You’ve heard the prophecies. They come and go over one’s lifetime: predictions of sudden social change, economic collapse, nuclear war, ecological cataclysms, pandemics, Armageddon or humanity’s extinction. On the eve of the prophecy-laden year, 2012, we want to know, did the Maya really predict a cataclysm on December 21, 2012? And the Maya aside, why are gloom and doom scenarios so popular right now?

To answer these questions we consult a Maya calendar expert and popular author, John Major Jenkins. And we interview an academic scholar of American religion, J. Gordon Melton Ph.D.

John Major Jenkins’ best known books are Maya Cosmogenesis 2012 (1998), Galactic Alignment (2002), and The 2012 Story (2009).  His work has been featured in media produced by ABC Nightline, The U.S. News and World Report, The New York Times, National Geographic, Discovery Channel, The History Channel, and NBC’s SyFy Channel.

Jenkins is the Advisory Director and a founding member of The Maya Conservancy, a non-profit foundation dedicated to education and preservation of ancient Maya sites. He is a National Fellow Member of The Explorer’s Club and is Director of The Center for 2012 Studies. He lives in Windsor, Colorado.

Here, Jenkins talks about the controversy over what the Maya predicted and taught, and he tells us what he hopes modern humans will learn from the wisdom left by the ancient Maya.

RD: You believe that apocalyptic predictions and gloom-and-doom scenarios have little to do with the ending of the Maya calendar, right?

JMJ: Somehow, someone got the idea that the Maya predicted the end of the world or some kind of apocalypse in 2012. The bumper sticker was made and disseminated, and it became a belief. But I highly doubt the Maya made that kind of connection; the doomsday prophecy is more like a projection, a linear time philosophy that comes from a Judeo/Christian slant.

Nonetheless, that prophecy has colored much of our thinking about 2012. A hurricane or tornado hits the east coast, or the banking system nears collapse, and people point to the Maya prophecy. That filter, that spurious connection between the year 2012 and the end of the world has colored the view of many a doomsday soothsayer.

RD: Who first came up with the idea that the Maya, by having a calendar with an end date, were predicting some cataclysm on that end date?

JMJ: Surprisingly, that one came from professional Maya scholars. In 1966, Michael Coe–an elder archeologist–mentioned the 13 Baktun cycle and the upcoming ending of that period. He connected it with Armageddon, but almost as a tongue-in-cheek sort of aside; he was projecting his own Christian upbringing into the Maya material.

RD: So let’s put this into context. If someone had never heard of the 2012 prophecies, how would you explain it to them?

JMJ: The tricky thing is to separate the authentic Maya message from the doomsday prophecies and the new age, spiritual ascension predictions, like the Dreamspell System, or the Wizard Counts. But these have, unfortunately, drawn attention away from authentic Maya teachings.

RD: We understand doomsday; it means the world is coming to an end, and you’d either better prepare or you’re screwed. But what does ascension mean?

JMJ: In most spiritual traditions and mystery schools, spiritual ascension is a process of sequential unveiling, as one returns up the spiritual ladder and back into union with the unmanifest divine. It’s a process of unveiling, or revealing. From the Maya perspective, the year 2012 has to do with renewal and transformation. But transformation and renewal can be thought of as a kind of an ascension process: it brings the seeker or the aspirant or the initiate back into a connection with his or her whole being. And sacrifice is the key.

In Maya creation mythology, the deity named Seven Macaw appears at the end of the cycle; he’s the vain and false ruler who must be sacrificed or put in his proper place; essentially, he represents out-of-control egoism.
That’s the lesson or the message for the modern world. When you look at what’s going on today, with corporations ruled by out-of-control greed, economic fears, political corruption, it seems appropriate. We live in the age of spiritual darkness. The spiritual and the secular are inverted, in the sense that ego has become deputized to be the sovereign of reality–we are the ones who are deciding the fate of the earth.

RD: “We,” being humans?

JMJ: Yes, who are ruled by their egos and self-interests and greed.

RD: Do you think that relationship could be flipped the other way?

JMJ: That’s the possibility of transformation and renewal. It’s not about destroying ego; it’s about placing ego back into right relationship with the whole. “Sacrifice” is not about tearing out hearts; it’s about sacrificing the illusions that keep us connected to the idea of the individual as the sole sovereign. We have to think about how we are connected to the whole. That’s missing in the political sphere and corporate values and motivations.

