All Episodes
Previous Next
Sept. 6, 1998 - Art Bell
01:39:15
Dreamland with Art Bell - John Major Jenkins Galactic Center 2012
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
This is a test.
Finally!
I'm such a neophyte when it comes to the Mayan calendar.
That's area code 702-727-1222.
That's area code 702-727-1222.
Now, here again is Art Bell.
Boy, am I looking forward to this evening.
Finally! I'm such a neophyte when it comes to the Mayan calendar.
People have been talking to me about the Mayan calendar for years now.
Literally years, and I have never, ever done a program on it.
Tonight, that changes with an independent researcher, a John Major Jenkins, who claims that he has solved the mystery of the Maya calendar and date in 2012.
And I guess we're going to begin at the beginning here in a moment with John.
And we're going to find out what the heck the Mayan calendar is.
So if you're, as I am, simply unfamiliar with the Mayan calendar, then you're going to want to definitely soak up tonight's program.
In addition, if you are, as I am, concerned about power outages, we have them here.
Then I have the answer for you.
Straight out.
It is the white LED flashlight From the Sea Crane Company now.
Listen to me very closely.
Normal flashlights, when the power goes out, you know, you grab them, and in about 20 minutes, the light begins to fade, doesn't it?
And then you hit it once or twice, and the light comes back, and then it goes out permanently, and that's about all you get.
Well, what if your power failure is longer than 20 minutes?
Here's the answer.
This is an LED, that's Light Emitting Diode, flashlight.
Listen to me very carefully.
It is the brightest long-life flashlight ever made.
What do I mean by long life?
Three AA batteries, under normal conditions, will power this flashlight at full brightness for two to three years.
Years, I said.
Not minutes, not hours, not days, not weeks, but years.
Is that sinking in?
Now, the bulb, it's not a bulb, it's an LED array, will last up to 100,000 hours.
How's that?
The case is nearly waterproof, or may be waterproof.
O-ring construction, twist on, twist off, you know about that, right?
And the lens itself, clear Lexan.
You probably could not put a bullet through it.
Don't try.
That's quite a flashlight, huh?
So if you're worried about the power going out, here's the deal.
Buy one, and the price is $34.95.
Buy three, and the price drops to $29.95 each.
and 95 cents by three and the price drops to $29.95 each, but they are selling out fast.
You can call Monday morning at 7.30 a.m.
and get one on the way.
If they're not sold out, don't wait!
1-800-522-8863 is the number.
1-800-522-8863 is the number.
Ready again?
1-800-522-8863.
1-800-522-8863.
If I guaranteed you a handful of dollar bills every time you fill your gas tank, would I get your attention?
Well, that's essentially what happens when you install the Jacobs Ultra Team ignition system on your car.
Your mileage will substantially increase, thus saving you dollars with every fill-up.
I know it works!
Because I tried it on the little Geo Metro.
I had increasing its mileage by 8 miles per gallon.
Your exact increase will vary depending on the car you drive and how you drive.
Here's just one example.
On a 93 Honda Civic, you'll get a guaranteed 7 horsepower increase and at least 4 additional miles per gallon.
All Jacobs ignition systems come with a 30-day money-back unlimited guarantee less a small 10% restock fee now.
What I'd like you to do first thing in the morning is call Jacobs Electronics and ask for the exact guaranteed mileage and performance increase for your specific vehicle.
Call in the morning, toll free, 1-888-IGNITION.
That's 1-888-446-4846.
It's on the web, of course, at www.jacobselectronics.com.
Just call 1-888-IGNITION and ask for your free mileage and performance quotes.
Alright, independent researcher solves mystery of Maya calendar end date in 2012, which coincides with a rare alignment of the sun With the Galactic Center.
The book that John Major Jenkins has authored is Amaya Cosmogenesis, hope I'm getting that right, 2012.
I've been eternally curious about all of this.
John Major Jenkins is a leading independent researcher on ancient Mesoamerican cosmology.
He's authored five books on Amaya.
And has given a presentation to the prestigious Institute of Maya Studies in Miami.
In March of 1968, he was invited by the Indigenous Council of the Americas to speak at their conference in Mexico.
So obviously, we've got the right guy.
Welcome to the show, John.
Hello.
Hi.
I am a complete neophyte when it comes to the Mayan calendar and I ought not be because a lot of people talk about it on my program.
The only thing I knew about this calendar at all was that it did end in 2012.
I think for me and for a lot of people who don't understand what the Mayan calendar even is, that's where we should begin.
What is it?
Well, it's important to understand, first off, that there are several Maya calendars.
The Maya were very, very interested in astronomy.
So, naturally, they were tracking the Moon and Venus, as well as larger astronomical cycles.
But it can really be boiled down into two different calendar systems.
The short count is also known as the 260-day sacred calendar.
This is sort of the key building block of the Mayan understanding of time.
We, of course, constructed our calendar based on the death of Christ, I think.
On what did they base their calendar?
How, in other words, how did they measure, from what point did they measure?
Well, this write-off points out a fundamental difference in the way that the Maya conceive of time.
The Maya Long Count Calendar is the 5125 year long period that we are currently in.
Now, technically speaking, this cycle began back in 3114 B.C.
and it ends in the year that we call 2012.
But the important distinction is that the Maya were anchoring their time to the end date.
In other words, following, you know, standard Mayan ideas about, you know, birth happens at the end of a time cycle or process.
The analogy being, for example, the human gestation period.
You know, that's a nine-month long period of time.
It's a nine-month cycle of unfolding, and the birth moment in that process happens at the end.
Um, this is an interesting point to consider, because other researchers who have looked at the Maya calendar, the Maya long-count calendar, and have tried to decipher or solve the mystery of what it represents, have been erroneously looking at the beginning date for some explanation, whereas it's really something that occurs on the end date.
Uh, well, um, okay, I think.
We're gonna have to... I'm gonna have to try a little harder, I think.
The end date.
In other words, the end... When they say the end, they mean the beginning of yet a new cycle, right?
Yeah.
Okay.
Why then does the calendar not go past 2012?
In other words, why didn't they just keep on going with the new whatever it is that's going to be birthed in 2012?
Right.
Well, time is cyclic according to Mayan philosophy, and so the end is the beginning of a new cycle.
But they don't choose to record it.
That's worrisome for many of us.
Well, it's sort of a point of interpretation.
The long count cycle was designed to Calibrate this vast cycle of time called the procession, the procession of the equinoxes, which is a larger cycle of 26,000 years.
Now this is that great vast cycle of world ages that the Western astrological tradition recognizes as well.
And, you know, it's been interpreted by astrologers as a vast Evolutionary cycle of human unfolding, but where's the beginning point?
Yeah, alright, so it was an alignment of celestial bodies that was their marker for their calendar.
Is that what I'm hearing?
Well, not really.
No.
It's not a standard astrological alignment of planets.
It really has to do with our relationship to the larger situation, the larger galaxy.
And so it's an alignment of the Earth with the galaxy, with the galactic center.
Now, how could they possibly, that long ago, have understood where we were with respect to the galaxy, or even planets in our own sun, or anything else, since they didn't have that kind of technology then?
Help me.
Okay, it's really pretty simple.
Imagine we go out on a dark August night and we look up at the Milky Way arching overhead.
You've probably seen that where you live.
I live near Death Valley.
You bet I see it from one side of the sky to the other.
And this is an important question.
How did the Mayans know where the galactic center is?
You know, we tend to think that that discovery took the advent of radio telescopes in the 1920s.
That's my impression.
Yeah, but if you think about it, and if you're actually out there, our Milky Way is spiral-shaped, and it's saucer-shaped.
You've probably seen Hubble telescope images of galaxies, and they have this bulge in the center.
They almost look like a flying saucer kind of image.
Exactly.
Well, there is a part of the Milky Way, it's in the region of Sagittarius, that is very bright and very wide.
And this is the nuclear cauldron of the Galactic Center, and it's visible simply with the naked eye.
