Response to Magical Blend, March 1999
Dear Magical Blend,
In my work with Maya cosmology and the 2012 end-date of the Maya
calendar, I recognized the solstice-galaxy alignment of era-2012 as the
reason why the Maya chose December 21, 2012 A.D. to end a World Age.
Wanting to document how and why this concept was important to the Maya,
I embarked on an interdisciplinary synthesis of the available academic
literature, and decoded several ways that this end-date alignment
concept was incorporated into basic Maya institutions. No one, including
academic scholars, had done this before. For example, I show how the
2012 alignment is symbolized by the Maya ballgame. It is also the
underlying meaning of visionary journeys undertaken by Maya kings. Most
importantly, I decoded how the Maya Creation myth encodes the end-date
alignment. Beyond these examples, I reconstruct several other important
aspects of Mesoamerican cosmology, including the astronomy of the
Pyramid of Kukulcan at Chichen Itza, the New Fire ceremony, and the
initiatory monuments of Izapa.
Generally speaking - and here's the important and very basic
distinction in our respective interpretations - McKenna and I differ in
our approach to the 2012 date in that his Time Wave Zero theory is based
in a mathematically precise fractal waveform derived from the I Ching
that must culminate in 2012, whereas I explain that the ancient Maya
believed era-2012 will be a time of great transformation, a World Age
shift, because of the alignment of the solstice sun with the Galactic
Center that is due to occur. I also suggest a field-effect model for
understanding these galactic dynamics and how consciousness on earth may
be stimulated by our changing relationship to the Galactic Center during
the 26,000-year precessional cycle. Thank you for this opportunity to
clarify the nature of my work. Sincerely,
John Major Jenkins
Dear Magical Blend,
I read with interest the recent review in Magical Blend of John Major Jenkins' new book Maya Cosmogenesis 2012. The reviewer stated: "Jenkins' work echoes the theme, if not the method, of theories put forth by one of Magical Blend's favorite philosophers, Terence McKenna." While I was happy to write the introduction to Jenkins' book and while we both share an enthusiasm for the lost calendrical astronomy of the Maya it is not fair to John Major Jenkins to cast his work as derivative of my own. He has placed a number of new ideas on the table, among them the importance of the sun/zenith day in the thinking of Meso American peoples. His work is innovative and deserves to be encouraged and judged independently of my own ideas about the archeo-mathematics of the ancient Maya. All the best,
Terence McKenna