(Chapter intended for my 2002 Inner Traditions book Galactic Alignment, but was cut from published version)
The responses among scholars to my work have covered the whole spectrum, from supportive agreement and encouragement to close-minded denial, depending on the individuals involved. However, the response has been weighted in the direction of the latter. I believed that, at the very least, I was putting new ideas on the table that should be honestly and carefully evaluated by scholars and experts. Unfortunately these experts were usually specialists, and I was surprised by the lack of knowledge these specialists displayed of the various fields that I had integrated into a whole picture of ancient Maya cosmology. As a result, exchanges with scholars tended to evolve into them feeling threatened as gaps in their interdisciplinary knowledge became exposed and I directed them to the academic studies that backed up my position.
For
example, one scholar on the Aztlan email list criticized my “assumption” that
there was astronomy encoded into the Maya Creation book, the Popol Vuh. I
directed him to the work of Dennis Tedlock, translator of the Popol Vuh, who
demonstrated that the Popol Vuh is all about astronomy. The dialogues
would bog down at these elementary levels and, especially on email lists, I
would find myself having to recapitulate every point and citation in my
450-page book for the benefit of those intellectuals who were ultimately not
interested in reading the book but only in indulging in polemics. A few of my
exchanges with better known Mayanists will be revealing.
Ed Krupp, Mayanist and Director of
the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles, responded to essays I sent him in
1995-1996. This was material that argued for the dark-rift and the crossroads
as indicating a creation place in Maya cosmology. His main objection was that a
Mayan concept of a galactic equator could not be proven, and that no evidence
indicated the “star fields of Sagittarius” as a creation place in Mayan
cosmology. Regarding the first objection: The Milky Way itself is the galactic
equator; degrees of precise measurement have enabled modern astrophysicists to
narrow this down to an abstract dotted line extending through the precise
middle of the Milky Way. In addition, the dark-rift is a narrow path along the
middle of the Milky Way, extending north of Sagittarius and Scorpio, which the
Maya recognized variously as a road, a mouth, and a birth portal. This was the
Mayan’s conceptual equivalent of the galactic equator. Regarding the second
objection: In Maya iconography, crosses denote the cosmic center and origin
place. The Great Cross formed by the Milky Way and the ecliptic (in
Sagittarius) has been recognized as a viable concept in Maya cosmology — a key
concept in fact: it’s the Sacred Tree. Thus, the “star fields of Sagittarius”
coincide with a location the Maya considered to be a creation place. Krupp’s
comments were offered at an early stage of my research, based solely on essays
I sent him. His early letters were open minded but as my research expanded and more evidence was located, our
correspondence ended. I sent him a copy of Maya Cosmogenesis 2012 and he
said he might review it for the Griffith Observer. Due to my working a
full-time job in computer software engineering and attending to life’s
responsibilities, I have been unable to persist in a great deal of the
correspondence nurtured earlier on in my research. The same holds true for
scholars who often professed having no time to adequately respond to my work.
In
mid-1997, when I completed the prototype version of Maya Cosmogenesis 2012, I sent out invitational letters to various
scholars — Munro Edmonson, David Kelley, Linda Schele, Susan Milbrath, and the
Tedlocks — offering to send them spiral-bound copies of my laboriously (and
expensively) produced book. I sent one to David Kelley which resulted in an
exchange, but he, like Antoon Vollamaere, was arguing for a completely
different correlation and so was predisposed to not thinking anything
significant might revolve around the 2012 date. Barbara Tedlock and Dennis Tedlock, an
extraordinary scholarly team who I met at Naropa Institute in Boulder in 1994
and 1995, were a mixture of support and indifference. Talking with Dennis at
Naropa, he told me he had noticed the solstice-galaxy alignment but “didn’t know what to do with it.” He
considered any argument for an intentional connection between the alignment
and 2012 to be a case of misplaced
concretism — because you will not actually be able to see the alignment
(covered as it is by the sun). This, however, did not seem valid to me as the
real point was that the ancient skywatchers could
see, and could track, the slow movement of the solstice sun toward
the band of the Milky Way. When I spoke to Barbara later (in March, 1998), she
begged off commenting on my book because it was not published with an academic
press. The impression I got was of encouragement, though mixed with a
disinterest in seriously looking at my work. I greatly respect the work of the
Tedlocks; recently I converted and edited Dennis's Breath on the Mirror for a large ebook conversion company,
successfully preserving his idiosyncratic formatting and font style choices
that would otherwise have been removed. A few telephone conversations with Dennis
have not resulted in much direct discussion of my ideas.
In
March of 1995 I journeyed via beat-up pick-up truck from Denver to Austin,
Texas, for the famed Maya Meetings. Linda Schele would be there, and I hoped to
talk with her. I opted to go to this event over the popular Chichen Itza
equinox gathering. I was well aware of Schele’s 1992 breakthroughs
demonstrating important relationships between Maya myth and astronomy. After
the conference we attended the customary party at Linda’s house. I talked with
her about Izapa, but within ten minutes she was distracted by others in her
entourage. However, she directed me to one of her grad students who was
studying Izapa. I then talked to her, but she was unable to discuss any of the
monuments I mentioned, not seeming to have a working knowledge of Izapa in
general. The contacts I made in Austin seemed promising, but subsequent
attempts at correspondence were left unanswered. In an amusing exchange, I
traded my book The Center of Mayan Time
with Barbara
MacLeod for her Maya comic book. A brilliant epigrapher, MacLeod is also
a talented artist and produced some very funny Mayan cartoon epics.