Now, the Maya would have been looking at the Milky Way, and in their mythology, they thought of the Milky Way as the Great Mother.
So, that bulging white part of the Milky Way that houses the Galactic Center, they thought of that as the womb of the Cosmic Mother, Which, of course, is intuitively a correct interpretation of that place in the sky.
It is the creation place.
It is the center and heart of our galaxy, and everything in our galaxy, including us, has come from that.
But how, in order to make an observation about where they were in the galaxy, they would have had to observe a cycle for how long?
Yeah, precession is a very slow phenomenon.
It takes about Oh, it could take 150 to 200 years to track.
So they were at this, in one cycle, I would imagine would not have been considered sufficient to project even a second cycle once you began looking.
So to really determine that you had a reference, you would have to see some number of cycles come and go, wouldn't you?
Well, it's a question of how long it takes to accurately calibrate the movement of precession.
And the analogy, if we go back to the Greek astronomer who allegedly first discovered the precessional movement back in the 2nd century BC, he was working with data that was only 150 years old, and he was able to fairly accurately calibrate precession.
So it's kind of a question of how sophisticated the ancient Maya were, and we're beginning to realize that the ancient civilizations were much more sophisticated scientifically than we previously thought.
If you were to guess, or perhaps you're not guessing, how sophisticated were they?
Well, I'm sort of conservative when it comes to that.
I would say that their technologies were fairly well developed in terms of astronomy.
I think they were very astute sky watchers.
I don't believe that they had high technologies such as lasers and things like that.
I believe they were very, very sophisticated in terms of their inner development.
And that's what makes them so inscrutable to us today because we live in a society that is very materialistically oriented.
Well, even barely discovered or still undiscovered, and there are still many undiscovered tribes that have never touched wilderness down in Brazil and the rainforest and so forth, they seem to all either study or worship something In the sky.
So it's not unusual, I mean, for anybody to look at our sky and find some sort of reference or even something to worship in it.
Yeah.
So I'm not surprised that they were studying the sky, but they apparently, you believe, were quite a bit more sophisticated, even if not fully technically, industrially, as we are now.
Yeah, the way that I like to look at it... Spiritually.
Spiritually, but also in terms of their cosmological understanding of the nature of the cosmos and reality.
In my book, Maya Cosmogenesis, I make the analogy to this process.
You know, if we think of the Siberian people or the people from the far north, they were interested in the sky as well.
You bet.
And they were very interested in the pole star, because to them, in the far northern latitudes, The Polestar was sort of like that magical place around which the entire sky revolves.
To them, that was the cosmic center and heart of creation.
But, as people migrated southward into the Americas, that ancient belief in the Polestar as, you might say, God, or the center of creation, changed.
And the Maya, driven by this interest in Identifying the true cosmic heart and source, eventually realized that it was this place along the Milky Way in the constellation Sagittarius.
Did the Maya believe in what we call creation?
Did they have a view?
Yes.
Yes, but like I was sketching earlier, Their idea is very alien and strange to us in many ways, because they believe that creation or birth happens at the end of a process.
Oh, that's not really so alien.
Everything is a cycle of life and death.
Everything is that.
And so why not truly everything?
And including everything that we regard around us, sure.
I can understand that.
It's not so alien.
Yeah, and if we look at our times, And in your book, The Quickening, I know you were pointing out many examples of this.
It seems like, you know, our culture and our civilization and the rate of change and the way that things are happening, it seems to be accelerating and converging on some point in the near future at which some profound event is bound to happen.
I'm past considering that I think it may be occurring, which was when I wrote The Quickening, what I was observing.
I am now, well, into, we're right in the middle of it folks.
It's absolutely happening.
A lot of what I wrote about has unfolded sadly exactly as I wrote about it now.
Maybe it is not a sad thing and maybe you need to take a much larger view
about the natural course of events as perhaps the Maya did to not be sad
about something ending and something else beginning.
Is that?
Right, right.
Is that reasonable?
Yeah, that's perfect.
And I too try to emphasize that this isn't so much about something that is gonna happen
on the morning of the December solstice in 2012 because astronomy is involved
and because it has something to do with our relationship to the galaxy
and how we're coming into a situation of resonance with the galactic center.
It's basic astronomy and therefore it's something that might be in effect 50 years on either side of 2012.
So I agree, we're in it now.
What do you see happening, we won't even get to 2012, but what do you see happening between now and 2012?
That's a pretty short term call.
I think in general, those aspects of our civilization that are not aligned with, you might say, the divine will or with the sources of life are going to fall away or be torn away.
It's kind of like the cycles of birth and death.
During the winter, a tree basically dies on some level and all the leaves are blown away.
All those things that are not aligned and no longer serve the purposes of life have to be shed.
So that applies, I think, to our civilization and certainly our There are many, many institutions and fundamental assumptions in our culture that have served us for decades or centuries, but now, because the nature of humanity is changing so rapidly, things need to be reoriented.
All right.
Let's think about it this way.
We've got to, I guess, tiptoe around this a little bit, but if the tree, if we could think of this as a tree, and it's...
In full bloom right now, and there's six billion buds.
When the cycle changes, how many buds would you expect there to be?
As many buds as are healthy and vital, I would say.
That's a good, careful answer.
But the analogy you used was a tree in winter that has shed all of its leaves and lies dormant, awaiting birth in the spring.
Right.
So I'm going to revisit this question now.
With the six billion buds we have now, when our tree lies barren... I'll let you fill in there.
Well, yeah, it's kind of like mixing metaphors.
You could also look at this process as, you know, humanity and consciousness, I believe, and I think the Maya were tuned into this understanding, consciousness is something that the universe does.
And so here we are approaching this blooming period, and when... Well, is that what we're approaching, or will the tree go barren first?
You mean like an earth cleansing?
Yeah, I mean, let's just meet it up front here.
Sure, some sort of cleansing, yes.
Well, that could very well be.
I mean, there are many prophecies that proclaim that two-thirds of the planet will die, and that is part of the Earth Mother's cleansing process.
Is there reason to believe, from study of the Maya, that that will occur?
I don't believe so.
I believe that the Maya were intending their world age metaphors to be interpreted metaphorically.
The idea of world ages, that's very, very central to the Mayan understanding of time and that humanity has moved through these various world age cycles and at the end of each one, There's a drastic change and transformation, and humanity must transform itself into something else in order to survive.
See, that is where I was going.
In other words, is the Mayan calendar simply a very interesting, old, valid way to perceive the passage of time and measure things, or is it actually suggesting that... I mean, how much suggestion is there that at the beginning or end of these cycles, Well, drastic in terms of the spiritual unfolding of humanity, because the pressures of change and evolution force humanity to make some pretty crucial decisions.
I think that those changes are not so much in terms of evolutionary physiology, the change of our physical organism, but now it has to do with Changing our values and assumptions in our civilization in
order to survive. All right, hold it right there We are at the top of the hour John Major Jenkins. He is my
guest Maya Cosmogenesis 2012 his book will be right back. This is
dreamland When I complained about my husband snoring, I don't think
people quite understood this was industrial strength snoring But it wasn't just that. Sometimes he'd actually stop
breathing at night.
Then he'd gasp and choke and start snoring all over again.
One minute I'd be hitting him because he was snoring so bad, and the next I'd be poking him because he was so quiet I thought he was dead.
But it was the not breathing that scared me.
That, and the way he kept falling asleep during the day.
Like the time we stopped at a red light, and I looked over and he's actually asleep at the wheel.
So I said, that's it, we're going to the doctor.
And sure enough, there was something wrong.
It's called sleep apnea, and my husband was a classic case.
Really loud snoring, sometimes not breathing, and then falling asleep all day long.
It's a real serious thing, but there are treatments, and they work.
You know how I know?
I got my husband back.
Sleep apnea.
It's no way to sleep.
It's no way to live.
See your doctor or a sleep specialist if you think sleep apnea is a problem in your home.
