A Critique of a Press Release by Carl Calleman
My commentary will hopefully provide a context so that seekers and students of the Mayan calendar can understand the subtle subversion of Mayan Calendar tradition that Carl Calleman is spearheading. Message to Carl at the end. My comments are in bold and brackets […] — John Major Jenkins.
The Beginning of the Fourth
NIGHT of the Galactic Underworld - Integrating the Fourth DAY and preparing for the
breakthrough of the Fifth DAY
by Carl Johan Calleman
with comments by John Major
Jenkins (in bold)
A common misconception about the Mayan calendar is that this is about “something”,
usually an astronomical event, that will happen “in 2012”.
For a long time Carl Calleman has taken a limited and narrow view of my work to reconstruct the true basis of the 2012 calendar, its teaching, and prophecy. My work has identified an empirically measurable astronomical alignment as the anchor point in Mayan eschatology. I have always pointed out that Maya time philosophy is a non-dualistic teaching about integrating opposites and accessing transcendent wisdom. The astronomical references of 2012 are integrated with a Creation Myth (the Popol Vuh) and a spiritual "prophecy" or teaching. Since my earliest books on the Maya I have gone into this in various ways. See website: http://Alignment2012.com. Since 1999, Carl has largely ignored my responses to his one-sided critique of my work, even though we've dialogued directly on the topic. Carl’s position is dualistic --- i.e., he chooses to deny one side of the equation (the physical side) in favor of an exclusively theological or spiritual interpretation. My response to his one-sidedness has always been that 1) The Mayan teaching is non-dualistic, and he is indulging in dualism; 2) Emphasis on one side of reality always gives rise to imbalances in the evolving earth-field, resulting in disastrous attempts at reconciliation (meaning wars of one kind or another). Proponents of dualist systems can often create the appearance of pristine purity, but the ignored shadow side will be working behind the scenes, as history has shown us so many times.
In such a view the Mayan calendar has little value as guidance in the present moment and its use is regarded as separate from the actual lives that we live, both as a global collective and as individuals. In order to make meaningful use of the Mayan calendar we need to be able to understand its alternating energies of time as parts of the context of the particular era we are currently living, in which the Galactic Underworld, which is the one that most directly influences human consciousness at the present time.
This would be an
interesting approach, if only Carl didn't anchor it to his own end date
invention --- the
In the Galactic Underworld we have recently, as of
Another thing that was predicted in my article of a year ago was the Mukti-Maya unification. The increasing
awareness among people in a process towards enlightenment that this process
follows the rhythm of the Mayan calendar. Hence, the midlight
meditation of June 1-2, 2005, [anchored via
260-day time resonance with Carl’s invented end date] the
midpoint of the Fourth DAY, was the world¹s first globally synchronized diksha event, whose effects were even detectable from a
statistically significant way from the random number generators of the Global
Consciousness Project led by Dr. Roger Nelson. Although certainly the number of
spiritual individual and movements that see their activities and goals as
associated to the cosmic process of evolution described by the Mayan calendar
is very limited, I feel there are reasons to expect that others will join in
especially as the Fifth DAY begins on November 24, 2006. It is my feeling that
only those movements and individuals that are in phase with the DAYS and NIGHTS
of the Mayan calendar are heading towards making a viable contribution to the
cosmic process in which we are currently involved. [In other words, only those people who are
following Carl’s system can make a viable contribution to the cosmic
process. Wow — is anyone out there getting the heebee-geebees
on this one?] This process is in Christian terminology
called the Apocalypse, the time of revelation of a higher truth.
One thing that my article of a tun (360 day
period) ago did not predict, but nonetheless has now become evident, is the
increase in natural disasters during the Fourth DAY. Starting with the Tsunami
during the uinal of death the tun was marked by several earthquakes and an unusual
series of hurricanes, including that which hit New Orleans, and the emergence
of a lingering threat of a bird flu epidemic. The number of books about natural
catastrophes is multiplying and at the current time it seems most people are
waiting for more to come. The fact that the abovementioned disasters happened
during a period that was a DAY which was pivotal for the continued process, the
Fourth DAY, there are very strong reasons to expect new phenomena that we may
collectively call natural disasters especially in the following DAYS of the
Galactic Underworld. [Blah blah blah ... such invocation of
historical events is the oldest trick in the prognostication book. So many
modern “seers” and “prophets” engage in the worst kind of propheteering;
when things don’t pan out they just move onto the next thing and nobody seems
to be the wiser or remember all their strike outs. It is less than compelling.]
