some new reflections on the mayan “end” date

Some New Reflections on the Mayan Calendar “end” date

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It is timely to reflect on the deeper meaning of the shift that has taken place as a shift in theMayan calendar requires some time to manifest before its consequences may be fully pondered.Some time has now passed since the date, October 28, 2011, that some of us held as the end ofthe thirteen baktuns of the Long Count of the Maya. After the passing of the alternative date forthis, December 21, 2012, a reappraisal of the Mayan calendar, and especially its continuation,may now be warranted. What did the shift on October 28, 2011 (13 Ahau) actually mean and whatturn did the world take at that time? The nature of a true paradigm shift is that its manifestationscannot be fully predicted beforehand and thus to some extent will be surprising. If not, then the shiftwould not be a true paradigm shift. It then also follows that after such a shift almost everyone willfind himself or herself in some sense having to revise some of the notions about reality he or shehad prior to the shift and this may be a time for this.

From such a viewpoint our understanding of the Mayan calendar is bound to continue to evolve.The Plumed Serpent, which is the Mayan name for the wave movement of seven DAYS and sixNIGHTS, was for instance in ancient times known to sometimes molt its skin and direct evolutionin ways other than predicted. After such turns the calendar would need to be reappraised. Somearcheologists believe that the ancient Maya had great expectations of the baktun shift that tookplace in the year AD 829, which was when a new DAY started. This baktun shift may indeed, in aglobal perspective and especially in Europe, be seen as a step forward for civilization. Yet, locallyspeaking – among the Maya in Guatemala and Chiapas – it meant the collapse of the ClassicalMayan culture. This collapse was presumably unanticipated by the Maya themselves and it may infact have been the very reason that they later abandoned the Long Count (the last inscription withthis is from AD 909). Since this is the very calendar whose “end” is now being discussed it iscurious that it might have been abandoned because this shift did not conform to the expectationsthat the Maya had at the time. Some who have narrowly focused on “end dates” are maybe todayinclined to do the same especially considering the relatively uneventful nature of the December 21date, at least as what concerns world events.

Yet, the Mayan calendar is not about specific dates, but describes more or less long-termmanifestations of shifts in human consciousness. It is the consequences of such shifts that it mayhelp us understand and take part in and it comes with the territory that scholars will be needed toclarify such matters. The knowledge about the Mayan calendar is not something that is static andthat you may once and for all acquire. It is more like a constant inquiry into the purpose of thehuman race. Thus, basic assumptions sometimes need to be questioned and misunderstandingsneed to be ironed out if you want to continue to use it in a meaningful way. On my own part I amhowever more confident than ever that, correctly understood, we still have very profound andvaluable things to learn from this ancient calendar system. To substantiate this I have startedwriting on The Paradigm Shift Trilogy and hope that its first volume The Global Mind and the Riseof Civilization – Tracking the Boundaries of Consciousness from the Paleolithic to Modern time willbe available in about half a year. I believe that it provides the first original idea in many decades asto how and why civilizations emerged on our planet.

Because the Maya, possibly due to disappointment, abandoned the Long Count a long time agoour knowledge about this does not come from an unbroken living tradition. Instead, everyoneinterested in the meaning this particular calendar had to the ancient Maya, and also what he or shemay learn about the world from this, will have to some extent rely on information retrieved byarcheologists. If the popularizers who use their information do not understand, or distort, thisinformation there is a real risk that this information, crucial to understanding the current or futurestate of humanity, trickles down in a distorted form. In the case of Mayan calendar studies thistakes on a special acuity, since little more than three decades ago the calendar was only ofinterest to a small group of scholars working in dusty libraries, none of whom had a clue that this

Some New Reflections on the Mayan Calendar “end” date http://www.calleman.com/content/articles/SomeNewReflections.htm

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was to become the most important information humanity has about its future. They may thus nothave asked the questions that later have turned out to be the most relevant and others mayuncritically have come to fill in the gaps.

Based on studies by Mayanist scholars, it has generally been believed that the Long Count is acalendar made up by thirteen baktun periods, each of 394 years, amounting to a total time of5,125 years, starting in 3114 BC and ending in AD 2012. At this crucial juncture it may howeveragain be time to ask if this basic understanding is correct. Leaving aside all the silly suggestions,promoted by the media, that the end of the Long Count would mean the dramatic end of the world,there is however a need for further scrutiny. This should be directed to how the Long Count, andactually all the nine waves of the Mayan calendar system, would continue after the thirteenthbaktun comes to an end. As far as I can tell, there are in principle three different ways in which thewaves of the calendar could be conceived to continue (A, B and C in Fig 1) after this shift pointand they seem mutually exclusive.