A public service message from the National Center on Sleep Disorders Research.
More than 140,000 Americans have joined Peace Corps.
Returning home, their experiences last I'm Doc Truax, a mayor and business owner in Colorado.
The challenges that I face as a Peace Corps worker were the same for me as a public schools teacher.
Now I have...
♪♪ Good evening everybody from the high desert.
This is Dreamland.
I'm Art Bell.
My guest is John Major Jenkins.
And his introduction, by the way, is by Terrence McKenna, who's a good friend.
I know Terrence.
Absolute wild man, actually.
We're talking about the Mayan calendar, and we're going to get back to it in just a moment.
I'm still not quite grounded in exactly what the Mayan calendar is, but before this program ends, I will be, and I'm sure you will be as well.
The Maya calendar, in its final form, probably dates from about the first century B.C.
and may originate with the Omi civilization.
It is extremely accurate.
The calculations of Maya priests were so precise that their calendar correction is One ten-thousandth of a day more exact than the standard calendar the world is using today.
Do you disagree with the origin point first century BC?
No, that's basically right.
The Olmecs were fading in the first century BC and the Maya were on the rise.
In my research into the academic literature on this question of Who invented the long-count calendar, and where was it invented, and when?
I identified the first century B.C., what I would more specifically call the Azopin culture.
The Azopins were related to the Olmecs.
And where?
Yeah, the region of southern Mesoamerica that the Azopin culture occupied.
Alright, again, now, let's go back to where we were before the top of the hour, and that is, most people listening tonight are going to want to know what the Mayan calendar means for them.
Okay.
Most people are going to say, our calendar is in effect the Christian calendar, based on the death of Christ.
And they're going to be disinclined to think they should be watching some other calendar for any reason at all.
Right.
Well, there are many calendar traditions, including the Judeo-Christian, that have an apocalyptic prophecy in the Judeo-Christian tradition.
That's true.
Revelation.
That's true.
Now, the thing is with the Maya, with the Maya calendar and its prophecy of a transformational time, In my survey of world literature, it's only the Maya cosmology that identifies the underlying reason why, and it has to do with what we might call galactic alignment.
Okay, galactic alignment.
Yeah, that's just a way of identifying the fact, it's an astronomical fact, that the solstice sun is aligning with the galaxy, and Now, that's an astronomical fact, and you know, through my research into this question, it seems strange to me that it was overlooked as being in any way important by astronomers.
But the interesting thing to consider, and this is an interesting thing to look at, is that the Maya, as you pointed out, had created this calendar 2,000 years ago, and they created a mythology to go with it.
And in that mythology they were saying that the time that we currently live in would be a time of great transformation.
Well look around us, sure enough.
It is, yes.
So they must have been tuned into an understanding of this astronomical alignment that was intuitive and yet nevertheless right on target.
Is there any way to know more precisely other than a time of great change?
What's coming?
Well, it's a matter of how you think about it.
I think that we are coming into a situation that we could call an encounter with our cosmic source.
Now, this is a very, very profound and artful event.
Yes, it is.
An encounter with our cosmic source.
You mean by that Cosmic source, read, equate, read, create, creative force, creator, God?
Yeah, I would interpret it in terms of, you know, this, both this galaxy alignment, I think, can be interpreted as an open door, such that energies or, you know, we're coming into a situation of resonance with the galactic center, and basically You know, what I think this is about, it's about the most profound evolutionary event that the Earth experiences.
And I think the Maya were tuned into that insight, and I think that, you know, in order to understand this, we need to look at what the Maya were saying about it in their mythology and in their cosmology.
All right.
Is there a suggestion Now, there is much debate about evolution, whether it actually is an ongoing process, whether large leaps in evolution ever occur.
There is suggestion in our deep past that they do, and yet we don't see it occurring on Earth now in large leaps and bounds.
Now, could it be That large leaps and bounds occur at this moment of convergence that you're speaking about.
Yeah, I think that basically this alignment stimulates consciousness evolution on the planet.
There is the new idea in evolutionary biology of punctuated evolution.
Now that applies of course to the physical organism.
And I think that a similar kind of model applies to the unfolding of human consciousness.
I mean, I believe that, you know, consciousness is something that is unfolding.
You know, it's the purpose of life is to grow, and we are something the universe does.
and this alignment event is something that happens once every 26,000 years and in a sense
it gives us a boost, sort of a kick in the butt from the creator, you know, to keep us
moving on the path towards spiritual unfolding.
And you think that this is not an instant change as in that end calendar date or do
you hold out that that is possible or that the change accelerates toward the date and
then just continues past it another 50 years or whatever?
I think there's an acceleration of intensity towards that date and then there's, it's kind of like the full moon cycle, there's a waxing period where the process is building and building and building and then it's full and then the full opportunity and alignment is there and fully present and then there's a waning aspect to the cycle as well.
I'm a talk show host now and I've been so for 14 years running and before that I worked in a 911 center as a dispatcher and I've worked in hospitals in the Air Force as a medic and in all of these areas I don't care what scientist says what, I'm here to tell you right now that a full moon absolutely, beyond any doubt, causes people to react in a much more radical way in every aspect of life.
Scientists say no, but I'm telling you it's true.
I know it to be true, as a fact.
Yeah, my fiancée works in a hospital and she says the same thing.
There's definitely cycles that relate to that.
Um, so I think that the thing that to address with that is that, you know, yeah, we live in crazy times, right?
You know, there's going to be a lot of, um, you know, this intensity, this intense sort of like, um, situation of alignment with, um, the cosmic center.
I mean, you know, continuing with that metaphor, a lot of people are going to get burned, but that's not.
In other words, the alignment itself is not a metaphor.
The alignment is a physical fact.
Right.
Right?
So, uh... Yeah, I guess I shouldn't have said metaphor.
It's more like how we interpret that.
How do we interpret our encounter with the cosmic source?
Then you are telling me, I'm trying to grasp this, that in 2012, We will be in that alignment that only occurs once every 26,000 years, yes?
Yeah.
Yeah, imagine that there's an etheric wind blowing forth from the galactic center, and the door that opens us to that etheric wind, which can offer the opportunity for growth, is the solstice doorway.
When the December solstice sun comes into convergence with the galactic center, and the Maya, by the way, were observing this convergence happening in the sky 2,000 years ago, they were observing the December solstice sun slowly moving towards the Milky Way, and they were projecting forward to the year we call 2012, and calling it a time of rare alignment.
But, alright, here's a clincher question.
Not clincher, perhaps, but interesting.
How the hell would the Maya know?
I mean, their calendar is only, what, 100 years B.C.
or something?
Uh-huh.
Alright, so we're talking about a 26,000-year cycle, of which the Maya only had a very, very small portion to observe cycles within cycles, but how would they know what would occur at the 26,000-year point, or how could they... Yeah.
Because they weren't around 26,000 years ago.
How could they even have mythology to deal with that?
Well, they were challenged to interpret it, and I think the interpretation is sort of straightforward.
Like, even if we don't know anything about it, if we know that the galactic center is the heart and source, the Maya called it the womb of the Great Mother, and we know that the December solstice sun is the rebirth point of the solar year, Then when that rebirth point in our local solar year conjuncts and joins up with the source point in the sky, the interpretation, you know, fairly straightforward from that is that this is a very, very rare and amazing event and bodes some kind of transformative event for life on Earth.
With that, I can certainly understand that, but I can't understand How they would predict that great change would occur when they had never gone through it, unless they were projecting it based on change they saw in the shorter cycles.
So how were they doing that?
I'm really not sure.
It might have been very much intuition.
I mean, the Maya culture and the way that they gathered data about the cosmos was very different than the scientific method.
They were basically shamans.
And their understanding of the cosmos and the cosmologies that they built were derived from shamanistic journeys.
Maya culture was shamanistic, so Maya kings or other astronomer priests would make visionary journeys into the sky to gather some kind of intelligence about the nature of time.