Thus, these may come to intensify as we enter its Fifth DAY in November of
2006. The explanation to why natural disasters may increase during the DAYS may
in very general terms be that the world that the human beings have created is
not consistent with the world that the divine process of creation aims to
create and that this becomes the most evident as a new LIGHT enters. [Yes, that's on target. Our shadows loom larger when
the light begins to return. But this is basic December solstice dynamics. The
reason why shadow events are looming so large in our era is because we are
approaching the
As usual, the way the Mayan calendar is to be used prophetically is by
analogies with the corresponding DAYS and NIGHTS of lower Underworlds. In the
National Underworld the Fourth NIGHT then corresponds to the time period 355
BC-AD 40 and in the Planetary to AD 1893-1913. This Fourth NIGHT can in significant
ways be looked upon as a time when the innovations of the previous DAY were
integrated as well as a time period which prepared for the breakthrough of the
phenomena of the Underworld in question that took place during the Fifth DAY
ruled by the energy of Quetzalcoatl - the lord of LIGHT - corresponding to AD
40-434 in the National Underworld and 1913-1932 in the Planetary. Of course,
the kind of phenomena that these time energies are manifesting are very
different as they are developed within the frameworks of different levels of
consciousness; Hence, the National Underworld is dominated by a dualist,
semi-enlightened, consciousness and the Planetary Underworld is dominated by an
endarkened, materialist, consciousness. This
difference between Underworlds clearly shows up in the different phenomena that
the time energy of Quetzalcoatl brings forth in them.
When it comes to the National Underworld, all I will point to in this article
is that the Fourth NIGHT was the time leading up to the arrival of Jesus. As we
may sense for instance from the Dead Sea Scrolls there were signs of the
impending new energy of Quetzalcoatl already in the latter part of the Fourth
NIGHT. This emerging shift in consciousness expressed itself in a number of
Jewish sects, such as the Essenes outside of the
established religious framework. What may then be the most obvious breakthrough
of this Fifth DAY is the emergence of the Christian religion with its message
of love and forgiveness. When it comes to understanding the detailed course of
the Fourth NIGHT and its relationship to the breakthrough of the Fifth DAY it
is however probably easier to study the Planetary Underworld, if nothing else
because in this era there is no lack of historical records. The breakthrough of
the Fifth DAY of the Planetary Underworld in 1913 was however not a
breakthrough of a new religion, but a breakthrough to the materialist modern
world. Even though the latter phenomena are very different in the National
Underworld, or in our current Galactic Underworld, we may nonetheless learn a
tremendous amount from the rhythm with which the new phenomena were introduced.
If we then initially take a look at what the breakthrough into Quetzalcoatl
consciousness meant in the Fifth DAY, 1913-1932, it becomes clear that this is
truly the breakthrough of the modern world. In 1913 assembly line production of
cars began and it is hard to come up with something that would be more typical
of it. As the old autocratic empires - the Chinese, Russian, Ottoman, Austrian
and German crumbled, a range of nations appeared that were democracies, or,
at the very least, modern states. The introduction of the radio, with the first
public broadcasts in the US in 1910 and in Europe in 1913 for the first time
allowed for mass telecommunications. Jazz music was born in 1914-1915 and the
roaring twenties saw the liberation of women in dress and behavior. In science,
Bohr presented his atomic model based on quantum mechanics in 1913 and Einstein
his general theory of relativity in 1915. Kandinsky
painted the first piece of non-figurative art in 1913 and a range of ³isms,² such as surrealism, dadaism and
futurism surged at the beginning of the DAY. The stuffy world of the autocratic
empires was no more. This was the kind of effect that the breakthrough energy
of Quetzalcoatl had in the Planetary Underworld.
Yet, and this is what is important to know when we are now entering the Fourth
NIGHT of the Galactic Underworld, this breakthrough was prepared for by
phenomena and events that occurred already during the Fourth NIGHT of the
Planetary Underworld. The first company manufacturing automobiles was for
instance established in 1896 (putting out 13 cars in that year). Marconi sent
the first transatlantic radiotelegraphic message in 1902 and Ragtime began to
make inroads against the all-pervasive Waltz already around 1900. The Russian
revolution of 1905 heralded the later downfall of the autocratic empires and
especially during the second half of the Fourth NIGHT there was an
intensification of things preparing for the breakthrough. Einstein had proposed
his special theory of relativity in 1905, but typically this was not taken
seriously until experimental proof of it emerged in 1919 and something
similar was the case with Planck¹s fathering of quantum mechanics already in
1900. Cubism began in 1906, preparing for the breakthrough of non-figurative
art, but not making it all the way.