Fig 1. Three possible ways that the Long Count could continue after its thirteenth baktun (which is the same as Day 7).These three alternatives apply also to the eight other waves.

José Argüelles, who through his book The Mayan Factor in 1987 was the first to more broadlybring the knowledge about the Mayan calendar to the world, advocated model A above, thuspredicting that history would come to an end with a discontinuity on December 21, 2012:

“Then it shall be ready. The unique moment, the moment of total planetary synchronization,13.0.0.0.0 on the beam, will arrive, the closing out not only of the Great Cycle [Long Count], but of theevolutionary interim called Homo sapiens. Amidst festive preparation and awesome galactic–solarsigns psychically received, the human race in harmony with the animal and other kingdoms and takingits rightful place in the great electromagnetic sea, will unify as a single circuit... At last Earth, will beready for the emergence into interplanetary civilization.”

His vision of a profound discontinuity at this date was partly based on what the archeologiststhen were saying, namely that after thirteen baktuns the Long Count would come to an end.Although I, unlike Argüelles, questioned the archeologists’ end date, and placed it a little more thana year earlier than he did, I still followed his lead in believing that the end of the thirteenth baktunwould be the end of the Long Count and so did not predict an evolutionary scenario beyondOctober 28, 2011. We knew of course that there were Mayan inscriptions with dates deep into thefuture, but chose to ignore them. I, too, had read very prominent archeologists such as MichaelCoe stating that the Long Count would come to an end after thirteen baktuns. Thus, at the time Isaw no reason to investigate the matter more deeply.

As it now turns out however the basic assumption that both Argüelles and I had based our


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respective theories on, namely that the end of its thirteenth baktun meant the end of the LongCount, really cannot be substantiated by ancient Mayan sources. As Mayanist Mark van Stonequite recently was probably the first to point out (in 2012: Science and Prophecy of the AncientMaya) there is actually no evidence that the ancient Maya regarded the end of the thirteenthbaktun as the end of the Long Count (or a beginning of a new Long Count). Rather the evidence ispointing in the opposite direction, meaning that the Maya believed that the present Long Countwould just go on endlessly without interruption after the end of its thirteenth baktun (This, it shouldbe added, is independent of whether we believe this to have taken place on October 28, 2011 orDecember 21, 2012, which is a different question). What Van Stone’s discovery means is thenthat a crucial assumption that millions of modern people, knowingly or unknowingly, have basedtheir thoughts on regarding this actually lacks validity. It also means that the present time is not, atleast not according to the ancient Maya in Palenque, the beginning of another 5,125 year LongCount. Both alternative A and B In Fig 1 are thus incorrect.

I am not here trying to put the blame on Argüelles, or the archeologists that we were bothinformed by, since I could have chosen to explore the matter myself. In retrospect I also think thatit must be considered as a very understandable mistake that was made. Modern people are soindoctrinated with the notion that calendars should describe identically repeating cycles that thearcheologists who did the research just took it for granted that the same would apply to the ancientMaya and their Long Count. Because the present Long Count (the Fifth World) starting in 3,114BC, indisputably had been preceded by a pre-Long Count of thirteen baktuns starting in 8,239 BC(the Fourth World), Mayanists would then just assume that the present Long Count similarly wouldbe limited to thirteen baktuns. In this case a series of Worlds with the same duration would justfollow upon one another. And yet this is apparently not how the ancient Maya thought of theircalendar system. What the new research instead indicates is that the ancient Maya did not lookat the thirteen baktuns as a recurring cycle. Instead, the present Long Count was the lastcreation and for this reason it was developed by an unending sequence of baktuns. The correctcontinuation of the Long Count wave of shifting DAYS and NIGHTS in Fig 1 is thus the modelpresented in C.