What does mainstream science Tell us about this conjunctive, uh, conjunctive point, uh, in 2012.
Anything at all?
Well, it's, it's funny, uh, again, this is one of those strange things where, you know, back in 93 when I was trying to, uh, determine if this was indeed what the Maya were intending with their end date, um, you know, you can get astronomy charts and look up the fact that, uh, the solstice meridian is conjuncting the galactic equator.
That's how astronomers would term it, which basically means that the December solstice sun
is conjuncting the Milky Way.
But there's no interpretive efforts made by astronomers towards it.
It's strangely a blind spot in scientific discourse today.
I think that the implications are so profound that it's sort of one of those untouchable areas somehow.
So when you go to an astronomer and you ask about this state and this alignment, they shrug?
Or they say, yes, there could be something that would occur.
In other words, scientists would tend to look at orbits and magnetic That's what I'm trying to put on the table, you know, for scientists to look at.
I mean, on one level, my book, Myocosmogenesis, is, you know, very scientific.
and they kind of what, shrug their shoulders?
Pretty much.
That's what I'm trying to put on the table for scientists to look at.
I mean, on one level, my book, Myocosmogenesis, is very scientific.
I mean, I've went to great pains to document this and make it something that scientists
would look at.
What I'm putting on the table is for scientists to look at the dynamics of this kind of alignment with the galactic center and determine whether or not there are demonstrable effects that could stimulate life on Earth.
I mean, you know, in comparison, there are, you know, people look at the sunspot Activity, and that certainly seems to have some effect for life on Earth, or the tidal cycles.
Oh, yes.
Definitely, like, our changing relationship to the larger galactic situation, I mean, we're embedded in it, so it's reasonable to assume that, you know, our changing relationship to it has some effects for life on Earth.
And I like to interpret it, I mean, I'm a philosopher, I mean, you know, ever since I was small.
I was interested in the big questions.
You know, what are we doing here?
Oh, me too.
What is life on Earth?
What is our purpose?
Is George Bush a human being?
You know, these profound questions.
And so I try to interpret this galactic alignment.
I'm wondering the same thing about George Bush, actually.
All right, I see I'm getting more serious for a second.
I could run through, which I will not bore my audience with, this long litany of environmental degradation that's going on right now that seems to be accelerating at a pace... I'm not one of those who thinks the Earth will go away because the Earth will keep spinning, but at present rates of deterioration in the environment, I would say that our chance of continuing to spin upon it ...is getting slimmer by the day.
You know, big chunks of the Antarctic breaking off, ice caps melting, glaciers retreating, global warming, and all the rest of it, all the problems in the ocean right now, the dying of the fish, the waters where there's virtually, scientists are saying, devoid of life.
Things are occurring at a rate now that would seem to indicate that The uh-oh moment is not very far away.
Mm-hmm.
That's a scary thing to consider.
This might, in fact, be a situation in which the Earth has to go through a dying.
And whatever survives after that is where the long journey to spiritual unfolding picks up the game again.
That's a little daunting.
It's a little daunting.
In fact, you can look at it as completely daunting.
In other words, that in effect, the entire cycle ends.
Life as we know it, our life, all life ends and then at some point begins again.
It could be that, couldn't it?
Right.
It could be.
But I'd like to think of, you know, this basically boils down to the question of whether The world and the cosmos and life is malevolent or benevolent.
Or let's say, is God a wrathful deity?
Or is God... You know, it's those two kind of things.
Well, maybe the Creator is neither one.
Maybe the whole process of creation and destruction is simply a process.
Neither good nor bad.
But a process.
I guess that's a little cold, that's kind of a cold way of looking at it, huh?
Well, I have some more to say about the Maya interpretation of that.
All right, all right, good.
We're at the bottom of the hour, so hold on.
John Major Jenkins is my guest.
Maya Cosmogenesis 2012 is his book, and we will tell you how to get it.
Get a pencil and paper.
I'm Art Bell from an area near Dreamland.
This is Dreamland.
2012.
It is the end of the Mayan calendar in 2012.
And apparently the moment when we come to a major conjunction with the center of it all.
Does that mean the center of the spiritual all?
The God Force?
The Creator Force?
Fascinating questions.
I think that's what John believes, but we will ask.
He'll be right back.
Well, what I've found in corresponding with other researchers that are doing work in other areas, other cultures, on this question, what's emerging strangely is that all of the Major philosophical religious systems, including Christianity, are pointing towards some events to happen in the future.
In other words, philosophical thought around the world has been evolving towards an understanding that this kind of alignment to the galactic center is the transformative and evolutionary event for the planet.
For example, within Christianity, to make a long story short, and I could point readers to resources for this, the return of Christ, that moment when the Christ consciousness returns to Earth, and there's a lot of prophecy and prediction around this with Edgar Cayce and Nostradamus and so on, I believe that that event that Edgar Cayce pinpointed for 1998 is an intuitive, prophetic vision of this alignment.
Let me tell you an interesting story.
My wife and I got to go on a trip to Europe some time ago, and we went to Rome and to the Vatican and to the Sistine Chapel.
And when you walk in the main front door of the Sistine Chapel, The first thing you see is enough to put you on the floor.
It's a gigantic globe with all the astrological signs around it.
I mean, it's enough to floor you.
All my life I thought, you know, that Catholicism and religion in general pooh-poohed anything that had to do with astrology.
But, boy, you sure get a different impression when you walk into the Sistine Chapel.
Well, there's some amazing information encoded in the astrological zodiac.
Paula Violet has pointed out that the two signs that are adjacent, the galactic center, they point to it.
Sagittarius, the archer, that arrow in the Sagittarius constellation points right to the galactic center.
As well, the one right next door to that, Scorpio, the stinger, the tail of the Scorpion constellation points right to the galactic center.
Trying to unravel all of this is a little like intelligence work.
You grab little pieces from here and there and I guess try to put them all together into one picture that tells you what you want to know.
Oh yeah, yeah.
My reconstruction work in the Mayan cosmology stretched over four years.
When I was first seized with this realization in 93, that yes, indeed, this galactic alignment seems to be the reason why the Maya chose 2012.
And, you know, I didn't want to assume that it was coincidence, and I was forced to look really deeply into the academic literature And what I found was basically a lost galactic cosmology, what I call galactic cosmology.
The Maya had taken this profound event and they had woven it into their basic institutions, such as the ball game.
The Mayan ball game is a symbolic metaphor for the movement of the December solstice sun into conjunction with the goal ring.
The ball moving into the goal ring.
Then the ending of their calendar in 2012 May and I know I'm simplifying this but it may mean
that There is an ending there or a beginning depending on how
you want to look at it And they they have no idea what comes next
growth This is what I wanted to address earlier and if we're at a
loss as to how to understand this I think that we need to cast back to what the Maya have
said about this and what remains for us to Interpret in the Mayan mythology and the corpus of hieroglyphic
texts and so on I mean, there are many hieroglyphic texts that Mayan scholars have been digging up and they're being deciphered.
The most profound legacy to us about this end-date phenomenon is the Maya creation story, the Popol Vuh.
The Herotwin myth.
And, basically, mythology and astronomy go together.
So this astronomical event has a mythological correlate.
Now, as I mentioned before, the Milky Way is the Great Mother, and the galactic center would be the womb of the Great Mother.
Now, the December Solstice Sun was mythologized by the Maya as the First Solar Lord, the Cosmic Father Deity.
The December solstice being, you know, the beginning point of the solar year, the first sun of the year.
So, the Maya interpreted this mythologically as the union of cosmic father with cosmic mother.
And if this is what they really were seeing when they were looking at this, and if we give them credit for having a solid understanding of what this is about, then that, to me, means that this era is going to be about some kind of cosmic insemination.
of new life into the Earth's sphere.
But before you have the new, the old must go out.
True.
But the old must go because it's just illusions.
What will die will be the illusions that we've been holding on to and that has been suffocating us as a civilization.
Alright, let's try taking a couple of calls.