I could go on like this and show that critical innovations to some extent were
created already during the Fourth NIGHT of the Planetary Underworld, especially
its latter half, but that it was only during the Fifth DAY, 1913-32, that they
actually broke through and became accepted as phenomena that were perceived as
lasting. The relationship between the Fourth NIGHT and the Fifth DAY will be
similar in the current Galactic Underworld and I feel the spiritual warriors
that want to be part of birthing the new world of oneness should assimilate the
knowledge of this rhythm. What should also be mentioned here is that the breakthrough
to the modern world in the time period 1913-32 was associated with two synchronistically related catastrophes, World War I 1914-18
and the Spanish Flu in 1918-1919, where the latter actually killed more people
than the war. Especially when it comes to World War I it seems evident that the
breakthrough into modernity, and especially democracy, could hardly have taken
place without the collapse of the autocratic empires that may be seen as the
main outcome of World War I. Hence, from the perspective of the Mayan calendar
DAY and LIGHT does not always mean ³good² or ³happy.²
All we can say is that divine creation works itself towards the
end result that it is designed to arrive at and that the LIGHT may have
consequences that to some are tragic. Generally, it seems that the more
inconsistent the world is with the higher purpose of the divine plan, the
greater the catastrophes will be. In the Fifth DAY of the Planetary Underworld
the autocratic empires were clearly inconsistent with the emerging existential,
if certainly not economic, equality that this Underworld brought.
In the National Underworld the Fifth DAY had been followed by the Fifth NIGHT,
during the period AD 434-829, which brought the collapse of the Roman Empire
through the onslaught of the Huns and Germanic peoples. This initiated the
so-called dark ages in European history. The early Christians that in the
beginning of the Fifth DAY had been so inspired by the message of Jesus and the
incoming energies had believed that the Kingdom of Heaven was imminent and that
Jesus would return to the world. With the beginning of the Fifth NIGHT this
expectation was however thwarted. Thus, in the latter half of the Fifth DAY the
Church became organized in a tight hierarchical structure and as the Fifth
NIGHT (dominated by the energy of the lord of darkness, Tezcatlipoca) began the
Church Father Augustine introduced the idea of the Original Sin in the
Christian teaching, Moreover, the emphasis shifted from the resurrection of
Christ to his suffering at the cross.
A direct parallel to this scenario unfolded in the beginning of the Fifth NIGHT
of the Planetary Underworld in 1932. After the experience of
a new freedom in the roaring twenties and the energies would be reversed and a
reaction set in. The Stock Exchange crash in
It is a similar wave movement of energies that we have reasons to expect for
the DAYS and NIGHTS ahead in the Galactic Underworld, since these alternating
energies are beyond human control. Yet, I would like to emphasize that there is
a difference between how we may perceive the energies of the Galactic
Underworld and especially the Planetary Underworld. Since the DAYS of the
Planetary Underworld meant the manifestation of a very materialist
consciousness (since the front side of the human being was endarkened)
it is easy to recognize all the concrete physical manifestations that its DAYS
brought. In contrast, in our current era, the DAYS of the Galactic Underworld
are bringing LIGHT to the intuitive right brain half amounting to a possibility
for healing and a breakthrough into spirituality. Since, however, the right
brain half generally is not the one that is behind technological advances,
there is little reason to expect that its manifestations will be directly
evident in the same way as all the things that came with the materialist
Planetary Underworld. In fact, very much of the spiritual breakthroughs that
the Galactic Underworld will carry may not at all be visible. This is meant as
a reminder for the many, who sometimes see no movement forward in man¹s
spiritual evolution. The current change occurs on a subtle, but nonetheless
very profound level.
[My comment on previous paragraphs: blah blah blah. Eternity embraces history in the same way that the finite is included in the transcendental infinite. This is the same way that the spiritual realm embraces the physical realm in a non-dual Oneness; the physical doesn't cease to exist]
Initially the Fourth NIGHT of the Galactic Underworld, which we have now
recently entered, will be a time of integration and then, especially in the
second half of the NIGHT there will be more and more phenomena popping up that
pave the way for the breakthrough into experiencing the divine presence that
will be brought by the Fifth DAY. The shift point for this breakthrough into
Quetzalcoatl/Christ energy will take place on
The Galactic Underworld is the Apocalypse and in its latter half the spiritual
warriors will be put to the test like never before. By spiritual warrior I here
mean a person who stays committed to the higher purpose of evolution in the
midst of the many forces that will try to sway her away from this. It is also a
person that has integrity and tells the truth and it is only to be expected
that the kind of ethical issues that we will be facing under both the energies
of Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca will be new and sometimes very difficult to deal
with. Simple habitual responses to the new situations will not be possible
requiring a very high degree of taking responsibility for one¹s actions. The
temptations to go along with the energy of Tezcatlipoca will in the Fifth NIGHT
