Book Excerpt – End of the World 2012

End of the World 2012:
The Latest Up-To-Date Information on the Mayan Calendar, the Alignment with the Galactic Center, and the December 21, 2012 Mayan Prophecies – Will the World End in 2012?

Chapter 6:
Prophecies of a New World from the Maya

To find out more about the Maya prophecies of a new world, we went to visit Dr. Robert K. Sitler, an authority on the Maya and also the Director of the Latin American Studies Program at Stetson University in DeLand, Florida. He is also the author of The Living Maya: Ancient Wisdom in the Era of 2012.

We talked with Dr. Sitler in his home. I liked that he was dressed casually in a cotton long-sleeved blue top, cotton trousers and sandals. There was something about the way he sat in a relaxed manner, that made me feel instantly comfortable in his presence.

I had first read about Dr. Sitler in an article he wrote, which was included in the book, The Mystery of 2012: Predictions, Prophecies, and Possibilities. Of all the articles in that book, his seemed to be one that appeared to address the actual Mayan prophecy that had originally started all the conjecture about the predictions of doomsday or, conversely, awakening.

Therefore, I felt grateful for the opportunity to interview him, because he seemed to be one of few who actually knew something about the Mayan prophecies and their origins.

Since I considered him to be a treasure trove of real information on the Maya and the Mayan prophecies, I first started by asking about prophecies of a new world.

I told him that I had heard, in my travels while filming the Yucatan Travel Movie that especially the Maya in the Tulum area were talking about something that was going to happen in “2000 and a little bit.” So, I asked Professor Sitler if he knew anything about this.

The Tulum Mayan ruins overlook a gorgeous white-sand beach. Photo by Miriam Balsley

Maya Prophecies of a New World from the Tulum Area

He replied, “Certainly one of the richest prophetic traditions in the Maya world—that particular area, starting at Tulum and going to the south and west from there, you’re in an area where people sometimes refer to themselves as ‘mas ehual’ [My best phonetic guess at how to spell what Dr. Sitler said, which is probably a phrase in Spanish, but it could also be Mayan.].

He continued, “These are the descendants of the rebels who fought the Caste War in the late 1800s and have been extremely resistance to assimilation into the Hispanic culture.”

By the way, as I mentioned earlier, in the Caste War the indigenous Maya fought the Spanish in an attempt to regain control of their ancestral lands. The Maya lost.

Dr. Sitler continued, “They have very strong prophetic traditions, most of which involve a war, and this time, instead of being brutally defeated, they would emerge victorious from the war. There would be a new world with Maya sensibilities in place.”

I had heard Alfred Rordame describe how Vedic Astrology predicted an opportunity for understanding the mysteries. Now, I heard Dr. Sitler talk about the prophecies of the Maya of the Tulum area, which involved a new world in which a Maya view of the world would predominate.

So far, I hadn’t heard anything about the end of the world.

Find out more about End of the World 2012 Book and EBook.

CBCNews article on the ancient Maya and 2012 exhibit at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto

Here’s an excerpt from a great article called, “Did the Maya predict the world would end in 2012? Archeologists say Maya made no such prophecy.” The article is from CBCNews. here:

Click on the link above and you’ll be taken to the original article, which is full of information on the ancient Maya and 2012. The article is announcing a Royal Ontario Museum exhibit on the topic.

Here’s the quote:

“In a correlation of the Maya’s long-count calendar to our Western one, the end of this current baktun, the 13th, happens on Dec. 21, 2012 (or Dec. 23. See sidebar).

“The long-count calendar counts the time since creation, which the Maya date to what we would call a day in August 3114 BC.

“Dec. 21 vs. Dec. 23
Dec, 21, 2012 seems to be the most favoured date for when the 13th baktun on the Maya long-count calendar ends. But some sources, including the Royal Ontario Museum, go with Dec. 23.

“The two dates stem from two variations of the most used correlation of our calendar with the Maya’s.

