The 2012 Story

Gnostic. A term applied to religions that cultivated direct initiatory awakening to wisdom, as opposed to obediently following exoteric dogma.

Haab. Period of 365 days used in Mesoamerican calendrics. Same as the “vague solar year.”

Hermetic. A magical and religious movement stemming from the teachings of Hermes Trismegistus. Generally, Hermetic philosophies are based on a conviction that comes from a direct initiatory experience of the deep interconnection between subjective and objective domains. The hermetic adage testifies to this: As above, so below. This refers not only to an interweaving between sky and earth, but also of microcosm and macrocosm, subjective and objective. Standard definitions of the word “hermetic” as pertaining to secrets, obscurity, and unrevealed information are superficial.

Hero Twin. Hunahpu or Xbalanque; one of the two sons of One Hunahpu in The Popol Vuh.

Hero Twin Myth. Generally, equivalent to the Creation Myth and The Popol Vuh. Specifically, pertains to the section of The Popol Vuh that involves the Hero Twins and their adventures.

Hun. One.

Hunahpu. One of the Hero Twins of The Popol Vuh. Refers to the day-sign Ahau, and therefore, as Hun-ahpu or One Ahau, to the Sacred Day of Venus.

Iconography. The study of pictographic language and image systems used to represent ideas. In the development of writing, pictographic expressions usually precede more abstract hieroglyphic or alphabetic writing.

Inferior conjunction. This occurs when a retrograde planet crosses in front of the sun on its way to becoming a morning star.

Intellectus. See noetic.

Izapa. A pre-Classic site in southern Chiapas, Mexico, near the Guatemala border. A significant ceremonial and astronomical site of the Izapan civilization that preserves some of the earliest carved portrayals of episodes from the Hero Twin myth, dated to 400 BC-50 AD. Was also involved in the formulation and adoption of the Long Count calendar.

K’awil. A deity connected with Jupiter and concepts of transcendence and transformation.

Logograph. An image that represents a word or a morpheme (the smallest meaningful unit of language). Logographs, or logograms, are commonly known also as “ideograms” or “hieroglyphs.” Strictly speaking, however, ideograms represent ideas directly rather than words and morphemes.*

Long Count calendar. A system of time counting developed sometime between 400 BC and 36 BC by the Maya that basically uses five place-value levels: the Kin (day), the Uinal (20 days), the Tun (360 days), the Katun (7,200 days), and the Baktun (144,000 days). A typical date in the Long Count, from Baktun to Kin, is written: 9.16.4.1.1. It is a cycles within cycles system, an expression of a cyclic time philosophy rather than a linear time philosophy.

Mayanism. The essential core ideas or teachings of Maya religion and philosophy. A counterdefinition of Mayanism has developed on Wikipedia that uses the term to identify popular and New Age appropriations and misconceptions of Maya ideas. This is a problematic use of the term, because it contradicts the consistently proactive meanings ascribed to analogous terms, such as “Hinduism” or “Buddhism.”

Meme. An adopted unit or element of cultural ideas, symbols, or practices transmitted from one mind to another, often unconsciously, through speech, gestures, or rituals.*

Mesoamerica. The area between Central Mexico and Central America, including Belize, Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras.

Metaphoragrams. A term coined and used by Maya scholar J. Eric S. Thompson which highlights his conviction that Maya hieroglyphic writing contained and could convey much more than phonetics or even ideographs. As the term suggests, the glyphs conveyed, via metaphor, other sets of information, similar to how contemporary Maya day-keepers utilize word puns and rhymes to access a larger set of interrelated meanings. Along these lines, Thompson also said the glyphs were anagogical (see entry).

Milky Way-ecliptic cross (the cross formed by the Milky Way and the ecliptic). The two locations in the sky where the Milky Way crosses over the ecliptic. One is in Sagittarius and one is in Gemini.

Nahuatl. The Central Mexico culture and language.

Neoplatonism. The modern term for a school of religious and mystical philosophy, based on the teachings of Plato and early Platonists, that took shape in the third century AD, whose members included Macrobius and Plotinus. The earlier Middle Platonists, such as Numenius and Porphyry, also subscribed to Pythagorean ideas.

New Year’s Day in Maya calendars. New Year’s Day is the first day of the haab. Since different cultural groups followed different haab placements, New Year’s Day occurs at different times for different groups. Also, since leap year was not recognized in the Maya haab, New Year’s Day precesses backward around the Gregorian calendar at the rate of one day every four years. This does not complicate the universally shared sacred count of 260 days.

Noetic, intellectus. The word “noetic” ultimately derives from the Greek word voU? (nous), meaning “intellect, higher mind, thought.” It is associated with the direct knowing or intuition of noesis, involving a faculty of understanding superior to discursive, deductive reason.*

Nondual awareness. Awareness of the interdependence of subject and object. Non- dualism is a philosophy rooted in the direct experience that separateness is an illusion, and that the illusion of separateness is maintained only in more limited states of consciousness.*

North Celestial Pole. The center of the earth’s rotation projected into the northern sky. The stars appear to revolve around it. It sometimes corresponds to a star, but because the earth is slowly wobbling (see the precession of the equinoxes), it traces a circle in the northern skies very slowly over some 26,000 years.

One Hunaphu. The father of the Hero Twins in The Popol Vuh.

Ontology. The philosophical study of the nature of being, existence, or reality in general, as well as of the basic categories of being and their relations.

Pan-Mayanism. A term used by anthropologists Kay Warren and Victor Montejo, as early as 1997, to discuss and explain unifying political and cultural movements among the indigenous Maya of Mexico and Central America.

Pedagogue. One who is pedantic (see entry) in his or her style of writing or teaching. A person who evinces this style is pedagogical.

Pedantic. Describes a teacher or scholar who is characterized by a narrow concern for book learning and formal rules.

Perennial Philosophy. The notion of the universal recurrence of philosophical insight independent of epoch or culture, including universal truths on the nature of reality, humanity, or consciousness.* See also Primordial Tradition.

Performative contradiction. A lack of fit between the content and the performance (or sense) of the speech act. For example, “all statements must be false” creates a vicious circle. As pointed out by philosopher Ken Wilber, to assert that “there are no absolutes” is also a performative contradiction, revealing the inherent absurdity of one of modern deconstructionist philosophy’s most cherished premises.*

Photon Belt. A fringe idea that developed in the 1980s involving the belief in an energetic beam of light that sweeps through the galaxy, possibly emanating from the Galactic Center, or different density sectors of the galaxy that our solar system passes through during different eras. It has become loosely attached to 2012 and ideas involving contact with beings from the Pleiades. See also galactic synchronization.

Popol Vuh. A document recorded by Maya elders in the 1550s, possibly based on an older hieroglyphic book. It preserves within it a World Age doctrine, the story of the Hero Twins, as well as lineage titles