Since
her passing in April 1998, Schele’s breakthroughs have been criticized by
rationalist apologists in Maya studies, claiming that as a result of her
terminal liver diagnosis she became “too metaphysical.” I find this to be
disingenuous indeed, and it may be argued that a brilliant scholar who has long
labored under the restricting biases and constipating politics of modern
academia may have become freed in her final years to be more lucid and more
clear. Giorgio de Santillana, one of the authors of Hamlet’s Mill, was
near death as that masterpiece was being completed, and wrote of that ambitious
and progressive study: “Whatever fate awaits this last enterprise of my latter
years, and be it that of Odysseus’ last voyage, I feel comforted by the
awareness that it shall be the right conclusion of a life dedicated to the
search for truth.”[1] Perhaps Schele may have felt the same way. Her
astronomical statements are at times unclear; however, her emphasis on the role
played by the Milky Way / ecliptic cross (the “crossroads”) finds precedent in
the work of David Kelley, Susan Milbrath, Raphael Girard, Barbara Tedlock, Dennis
Tedlock, and others. This is really the only area where my work converges with
Schele’s, apart from her general emphasis that mythology and astronomy go
together—a truism that I don’t think anyone questions.
Art historian and Maya
scholar Susan Milbrath responded to my early letters. At the time she was working on her magnum opus, Star Gods of the Maya, recently published with The University of
Texas Press. A careful reading of her incredible book provides enough evidence
to convince one of the veracity of my own theory. And her presentation in
September of 2000 at the Institute of Maya Studies brilliantly revealed three
celestial crosses toward which the Cross Temples of Palenque were oriented.
Unfortunately, Milbrath herself does not believe the ancient Mesoamerican
astronomers tracked and calibrated precession, and her presentation
de-emphasized the Mayan recognition of the Milky Way / ecliptic cross (for
example, although the Sagittarian Thieve’s Cross is practically co-spatial with
the Milky Way / ecliptic cross, that fact wasn’t addressed). She acknowledges
precession was an astronomical reality, but I think she sees it as a potential
complication to her own theories. I believe her insights are correct and aren’t
threatened by precession; in fact, we can take her work to the next level if we
admit that precession was consciously incorporated into Mesoamerican
cosmology.
I should point out that my early exchanges with
scholars were based only on preliminary essays I had sent out. Disinterest in my
research at that point might be expected. However, since that time I have
amassed and assembled a huge amount of related evidence, and Maya Cosmogenesis 2012 was the result.
My cordial invitations to Mayanists since that time have resulted in a series of
interesting, if somewhat frustrating, exchanges. The area in which I engaged in
the most telling and valuable dialogue on my progressive ideas was the Aztlan
email conference, which generally sustains a high level of intellectual rigor
and scholarship. Unfortunately, it is dominated by specialists seeking
miscellania. Linda Schele was active on this list after its inception in
late-1995; in fact, her comments on the 2012 end-date inspired a response from
me, which I mailed to her at that time and later incorporated into Appendix 5
of Maya Cosmogenesis 2012. It was only later, in the spring of 1999,
that I rejoined the list and corresponded with various scholars and independent
researchers.[2]
After I introduced and outlined my work in a brief
letter, Lloyd Anderson open mindedly addressed the possibility of precessional
knowledge among the ancient skywatchers. Then Antoon Vollamaere criticized the
correlation that makes the end-date occur in 2012. I was forced to sketch the
academic work beginning in the early 1900s that leads to the widely accepted
584283 correlation, making the end-date of the 13-baktun cycle of the Long
Count equal December 21, 2012. Also,
criticism of associating 2012 with the “end of the world” arose, which I had
addressed in Appendix 5 of Maya Cosmogenesis 2012. The criticism arose
among scholars, and rightfully so, because of the proliferation of
under-informed and sensationalist books about the Maya calendar, UFO
abductions, Nostradamus prophecies and so on. The effect was that Linda Schele
wrote, in 1996, that the 2012 date was insignificant compared to a larger
20-baktun cycle recorded at Palenque by her beloved Pacal. However, this
position assumes that the political machinations of a seventh-century ruler
have precedence over the original intentions of the creators of the Long Count
calendar, eight centuries before the reign of Pacal. Calendrically speaking, 2012 is the end of a large cycle of 5,125
years—13 baktuns of the Long Count—which was a Creation cycle in Maya cosmology
as demonstrated by Creation Monuments in the archaeological record. I agree
with Schele that the Maya conception of time is cyclic, and I don’t promote
2012 as the end of the world. As always, Maya mythology and the doctrine of
World Ages focuses on transformation and renewal occurring at the end of
a Creation cycle. These ideas are true to the Maya intention and transcend
sensationalist doomsayers in the mass media. Many interviews I did for radio
and television were wasted because the interviewer could not get beyond this
“end of the world” drama and I refused to play into it. I was surprised that intellectuals also were
fixated on the end-of-world misconception, to the detriment of discussing the
deeper importance of why the Maya had chosen the year we call 2012. The reality
that the alignment involves the Galactic Center was also a stumbling block.
