter solstice, which seemed to fit the Mayan end date, but this is arbitrary too. Why not let the summer solstice determine the age? Similarly, the division of the zodiac into twelve signs is arbitrary in this context. The Maya divided the Zodiac into thirteen different constellations, and the same is true for some recent astrologers that have introduced a thirteenth sign, Ophiucus. Thirteen signs would create different definitions of the ages.

B) The fact that ancient peoples may have speculated about a link between the earth1s precession and the passing of ages does not prove that such a link exists. More likely, because the precessional cycle was the only physical evidence the ancients had of a time period of longer duration, because they noticed that times change, at least from baktun 6 and onwards, and had a belief system according to which the changing positions of stars and planets in the sky influenced civilizational development, it seemed logical to them that the precessional movement causes the changing times. But this does not prove that this is the case. It only explains why some ancient peoples might have thought so. And, really, no one has proved that precession has an effect on human consciousness. To provide such proof would mean to clearly show how the coming and going of ages is directly linked to the precessional cycle with an exactness on par with what has been shown regarding the influence of the divine process of creation on the different baktuns of the Great Cycle. Despite the lack of such evidence the Doctrine of the World Ages has however had a long history, and like a medieval papal doctrine the idea continues to live on. Since the early seventies the notion of an approaching Age of Aquarius has been the very foundation of the New Age movement.

C) The astrological Doctrine of the World Ages is earth-centred rather than galactic. Thus, the coming and going of ages is believed to be determined by our local solar system, since this is what determines the duration of the precessional cycle. In a galactic view, on the other hand, the earth is but a holographic resonance projection of the entire galaxy, meaning that the spiritual cycles on earth have the same duration as the spiritual cycles in the galaxy and the universe at large. The spiritual cycles of the galaxy and the change in consciousness that they cause on earth is thus not dependent on the exact physical position of the earth in relation to the solar system or any other physical factors.

In Maya Cosmogenesis 2012 Jenkins partly distances himself from the standard Old World Doctrine of the World Ages. Noting that the Maya divided the Zodiac into thirteen rather than twelve constellations and that many astrological authorities place the advent of the Ages of Aquarius several centuries into the future Jenkins rejects this as the basis of the Mayan chronology. Following the lead of Terence McKenna, who has written a foreword to his book, he instead comes to build almost his entire argument for the precessional theory on what he claims is a rare alignment of the midwinter solstice sun with the centre of our galaxy at the very end date of the Long Count.