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Maya Cosmogenesis 2012: The True Meaning of the Maya Calendar End-Date
While researching the 2012 end-date of the Maya Calendar, John Major Jenkins decoded the Maya's galactic cosmology. The Maya discovered that the periodic alignment of the Sun with the center of the Milky Way galaxy is the formative influence on human evolution. These alignments also define a series of World Ages. The fourth age ends on December 21, 2012, when an epoch chapter in human history will come to an end. Maya Cosmogenesis 2012 reveals the Maya's insight into the cyclic nature of time, and prepares us for our own cosmogenesis--the birth of a new world.
480 pages, Paperback
First published August 1, 1998
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September 24, 2012
The enthusiasm of this book's author to do research on the Maya and their cosmology is understandable – more so when one has been under the night sky of the tropics in Central America. This fascinating view easily intrigues a person who is used to live on a place where electricity has taken over the night sky. To the Maya – and even more to the ancient Maya, a time where electricity did not exist – this sky was and to many still is a complete part of their daily life.
Frustrating in this book is the self-assurance of the author. He writes actually about very few facts on the Maya, over-interprets many observations without having observed exactly and takes plenty of “knowledge” from other scholars and authors on the Maya, without proving it. He does not mind that this knowledge on the Maya was at times written by some Spanish priests, one of them (bishop Landa) even had - years before writing himself about the Maya - completely burned all the Mayan scriptures, which had been found.
Many nice stories written in this book about what ancient Mayas, Mesoamericans or Izapans and their Shaman-priests or astronomers etc. "did", have no source and seem invented. The reader needs to be a kind of insider in the Maya and Mesoamerican world to have a chance to detect what in this book is solid knowledge of serious research and what not.
The author mixes his own desires about the Maya - without cautious awareness about the conditioning of his own mind - with the facts he has found, but more so with many assumptions about the Maya, and interprets the Maya from that place.
I am convinced that the researchers have good intentions in their hearts and miss something in their own lives, they want to find on their way of discovery.
Unluckily this book seems to give the following: A person has an idea (or hypothesis) and sees everything according to that hypothesis - which then gets "naturally" confirmed.
Of my life with the Mayas I know that their life was and is so much more, i.e. you feel the blinking of the stars in your own body; you know from your body that in the next moment a lightening crosses the sky; the sound of speaking about an action is like the sound of that action itself etc. - this all without psychedelics. How much more with psychedelics?
The Maya have originally no ego - they are ONE with everything. There CANNOT be any difference between astronomy and mythology!
As a partial researcher of Vedic traditions Jenkins could have found out about the ancient East Indian prevision that our present era moves into the phase where the “Age of Darkness” (= Kali Yuga) changes into the “Age of the Truth” (= Satya Yuga). He could have acted according to this new age – and not according to the often unluckily ego-driven participation in the New Age.
To me the existence of such a book does not surprise, since it is created with the help of an editor who writes books in the same style, and who is the wife to the owner of the publishing company.
I am actually sorry to have to write this in a time where everything goes towards transformation. This, however, is just the reason why I have to write this, since the numerous readers, who stumble in their search on this book, have not the least any possibility to prove anything what’s written in it. They just become believers….
Frustrating in this book is the self-assurance of the author. He writes actually about very few facts on the Maya, over-interprets many observations without having observed exactly and takes plenty of “knowledge” from other scholars and authors on the Maya, without proving it. He does not mind that this knowledge on the Maya was at times written by some Spanish priests, one of them (bishop Landa) even had - years before writing himself about the Maya - completely burned all the Mayan scriptures, which had been found.
Many nice stories written in this book about what ancient Mayas, Mesoamericans or Izapans and their Shaman-priests or astronomers etc. "did", have no source and seem invented. The reader needs to be a kind of insider in the Maya and Mesoamerican world to have a chance to detect what in this book is solid knowledge of serious research and what not.
The author mixes his own desires about the Maya - without cautious awareness about the conditioning of his own mind - with the facts he has found, but more so with many assumptions about the Maya, and interprets the Maya from that place.
I am convinced that the researchers have good intentions in their hearts and miss something in their own lives, they want to find on their way of discovery.
Unluckily this book seems to give the following: A person has an idea (or hypothesis) and sees everything according to that hypothesis - which then gets "naturally" confirmed.
Of my life with the Mayas I know that their life was and is so much more, i.e. you feel the blinking of the stars in your own body; you know from your body that in the next moment a lightening crosses the sky; the sound of speaking about an action is like the sound of that action itself etc. - this all without psychedelics. How much more with psychedelics?
The Maya have originally no ego - they are ONE with everything. There CANNOT be any difference between astronomy and mythology!