If the reader does not see the finding reported in the previous two paragraphs as trulyremarkable I suggest that he or she has not fully grasped what it means. I cannot imagine that thisis something that many people today can just accept as normal or regular. The new finding thushighlights how unique and anomalous among the calendar systems of the world was that of theancient Maya. We know of no such non-cyclicity from any other calendar system in the world andthis simply adds to its mysteriousness. This non-cyclicity shows that the Mayan Long Countrequires to be understood from another context than other calendars and cannot be looked uponas just another astronomical calendar. The Maya themselves were in fact treating it as ametaphysical calendar. Thus, according to them the Long Count began as the “First Fathererected the World Tree” and the various baktuns and katuns that followed were ruled by deitieswith different spiritual qualities. I personally only take seriously such work about the Mayancalendar that take these qualities as its point of departure. Only from this, what the ancient Mayawere actually saying, can we draw meaningful conclusions about the course of events in our owntime. Why it is that many people today think that they are in their right to just ignore this and out ofthe blue make up things that were supposed to happen at the purported end date of December 21,2012 is beyond me.

Regardless, what is very well worth noting in Fig 1 is that model C is the only one of the threealternatives where the shift at October 28, 2011 would not be discontinuous. Already this explainssomething in our own time, namely why the baktun shift we went through may have beenexperienced as lacking drama or immediate consequences. Many authors, like Argüelles above,and also myself, have based our thoughts on models implying that the shift in our own time wouldbe a discontinuity, but from model C we may understand that it was not. I strongly want toemphasize that this does not mean that there was no baktun shift last year or that the Mayan LongCount would not truly describe the evolution of consciousness on our planet. That the Mayan LongCount is our best source for understanding the evolution of history has been massively evidencedthrough the books of myself, and those, such as Barbara Hand Clow, who have followed its basic


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premises, and all of this evidence still holds up. What does not hold up however is that thiscalendar would be limited to thirteen baktuns.

The new finding also definitely proves that the Mayan Long Count is not based on the so-calledprecessional cycle of 26,000 years or any other astronomical cycle for that matter. A 26,000-yearperiod is never mentioned in any Mayan text and we may now fully understand why this is so. Thereason is that the Long Count is not a cyclically recurring phenomenon. Yet, precession hasprovided a very widespread modern interpretation of the Long Count, something which deprivesthis calendar of its true value and turns it into just another materialist phenomenon. Why so manypeople has come to believe in and promote a theory for which there is zero evidence is for mefrankly as a scientist very hard to understand. Presumably it is because many have failed toappreciate the uniqueness of the Mayan calendar system and thought it convenient to just assumethat it would be essentially similar to European or Vedic astrology. To do so is however to deny themystery of the ancient Maya and their unique place as the metaphysical calendar makers of ourworld. The calendar system of the ancient Maya is to my knowledge the only calendar systemused on our planet, which, in addition to its cyclical aspects, has a non-cyclical layout from whichwe may understand that the mental evolution of our species has a direction.

Superficially this new finding may seem to mean that the baktun shift that we went through onOctober 28, 2011 would be meaningless as the Long Count is not even ending and no new LongCount is beginning. Nothing can however be further from the truth! The new finding merely explainswhy we did not experience a discontinuity at the baktun shift. In other regards, this shift was veryimportant and no shift of a similar importance is in fact visible on the horizon, especially since theLong Count should now be recognized as continuing indefinitely.

To understand the importance of the shift on October 28, 2011 it is however necessary toconsider that there were nine different waves (out of which the Long Count is the sixth) that thensimultaneously came to their thirteenth period (or Seventh DAY). Such a synchronization of thenine waves is also consistent with the reading of the famous Tortuguero monument 6,(http://www.calleman.com/content/articles/the_tortuguero%20_monument.htm), which states thatthe “nine-support-god would appear in his full regalia”. Since the nine-(step/fundament/support)god presumably refers to the nine evolutionary levels of a pyramid I interpret this, the only existinginscription about our own time from the ancient Maya, to mean that all the nine waves of evolutionwould then for the first time come to be synchronized.

That such a synchronization was going to take place in their future is something that the ancientMaya indeed could have calculated and we do not have to imply that they had superhuman abilitiesto do so. Yet, in this new light it deserves to be pointed out that this famous monument does notreally say that any wave would come to an end. The fact that they did erect such an advancenotice of some 1400 years however tells us that they saw the shift in our own time as veryimportant even if none of the nine waves would actually end. Why then is our current shift sounique? If you want to dramatize it you may say that in accordance with model C above thesynchronization date of October 28, 2011 means that we have now entered eternal endless time.If Van Stone’s discovery is valid, and I believe it is, this means that those that created theTortuguero monument knew this.