By mid-1999 I had received a statement from an
astronomer at Johns Hopkins University to the effect that ‘it is not
possible that the Maya could see the Galactic Center.’ My general response
to this opinion is that the region of the Galactic Center should be more
generally identified as the “nuclear bulge” which can be noticed with naked eye
observation because the Milky Way is wider in that region and there are more
bright stars there. In other words, any ancient culture intimate with the night
sky would notice that part of the Milky Way as interesting. But this argument
was not well received, so I decided to resort to evidence. I wanted to show
that the Maya thought of the region of the Galactic Center as a center and a
source, designations true to the Galactic Center’s nature. I wrote a short
piece, “An Open Letter to Astronomers and Mayanists,” that presented some facts
of Maya star lore and posted it to the Aztlan email list in June of 1999:
Did the Maya know where the Galactic Center is
located? Yes. Now, brace yourself, because I’m going to show you how and why
without resorting to speculation or guesswork. The question to ask is this: Did
the Maya understand the region of the sky occupied by the Galactic Center in a
way that is metaphorically and conceptually equivalent to what the Galactic
Center is? In this way we can answer the related question of "did the Maya
know where the Galactic Center is located?
First, what is the Galactic Center? In most basic
terms, the Galactic Center is:
·
A
source-point, or “creation place.”
·
A
center
The first thing to recognize is that the region of
the Galactic Center contains several features—all visible to the naked eye—that
call attention to it as a unique place along the Milky Way. These are:
·
The
Milky Way is filled with brighter stars and is wider in the region of the
Galactic Center
·
The
dark-rift, or Great Cleft, of the Milky Way extends to the north of the
Galactic Center
·
The
cross formed by the Milky Way and the ecliptic is near the Galactic Center
Now we can assess
established, academic identifications in Mayan ethnoastronomy and starlore. Two
factual indicators:
1. Among the modern-day
Quiché Maya, the dark-rift is called the xibalba
be. This means “road to the underworld.” In the ancient Maya Creation text,
the Popol Vuh, this same feature serves as a road to the underworld and is also
called the Black Road. Associated iconography with the “underworld portal”
concept includes caves, monster mouths, and birthing portals. In general, the
Milky Way was conceived as a Great Goddess and the dark-rift was her birth
canal. This demonstrates that the Maya understood the region of the Galactic
Center as a source-point or birth place.
2. The cross formed by the
Milky Way with the ecliptic near Sagittarius has been identified at Palenque,
among the Quiché and Chorti Maya, and elsewhere as the Mayan Sacred Tree. In
the Popol Vuh, it is the Crossroads. The cross symbol, according to accepted
epigraphic and iconographic interpretation (e.g., on thrones), denotes the
concept of “center” and usually contextually implies a “cosmic” or “celestial”
center. The concept of “cosmic center” and the principle of world-centering was important to
Mesoamerican astronomers, city planners, and Maya kings — kings who
symbolically occupied and ruled from the “cosmic center.” Thus, the Maya, via
the Sacred Tree/Cosmic Cross symbology, understood the region of the Galactic
Center to be a center.
Center and birthplace — understandings that are true
to the Galactic Center’s nature. This is not speculation, but an assemblage of academic evidence. I repeat
here the evidence available in my book Maya
Cosmogenesis 2012, which contains 24 pages of bibliography and 20 pages of
academic documentation in end notes.
I speak of “region” in referring to the Galactic
Center because the visible “nuclear bulge” of the Galactic Center is not an
abstract, invisible point, is not limited to the high frequency radio spectrum,
but rather covers a large area or “region” in the visible night sky. Now, my
book argues, as its primary thesis, that the Maya intended 2012 to mark the
rare alignment of the solstice sun with the band of the Milky Way. In astronomical
terms, this is the alignment of the solstice meridian with the Galactic
equator—an astronomical fact. Notice that my thesis, in this sense, does not
even require knowledge of the Galactic Center in order for it to be
valid. Nevertheless, knowledge among the ancient Maya of the Galactic Center as
a “creation place” and “cosmic center” is strongly implied, indeed
demonstrated, by established Maya concepts, as outlined above.
Ancient Maya knowledge of the precession of the
equinoxes is the hitch that most skeptical scholars invoke to discredit my
work. The evidence for precessional knowledge is found in the academic data, in
archaeoastronomical realignments of temples, in the Creation monuments and
texts, in the structure of the Long Count calendar, and in the work of
respected Mayanists like Gordon Brotherston and Eva Hunt. Appendix 2 of my book
surveys the evidence in the literature. Citations to the work of Brotherston,
Tedlock, Schele, Smiley, Hunt, Aveni, and others are available upon request
(electronically) and are also contained in my book. Important points that are
demonstrated here, which will help us understand how and why the Maya knew
where the Galactic Center is located:
I am trying to establish here a foundation for
astronomers to approach my material without judgment before the evidence I’ve
assembled is assessed. I anxiously await further dialog, comments, and
feedback. [end]
Three
Aztlan subscribers questioned and critiqued this Open Letter piece. I responded
clearly to all of their comments, but the dialogs dwindled into silence or a
flat rejection (despite them never having actually read my book, but only my
brief email summaries). This, unfortunately, exemplified the response most
typical of the linear, one-dimensional thinker. I’ll illustrate shortly why this is really a question of two
different approaches to analyzing ancient data — one of which is more limited
than the other.
