Introduction
Galaxia Nuncius (A Message from the Galaxy)

The phrase "Galaxia Nuncius" (Message from the Galaxy) follows the lead of two great pioneers: Galileo and Oliver Reiser. Galileo's seminal work, Sidereus Nuncius (Message From the Stars), is now recognized as a paradigm-shattering breakthrough, even though it was condemned when it was written. Oliver Reiser's work, including his unpublished book Messages To and From the Galaxy, has yet to be recognized as such. Perhaps someday it will. At times I feel a deep kinship with these thinkers because the discoveries and concepts I write about are also unpopular with the establishment paradigm. However, let us pursue the analogy. Galileo's revolutionary discovery was that all things do not revolve around the earth and a higher center, the Sun, must be recognized. Likewise, my work has sought to break the bubble again so that we might recognize an even higher center, the Galactic Center, and integrate it into conventional thought as a fundamental player in the affairs of Earth. And like Galileo, my work is really just a reintroduction, a rediscovery, of perspectives that were espoused thousands of years ago by ancient metaphysicians and cosmologists who we are just beginning to understand.

Galactic Alignment: The Transformation of Consciousness According to Mayan, Egyptian, and Vedic Traditions is more ambitious than I intended it to be. I simply wanted to assemble and present all the evidence from the ancient traditions for a particular knowledge about the galaxy and our changing orientation to it over vast periods of time. In the process of tracking down the underlying meaning of often fragmented systems of belief, new ideas and connections emerged that were worth exploring. But there is one concern retained throughout, a singular pursuit that follows directly upon the discoveries in my book Maya Cosmogenesis 2012. In that book, I identified the rare alignment of the December solstice sun with the Galactic Center as the reason why the Maya chose to end their 13-baktun calendar on December 21, 2012. This topic must serve as a foundation for everything in this new book, so I thought it necessary to summarize those findings. Part 1 is dedicated to that purpose, as well as to presenting some recent discoveries in my reconstruction of the galactic parameters of Mayan cosmology. Then, in part 2, we are ready to pose the questions: Did other ancient civilizations know, as the Maya did, about the Galactic Center? Did they know about our impending alignment to it, as encoded into the 2012 end-date? If so, what did these other traditions have to say about it?

And so we embark on a round-the-world journey, an adventure of ideas that will explore sacred topography in Greece and England, esoteric astronomy in Homer's Iliad, the symbolism of obelisks in France, alchemy, Gothic architecture, Islamic astrology, Egypt's wonders, and finally arrive in ancient Vedic India to examine the doctrine of the yugas (World Ages) as found in the Laws of Manu. In all of these traditions, I identify important concepts, some buried but others overt, relating to a widespread recognition that alignments to the galaxy periodically occur and that these alignments offer spiritual renewal for humanity.

In part 3, I explore the ideas of the Traditionalist school, in particular the writings of esteemed scholar Ananda Coomaraswamy and symbolist philosopher René Guénon. These writers pioneered the resurrection of the Primordial Tradition, or Perennial Philosophy, and a major idea in this school is that the current cycle of history is ending amid a proliferation of inverted spiritual values and rampant materialism-we are approaching the end of Kali Yuga. In the Vedic doctrine of World Ages, Kali Yuga is the final age, the age of greatest spiritual darkness, and its end signals the shift to a new World Age. Clarifying some undeveloped areas within Traditionalist thought, and drawing from the insights of various Vedic commentators, I identify the galactic alignment of era 2012 as the key to the timing of this transition, anchoring the Vedic yuga doctrine to a real astronomical event.

A model of how the cycles of time map onto the globe and manifest as a westward flow of civilization is discussed in part 4, leading us into esoteric mysteries in the Americas, including the Masonic origins of Washington, D.C., and the ley-line grid over the early Mayan site of Izapa-the place where the Long Count calendar that gives us the famous 2012 end-date was invented. And in all of this, the uniting thread that reemerges at various points, like the full moon from behind clouds, is the archetype of the Great Mother: Isis. We find her, of course, in the Mayan material, as the womb of the Milky Way from which the solstice sun god is reborn at the end of the age. She is also in the Vedic soma rite, the Finnish Kalevala, Egyptian cosmology, Masonic symbolism, Peruvian mythology, and even Spanish colonial architecture. How far back into history she goes is one of the great unsolved mysteries. As the ultimate source and center of all life, her true domain is, of course, beyond time and space, but I think we can now say with confidence exactly where her throne is in the sky.

To say that the Mayans, Hindus, and Egyptians were aware of the Milky Way galaxy should surprise no one-after all, the Milky Way is dramatic and prominent in the night sky. But to demonstrate, as I will, that they also knew about the Milky Way's center and believed that our periodic alignments to it have something to do with the transformation of consciousness, should stand the history of science and religion on its head. And what if the common sense conclusion to be drawn from all the evidence I've gathered together here is true? What if ancient civilizations were aware of the Galactic Center and the precession of the equinoxes, and that they believed that eras of galactic alignment-like the one we are struggling through right now-somehow contribute to the unfolding of consciousness on Earth? Furthermore, could global weather changes as well as the intensification of synchronicities and anomalous experiences that many people are increasingly reporting be an effect of our alignment with the Galactic Center? Part 5 explores these questions, as well as the unforgettable refrain: "Will the world end in 2012?"

New vistas have opened up while researching and writing this book, ones that elevate "metaphysics" to its traditional place as a superior framework for understanding the nature of time, reality, and consciousness. This brings me full circle back to my earliest philosophical preoccupations. Metaphysics is the answer to the limitations and dead-ends of the physical sciences, for as a "meta" physics it takes a "higher" view than conventional physics. And this is not semantic slight-of-hand; the sacred sciences of antiquity, closely allied with metaphysical ideas that are now largely misunderstood, were the multidimensional and holistic precursors to our modern profane sciences that today amount to nothing more than a kind of short-sighted thingism.

As we narrow down our search and venture into metaphysical territory, we dig into the unpublished work of Coomaraswamy and emerge with a Vedic teaching that addresses our end-of-cycle concerns and connects us right into the Galactic Center. That teaching is encoded into the Vedic theft of soma myth, and in pursuing its underlying wisdom regarding the transformation of consciousness, all of the book's themes will be integrated into the metaphysical importance of the solstice-galaxy alignment.

February 2, 2002