be very strong and it will be only too easy to rationalize this. To avoid
falling into these traps I feel it is crucial that many people grasp the
overall wave movement of time that the true Mayan calendar describes. [The true Mayan calendar is coordinated with the
collusion of galactic, solar, and terrestrial waves on the 13-Baktun cycle End
Date:
I have here hinted at the possibility, or rather, likelihood of different kinds
of disasters in the coming time and many will ask how to avoid being hit by
these. I have no answers to this, but feel that the best approach is to ask
yourself: ³How do I best serve divine creation and the process towards oneness
at the end point of the Galactic Underworld, October 28, 2011?²
[Carl should always inform readers that
this is HIS derived end date and that it is in disagreement with the
overwhelmingly supported end date of Dec.-21-2012. I don’t believe Carl has
looked into all the arguments that support the Dec.-21-2012 end date. I know his
response to this is to grudgingly acknowledge the true end date, but then
assert through strange rationalizations the priority of his own
system. This is just like the Arguelles’s
rationalizations in support of Dreamspell. Carl’s
mind-frame is much like Arguelles in that he strives to appeal to
Westerners by repackaging the traditional wisdom of the Maya, with his own
clever model making sprinkled in. On this front, I thought it was quite
tacky of Carl to discuss Ian Lungold's passing
in the context of adding support to his Oct-29-2011 anchored system. This is
EXACTLY what Arguelles did when Starsparks committed
suicide in jail years ago --- paying homage while co-opting the event to show
support for his day-sign auguries. My god, is nothing sacred? It's odd that Carl
criticized Arguelles awhile back when his strategies and approach is so
similar to Carl’s. BTW, the Izapa studies by Brigham
Young U. are available for free as PDFs online --- Google "Gareth Lowe Izapa", I think they're on the Papers of the
The tuns ahead, and especially the shift point
between the energies of Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca, will hence make great
demands of the spiritual warriors of today. Yet, especially the Fifth DAY is likely
to bring great joy and enlightenment through the increasing divine presence in
the energy of Quetzalcoatl and there is no reason to try to put a lid on such
experiences even though the times may be momentous. What I want to point out
however is the necessity of being aware of the kind of adverse phenomena that
will accompany these breakthroughs and even more so the reaction towards
materialism and democratic dictatorship that the energy of Tezcatlipoca will
bring. It is thus also to be expected that in the energy of Tezcatlipoca the
chaos will be blamed on the spiritual breakthroughs and that the spiritual
warriors will become scapegoats. The main source of knowledge about the wave
movement of energies in the time ahead is the true Mayan calendar although, as
is common in its history some will work to produce false Mayan calendars
leading people to confuse Quetzalcoatl (the energy of light) with Tezcatlipoca
(the energy of darkness). The true Mayan calendar is what charts the path to
what in Christian theology is called the New Jerusalem, a name for the state of
Oneness that completes the Apocalypse that the Galactic Underworld will deliver
us to a few more energy shifts down the road.
Carl,
Blessings to you on your path. It will always sadden me that you and Arguelles
and several others did not first get anchored in how the different
facets of the Maya calendar interface --- the year bearers, senior year
bearers, the correlation question, the Calendar Round, the Venus cycle and
Venus Round, the tzolkin, the haab, the
Long Count and eclipse calendars. The fundamental principles of Mayan time
philosophy — which are really perennial and universal spiritual principles
--- follow clearly from aligning with the authentic tradition. Otherwise,
ones speculative gropings can often lead down
blind alleys, although they can also sometimes hit upon general truths. That
the path to understanding the original spiritual teachings and prophecy of
2012 can be found in the messages left for us in the Izapan
ballcourt would be clear to anyone who availed
themselves of the literature sufficiently. It is sad that we could not be
allies in elucidating this authentic vein of perennial wisdom, and that you
turned about face so quickly back in '99, choosing to sculpt your own marketable
model/system. And it is still a point of contention that you did not take
to heart my careful responses to your critique of precession at that time and
instead selfishly engaged in stealth sabotage, endlessly repeating year
after year your inaccurate accusations that I have an exclusively physical
bias in my writings.
When we debated in
late 2001, my father was dying and I was taking care of him off and on over a
period of 10 months, driving back and forth between
These comments are
offered in trust and openness. Please do not respond by implementing forms
of stealth sabotage in which my work is inaccurately summarized---I
sometimes stumble across things on the net that you are clearly behind.
Also, since your Oneness Celebration website saw fit to copy and repost my
1994 "How and Why of 2012" article, they should be sure to add the
images (which are not there now) and — at the end of the piece — link correctly
to my website http://Alignment2012.com.
That would be fair and professional.
—JMJ. December 2005.
Orsa, 9 Chuen in the first uinal of the Fourth NIGHT of the Galactic Underworld
Carl Johan Calleman
Carl Johan Calleman is the author of The Mayan
Calendar (Garev, 2001) and The Mayan Calendar and the
Transformation of Consciousness (Bear and Co, 2004). He was the initiator of
the Oneness Celebration at the occasion of the Venus Transit,