RD: In the time since the long-count calendar originated 2100 years ago, has the world conformed to the vision the Maya had for it in any other way, or is this date of December 21, 2012 the one thing we can put our finger on?

JMJ: In the Maya system – and probably in other cultures from around the world – we can identify the idea that everything in nature goes through a cyclic process. There’s a period of birth, ascendancy, the peak, and then descent, decay and corruption, and death. That’s really the insight of the Maya creation myth.

So yes, there were other times during the Maya classic period when we saw corruption. When a king would reach the end of his rule, for example, a sacrifice had to be made, so transformation and renewal could happen into the next period.

RD: But some people claim that the Maya made many predictions, which have since manifested. Is there any truth to this?

JMJ: Well, there’s the so-called “Galactic Alignment.” The Maya were very sophisticated in astronomy; they were aware of various subtle astronomical movements, including the procession of the equinoxes, this wobbling of the earth that gives us the 26,000-year cycle. In Western astrology, that’s where the twelve ages of the zodiac come from. The Maya were very tuned in to the shifting position of the equinoxes in the solstices.

Now, it is a fact of astronomy that the winter solstice position is coming into alignment with the bright band of the Milky Way, right around 2012. This is the so-called galactic alignment or, more precisely, the galactic equator. Of course, there’s a lot of misconception around this in the popular media.

It’s fascinating in and of itself that the Maya were able to predict this astronomical occurrence. In addition, a question arises: does this alignment have some kind of effect on the planet? I think the jury’s still out. This is something scientists need to explore. If there is some kind of unrecognized science of galactic inter-dynamics, we’re on the verge of a sort of Copernican revolution, in which we see how our changing relationship to the larger galactic framework has an effect on human affairs. Maybe it’s linked to weather pattern changes and things like that; that’s the science side of the equation, and I don’t think we can say for sure at this point.

I like to focus on the spiritual side of the equation. The ancient Maya, according to my reconstruction, were basically projecting forward to this future day when the December solstice sun comes into alignment with the Milky Way. They conceived of it as the union of cosmic mother and cosmic father, the Milky Way having associations with the great mother and the December solstice being like the first father deity in the creation myth.

The evidence I’ve put on the table shows that the Maya had an awareness of the procession of the equinoxes, and they chose this date to target this alignment. We do know, from 50 years of work by Maya scholars, that the 13 Baktun cycle (e.g. the Maya Long Count Calendar) ends on December 21 of 2012. That supports the theory that the 13 Baktun cycle period ending date is an intentional artifact. Otherwise we have to assume that the fact that it falls on a December solstice is just a coincidence.

RD: For many people, the year of 2012 has become the code word for “We’re at a crossroads.” What spiritual message or insight might we derive from this date of 2012 and the discussion surrounding it?

JMJ: The spiritual teachings in the Maya creation mythology say sacrifice is necessary for transformation and renewal–the sacrifice of illusions that keep us stuck to a plain of limitation, that keep our minds from knowing how to operate in this larger field of togetherness and partnership with other human beings.

RD: How do we learn to do that? What would that involve?

JMJ: It’s a uniquely personal journey for everyone, but the end result is shifting our consciousness: to appreciate the whole, to come into a sense of unity with other people, to build a bridge between us as individuals, and systems and institutions as a whole. It requires a turnabout, a spiritual conversion within ourselves. There’s a willingness to let go of antagonism, to surrender. That in itself is a kind of sacrifice.

RD: Some of what you’ve been saying about the state of current affairs sounds pretty gloomy, some sounds hopeful. What’s your personal view? Do you feel optimistic for the world?

JMJ: I am optimistic. I think there’s a higher intelligence–call it the earth matrix or mother earth or whatever–that ultimately is the arbiter of what goes on. I think the Universe is a big place, and consciousness is something that the Universe is trying to awaken.

In terms of human beings, part of me is concerned, because thought forms can create the future. I think dire consequences will be experienced by people who have negative projections about the year 2012; it’s sort of like creating your own instant karma, or self-fulfilling prophecy. But the apocalypse can be either a cataclysmic doomsday end of the world, or a revealing and awakening.

These things get into ultimate questions, like mortality. Is death a final end? Let’s say that it was the final end of all life on earth. What does that mean in a spiritual/metaphysical sense? Is death a final end in itself, or is there some kind of reincarnation process?

