The 2012 Story

In one of the last phone messages I received from Terence, he said: “Your book will mean a lot to all of us” and “Congratulations on not only a new book, but a book that actually moves the discourse on human transformation forward.” Terence wanted to see 2012. One can only wonder what the 2012 discussion would look like today if he were still around.

Closure, of a sort, on the first twenty-five years of 2012ology came on the eve of the millennium. I was invited to give a talk at an event in Denver as part of a New Year’s Eve Millennium Celebration, together with Tony Shearer’s closest student, Amaurante Montez, and Neo-Precolumbian artist Stevon Lucero. There was even a Dreamspeller on hand selling 13-moon calendars. It was in celebration of the wisdom of the ancient Americans, particularly Tony Shearer, who although ancient was still alive, but could not make the journey from his home near Mesa Verde. I was among friends, waiting for the clock to strike Y2K, a moment indisputably analogous to how people would soon be thinking about 2012.

In my presentation I stated, in complete agreement with what so many others were insisting, that the world was not about to end in Y2K computer malfunctions. And at midnight, it didn’t. In fact, no computer digits were harmed during the Y2K fiasco. And in my talk I reminded people that the ancient Maya didn’t even believe “the world would end” in 2012. That’s a statement I’ve had to continue making, over and over. Even today, as 2009 waxes to fullness, for that one idea to get through to the mass media and collective consciousness would be a major breakthrough. Breakthroughs, however, require a shift of consciousness.

CHAPTER FOUR Breakthroughs or Breakdown?

It appears that Maya peoples have, and had in their Precolumbian past, differing systems of timekeeping that they used in the separate provinces of their biological, astronomical, psychological, religious, and social realities, and that these various systems underwent a process of totalization within the overlapping, intermeshing cycles of their calendars. Given the complexity of this cosmology, which is ritually reenacted, shared, and thus maintained by the contemporary Maya, their knowledge ought not be dismissed as the degenerate remains of classic Maya glory.¹

—BARBARA TEDLOCK

What does it mean to say that a breakthrough has occurred? In the history of science, we are familiar with several important junctures that spawned a radical shift affecting all areas of civilization. The harnessing of electrical power, the splitting of the atom, and development of computers and information technology are recent examples. The development of agriculture at the very dawn of civilization, based on an understanding of seeds and seasons, is a breakthrough that changed everything. Notice that this breakthrough was driven by a new appreciation of how nature works. The seasons were always happening, seeds and plant growth were known and observed, but something else had to happen before the pieces were put together properly. Here we see an inkling of an idea I’ll explore more thoroughly—that breakthroughs require an expansion of perspective, of consciousness.

The Copernican Revolution in the early sixteenth century, based on a fundamental rethinking of the structure of the universe, triggered the rise of rational science and, subsequently, the industrial revolution, which has completely transfigured the face of the earth. Let’s take a closer look at this one. It’s unlikely that Copernicus intended or could anticipate the effects of his work. In fact, he was dead seventy years before his theory received its biggest boost, from Galileo. Peering through his new telescope, he observed moons revolving around Jupiter, confirming a fundamental implication of Copernicus’s theory—that not all things revolve around the earth.

Another implication was difficult for the rational people of the day to swallow. According to the theory, the twenty-four-hour day had to be caused by the earth spinning on its axis. But, the levelheaded scientists of the day contended that if that were true, we would all go flying off into space. One can only imagine the response of Copernicus or Galileo. What could they say to appease the skeptics? Galileo could only shrug his shoulders and confess he had no explanation for that, but that moons were indeed revolving around Jupiter. “Look for yourselves,” he might have said, “peer through my telescope and confirm the evidence for yourselves.” The rational critics of his day, however, refused, deeply suspicious of the newfangled device, afraid they would be infected by demons.² Such are the difficulties that radical new breakthroughs must contend with. It took Sir Isaac Newton, fifty years after Galileo’s death, to provide the concept of gravity so that the problem could be resolved.

The solution to problems is often not reached by rationally processing the data. German chemist Friedrich August Kekule discovered the symmetrical ring shape of the benzene molecule in a daydream, thereby solving the baffling problem of how to account for all its molecular constituents. He told his colleagues in a lecture that he envisioned a snake biting its tail (the esoteric image of the Ouroboros serpent) and realized that was the solution to the problematic structure of the benzene molecule—the atoms were linked together in a circle. The key was a shift in consciousness, a shift in how the problem was dealt with.

Now let’s consider breakthroughs in understanding ancient cultures. Archaeologists, linguists, anthropologists, all chime in on this one. One thing stands out: The accumulation of more and more data is meaningless if the investigator’s consciousness does not frame the problem correctly. The structure of revolutionary ideas and how they are received and incorporated by the consensus gatekeepers have been explored by Thomas Kuhn.³ First of all, he observes that very often breakthroughs are made by outsiders. The reason why is that consensus perspectives tend to be self-reinforcing. The consensus perspective works its way into a corner made by its own self-defined limitations and it thus takes an outsider, someone not constrained by deep-seated prejudices, to push the whole thing forward. No additional evidence is necessary.

Problems that are intractable but won’t go away usually indicate that a reframing of the issues is necessary. The problem is often solved when biases in the Western scientific mind are set aside and the evidence is examined at face value, with a sensitivity to the values and beliefs of the culture under consideration. It’s as if the operating system, the source code, needs to be rewritten to incorporate data that don’t fit into the previously maintained conceptual boxes. The data may be labeled superficially and filed away, nobody knowing what to do with them. Consciousness needs to shift, to expand, in order to embrace what the thing under investigation really is. Typically, ancient cultures and their cosmologies are fitted into small expectations and are enlarged grudgingly, only when demanded. And in-house scholars will never demand it, because their careers are at stake. Independent scholars have the benefit of being able to say progressive things without the fear of being fired. However, such impudent outsiders, storming the ivory tower, must deal with the NIH syndrome—Not Invented Here. If the new idea didn’t emerge from the scholars’ own factories of production, appearing in their own in-house “peer-reviewed” journals, then the new idea doesn’t officially exist.

Kuhn noted that when a compelling breakthrough surfaces, it goes through three stages of integration into consensus. First, it is completely ignored. Second, it is violently resisted and maligned, the messenger often being subjected to ad hominem attacks. Third, it is accepted as if they knew it all along. In fields of study in which conceptual progress is expected and is constantly occurring, such as Maya studies, we can observe textbook examples of this process. Perhaps this is just the way things will always be. In Maya studies, a succession of independent outsiders have contributed key breakthroughs, including Joseph T. Goodman, Yuri Knorosov, and Tatiana Proskouriakoff, so we shouldn’t be surprised when subsequent breakthroughs are offered by outsiders.

We can discern something else about breakthroughs in understanding 2012. This “understanding” has a threefold aspect. First, there is the nuts-and-bolts reconstruction of the Long Count calendar developed by the ancient Maya, along with any associated beliefs and traditions, which is what concerns us right now. Second, there is a more universal perennial wisdom that the Maya philosophy of time is an expression of. Doctrines of sacrifice, which the Maya are known for, are found practiced all over world history, and a study of their inner meaning reveals profound parallels.⁴ Similarly, Amazonian shamanic rites of healing can be interpreted as psycho-