“The ROM’s Justin Jennings said it went with Dec. 23 because, “there’s no evidence that the long count is linked to astronomical cycles” and the curators felt that Dec. 21 feeds into “2012 galactic alignment stuff, which just doesn’t hold water from an astronomy point of view and it does not work for classic Maya literature.”

“Maya expert David Stuart doesn’t care which date people choose but told CBC News that it is a complete coincidence that Dec. 21 will be the winter solstice. “Other baktun endings don’t really fall on important astronomical dates,” he noted.

“Obviously, baktuns have come and gone. This year just happens to be the one when the 13th baktun ends. The 12th baktun ended on Sept. 18, 1618, which was when Europe’s very destructive Thirty Years’ War was just getting started.

“Stuart writes that, “any such statements about the Maya predicting the world’s demise or alternatively, some ‘transformation of consciousness’ in 2012 is, to put it as simply and directly as possible, wrong.”

Did the Maya predict the world would end in 2012? Archeologists say Maya made no such prophecy

In this blog, I’ve written about David Stuart before. He is one of my heroes, because, by a wonderful set of circumstances, his parents were both archeologists and he spend part of his childhood with them at the Mayan ruin of Coba, which is within a half day’s drive from Cancun–I’ve been there twice, and I’ve included it my my travelogue, Yucatan Travel: Cancun to Chichen Itza.

From what I’ve read and seen about David Stuart, he had a Mayan nanny and so became prolific in Mayan. I remember seeing a Public Broadcasting Station special on deciphering the Mayan glyphs, in which David, at an early age–I think 16–was brilliantly decoding glyphs, helped by his fluency in present-day Mayan.

The significance of the Mayan god Bolon Yok-te in the 2012 Prediction

John Major Jenkins writes about the significance of the god Bolon Yok-te in the December 21, 2012 prophecy on Monument 6 at the Tortuguero Mayan ruins. As I understand it, Jenkins is saying that simply translating the decipherable text on Monument 6 is not enough. You have to also consider what the significance of Bolon Yok-te’s presence:

One thing about Bolon Yokte’s presence in the 2012 text should be emphasized. Apart from symbolizing war, conflict, and the underworld, Bolon Yokte is a god that is often present during Creation events, often referring to the Creation event of 13.0.0.0.0 in 3114 BC, and most notably on the Vase of the Seven Lords. So, what does it mean that a Creation Lord is present on the next 13.0.0.0.0, the one that falls in 2012 AD? Although some scholars have commented that the incomplete text on Tortuguero Monument 6 doesn’t tell us much, they have overlooked the obvious: Bolon Yokte’s mere presence suggests that 2012 was thought of as a Creation, a worldrenewal that, after all, makes perfect sense in the context of a World Age doctrine that sequences forward in intervals of 13 baktuns. This may seem to go without saying, but in fact my work has been criticized for characterizing 2012 as a “cosmogenesis.” Here the scholars are one step closer to understanding 2012 for what the Maya knew it to a be: a rebirth and the beginning of a new World Age.
Comments on the 2012 text on Tortuguero Monument 6 and Bolon Yokte K’u

2012 and the Mayan Shamans

I enjoyed speaking at the Edgar Cayce Forum last night. As usual, I met many wonderful people both those I had met before and also those I met for the first time. I am also happy because of all the fantastic feedback I received for my presentation, Do Mayan Shamans believe the world will end in 2012?

Do Mayan Shamans believe the world will end in 2012?

I am excited about my presentation tonight at Edgar Cayce’s A.R.E. in Virginia Beach, Virginia, sponsored by the Edgar Cayce Forum. I will be speaking on, “Do Mayan Shamans believe the world will end in 2012?” which will include a dynamic PowerPoint Presentation that includes videotaped interviews of Mayan shamans and Dr. Robert K. Sitler, an expert on the Maya. The event starts at 7:30 p.m. See you there!

What is a Mayan Daykeeper?

Since I’ll be presenting excerpts from my interview with Mayan Daykeeper Hunbatz Men, author of Secrets of Mayan Science/Religion at the Edgar Cayce Forum on October 26th, at 7:30 p.m., I wondered what a Mayan Daykeeper was. This how Wikipedia defines a Mayan Daykeeper:

A daykeeper was the name for a diviner in the pre-Columbian Maya culture. The Mayans are renowned for their advanced skills in the fields of mathematics and astronomy, and had come up with a complex system of tracking days. The Maya calendar actually consisted of three individual calendars, the most sacred of the three being the Tzolkin or divinatory calendar. It was a daykeeper’s task to keep count of the days with coral seeds according to this sacred calendar, as well as to perform divination rituals based upon the dates of the sacred calendar. In this respect, their role was not unlike that of a modern astrologer, in that they attempted to use the day of a person’s birth to divine certain traits they would inherit as a result of that day, as well as what might befall them in the future. Daykeepers, unlike astrologers, would not take into account the position of the stars.
Daykeeper

That’s pretty interesting considering that each of the days are ruled by both the number and god of two different calendars. So, who needs to consult the stars! There’s a lot of divinatory information simply through knowing about the meaning of the numbers and gods of the two calendars, the Haab and Tzolk’in.

My talk is called, “Do Mayan Shamans believe the world will end in 2012?” and it will be held at 7:30 p.m. at Edgar Cayce’s A.R.E. in Virginia Beach, Virginia, and sponsored by the Edgar Cayce Forum.

Movie of Mayan Elder prophecy for 2012

I’ve had a very enjoyable day, because my video footage of interviews with Mayan Elders are inserting successfully into my Powerpoint Presentation. I will be speaking at the Edgar Cayce Forum on Wednesday, October 26, 2011 (2 days away) at 7:30 p.m. at Edgar Cayce’s A.R.E. in Virginia Beach, Virginia. My topic: Do Mayan Shamans believe the world will end in 2012?

The Mayan Haab Calendar month of K’ank’in can mean “skeleton”

I just found a Mayan calendar website, called The Mayan Calendar, that says that K’ank’in (also known as Uniiw, the month in which the December 21, 2012 Mayan Long Count date occurs), means not only “yellow sun” but also “ribs” and “skeleton.” Hm, it is beginning to sound a bit ominous after all.

A discussion of the Mayan Calendar as it relates to the 2012 prophecy will be part of my lecture called, “Do Mayan Shamans believe the world will end in 2012?” I will be speaking at Edgar Cayce’s A.R.E. in Virginia Beach at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, October 26th. The event is sponsored by The Edgar Cayce Forum.

December 21, 2012 falls on the 3rd day of the month of Uniiw in the Mayan year-long calendar known as the Haab

By the way, in referring to yesterday’s post on the Haab Mayan calendar date of December 21, 2012, the month of Uniiw (or K’ank’in) means “yellow sun” in the ancient Mayan language.

In the same way, December, in our calendrical system, means “ten,” because December was the 10th month of the year in the original Roman calendar until two more winter months of January and February were added.

I will be speaking on the topic of “Do Mayan Shamans believe the world will end in 2012?” at the Edgar Cayce Forum on October 26th at 7:30 p.m. at Edgar Cayce’s A.R.E. in Virginia Beach.

The December 21, 2012 Mayan prophecy names 3 dates in 3 Mayan calendars

As I said yesterday, this is the great epigrapher David Stuart‘s translation of the one and only 2012 prophecy in the Mayan glyphs:

“The Thirteenth ‘Bak’tun” will be finished
(on) Four Ajaw, the Third of Uniiw (K’ank’in).
? will occur.
(It will be) the descent(??) of the Nine Support? God(s) to the ?”

There are three Mayan calendar days in that prophecy:

1. A “Bak’tun” refers to a date in the Long Count Calendar.

2. An “Ajaw” refers to a date in the Tzolk’in Calendar, on the day called Ajaw

3. An “Uniiw” (or “K’ank”in”) refers to a date in the Haab Calendar during the month of Uniiw

That may sound complicated, but, if you were to look at our calendrical system, you could see that we do the same kind of organizing of our days. For example, today is:

Day 274 in the Year Long Calendar
Day 1 in the Month Long Calendar, this month called October
Day 6 in the Week Long Calendar, this day of the week called Saturday