New Age theorie

Many New Age thinkers believe that the ending of this cycle will correspond to a global "consciousness shift". Established themes found in 2012 literature include "suspicion towards mainstream Western culture", the idea of spiritual evolution, and the possibility of leading the world into the New Age, by individual example or by a group's joined consciousness. The general intent of this literature is not to warn of impending doom but "to foster counter-cultural sympathies and eventually socio-political and 'spiritual' activism".^[32]

The December 24, 2011 date (derived from Coe) became the subject of speculation by Frank Waters, who devotes two chapters to its interpretation, including discussion of an astrological chart for this date and its association with Hopi prophecies in his 1975 book Mexico Mystique: The Coming Sixth Age of Consciousness.^[33] The significance of the year 2012 (but not a specific day) was mentioned briefly byJosé Argüelles in The Transformative Vision: Reflections on the Nature and History of Human Expression, also in 1975.^[34] The specific date of December 21, 2012 appeared in Argüelles' book The Mayan Factor: Path Beyond Technology in 1987.^[35][36] In 1975, author Terence McKenna had also arrived at a New Age prediction for the year 2012.^[37] This was subsequently refined to December 21, 2012 in 1983 (the more specific date appeared in the 1993 revision of The Invisible Landscape^[38]). Author Daniel Pinchbeck popularized New Age concepts about this date, linking it to beliefs about crop circles, alien abduction, and personal revelations based on the use of entheogens and mediumship in his 2006 book 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl.^[39] Pinchbeck argues for a shift in consciousness rather than an apocalypse, suggesting that materialistic attitudes, rather than the material world, are in jeopardy.^[40] Beginning in 2003, he has promoted these ideas annually in presentations at Burning Man.^[41]

Semir Osmanagić, the author and metalworker responsible for promoting the Bosnian pyramids, referred to 2012 in the conclusion of his book The World of the Maya.^[42] He suggests that "Advancement of DNA may raise us to a higher level" and concludes, "When the 'heavens open' and cosmic energy is allowed to flow throughout our tiny Planet, will we be raised to a higher level by the vibrations"

Chilam Balam

The Chilam Balam are a group of post-conquest Mayan prophetic histories transcribed in a modified form of the Spanish alphabet. Their authorship is ascribed to a chilam balam, or jaguar prophet.^[27] The Chilam Balam of Tizimin has been translated twice: once by the archaeoastronomer Maud Worcester Makemson and once by the anthropologist Munro S. Edmonson. Makemson believed that one of the lines in the book (licutal oxlahun bak chem, ti u cenic u tzan a ceni ciac aba yum texe) refered to the "tremendously important event of the arrival of 13.0.0.0.0 4 Ahau 3 Kankin in the not too distant future",^[28] translating it as "Presently Baktun 13 shall come sailing, figuratively speaking, bringing the ornaments of which I have spoken from your ancestors." (Her version of the text continues, "Then the god will come to visit his little ones. Perhaps 'After Death' will be the subject of his discourse.") Makemson was still relying on her own dating of 13.0.0.0.0 to 1752 and therefore the "not too distant future" in her annotations meant a few years after the scribe in Tizimin recorded his Chilam Balam.^[29]Edmonson's translation does not support this reading; he considers the Long Count entirely absent from the book, with a 24-round may system used instead.^[30] Other Chilam Balam books contain references to the 13th baktun, but it is unclear if these are in the past or future; for example, oxhun bakam u katunil(thirteen bakam of katuns) in the Chilam Balam of Chumayel.^[31

Tortuguero

The Tortuguero site, which lies in southernmost Tabasco, Mexico, dates from the 7th century AD and consists of a series of inscriptions in honor of the contemporary ruler. One inscription, known as Tortuguero Monument 6, is generally agreed among Mayanists to refer to the 2012 date. It has been partially defaced; Mayanist scholar Mark Van Stone has given the most complete translation:

Tzuhtz-(a)j-oom u(y)-uxlajuun pik

The Thirteenth [b'ak'tun] will end

(ta) Chan Ajaw ux(-te') Uniiw.

(on) 4 Ajaw, the 3rd of Uniiw [3 K'ank'in].

Uht-oom Ek'-...

Black ... will occur.

Y-em(al) ... Bolon Yookte' K'uh ta-chak-ma...

(It will be) the descent(?) of Bolon Yookte' K'uh to the great (or red?)...^[22]

Very little is known about the god (or gods) Bolon Yookte' K'uh. Possible translations of his or their name include "nine support [gods]", "Many‐Strides God", "Nine‐Dog Tree", or "Many‐Root Tree".^[22] He appears in other inscriptions as a god of war, conflict, and the underworld, though Markus Eberl and Christian Prager believe that the Tortuguero inscription parallels the typical Maya ruler's pronouncement of a future dedicatory celebration.^[26] No illustrations of Bolon Yookte' exist, though dozens of other gods' images are known.^[22] Also, the long count used at Tortuguero contains 20 b'ak'tuns in a cycle, so the end of the 13th b'ak'tun would not end the cycle according to Tortuguero astronomers.^[22

Maya references to 2012

The present-day Maya, as a whole, do not attach much significance to 2012. Although the calendar round is still used by some Maya tribes in the Guatemalan highlands, the Long Count was strictly employed by the classic Maya, and was only recently rediscovered by archaeologists.^[23] Mayan elder Apolinario Chile Pixtun and Mexican archaeologist Guillermo Bernal both note that "apocalypse" is a Western concept that has little or nothing to do with Mayan beliefs. Bernal believes that such ideas have been foisted on the Maya by Westerners because their own myths are "exhausted".^[4][24] Mayan archaeologist Jose Huchm complains that "If I went to some Mayan-speaking communities and asked people what is going to happen in 2012, they wouldn't have any idea. That the world is going to end? They wouldn't believe you. We have real concerns these days, like rain".^[4]

What significance the classic Maya gave the 2012 date is uncertain. Most classic Maya inscriptions are strictly historical and do not make any prophetic declarations.^[25] Two items in the Maya historical corpus, however, mention the end of the 13th baktun: Tortuguero Monument 6 and, possibly, the Chilam Balam.

Mesoamerican Long Count calendar

December 2012 marks the ending of the current baktun cycle of the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar, which was used in what is now Central America prior to the arrival of Europeans. Though the Long Count was most likely invented by the Olmec,^[10] it has become closely associated with the Maya civilization, whose classic period lasted from 250 to 900 AD.^[11] The classic Maya were literate and theirwriting system has been substantially deciphered, meaning that a corpus of their written and inscribed material has survived from before the European conquest.

The Long Count set its "year zero" at a point in the past marking the end of the previous world and the beginning of the current one, which corresponds to either 11 or 13 August 3114 BC in the Proleptic Gregorian calendar, depending on the formula used.^[12] Unlike the 52-year calendar round still used today among the Maya, the Long Count was linear, rather than cyclical, and kept time roughly in units of 20, so 20 days made a uinal, 18 uinals, or 360 days, made a tun, 20 tuns made a katun, and 20 katuns, or 144,000 days, made up a baktun. So, for example, the Mayan date of 8.3.2.10.15 represents 8 baktuns, 3 katuns, 2 tuns, 10 uinals and 15 days since creation. Many Mayan inscriptions have the count shifting to a higher order after 13 baktuns.^[13][14] Today, the most widely accepted correlations of the end of the thirteenth baktun, or Mayan date 13.0.0.0.0, with the Western calendar are either December 21 or December 23, 2012.^[15]

In 1957, the early Mayanist and astronomer Maud Worcester Makemson wrote that "the completion of a Great Period of 13 baktuns would have been of the utmost significance to the Maya".^[16] The anthropologist Munro S. Edmonson added that "there appears to be a strong likelihood that the eral calendar, like the year calendar, was motivated by a long-range astronomical prediction, one that made a correct solsticial forecast 2,367 years into the future in 355 B.C. [sic]".^[17] In 1966, Michael D. Coe more ambitiously asserted in The Maya that "there is a suggestion ... that Armageddon would overtake the degenerate peoples of the world and all creation on the final day of the thirteenth [baktun]. Thus ... our present universe [would] be annihilated on December 24, AD 2011, [later revised to December 23, 2012]^[a] when the Great Cycle of the Long Count reaches completion."^[18]

Coe's apocalyptic connotations were accepted by other scholars through the early 1990s.^[19] In contrast, later researchers said that, while the end of the 13th baktun would perhaps be a cause for celebration,^[2]it did not mark the end of the calendar.^[20] In their seminal work of 1990, the Maya scholars Linda Schele and David Freidel, who reference Edmonson, argue that the Maya "did not conceive this to be the end of creation, as many have suggested,"^[21] citing Mayan predictions of events to occur after the end of the 13th baktun. Schele and Freidel note that creation date was inscribed at Coba as 13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.0.0.0.0, with twenty units above the katun. According to Schele and Friedel, these 13s should be treated as 0s, so the Coba number would be read as if it were 0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0, with the units of each column beyond the second (counting from right to left) equal to 20 times those of the previous one (The Maya, due to their cyclical concept of time, also wrote the date of creation, their zero date, as 13.0.0.0.0).^[22] This number represented "the starting point of a huge odometer of time".^[21] Schele and Freidel calculate that the date at which this odometer would run out lies some 4.134105 × 10²⁸ years in the future,^[21] or 3 quintilliontimes the scientifically accepted age of the universe. The issue is complicated further by the fact that many different Maya city-states employed the Long Count in different ways. At Palenque, evidence suggests that the priest timekeepers believed the cycle would end after 20 baktuns, rather than 13. A monument commemorating the ascension of the king Pakal the Great connects his coronation with events as much as 4000 years after, indicating that those scribes did not believe the world would end on 13.0.0.0.0.^[22]