First time caller on the line, you're on the air with John Major Jenkins.
Hi.
Hi!
Hi there, where are you?
This is Laura in Deltona, Florida.
Hi, Laura!
Hi!
Yeah, just hearing you talking about it.
In Revelation, in the Bible, it talks about a new earth and a new heaven.
And also there's prophecies about the 2,000 years after creation, which Jesus, and so on, every 2,000 years.
And we're coming up to it again.
And just your comment, is there any prophecies in the Mayans that indicated that there would be a major turnover at our point 2,000 years ago and now?
Yeah, in other words, as I listen to you, John, one moment it sounds like you're talking about a spiritual awakening change, and then on the other you're not ruling out a physical A complete physical change.
In other words, life ending and then again beginning.
Right.
It's probably a little bit of both.
The Maya use different time cycles in their mythology of world ages.
They did have basically a similar idea that after a certain period of time the world renews itself.
So that's shared between the Christian tradition and the Maya tradition.
Although, my understanding is that the Christian tradition is basically apocalyptic and that time definitely ends.
No, it doesn't end.
No?
Because there's a new earth and a new heaven and we continue on.
Okay.
And read Revelation.
That goes for everybody out there.
So heaven comes down to earth.
It's like the heaven energies come down to earth and enliven the earth and renew it and we begin a new cycle.
Yeah, it is a new cycle, definitely.
Alright.
A new millennium.
Right.
A thousand years of peace and prosperity and new creations and inventions.
Yeah.
You know, and others will disappear from the earth and a lot of us Christians are saying, well, they're going to say, well, You know, the UFOs will take us away, is what the people here on Earth will say about us.
Right, right.
You know, you know that story.
When exposed to the light of truth, the illusions will squirm away.
Yes.
And I think that the model with the alignment, if there's some kind of new energy coming into the Earth's sphere as a result of this doorway opening to the Christ Consciousness, or however you want to term it, that could be Heaven coming down to earth and creating the new millennium.
All right.
That would be great.
All right.
Thank you very much.
He asked about Maya.
A myth or Maya, as we have with the Bible, of course, there are rather specific predictions about what will occur.
Did the Maya have something like that or was it?
Sure.
And what did they suggest would occur?
What do we know?
Well, in the hero twin myth, In the Maya creation mythology, humanity goes through a series of world ages, sort of like chapters in the story of humanity's unfolding.
And at those critical nexus points between the world ages, humanity has to transform itself in order to move to the next level of development.
So they cast back over a period of five world ages.
Okay, so now if we remember that one world age cycle is this long count calendar, which lasts 5,200 years.
Five of those equal 26,000 years, and that's the processional cycle.
So again, it's this intuition that this cycle of procession, the cycle of our changing relationship to the galactic center, is sort of The evolutionary gestation period of human spiritual unfolding.
Is it possible that we actually leave the physical as we know it now?
Well, this is a great question.
It brings up a lot in terms of, okay, if we're coming into a situation of resonance with the galactic center, then all planes and all dimensions in between are coming into alignment.
Now there's a lot of phenomena happening today.
There's crop circles, there's UFO alien abductions, there's some kind of paranormal thing that's going on on the planet.
More and more.
Yeah.
So again, this alignment might be the underlying explanation behind it, but certainly I think what we're moving into, and this might be part of our challenge in terms of growing, is to accept that there are Other beings that live alongside of us in other dimensions, as Aldous Huxley said, separated by the filmiest of screens.
I am hearing from everybody on this.
Last night, Linda Moulton Howe, the gal who did the report at the beginning of the program,
talked about dimensions, separate dimensions, and we seem to have these weird things occurring,
creatures appearing and then simply disappearing, poof, like that, sometimes right in front
of people's eyes.
I had an incredible story that a man emailed me about, oh, I don't know, two weeks ago.
It was up on my website, and I'll take a second to tell you about it because it may relate.
He woke up in the middle of the night because one of his children woke him up and said,
dad, we can't sleep because of the voices.
And this is a technical man, a ham operator, as I am, and so he went into the other room and he listened, and when he got to the spot in the room the children were talking about, he could hear voices.
Not threatening voices, just voices in some kind of conversation.
He described it As if you were listening to voices through a fan, you know, a... type thing.
And, strangely, at first he thought, well, it's some radio station resonating on something here in the room, causing this.
But guess what?
Over a period of days, weeks, and even months, the voices began to move Literally an inch or two a day.
In other words, the spot you had to stand to hear the voices would move an inch or two.
And now it's a year later.
And the voices, he's actually got to go out into his yard to a certain spot to hear the voices.
Now, that clearly suggests that there might be some sort of rift between this and another dimension.
Allowing this sort of thing to occur, and I'll tell you some of our best minds, theoretical physicists now, proclaim there are indeed at least 10, perhaps 12, different dimensions.
So... Yeah, that's fascinating.
Isn't that interesting?
Yeah, and also there's a strange parallel between the most recent discoveries of atomic physics, this idea of wormholes, Oh, yes.
Some kind of rift in space-time that can affect the channeling between dimensions, you know, beyond the normal space-time route.
That's fascinating material.
I've traveled quite a bit in Mexico and Central America, you know, exploring the temples, and I've met up with many people that tell me stories of encounters with I know.
of some kind of trans-dimensional beings.
Yes.
People call them the Alush.
They're sort of like the Mayan fairy folk or something.
I'm not particularly psychic myself, but it's hard to disregard these very honest stories
of people having encounters at the temple site.
Well, I hear you say, heaven coming to earth.
And then I think of the transformation that might occur in 2012, or the dissolution of
the barriers between these dimensions.
And I think about heaven coming to earth and it sort of sounds similar.
Well, that's a good way of looking at it.
It's a dissolution of the boundaries that separate us.
Yeah, precisely.
And in my slideshows, I'm finding that people are offering stories.
You know, sometimes they're like the one you told, other times they're just stories of strange synchronicities.
Those normal space-time boundaries that we have been operating on as a culture, you know, the whole cause and effect paradigm that we've been indoctrinated with, seems to be not that true.
I mean, people are having these experiences, and I think that It's accelerating.
These kind of things are accelerating as we approach the alignment.
Oh, I agree.
I completely agree.
Let's squeeze one more in here.
East of the Rockies, you're on air with John Major Jenkins.
Where are you, please?
Outside of Cleveland, Ohio in Willowick.
Yes, sir.
Welcome.
Thank you.
I just kind of get the feeling that your guest this evening is trying to sugarcoat the transformation for us.
I was just wondering... I agree with you.
I was about to pin him down on that.
And a lot of people who talk about major change like to refer to it as spiritual growth and all the rest of that.
But if you sit down here in the physical right now, earthquakes, mass death, ice ages, things that will wipe away a great deal of humanity, that's the other way to look at it.
I guess my question Based on some of the things I've read, I don't know if your guest has had a chance to read any of William Sullivan's work with The Secret of the Incas, a fairly recent book, and the great pains they went to to try to simulate the galactic star formations when they would take their children out to sacrifice them on the winter solstice day at the precise same moment, no matter how many miles it took to match those points to the various spots, and again,
The Aztecs, of course, they carried it to an extreme with sacrificing people to satisfy the sun so that the sun would leave them alone.
And I don't know what kind of insight you had to offer on that.
And then maybe one other thing as to what correlation some of the creation myth of the Mayans might have with the Hopis creation.
Boy, that's an awful lot to ask.
So let's stay on the line.
And your first question again?
Had to do with the Inca.
that William Sullivan brought up to where they went to such great pains to take their
Yeah.
children to sites that matched and finally concluded galactic situations or distort stars
with a certain alignment and sacrifice them so it wouldn't happen again because they feared
that the earth would turn over.
Hold on, I want to put you on hold because we're near the top of the hour.
Are you aware of that, John?
Yeah, I can comment on that.
William Sullivan's book was looking at the ancient Andean astronomy and he had determined
that the Andean astronomers were looking at a similar process of convergence in the cycle
His interpretation of that was that the Andean people wanted to stop that.
they began this war against time because they wanted to stop the vast
convergence in the sky and so they would uh... you know do sacrifice rituals in order to try to stop
that i'd i'd interpret like based upon the maya idea
that uh...
human beings are co-creators in the great process of cosmogenesis that
as in the maya ball game human beings were actually involved in
trying to facilitate the future rebirth of the world kind of in the same way that the hopi
uh... pray to the sun to help it break free from the horizon
yes i've interviewed uh... recently hopi elders me.
Alright, when we come back, we'll take up this sugar coating accusation, because I think in some cases it has some merit.
We talk of birth and spiritual growth and all the rest of it, but what comes before may not be so spiffy.
We'll be right back.
I am a Christian. I am a Christian. I am a Christian. I am a Christian. I am a Christian.
A quick note, my book, The Art of Crap, well, people can order the book at any bookstore
or they can call my publisher, Barron Company Direct, at 1-800-932-4243.
That spells Wee Bears.
1-800-WEE-BEARS.
Or you can get it at your local bookstore.
Alright, so pretty much anywhere, or they can pick up the phone, or probably Amazon.com too.
As well, yeah.
Alright, the caller that I saw on the line, I'm going to bring him back for Part 2, but I really want to expand on Part 1.
He said, well, you're kind of sugarcoating, kind of sugarcoating what's going to happen.
And frankly, I've interviewed a lot of people like yourself, and you try to stay on the positive side of things, and you talk about growth, spiritual change, evolution, but the reality of the physical change from our current today perspective could be horrible.
Sure, sure.
Well, I try to keep a positive outlook, because basically if there are going to be sudden catastrophes, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, these kind of, you know, a pole shift of drastic nature, I don't think there's any way we can prepare for it.
I mean, we're toast.
What I think, however, you know, If this event is more about an energetic opportunity to grow spiritually, and we all turn 80, and the earthquakes haven't happened, then we may have missed the boat.
So, I don't know, I'm not a spiritual guru or anything, but I think that we're being confronted by the threat of imminent death, and that's a real fundamental thing.
So, I think that it's our own relationship to death and God that is being called into question here, And of course that's a very personal thing.
I mean, this has to do with, I believe in reincarnation and I believe that we're on this journey of spiritual unfolding, so it's how we're oriented towards death that I think determines how we're oriented to this kind of millennial threat.
Alright, let's bring this caller back and tackle part two.
Does that answer your sugar coating?
Yes.
And I think, you know, he touches on something, too, that I think you're even tapping into a little bit, Art, about, as far as spiritual development goes, you know, there's been some people, and I hope he's even said it, that we could avoid some of these problems.
And how we focus ourselves and how, you know, whether it be mass concentration, as you've been trying to accomplish for weather changes or not, there may be a speck of possibility there.
That's just a thought I threw in.
But when I was Also, you know, when I was thinking about how afraid some of the other ancient cultures were, especially the extreme that the Aztecs took it to because of their fear of the sun, and the book that just came out about six, eight months ago, I think, with Maurice Cotterell and Egan Gilbert, where they started tapping into a lot of the things that John is talking about with his book, which I definitely intend to read, but that, you know, there was such a fear of the sun.
And all the activity that seems to be stirring up on the sun, like it's a precursor of what might be to come, and I'm just curious if you have anything on that.
Well, that's a good point.
It's the Janus-based aspect of deities, like the sun, of course, is the great nurturer of life, but it can also be unbearably hot and destructive, and that also relates to, like in the Hindu tradition, The nature of the goddess.
I mean, the goddess is from where all life comes.
It's the great nourisher, the great birther.
But it's also, it's the great destroyer.
So it's that, it's that, you know, dual process of creation and destruction that is, you know, probably a very hard truth.
And it's the nature of change and the nature of growth.
But I'd really like to return to the Mayan interpretation of this kind of event, going back to the metaphor of the Cosmic Father and Cosmic Mother joining as a metaphor for the alignment of the solstice sun with the galaxy.
You actually sound like my Ahopi elders when you speak like that.
Oh, okay.
The Cosmic Mother, the Cosmic Father.
Yeah, that's a very Mayan idea.
And what's inside of that mythological interpretation, I think, is maybe a way that we can look at this.
The 2012 event might be interpreted as the cosmic orgasm at the end of the historical process.
And you know it might be a lot more fun than we think.
Yeah maybe it will. There you are caller. Instead of death and destruction a cosmic orgasm. Hey I look forward
to it.
That's a great way to describe it John.
West of the Rockies, you're on the air with John Major Jenkins.
Hi.
Hi, Art and John.
I have a couple of questions, actually, some quick questions.
First, something that Linda brought up on Thursday and something that seems to have been brought up often on your program, Art, is the idea of fractal geometry.
And how that seems to be relating to these things.
And also it's interesting to me that Terrence McKenna writes the, if I'm correct, writes the introduction for John's book.
And how Terrence is really interested in how fractal geometry relates to this idea of 2012 and the Mayan prophecies.
And I'm wondering if John had any comments as to that.
That would be my first question.
And the next quick comment... Well, hold on, hold on.
I like one at a time.
Sure.
Pause for a second.
I, too, was fascinated by the fact that Terrence McKenna did your forward.
I really like Terrence.
I've interviewed him a number of times.
But, of course, you know how he is with the chemical substances.
And I wonder if you considered that as you had him write the forward, whether you wanted to go forward with that.
Well, that wasn't really central.
I respect Terence for his insights, and I asked him to write the foreword to my book because... He's actually an enemy of the war on drugs because how can anybody who does these drugs be so completely brilliant?
He's got to be an enemy of the war on drugs, and of course he is, but I mean he's a standing example of somebody with Above average cognitive abilities who does drugs.
Yeah, he challenges some of the imagery around that.
But I think that he's brilliant and he's also got a great BS meter.
And he doesn't suffer fools gladly and I think that he is saying something very... For him to say that in his foreword that my book is revolutionary work of discovery and synthesis I think that
that's a very honorable thing to say I have gone to great pains to to
make this a very well documented argument and I I don't really you know fall into
talking about you know ancient astronauts for one
That's an interesting thing with the Maya material.
You know, you look at these carvings and it seems like they're taking journeys into outer space.
Well, in a sense, that's true.
Okay, well, he talks about a zero point, virtually a zero point.
Is that 2012?
Right.
Is that 2012?
Yes.
That's what I thought.
But he arrived at that.
in a different process.
He arrived at that through his intuitive work with the I Ching.
And he came up with this fractal model of time, you know, in keeping with the idea that time is accelerating, that we're approaching some kind of breakthrough point.
Yeah, yeah.
Another reason why I asked him to write the foreword is because he was one of the first people to suggest in print that This alignment of the solstice meridian with the galactic center might have something to do with these profound, interesting times that we are living in today.
Fascinating.
Caller?
Yes, certainly.
A quick comment on that.
I would like to say that there's certainly evidence that the way that Terrence has been approaching this through chemicals is certainly one of the ways that the Maya approached it as well, and that this is something that's You know, very ancient in many cultures, this use of homogenics.
So the fact that Terence has hit upon these insights may give us some insight as to how the Mayas came up with these insights.
You know, that perhaps there's something in that experience, not that it's the only way to approach the experience, that may lead to some of these ideas that have been converged upon by many of these different researchers.
Right.
Our universe basically is a complex interweaving of multi-dimensions.
Right.
The one thing I point out in my book, there's a large chapter on the shamanistic techniques of vision journeys.
And this early site, this early Mayan site that I write about called Izapa, well, two things happened there.
The early Azapans invented this long-count calendar, which pinpoints 2012 as a transformative time.
They also created the Maya creation myth, which is the mythological telling of that astronomical process.
The third factor in this early Maya context at Azapa is that That was the place where a very early mushroom cult existed in Mesoamerica.