This synchronization meant that the build-up of the nine creation waves of the universe, whichhas been going on ever since the Big Bang 16.4 billion years ago, has now been completed andfinally topped off by the activation of the Ninth Wave. The activation of this wave on March 9, 2011meant, for the first time in 5,125 years, the possibility for human beings to download unityconsciousness from the metaphysical realm, which will be the prime causative factor in thetransformation of humanity that since March 9, 2011 now continues. Moreover, it meant the end tothe acceleration of time as no creation wave with a higher frequency than the ninth will beactivated in the future. There is thus no reason to deny that a very significant shift has takenplace.

We may however not yet be able to fully see what kind of world that will be created as people


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download this new frame of consciousness. Yet, we can already now see some of theconsequences that the activation of the Ninth Wave immediately had. This is shown in Fig 2, whichdisplays notable protest movements in the world in 2011. The frequency increase following theactivation of the ninth wave of March 9, 2011 was then immediately followed by the earthquakeand crisis for nuclear power in Japan and the beginning of the wars in Syria and Libya. This yearalso saw not only the Arab Spring, but also the Occupy movement and the world many timesbalancing on the brink of economic collapse. While I did not predict the details of the many protestmovements that then mushroomed across the world I did indeed very correctly predict when thefrequency increase would set in. Thus, the protest movements were all consequences of the factthat as the Ninth Wave was activated the veils (see the face in Fig 2) were removed from peopleso that they suddenly became aware of many aspects of the oppressive systems they were livingin thus prompting a desire for change: As inside - So outside.

Because of the activation of the Ninth Wave the year 2011 saw one of the most widespreadglobal protest movements ever against the established order. When it came to its end TimeMagazine in fact proclaimed “The Protester” as the Person of the Year. The activation of theNinth Wave thus had an effect that can be verified through what actually happened at the time andI see absolutely no reason to doubt the reality of this wave. The question remains however why allthese movements for political and economic change did not escalate further. The year 2012 infact by comparison became relatively uneventful and not on the same scale full of protests againstthe establishment (typically Barack Obama became the Person of the Year in 2012). It then seemsas if the synchronization date of October 28, 2011 was the time when this movement for changestarted to take new, maybe less openly visible, forms and we may wonder why. The reason for thiswas probably that, according to model C, all the nine waves on this date turned into NIGHTS andonly the 9th Wave, because of its high frequency, returned to a DAY soon thereafter. Based onsuch a social analysis it then seems quite clear that the dates of March 9 and October 28, 2011had very significant effects on the movements of the world and that October 28, 2011 indeed wasthe synchronization date of the Mayan calendar; the date when all nine waves were synchronized.If the alternative date of December 21, 2012 then was not correct, it is only natural that the manythings people had predicted for this never came to pass. The true meaning of the shift of the agesis instead that we have now gone through the activation of the ninth Wave on March 9, 2011and the deactivation of all other waves on October 28, 2011. The pattern of how the latter will bereactivated is however a much too complicated question to discuss here and is something I plan toaddress in the third volume of The Paradigm Shift Trilogy.

Fig 2. A few protest movements under the influence of the eighth and ninth waves up until October 28, 2011. Shown arealso the respective consciousness polarities of the two waves. Note also that while the 9th Wave quickly returns to daymode, this was not true for the 8th or lower waves.

Not surprisingly then, because of the continued effects of the Ninth Wave, the number of peoplespiritually awakened in the world according to Oneness University in India has increased markedlysince October 28, 2011 and has recently intensified even more. This is not something that makesheadlines in the press, especially since this is experienced on an individual basis. Yet, the spiritual


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awakening made possible through the Ninth Wave is very much what prepares for the creation ofa new world. You can describe the shift by saying that during the year 2011 the sentiment,because of the polarities ruling then, was: “First change the world then become enlightened.” Afterthe synchronization date of October 28, 2011 it shifted to become: “First become enlightened thenchange the world” and maybe the latter may come to have fortunate consequences. In fact, one ofthe lessons we may learn from the Mayan calendar is that the world operates according to theprinciple of As inside - So outside and so maybe the outside world will become more beautiful if weproject an enlightened inside onto it. After the October 28, 2011 synchronization date there is noparticular upcoming date at which we have reasons to expect dramatic change. Rather, to be partof this ongoing global co- creation is what will provide the joy for many over the next twenty or thirtyyears. I trust that some of the celebrations on December 21, 2012 allowed people to catch up withthe shift that had already happened and so partake in a step by step transformation of the world.As we now know, the Ninth Wave will continue endlessly and will fuel the transformation of theworld.

Carl Johan CallemanSeattle, December 31, 2012 (1 Oc)


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some new reflections on the mayan “end” date

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