I personally don’t believe December 21st of 2012 is somehow built into the architecture of time in quite the way that the media portrays it to be. I think at the very least we can identify it as the hinge point of a very sophisticated astronomical science that the Maya put in place some 2100 years ago.

I think we are all the architects of our own destiny in some sense, and as human beings, we always have the opportunity to catch an initiatory glimpse of a higher perspective and sort of reformat our lives.

RD: Do you think that’s what’s happening now?

JMJ: I think so. The energy of the gestalt of the culture, the way it’s building, is pretty clear. It strangely enough does seem to be coordinated with this 2012 thing to some extent. I think next year, the election year, is going to be a strange sort of cognitive dissonance in the whole mix with the ancient Maya 2012 expectations and President Obama versus whoever.

RD: Do you think the election might eclipse the interest in 2012 for those who’ve been into it?

JMJ: I think the political landscape is going to be huge, and I think it’s going to be scary, whatever happens. I’m sure terrorist alerts will also be high at that time; it would be just like the crazy people to do crazy things. Then it would look like the fulfillment of the prophecy, even though it’s not the prophecy.

RD: I see the date set by the Maya, and then its popularity with the hundreds of writers and teachers who offer insights about it, as a sort of mythos or meme. What’s going on in the world today, do you think, that makes the mythos embodied in the 2012 story so appealing to some people?

JMJ: There’s a saying that we are multi-dimensional beings who have settled for a lot less. The prevailing paradigm is that we live in a very narrowly defined box of three-dimensional reality, and the scientific paradigm is supposedly the arbiter of reality and defines reality. But people sense that they’re multi-dimensional beings; they know it intuitively, and they want to open up to that larger storehouse of what it is to fully be human.

In “The 2012 Story,” I present the framework that comes from Ken Wilbur, who promoted the idea of the pre-rational, the rational, and the trans-rational paradigms. In our society, we’re encouraged to follow and believe in this rational paradigm, but we all intuitively know there’s something much bigger than that. But when we reject the rational paradigm, there can be a tendency to fall back into the pre-rational paradigm of superstition and animism and things like that.

But the next step is the trans-rational; that paradigm of thought includes the rational. It doesn’t deny science, but rather acknowledges that science is just a little small box that deals with the surface of reality. The trans-rational perspective allows people to be more fully human without rejecting rationality or intellectuality.

So, I think that’s why people are so interested in the 2012 mythos: they “get” that there’s something more to living than the rational model.

RD: John, your book, The 2012 Story, does something I don’t often see in my world; you critique others in your field, often harshly. I imagine you’re justified in your assessment of those who write about 2012, reference the Maya, and then ignore pretty much everything the Maya taught, and go off into speculative domains. How does this affect you in an academic and personal sense? Do you find yourself sitting alone at the table during conferences and events? Do you have fights? What’s going on?

JMJ: I’m really a pretty mild-mannered guy. People are even surprised when they meet me, because in my writing, I can be very straightforward. But my critiques are almost always against fundamental factual discrepancies in what some of the popular writers are assuming about the Maya calendar. In terms of speculative invention, if it’s identified as such, that’s fine. If it’s channeled material and it’s identified as such, it’s not my gig, but if people want to do that, that’s fine too.

But what I think is irresponsible, and what I get up in arms about, is when writers appropriate the Maya mythology, or plagiarize my writing, or use my theories and claim they came from a Maya elder, or sensationalize the 2012 story. Maybe it’s an artifact of the Googlesphere, maybe it’s general sloppiness with sourcing.

But to answer your question, yes, I do feel a bit of the odd man out. I don’t belong to academia–in fact, I critique the scholars just as harshly as the mass media, and there’s just as much irrational treatment of 2012 among the professional Maya scholars as there is in the popular marketplace. It was only very recently that professional scholars thought to treat 2012 seriously. You can find only little bits and pieces over the years, like Michael Coe’s 1966 book. So yes, I’ve felt some isolation.

RD: Any final thoughts, John?

JMJ: In the end, I just encourage people not to throw out the entire 2012 thing by thinking it’s a hoax, and because there are so many silly things in the media and the marketplace. It is a true artifact of ancient Maya thought, and it actually is, properly understood, a focal point for something very profound that’s just now being reconstructed and confirmed. I wish we could just open up to what they were saying. I’d like to give them the stage.