So they were utilizing these tools of vision to have an understanding of the very complex
nature of reality and what I call the galactic cosmology, which is basically about our changing
relationships to the galactic center, was then incorporated and built into their basic
institutions such as King Assessions, for example.
The Maya institution of King Assessions is, like the ballgame, another metaphor for this
astronomical process of the solar king, the December Solstice sun, moving into union with
his throne in the womb of the great mother.
That's really interesting.
I have another quick question, or just a quick comment.
I'm wondering if you think that we may have lost many of the keys to these ideas you're thinking about because of the missionaries burned, I don't know what the actual percentage is, but we lost about 90% of what the Maya actually wrote.
I think we do, and that's been my challenge in reconstructing the ancient cosmology of the Maya.
were satanic, which was the common view back then of anything that wasn't Christian. So
I wonder if you feel like we have enough of the Mayan material to really be able to judge
what they were thinking, or if we may have lost some of the major keys to understanding
them.
Oh, good question.
I think we do, and that's been my challenge in reconstructing the ancient cosmology of
the Maya. Luckily, in the last ten years, there has been a huge amount of hieroglyphic
material, text carved in stone. There is a huge corpus of hieroglyphic material on vases,
the ceramic codexes, as they're called. It is true that there's only four surviving Mayan
books, but there is enough information left, particularly at this early site of Azapa,
to reconstruct this profound vision of nature and human unfolding.
Okay. A couple of years ago, more now, when I wrote this book, The Quickening,
I did this.
I'm a complete lame.
I haven't studied the Mayan calendar.
I'm not even a very good Christian.
I'm just an observer, a talk show host.
And I began to notice that in every single aspect of human endeavor, you know, from politics to the economy to the environment to you name it, In every aspect of human endeavor, events are speeding up.
Without question, they're speeding up.
Things are becoming more radical.
And what I think I said in the book, and what I'll say now is that it became obvious to me that we are exponentially racing toward a great change.
But I'm not a prophet.
I'm a talk show host, and I have no idea what's coming.
I just have a sort of general sense That something big's on the way, and I wonder how many people worldwide share that view?
I think that there's a universal sense that we do live in interesting times, and I've felt that for a while, and, you know, one of my pursuits has been to identify why, and it's in the Mayan material that I found the answer, and the solution to the 2012 end-date dilemma.
It has to do with this alignment to the galactic center.
Which is probably what I'm feeling, and do you think that as we move closer and closer toward it, more and more people will simply begin to conclude naturally the same thing within themselves?
I would like to think so, but I think it's a function of how open people are who are growing.
Well, you don't have to be a great, intuitive, sensitive, psychic kind of person to see all the changes around us that are happening.
I mean, even socially.
Young people are killing young people mindlessly, little blank-eyed youth wandering around with guns, taking life to see how it feels, that kind of thing.
Right.
More and more of that kind of thing.
That's what I'm talking about.
I mean, even the fair dullard out there can see these changes occurring.
Even the environmental ones.
You don't have to be an atmospheric scientist to look at nearly any major city in the U.S.
and see on most days this giant brown pall hanging above it.
These are things we can see.
Right.
Right.
Is this part of it?
I think it's part of it.
What's happening, I think, is that there's a particular style of being in the world that exemplifies our civilization, and it's called the Dominator Style.
Our system is based upon this model of setting up hierarchies of dominance and subordination.
We are being confronted with the shadows of that system, and these shadows are in the form of global pollution, Insane things happening, disaffiliated youth, and so on.
So we're being confronted in this era of the light of truth coming down to us, of confronting and incorporating our shadows that have been projected onto the world and that are coming back to us.
You know, our whole Western civilization is You know, related and based on the notion of driving nature out and conquering nature.
And here we are in, you know, this time in which we're approaching the end of this great cycle of time in both the Judeo-Christian calendar and the Mayan calendar, and we're being challenged to embrace our shadows.
I don't know if there's time left to What makes you think that we have the power to change anything at all with respect to what's going to occur?
You know, something has got to change.
What makes you think that we have the power to change anything at all with respect to
what is going to occur?
Well, it is how we, I don't know if we have any power to change what is going to occur,
but it is perhaps how we relate to it that can further the spiritual growth of humanity
on this planet.
It is that whole thing of our relationship to death.
Okay, well I sense a little more sugar falling here.
John, hold on just a second.
We will be right back.
John Major Jenkins is my guest.
We are talking about the Mayan calendar.
His book, Maya Cosmogenesis 2012.
I am Art Bell from an area near Dreamland.
This is Unwelcome Back.
Hi.
Hi there.
I kind of like, the more I think about a cosmic orgasm at that moment, the more I like that.
It's sugar I can handle.
Well, the alternative, and I think that this is a very important question to address, and it's not one that I've resolved.
My sense is that this, you know, sense that we're heading towards hell is maybe the deepest fear that's implanted in our civilization's assumptions and
that's the biggest shadow that we need to re-embrace.
Again, it boils down to that question of whether the universe is basically a really bad place
or a really good place and that the divine will has our best interest in store with all
things that happen.
Now I wish I could believe that, but I think it is neither one.
It's not good, it's not bad, it's just what it is.
And it is governed by certain rules, and I think the Mayans may have well had it just right.
I can't embrace the concept that it's all a goodness.
People like yourself that tend to come out on the sugar side tend to believe that.
I think it's also about free will.
We can align ourselves with the source and heart and thereby become aligned with the divine will that will help us evolve, or we can resist that and end up spiraling in the other direction.
Well, all righty.
Let's look at present trends, current events and present trends.
That's what I did in my book.
If present trends continue, And you simply project present trends into the year 2000 and beyond.
Where do you think we're headed?
Well, trends and statistics can kind of operate on a level of abstraction that is removed from an individual's esoteric experience and individual growth.
But to answer your question, yeah, you know, these projections of population growth and certainly I think that Our civilization is founded upon the control of oil resources and I think that that's got to end pretty soon here.
At present levels of usage it is said we have about 40 or 45 years basically of oil left and then there better be something else.
Right.
Or you could say we've got plenty of oil to get us where we need to go.
You can look at it that way.
In other words, there will still be oil in 2012 left.
Not much, but some.
And the assumption being that it doesn't matter what happens after that.
You might not need oil after that.
Right.
Well, there's kind of a ransoming the future kind of philosophy in that.
And I think that it's indicative, or at least it's demonstrated by how, you know, our civilization is living off of credit, you know, from the future.
And it's getting a lot of people into trouble.
So it's that kind of mentality that I think has to be called into question, but it is very indicative of some assumptions in our civilization.
How long did you work on this book?
Well, yeah, I didn't really get a chance to tell a little bit about my story.
I first went to Guatemala in 1986, and that's when my interest in the Maya really began to develop.
Okay.
started researching certain unresolved questions in Maya cosmology at that point.
In 1989, I wrote my first book, Journey to the Mayan Underworld.
And by the way, I just wanted to mention also that my previous publications are available
on my website.
Okay.
Can I give that address?
Of course you may.
As a matter of fact, if I'd known, I'd have had a link up.
For all I know, I might have a link up.
Keith is very good, but go ahead.
Well, it's very brief and simple.
It's http://edj.net.mc2012.
And there's a lot of new material on there, too.
I think your listeners will be excited about the material on there.
Okay, you better give that one more time, slowly, so I can get it.
Go ahead.
Okay.
H-T-T-P.
Right.
E-D-J dot net.
Right.
Forward slash.
Right.
M-C-2-0-1-2.
Good address.
I really started working in earnest on this question of the Maya end date in 1992.
Asking the right questions and finding the right answers.
As an independent researcher, I've availed myself of the local university to answer these questions and luckily we live in an age in which with some amount of computer technology you can access Fast fields of information and do your deductions and synthesis based upon that.
So for a period of about three years between 94 and 97 is when a lot of these discoveries gelled and I was able to support a lot of my theories as they appear in my Cosmogenesis 2012 with a real solid academic argument behind it.
All right, um, east of the Rockies, you're on the air with John Major Jenkins.