As a partial researcher of Vedic traditions Jenkins could have found out about the ancient East Indian prevision that our present era moves into the phase where the “Age of Darkness” (= Kali Yuga) changes into the “Age of the Truth” (= Satya Yuga). He could have acted according to this new age – and not according to the often unluckily ego-driven participation in the New Age.
To me the existence of such a book does not surprise, since it is created with the help of an editor who writes books in the same style, and who is the wife to the owner of the publishing company.
I am actually sorry to have to write this in a time where everything goes towards transformation. This, however, is just the reason why I have to write this, since the numerous readers, who stumble in their search on this book, have not the least any possibility to prove anything what’s written in it. They just become believers….
December 18, 2010
excellent. for those of you that fear the end of the world you need to read this book. it explains how the world is not going to come to an end and that 23,000 year calendar just restarts itself on the 12/21/12 date and also that the date marks a 23,000 year cycle of a conjunction of the milky way, the sun and our planet. so no worries everyone! read it for more info, great book.
January 29, 2023
Interesting and the author has clearly done a lot of research but I read this book before 2012 and it is now 2023. I did not believe the world would end or stop in 2012 which proved to be true thus disproving the book and all of the others as well that claimed the world would end in 2012.
August 27, 2025
DNF this is an entire book filled with interpretations and speculation written as fact. jenkins has a severe confirmation bias and puts down scholars for "missing" things his superior intellect did not. pompous and obnoxious.
June 7, 2018
A very interesting book. Intelligent and deep. A good read.
April 18, 2013
John Major Jenkins stands out as the number one expert on Mayan cosmology, astronomy, and myth. He understands Mayan culture on a level few other scholars achieve, and when he clearly explains that Mayan culture and mythology are dominated by astronomy, you can accept the idea as fact. Almost everyone has heard that the Mayan Long Count - a 5125 year cycle often erroneously referred to as "The Mayan Calendar" - ends on December 21, 2012. But there are some strange ideas about what this means in regard to things like a new expansion of consciousness or the end of the world.
The Mayan calendar (which like our own calendar, never ends) is based on cycles of the precession of the equinoxes - the slow wobble of the Earth's axis of rotation. One of these astronomical cycles of about 25,800 years does end on December 21, 2012, if we use the same references many ancient cultures like the Maya used: the winter solstice sun will be in close alignment with the center of our galaxy. Is this a historically meaningful moment in time or is it no different than someone's odometer flipping from all nines to all zeros?
Jenkins rules out the insignificance of the date. The Maya describe the astronomy we are about to see in the sky in their myths about One Hunapu and the Hero Twins. They devised a Long Count of over five thousand years which they *backdated* to begin long before Maya society existed, so that the cycle of this great length would end in December 2012. The Maya also built a huge pyramid at Chichen Itza which is like an alarm clock for the 21st century, structurally marking the era in which a certain astronomical conjunction takes place. The 2012 end date is a very important date to the Maya.
Jenkins also admits that the Maya, like many ancient cultures, were very focused on world ages, world creation and destruction, and world renewal. He knows that 2012 is central to these Mayan concepts. But he does not believe there will be a crustal displacement (pole shift) or any other physical catastrophe that would end civilization, despite acknowledging that such destructive events have happened in the past. (p. 330) Jenkins expects a "pole shift in our collective psyche" and a positive transformation of consciousness.
As an author on related topics, I will say I am disappointed in Jenkins on this one issue. The spiritual transformation of consciousness strikes me as new age drivel best suited for hippies in the 1960s. The idea that the Maya would arrange all aspects of their culture to focus on 2012, merely because they thought we will experience changes in our thinking, seems like a hopeful and silly disregard of Maya cosmology and their central thoughts on the creation, destruction, and renewal of the world. Anyone familiar with the Maya, Jenkins included, knows they believed in several worlds which were destroyed in the past, and that we are about to enter a new world after 2012. I do not believe this is meant to be interpreted as a development of consciousness; I think very bad times are ahead. My research suggests that the seven years from December 2012 to December 2019 are crucial, and that while Christians might view a seven year tribulation as the last years in the current system of things, the Maya view them as the first years in a new world, one which will already be far different from the one we know as soon as 2013.
"Maya Cosmogenesis 2012" is a fantastic book and a wonderful introduction to Mayan astronomy and beliefs. There is a focus on astronomy, myth, and archeology, and readers could do a lot worse with other books on the Maya. Readers may also be interested in books like Hancock and Bauval's "Message of the Sphinx," Hapgood's "Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings," Weidner and Bridges' "The Mysteries of the Great Cross of Hendaye," Montaigne's "End Times and 2019," and de Santillana and von Dechend's "Hamlet's Mill."
The Mayan calendar (which like our own calendar, never ends) is based on cycles of the precession of the equinoxes - the slow wobble of the Earth's axis of rotation. One of these astronomical cycles of about 25,800 years does end on December 21, 2012, if we use the same references many ancient cultures like the Maya used: the winter solstice sun will be in close alignment with the center of our galaxy. Is this a historically meaningful moment in time or is it no different than someone's odometer flipping from all nines to all zeros?