In
late September, an Aztlan member who I will call S. Davies responded to the open
letter that I had posted, reprinted above, which was designed to show how the
Maya identified the region of the Galactic Center as a source (or birthplace) and a center. I responded to his
critique after returning from England in early October:
From my open letter: Among the modern-day
Quiché Maya, the dark-rift is called the xibalba
be. This means "road to the underworld."
S. Davies: OK. That gives us a
fact from a particular time ca. 1970 from a particular culture, Quiché. What is
true for Quiché language and legend today is not thereby true for classic
Mayans of more than a millennium before. If it were the case that all, or
almost all, present day Mayan languages called the dark-rift “xibalbe be” your
point would be much stronger. As it is, it raises the question in my mind, why
are the Yucatecs and Choltis [Chortís] and so forth not doing this?
John Major Jenkins: My argument is intended to show
that the concept of “road to the
underworld” was central to Mesoamerican ideas about emergence or birthing. We
should not expect cultures speaking different dialects to be using the exact
same term for the same concept. The Yucatec and Chortí Maya have concepts
similar to the Quiché xibalba be; for
the Yucatec it is the U hol Glorya or Glory Hole (Schele’s term), for the
Chorti it is probably the Hol Txan be. It can also be shown that the “road or
portal to the underworld” concept is represented in cave and jaguar symbolism
going back to the Olmec. For example, the mouth of the jaguar was portrayed as
an entrance to the underworld.
Open letter: In the ancient Maya Creation text, the Popol Vuh,
this same feature serves as a road to the underworld and is also called the
Black Road.
S. Davies: No. The Popol Vuh refers to red, green,
white, and black roads. The black road to the underworld is taken. But where do
you get the “also” from? There is NO connection made in the Popol Vuh between
the black road and any astronomical feature whatsoever.
JMJ: By saying “also” I was showing that the dark-rift
in the Milky Way was labeled by the Quiché as a “road to the underworld” and
“also” Black Road. You emphatically state that there is “NO connection made
in the Popol Vuh between the black road and any astronomical feature whatsoever.”
Have you ever heard of Dennis Tedlock? As ethnographer and translator of the
Popol Vuh, he has elucidated the astronomy
within the Popol Vuh very carefully and clearly, specifically associating
the Black Road taken by the Hero Twins with the dark-rift in the Milky Way.
Before making emphatic statements, it may be more productive to ask for my
sources. In this regard, my open letter is intended as a brief, concise summary.
The interdisciplinary evidence I have assembled and interpreted can be found
in my book Maya Cosmogenesis 2012.
But let me direct you to the studies which demonstrate (if you read them)
the larger millennia-long context of the "underworld portal" and
the astronomy within the Popol Vuh: http://Alignment2012.com/bibbb.htm
Open letter: Associated iconography with the “underworld portal”
concept includes caves, monster mouths, and birthing portals. In general, the
Milky Way was conceived as a Great Goddess and the dark-rift was her birth
canal.
S. Davies: Whoa! This appears to be quite the non
sequitur. I don’t know where you get “birthing portals” for your first list,
and cannot imagine what leads you to assert “in general the Milky Way was
conceived as a Great Goddess,” etc. [Do you mean] in general throughout the
world? For the present day Maya? Classic Maya? What are you talking about here
and what is your evidence for it and its relevance to your thesis?
JMJ: In Mesoamerican cosmo-conception. See
Milbrath’s 1988 study of Aztec astronomy and goddesses in the website
previously cited. The relevance to the open letter thesis is to show that the
wider conceptual understanding of the xibalba be includes birthing.
Caves, serpent mouths, thrones, and birthing portals were apparently
conceptually related in the minds of Mesoamerican thinkers. In the Tzotzil
language, Chen means both cave and birthing passage. Caves were entrance points
to the underworld. Do you understand that we can approach a general
understanding of the Mesoamerican “portal to the underworld” complex through
this kind of interdisciplinary synthesis? Evidence that the dark-rift was
conceived as a birthplace: The most compelling evidence comes from Izapa in
roughly the first century B.C., the place where distinct episodes from the
Popol Vuh are portrayed on dozens of carved monuments. Norman, Lowe, Schele and
others have shown that a great deal of astronomy is on these pictographs. For
example, Izapa’s Group A alignments to the Big Dipper are compatible with Group
A’s pictographic content: Seven Macaw (the Big Dipper) is shown rising and
falling. Notice that modern ethnographic information among the Quiché also
associates Seven Macaw with the Big Dipper — a continuity of some 2000 years!
Another example: Stela 25 contains a caiman-tree that symbolizes the Milky Way
(this is similar to David Kelley’s model of the Milky Way with the mouth at the
base of the tree being associated with the dark-rift in the Milky Way). Izapa Stela
11 has an upturned frog or toad deity, and a solar lord is being birthed from
it. As Lowe pointed out, this appears to be a prototypal “upturned frog-mouth”
hieroglyph, translated by David Kelley in 1976 to mean “to be born from.” Here, the mouth of the caiman, frog, snake,
or jaguar are loosely interchangeable references to the concept of the “road to
the underworld,” thus likely associating them in Izapan astronomy with the
dark-rift in the Milky Way. Our scrutinizing and discriminating intellects might
not like this kind of broad-brush association, but the Maya mind was more
interested in conflating categories, in synthesizing the underlying meaning of
different labels. (An example of this is the fact that the very same
astronomical feature might have many different mythological identities.)