Hi.
Hello, Art.
Hi, where are you, sir?
I'm, uh, in, uh, uh, St.
Joe, Missouri.
All right.
Okay, uh, I have a question.
Does the Mayan calendar predict any changes in the continents?
Like, we have the continental drift theory now, and I was wondering if it shows any changes in the continents and climates?
Not, not that I'm aware of.
In other words, no, no specific changes?
No.
What about, like, does North America move anywhere else in the future?
I mean, or any other continents?
Well, there is that new theory of continental drift, but something so specific as that, I don't see any of that in the Maya material.
All right, how about this?
I have interviewed quite a number of people who have talked about a pole reversal.
What a pole reversal.
I mean, it is quite well scientifically documented.
The poles have reversed many times.
And I think that pole reversals are said to come just about every 26,000 years, they think.
Right.
Now, a pole reversal would, according to most people I've talked to, bring catastrophic things upon the Earth.
A gigantic movement, a tectonic movement, continents being replaced as this caller is talking about, 800 mile per hour winds possible.
Big changes, John.
Yeah, certainly the geological record does suggest that magnetic flips have happened and that there have been catastrophic events that have occurred.
Um, yeah, what, you know, there's a lot of ancient mythology from cultures around the globe that are talking about a pole shift.
And I'm uncertain whether this is a rapid pole shift, like a flip, or if it's just a reference to the fact that the poles move.
Most researchers that I have spoken to say there is good scientific evidence for a Rapid flip.
Okay.
That might occur every 26,000 years.
Right.
And with the consequences and more than I just told you about.
And it would have the effect, you know, of fulfilling the mythology that you've talked about tonight, the Mayan mythology.
Okay.
About a change, an end, and a beginning.
It would be like, you know, pushing the reset button on your computer.
Right, right.
Well, let me offer... I'm sorry, caller?
Okay, what about anything about the glaciers or the... Well, obviously with a pole reversal, there would be ice where there was not ice and palm trees.
Right.
Where there were not palm trees and so forth.
As I said, a giant reset.
Yeah, it has been suggested that the glacier cycle is related to the processional cycle as well.
Well, they are in gigantic retreat right now, you know.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, let me offer this as a mechanism that might explain how that pole shift phenomenon would work, if indeed that is what is in store.
You know, the galactic alignment, the December solstice sun has been slowly moving towards the galaxy.
Astronomers call the galaxy the galactic equator.
It's kind of like the vast equator in the sky.
We've been on the southern side of that galactic equator dividing line.
We're right on target, right on the equator.
And after this, we're going to move into an era in which we are on the northern, or at least, you know, through this alignment of the Solstice Sun, we will be oriented towards the northern part of the galaxy.
Now, if there are field effects that the galaxy has intrinsic to its nature, I don't know, electromagnetic, gravitational, are changing orientation to that.
Might be enough to cause this kind of flip.
The analogy I like to use with this equator metaphor is to the Earth's equator.
We all know that when we're in the Northern Hemisphere, water spins down the drain one way.
That's right.
And tornadoes and hurricanes, same thing.
When we go down to the Southern Hemisphere, for some strange reason, the field effects have this reversal kind of effect.
You know a funny thing?
On the island of Okinawa, now Japan, for ten years.
And I never paid attention to which way the water went down the drain.
And so I'm not sure of that, but you are.
I mean, on the other side, it goes down the other way, huh?
Yeah.
I'm not sure exactly how to interpret that in terms of, you know, this is just one of my attempts to interpret the nature of this event and the kind of effects that it might have on us, the metaphysical,
philosophical interpretation that would extend from that is that in some fundamental way our civilization,
perhaps our thoughts or our values even perhaps, are going to be reversed. And certainly that
would seem to be what is necessary if we are to avert apocalypse. Well, whatever it is that's
coming, and i would simply that it cannot be averted
If you call it an apocalypse, then you want to avert it.
If you call it a change, a complete change, and evolution in human consciousness, then yeah, bring it on.
But it may be, in fact, both.
Yeah, right.
It is strange that our own calendar is fomenting this millennial fever.
At a time that the Maya predicted would be a time of incredible ambiguity and change and uncertainty for the planet.
The neat thing is, I'm 53 now, and most of us on Earth now, the majority of us, are going to get to see 2012.
Right.
We may look at it through dimmed eyes, some of us, but nevertheless, we're going to get to see 2012, if we're lucky, and we're going to get to live through this, so the old Chinese curse of living in interesting times may be dead on.
That is very true.
That is very, very true.
We're in it now.
I mean, the effects of this kind of alignment are so spread out.
that, you know, like I said, 50 years on either side of 2012 might apply, but nevertheless,
you know, a hundred year period in the life of the earth is just a nanosecond.
For the earth to transform itself over a period of 100 years into something completely different
is a big phenomenon. Do you expect a climactic moment in 2012 of major change and then
additional change 50 years out, or do you think it's just an ongoing process that moves through
2012?
I'm asking you to, I know, to get together.
I would say that, you know, catastrophic type events might increase as we approach 2012.
I mean, you know, a lot of this is going on right under our noses as we speak, you know?
There's a lot going on in terms of floods and things of that nature.
I know, and if it continues to worsen at even present rates of increase, how much physical presence there is of people on earth in 2012 I think is a really open question.
Right, right.
So how are we oriented towards that?
That's always what it comes back to for me.
Well, for most people, John, one day at a time.
Right.
And we generally don't think out this way, but when we do, it's really something.
But what if this is about a great opportunity for growing spiritually?
What if we are evolving spiritual beings in this situation of alignment with the galactic center?
Although it's going to be shaking things up for much of the earth, it also means an opportunity for harmonizing ourselves with the source and heart.
And we should be working towards that.
Do you believe, might as well get right out with it, that the source and the heart is the God of the Bible?
Um, I would, you know, I, well personally in my own work with mythologies beyond the Maya, I would say yes.
Oh, you would say yes?
Yes.
So many New Age devotees would not say yes, that you surprise me.
Oh, you know, I've worked with other people that are doing incredible work with the Galactic Center, and they're looking at ancient mythologies.
For example, Jay Widener and Vincent Bridges are writing a book called Monument to the Edge of Time.
It's a fascinating exploration of the alchemical tradition.
Oh, it's a fascinating title.
Monument to the Edge of Time.
Monument to the End of Time.
Oh, the End of Time.
Yeah.
And they have looked at the alchemical tradition in the Middle Ages and are deciphering that whole alchemical
effort to create the Philosopher's Stone and to create gold out of, you know, base metals as a metaphor for the journey
into the galactic center.
That's just one example. There's other work, the Vedic astrology, implicit in that material is a recognition of
the galactic center as the supreme organizational principle.
And for the Maya, the thing that we can be just astounded about what the Maya accomplished is that they had oriented
their entire civilization to the galactic center as a supreme organizational principle.
It's a difficult...
And apparently they'd aligned themselves with the right thing.
Fascinating.
Uh, absolutely.
The whole thing is absolutely fascinating and I, I think that it makes sense.
And I think that the timeline is exactly right.
What will happen is somewhat interpretive, though, isn't it?
Yes.
It does spoil... You know, I don't have any answers to, you know, what's going to happen.
You know, I get that a lot when I'm, you know, giving presentations.
Sure.
I can't really say anything beyond that it's going to be incredibly transformative and
I think it's how we are individually oriented to the energies of transformation that will
determine what our experience is.
What a pleasure it has been to have you on the program which is now over.
John Major Jenkins, thank you.
Thank you Art.
And good night as we all look forward to what comes next.
I'm Art Bell for a dreamland tonight.
That's it.
Good night.
This has been Dreamland, a program dedicated to an examination of areas in the human experience
not easily nor neatly put in a box.
Things seen at the edge of vision, awakening a part of the mind as yet not that.
Yet things every bit as real as the air we breathe but don't see.
Please join us again next week at this time for Dreamland.
▲
Export Selection