Jenkins rules out the insignificance of the date. The Maya describe the astronomy we are about to see in the sky in their myths about One Hunapu and the Hero Twins. They devised a Long Count of over five thousand years which they *backdated* to begin long before Maya society existed, so that the cycle of this great length would end in December 2012. The Maya also built a huge pyramid at Chichen Itza which is like an alarm clock for the 21st century, structurally marking the era in which a certain astronomical conjunction takes place. The 2012 end date is a very important date to the Maya.
Jenkins also admits that the Maya, like many ancient cultures, were very focused on world ages, world creation and destruction, and world renewal. He knows that 2012 is central to these Mayan concepts. But he does not believe there will be a crustal displacement (pole shift) or any other physical catastrophe that would end civilization, despite acknowledging that such destructive events have happened in the past. (p. 330) Jenkins expects a "pole shift in our collective psyche" and a positive transformation of consciousness.
As an author on related topics, I will say I am disappointed in Jenkins on this one issue. The spiritual transformation of consciousness strikes me as new age drivel best suited for hippies in the 1960s. The idea that the Maya would arrange all aspects of their culture to focus on 2012, merely because they thought we will experience changes in our thinking, seems like a hopeful and silly disregard of Maya cosmology and their central thoughts on the creation, destruction, and renewal of the world. Anyone familiar with the Maya, Jenkins included, knows they believed in several worlds which were destroyed in the past, and that we are about to enter a new world after 2012. I do not believe this is meant to be interpreted as a development of consciousness; I think very bad times are ahead. My research suggests that the seven years from December 2012 to December 2019 are crucial, and that while Christians might view a seven year tribulation as the last years in the current system of things, the Maya view them as the first years in a new world, one which will already be far different from the one we know as soon as 2013.
"Maya Cosmogenesis 2012" is a fantastic book and a wonderful introduction to Mayan astronomy and beliefs. There is a focus on astronomy, myth, and archeology, and readers could do a lot worse with other books on the Maya. Readers may also be interested in books like Hancock and Bauval's "Message of the Sphinx," Hapgood's "Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings," Weidner and Bridges' "The Mysteries of the Great Cross of Hendaye," Montaigne's "End Times and 2019," and de Santillana and von Dechend's "Hamlet's Mill."
November 15, 2014
Ik heb dit boek enkele jaren geleden op de boekenbeurs in Antwerpen gekocht omdat in die periode (7-10 jaar geleden) m'n interesse in het onderwerp heel groot was. Maar door omstandigheden kon ik het boek niet direct lezen. Er kwam altijd wat tussen: CD-reviews, andere boeken die me meer aanspraken, enz...
Dan maar een poging gewaagd, maar ik moest al na enkele tientallen pagina's opgeven. Wellicht was het niet het gepaste moment, want het vraagt wel concentratie. Ok, later nog eens proberen. En dat was in de herfst van 2012. Toen ging het redelijk. Maar na enkele weken lag het boek alweer langs de kant.
Ofte: ik geraak gewoonweg niet verder dan 2 of 3 hoofdstukken. :/ Oorzaak? Geen idee, wellicht een mengeling van onderstaande:
- veranderende interesses
- inhoud (ja, het gaat over de kalender en er wordt dus volop gepalaverd over baktuns e.d., maar toch...)
- manier van vertellen/schrijven/weergeven van feiten/verhalen/...
- de vertaling zelf?
- ...
Misschien dat ik later nog eens probeer, maar heeft het dan nog zin? Zoals iemand op Facebook typte: 'lezen mag geen kwelling zijn', is dit boek een toevoeging aan de stapel die niet meer zal herlezen worden.
Dan maar een poging gewaagd, maar ik moest al na enkele tientallen pagina's opgeven. Wellicht was het niet het gepaste moment, want het vraagt wel concentratie. Ok, later nog eens proberen. En dat was in de herfst van 2012. Toen ging het redelijk. Maar na enkele weken lag het boek alweer langs de kant.
Ofte: ik geraak gewoonweg niet verder dan 2 of 3 hoofdstukken. :/ Oorzaak? Geen idee, wellicht een mengeling van onderstaande:
- veranderende interesses
- inhoud (ja, het gaat over de kalender en er wordt dus volop gepalaverd over baktuns e.d., maar toch...)
- manier van vertellen/schrijven/weergeven van feiten/verhalen/...
- de vertaling zelf?
- ...
Misschien dat ik later nog eens probeer, maar heeft het dan nog zin? Zoals iemand op Facebook typte: 'lezen mag geen kwelling zijn', is dit boek een toevoeging aan de stapel die niet meer zal herlezen worden.