Another important factor at Izapa that supports the
thesis is its alignment to the dark-rift, the solstices, the Milky Way, and the
Big Dipper. Here observe that you are asking good questions, ones that I have
already addressed in my book. I cannot rewrite that book, but I would direct
you there if you want the evidence. And there is a great deal of it.
Open letter: This demonstrates that the Maya understood the
region of the Galactic Center as a source-point or birth place.
S. Davies: If the “birth canal” statement above is
valid, then it does demonstrate [this] as you say it
does . . .
tautologically, for the dark-rift is the center of the galaxy. This,
however, makes it all the more important for you to show that the Galactic
Center was a “birth canal” in the minds of the ancient Maya.
JMJ: The dark-rift POINTS TO the center of the
galaxy. I’ve shown that the Galactic Center region of the sky was understood by
ancient Mesoamerican thinkers as a birthplace, through the identification of
the nearby dark-rift as a birthplace. The other factor in my open letter is the
crossroads, providing another complex of symbols that indicate
"center," thus supporting my thesis from an entirely separate
direction. [Crosses denote “center” in Mesoamerican iconography.] One set of
evidence might be dismissed as coincidence. But two?
Open letter: The cross formed by the Milky Way with the ecliptic
near Sagittarius has been identified at Palenque and elsewhere as the Mayan
Sacred Tree.
S. Davies: That appears to be the case. But I don’t
think a great many people have found that that identification has been cogently
and convincingly argued to the point that one can say it is established.
Rather, I think one can only say that the identification has been suggested.
JMJ: That’s because you aren’t aware of the larger
body of evidence. The cross of the Milky Way and the ecliptic as a “cross”
or “tree” is demonstrated in Girard’s ethnographic work among the Chortí.
Related work by Milbrath utilizes the Milky Way-ecliptic cross as an important
key to understanding astronomical information in the surviving Maya codices
and in Aztec sources. Evidence likewise exists in the sixteenth-century Popol
Vuh, modern Quiché ethnography, and even in Olmec symbology (see essays by
Schele and others in The Olmec World,
1995). Ballcourt symbology, double-headed serpent bar imagery, throne crosses,
and of course the clearest representation at Palenque. But it’s not just Palenque.
Without trying to overemphasize, my book assembles all this evidence into
a coherent whole. Or check out some of the sources at http://Alignment2012.com/bibbb.htm
SD: Frankly, I think your work cannot be proven
correct. The Mayan calendar was in existence prior to 120 AD, the earliest
recorded date (that I know of). So, whatever culture brought that calendar into
being was the culture that would have designed it to end at 2012. What is the
extent of our knowledge of the intellectual life of that culture? Zero. We do
not know where or when or how or by whom the Mayan calendar was designed.
JMJ: These questions are answered. Long Count dates
start appearing in the archaeological record during Izapa’s heyday—first
century B.C. We know a lot about the
intellectual preoccupations of the Izapan culture by way of its
archaeoastronomical alignments, its carved monuments, its shamanism and local
ecology. When you say “Mayan calendar”
you need to distinguish between the Long Count and the much older 260-day
calendar. Michael Coe has written that “. . . the priority of
Izapa in the very important adoption of the Long Count calendar is quite clear
cut . . .”[3] Other scholars agree. It’s also a fairly
straightforward probability when you consider that the Long Count calendar
starts appearing in the archaeological record at the same time Izapa was
experiencing its heyday, and in the same region.
S. Davies: So even if the Palenque Mayans knew all about
the ecliptic and thought it was a really really big deal and organized their
principal artistic designs in reference to it (all of which I strongly doubt)
that tells us virtually nothing about the culture that, hundreds of years
earlier, invented the calendar.
JMJ: Well, I think that doubt is based in the
limited view of Maya genius that has plagued Maya studies for a hundred years.
Look at Izapa, the culture that invented the Long Count and carved the earliest
distinct episodes from the Hero Twin Creation Myth, and you will find
sophisticated astronomy. You will find the Milky Way-ecliptic cross and the
dark-rift. If the sum-total of my work
on these questions amounted to a two-page open letter, it would be easy to
dismiss it as you have. However, that two-page letter was intended as a
common-language summary of evidence showing that the ancient Maya conceived of
the region of the Galactic Center in a way that is consistent with its true
nature as a center and source. This was merely an assemblage of the evidence
from academic sources. When I describe what is present in this data, very
little of it is my own subjective argument; it’s just setting the pieces out
for all to see. This is what amuses me the most. It's based in factual evidence
but the resistance among evidence-seeking scholars is the most extreme. And the
reason for this, I believe, has to do simply with the implications. But the
implications of assembled evidence, no matter how unsettling to the superiority
complex of modern science, must be faced if we want to progress. It’s 2 AM and
I should be sleeping . . . [end of exchange]
From
my perspective, a large amount of data/evidence/information should result
in similar conclusions—even among different thinkers— if common sense and
reason are being applied. What I have observed in the response of S. Davies
and others is resistance to drawing
the appropriate common sense and logical conclusion. This step is not taken
because the rationalist anticipates intractable admissions that must follow
upon making the leap, namely, that the Maya calculated precession and were
aware of the location of the Galactic Center. Likewise, the astronomer at
Johns Hopkins could not accept my concise and brief open letter, and simply
stated emphatically that it was impossible for the Maya to have known
where the Galactic Center is located. So, the fact that in their mythology
and cosmology they think of the region of the Galactic Center as a birthplace
and a center must be a total coincidence. This is the least scientific position
I could imagine.
Another
Aztlan listero (D. M. Urquidi) followed up my lengthy exchange with S. Davies:
D. M. Urquidi: The debate between S. Davies and John Major
Jenkins was lengthy to say the least. With all the arguments presented, I
am prone to agree, not with JMJ but with S. Davies. It seemed to me that ALL
arguments led to ALL symbols being
the “road to Xibalba” or the “underworld” or the Galaxy “birthing canal.”
I think it is a bit much. Every element of every
symbol has its own nuance that tells us
another aspect of something. but for all
to refer to “road to Xibalba” or the “underworld” or the Galaxy “birthing
canal” does not seem feasible. What does “death” mean to the Meso-Americans?
What does “life” mean? Where are/were the
dead buried? The answers we think we know, but do we? Where is the Cosmic Tree? At the junction of the
Galactic and the Elliptic? Or is it
somewhere completely different? Why is a bird connected with the tree and with the twins? Too many
questions still to be answered. In the
[Popol Vuh], the twins became stars and the 400 youths became stars? Who/what
else?
JMJ: Many of these questions have been addressed and
sufficiently answered to satisfy a healthy level of skepticism. And the answers
are not all my own, but come from the wider context of academic studies
previously referred to. While it is certainly easy to inappropriately associate
iconographic and conceptual elements with one perceived reference, i.e., the
dark-rift, it is also possible to push back a little our understanding of just
how overarching the “birthing place” concept was to Mesoamerican thinkers. If
we accept this, then the ubiquitous presence of the dark-rift reference in many
Mesoamerican traditions will not seem quite as imaginary.
D. M. Urquidi: This would indicate that there was no poetry,
no literature, no games, no thought in
Meso-America, only religious astronomy and
religious wars. Not a very likely occurrence. The Mesos wanted the same things we want today. . . a good life,
good food, a happy, healthy family and
probably a quiet death. Where does the family
fit into the picture? As the “birthing canal” symbolism in the Milky Way? Why? Why not lactation of the
heavens instead. Humans do have to be
fed as infants.
JMJ: I’ve been concerned with the astronomical level
of ancient Izapan thought. This does not preclude the obvious reality that
they were living, breathing human beings. [end of exchange - the authors
of the exchanges above gave permission to use their names]
Note
the ease with which D. Urquidi identifies the primary concerns of Mesoamerican
people with her own—a most unfortunate yet common reflex. I think it is possible
at this stage to understand my point, and there’s no need to report all of
the exchanges that are in essence similar to these. Many other dialogues with
writers and researchers occurred during this time, and my website contains,
without selectively editing any serious critiques, more detailed exchanges.
However, we are still left with the perplexing question: “Why such obscurantism
and resistance?”
D. M. Urquidi’s accusation that all of my arguments lead in a roundabout way to the
dark-rift / birth canal motif is similar to Munro Edmonson’s comment (in personal
correspondence, 1997) that my identifications were “free-floating” and could
“land just about anywhere,” which was not his “cup of tea.” Here we encounter a
basic difference between approaches to the data. My work, without compromising
rational thought, has sought to identify parallels of meaning, an association
of motifs by way of analogy and metaphor. We could call this comparative
iconography. To me, this reveals the deeper associations that a cultural
mindset might encode for a given motif.
The linear, rationalist mind needs to find factual links for an
association to be valid; metaphor and analogy have no place, and to approach
the data with an eye to actually synthesizing the inner meaning would be
heresy.
Most
interestingly, Edmonson’s critique of my approach, echoed by D. M. Urquidi, is exactly
the same as Umberto Eco’s critique of
René Guénon’s analogical/symbolist approach. Between the 1920s and the 1950s,
French philosopher and Traditionalist writer René Guénon published scathing
(and entirely on target), indictments of the errors of Western science. But his
integrative analogy-based insights into the esoteric undercurrents of the
modern world were baffling to the Western intellect. Eco deconstructed, in his
introduction to Maria Pia Pozzato’s The Deformed
Idea (1979), Guénon’s book The Lord
of the World, calling it a classic example of the “slipping away” of saying
anything meaningful because everything is perceived via a relationship of
analogy, unity, or similarity with everything else and so nothing meaningful
can be concluded. In other words, the inter-related complex of ideas is free
floating and so can apply to (or “land on,” as Edmonson said of my approach)
any argument. On one level this assumes that the interpreter is undisciplined
and incapable of discernment. But this is also, essentially, a problem of
differing approaches; we might call these approaches “analogical” versus
“logical.” The analogical or “synthesizing” approach of
myself and Guénon is clearly more capable of accurately languaging the deeper
currents of the body of information being examined. For it is in the
relationships between categories (categories kept separate in the
linear/logical/specialist mode) that provides meaning. And understanding.
Assuming an integrative ability or intuitive intellect on the part of the
reader—and assuming that the reader reads the entire document or book being
critically evaluated—the meaning is implicit in the revealed connections,
rather than explicit and concrete as required by minds accustomed to memorizing
data sets and historical trivia.
In the foreword to Julius Evola’s The
Mystery of the Grail, H. T. Hansen addressed Eco’s “picking to pieces” of
Guénon’s approach, writing:
In a scientific, semiotic mode of thinking, such
traditional analogies naturally have no place. However, they do have they
capability to move deeply. And if, as Jung says, reality is that which is
effective, then myths are also reality. Here, of course, completely different
definitions of reality come into play.[4]
Science
is limited to the realm of physical material which it seeks to explain as well
as the framework of historical
assumptions in which it finds itself. In Guénon’s own words:
. . . itself born of the very special
conditions of the present period, this science is all too obviously incapable
of conceiving other and different conditions, incapable even of the mere
admission that anything of the kind could exist; thus the point of view which
constitutes the definition of modern science establishes ‘barriers’ in time,
which it is as impossible for science to break down as it is for a
short-sighted person to see clearly beyond a certain distance; a true
‘intellectual myopia’ is indeed thoroughly characteristic in all respects of
the modern and ‘scientistic’ mentality.[5]
Modern
profane science is the degenerate descendant of an ancient sacred science that
long ago perceived and embraced many dimensions of reality, including
supra-sensory realms that lead into a higher integrative consciousness that is
not anti-intellect, but transcends the intellect and is within reach of all
human beings. These realms, according to Guénon and others, were more open to
human beings in the remote past and were preserved as part of an ancient
Primordial Tradition.
And
so, I ask, if the ancient Maya participated more in the mindset of a Primordial
Tradition than in the logic of the Western scientific method, then isn’t it
more appropriate to interpret their doctrines with the principles and methods
of their own mindset? In the end, I don’t even think that Guénon’s approach can
even be accused of being anti-rational. In the
prerational-rational-transrational levels of consciousness discussed by
thinkers such as Ken Wilbur, the approach of Primordial Traditionalists like Guénon
is clearly trans-rational; that is, capable of rational interpretation—and
going beyond it—without getting stuck in limiting dualisms and misplaced
allegiance to the superiority complex of modern scientific methods. Pre-rational interpretation characterizes
much of the New Age literature, with its ineffective nonsense appealing largely
to an emotional substitute for authentic spiritual experience. Or, perhaps we
should say the experiences may be authentic but the integration into daily life
is lacking.
My
dilemmas in engaging in productive discourse are based in these fundamental
differences of approach. My detractors want to interpret through the filters of
Western deconstructionism; I want to interpret and understand through the
perspective of integrative synthesis. Notice that the latter is not
anti-rational. For example, in my open letter piece, I identified important
(and widely accepted) elements in Mayan myth and astronomy indicating that the
region of the Galactic Center was conceived as a center and birthplace. None of
that assemblage of evidence rests upon my own interpretations, or on irrational
fantasies. The simple conclusion, as straightforward as it is threatening to
the Western Intellect, is this: The Maya thought of the region of the Galactic
Center as a center and source place. They recognized the true nature of that
part of the Milky Way. And their ideas are backed up by the location of the
dark-rift and the fact that the Milky Way is bright and wider in that region —
empirical observation at its best.
A
great deal of the issues around the “end of the world” in AD 2012 map directly
onto commentary on Y2K and the Year 2000 hoopla. To defuse (and mock) all
millennial madness, so-called experts have tended to disallow any empirical importance
attributed to Year 2000. One thing is
clear: University institutes and celebrated spokesmen for rational common sense
are simply unable to acknowledge that the solstice-galaxy alignment does make Year 2000 empirically unique.
This isn’t even good science. It’s selective perception of the empirical data
available.
Stephen Jay Gould published a book in 1997 on
the millennium called Questioning the Millennium: A Rationalist’s Guide to a
Precisely Arbitrary Countdown. Given its title, we would not be wrong in
suspecting it to be mistaken about the “uniqueness” of the Year 2000 millennial
turning. In this little volume, science populizer S. J. Gould muses over the meaning of the approaching Year 2000,
and what’s the big deal anyway? While discussing the various debates such as
“when does the millennium really turn” (2000 or 2001?) and “why are
even-numbered millenniums considered more millennial?”, Gould’s main viewpoint
emerges: Year 2000 is not special or unique in any empirical sense.
Science is supposed to acknowledge facts and base
provisional conclusions on those facts. But Gould did not report the scientific
fact that a rare alignment of the solstice meridian with the galactic equator
became most precise in 1998. It is an astronomical fact that this alignment
takes place roughly once every 13,000 years. As described earlier, the
alignment is caused by astronomical precession, and calculations made by the
U.S. Naval Observatory and European astronomer Jean Meeus calculate dates of
October 27, 1998 and May 10, 1998 respectively. The rarity and empirical
quality of this alignment, as well as its conceptually compelling nature,
should be factored into discussions of the Year 2000 “phenomenon.” At the very
least, scientific commentators are factually unjustified in labeling Year 2000
as a completely ambiguous and somewhat silly artifact of historical processes
and primitive attempts at calendar making.
Gould examined when the millennium really should
have turned, pointing out that Jesus was apparently really born in 4 B.C.
(which would be written -3 in calculational terms, because there was no “zero”
year). He also draws from Bishop
Usher’s infamous calculation of the world’s creation on October 23, 4004 B.C.,
and how both facts point to an adjusted millennial turning of October 23, 1997
A.D. Usage of the October 23rd date here is an ambiguous artifact of
Usher’s fallacious calculations, but we might consider 1997, in this adjusted
accounting, to be the “real” last year of the millennium. As such, the new
millennium would dawn on January 1, 1998. Now, if we take the average of the
two scientific calculations for the precise solstice-galaxy alignment (given
above), we arrive at August 1, 1998. This is a mere seven months after the
corrected millennial dawning. Given that the calculation of the solstice-galaxy
alignment is subject to spatial and precessional vagaries that must allow for at least a plus-or-minus 1-year range,
the true millennial dawning, exactly 6,000 years after the Biblical Creation,
occurs right on the target of an astronomical alignment that so rare that it
occurs only once every 13,000 years! This is an error of .0000958 percent in
6,000 years! Under one ten-thousandths of a percent. But of course for the
die-hard defender of scientism, this must be a complete coincidence.
With
great rationalist acumen we could just as easily write a treatise on Bishop
Usher’s amazing insight into the 6,000-year Shemittot cycle of Jewish
eschatology, subsequently integrated into Christian chronology, with a fixed
end-point on the solstice-galaxy alignment of era-2000 AD. However, in official
commentary such as we find in Gould’s book, the application of logic is
conveniently limited to the domain where all conclusions safely affirm modern
man’s illusion of historical supremacy. The most important “law” of Western
science appears to be that any facts or data or ideas that challenge cherished
notions must be treated as fantasies or something worse, as the following
experience suggests.
Just
prior to the release of MC2012 in 1998, I was in contact with several
respected Maya scholars, trying to discuss my work and gather comments,
criticisms, or even endorsements. One scholar, an astronomer by degree who has
contributed progressive insights into Maya astronomy and ritual warfare, told
me he did not want a free review copy of my book, and would rather not be
exposed to or influenced by the ideas it contained. And thus the conversation
dwindled. This struck me as exceedingly prejudiced yet not untypical of the
general attitude of scholars to my work (out of sight, out of mind), and I was
reminded of a humorous anecdote from the history of astronomy.
When
Galileo discovered celestial bodies revolving around Jupiter, a world that
“knew” everything revolved around the earth was shocked, not believing it could
be true. He invited his critics—various intellectuals and Church officials—to
peer through the new telescope and see for themselves, but they all refused.
They were afraid they might be infected by demons.[6]
These
daunting exchanges, though revealing of a generally intractable dilemma among a
certain sector of intellectuals, were not universally experienced across the
board. In fact, even before my book was accepted for publication I was invited
to present my cutting-edge reconstruction at the prestigious Institute of Maya
Studies in Miami, Florida. This was arranged by now-President Jim Reed,
took place in August 1997, and was well-received. Since then I’ve had the good
fortune to teach workshops and classes at Naropa University, The Esalen
Institute, in England and Mexico.
I
received continuous support and encouragement from mathematician and Maya
scholar Stephen Eberhart, who welcomed the deeper implications within Maya
cosmology that I was fleshing out. Mayan scholar Gordon Brotherston, a
long-time proponent of precessional knowledge among the ancient Maya,
reiterated his conviction of this and even suggested that my New Fire
interpretation might explain certain intervals in the Aztec Festival months.
Encouraging words from an astronomer in Australia, from Peter Tompkins, John
Anthony West, Robert Bauval, Dr. Willy Gaspar (author of The Celestial Clock),
and many others provided validating confirmation that my work was not to be summarily
dismissed, and deserved an honest and comprehensive appraisal. The late Terence
McKenna, who wrote the Introduction to Maya Cosmogenesis 2012, called it
“a revolutionary work of discovery and synthesis.” Robert Lawlor, co-translator
of Schwaller de Lubicz’s monumental The Temple in Man, and one of the
most brilliant minds of our day, had this to say:
In Maya Cosmogenesis 2012, author John Major
Jenkins has combined his gift for incisive, mythic and symbolic interpretation
with rigorous research, to reveal the Mayan calendar as a world cosmology and
spiritual philosophy, firmly grounded in precise observations of celestial
patterns and rhythms. According to Jenkins’ in-depth yet accessible and often
poetic analysis, the Maya had reconciled a number of planetary and sidereal
cycles to accurately define the passage of our earth and solar system, as it
moves through millennia, in and out of alignment with the galactical core and
equator. This vast, celestial conjunction, so central to the Mayan sages and
astronomers, holds profound transformative implications for individuals and
civilization today.[7]
There
is no need to belabor these exchanges and endorsements. Suffice it to say that
my work has been carefully assessed and recognized by many progressive thinkers
who are not blinded in their judgments by the dictates of scientific
materialism and institutionalized prejudice masquerading as rationalism. It is
true that the scholarly community that I had directed my research towards was
generally unreceptive, but that helped me identify a more interesting community
of conscious, intelligent, and discerning minds.
Again
I feel limited by space, and constrained by recapitulating in short order
a book that was the culmination of ten years of research. As an old adage
goes: Each book has its own destiny. I would add that each book is one node
in a long succession of books that extends beyond the life of any particular
author. I trust that MC2012 will be judged by its own merits, on its
own internal consistency, and on its honest approach to the truth.