October 22, 2008
I bought this book in a bookstore in San Cristobal de las Casas in Chiapas state in Mexico because visits to some of the indigenous villages and to Casa Balom had piqued my interest in the mythology and the beliefs of the Maya. This book speaks to the prediction of the Maya of the end of the 5th world which the author calculates will occur at the winter solstice in 2012. It incorporates astronomical discoveries of the Maya, demonstrates the connections to Mayan city sites, especially Izapan, to astronomy and the Mayan creation stories. Jenkins does not suggests, even denies, that the Mayan calendrical end-date of 2012 is an end date for all the world, but rather a turning date in the cycle of the cosmos.
This book is long, complicated, involves a lot of discussion of Mayan writing and the meanings of various stele in various Mayan ruins, but the stories and the astronomy are interesting. I confess to skipping some details as I went along.
This book is long, complicated, involves a lot of discussion of Mayan writing and the meanings of various stele in various Mayan ruins, but the stories and the astronomy are interesting. I confess to skipping some details as I went along.
July 24, 2011
The author of this book provides original insight as to the significance of the Mayan calendar end-date, 2012.12.21. If you want to understand the meaning of this end-date, I would recommend reading the book. I won't try to explain it here, but suffice it to say that the end-date has astronomical relevance. The ancient Mayan astronomy seems to be more mature than our western astronomy in some ways, even today.
Because this books is a partially academic exercise, and the author feels a need to bring home his point with a preponderance of evidence, it does feel a little repetitive and boring in the middle sections. I'm glad I held out to the end, as in the last couple of chapters, the author moves on from hammering home his case to drawing some conclusions. The appendices were also much more interesting to me than the material in the middle sections of this book.
Because this books is a partially academic exercise, and the author feels a need to bring home his point with a preponderance of evidence, it does feel a little repetitive and boring in the middle sections. I'm glad I held out to the end, as in the last couple of chapters, the author moves on from hammering home his case to drawing some conclusions. The appendices were also much more interesting to me than the material in the middle sections of this book.
Read
December 9, 2011John Major Jenkins has written some excellent books about the Mayan culture. He's a lay researcher who's not been poisoned by academic protocols and restraints. This book represents some of his best work, and it gives a whole different view to what Mayan Long-Count Calendar is telling us. Most of all, the Maya discerned the cycles of time, and in those cycles they found seasons of destruction and seasons of recreation. This is a fascinating read that lays out how our solar system is crossing the galactic equator right now. It will reach the mid-point on December 21, 2012 (give or take a year or two). Jenkins is careful not to tip towards a day of destruction, but rather, a day of recreation. We'll see.
January 7, 2010
When I first started reading this book I thought I would never be able to finish it. I would only recommend The Mayan Cosmogenesis to people who are thoroughly interested in ancient Mesoamerican civilization and their astronomical belief system. Having said this, by the time I reached the end, I had found many of Jenkins conclusions to be very intriguing.
"...the evolutionary heartbeat of humankind beats in rhythm with a higher, Galactic heartbeat, and it is our inner dialogue with our cosmic source that weaves the future."
Overall: lengthy, informative, and interesting (hence the 4 stars)
"...the evolutionary heartbeat of humankind beats in rhythm with a higher, Galactic heartbeat, and it is our inner dialogue with our cosmic source that weaves the future."
Overall: lengthy, informative, and interesting (hence the 4 stars)
January 13, 2009
Really great book and quite academic which is nice given the range of speculation about 2012 end-date mythology. This places the theory within the context of cosmology and astronomy which is really a great way to learn about those topics as well.
January 28, 2009
Informative historical account of Mayan culture and Mayan myths. Also includes interesting information regarding archaeoastronomical alignments. However, the author is fairly dry in writing ability. The best part was Terence Mckenna's prologue/intro. Go Terence!!! (R.I.P. too).
August 21, 2011
Yes, this is basically a text book and yes, I'm a big dork for reading it cover to cover... but this book taught me a lot about the Mayan calendar and their ancient beliefs. Absolutely worth the read if you're at all interested in astronomical processes.
September 21, 2012
One of the best books about the Mayan cosmovision and their astrology, his research about the mayans and their mythology is astounding....a must read if you want to learn about the Mayan civilization and their connections with the cosmos....and of course, a little bit about 2012, the new era....
June 30, 2007
numbers can be used for spiritual and magical purposes far beyond modern comprehension.
February 17, 2008
really really hope Mr jenkins is right .
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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May 28, 2009I didn't like it. I thought parts were interesting, but not very good reading. I didn't learn much.
October 24, 2009
This book was ok, even though the book was interesting it took a while for me to read and to fully understand it and it still left me with some unanswered questions. This was a ok/good book. Not bad.
Want to read
February 12, 2010so much discussion on 2012, may as well do some reading on it
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews