-----Original Message-----
From: elizabeth [mailto:elizabeth@redlotus.org]
Sent: Tuesday, September 11, 2007 7:21 AM
To: John@alignment2012.com
Subject:

Hi John,

I read your entire e-mail exchange with Calleman, as I stayed up all night on this New Moon nite of 9/11/07.

Now, I have not read his works or yours at all at this point in time. I watched a 2005 interview of yours on myspace tonite, and that is what led me to your web site. I am trying to get a wide-angled perspective on the subject of the Mayan Calendar before I buy any books.

It strikes me as odd that you invested a considerably great amount of time arguing and attacking Calleman. Those of us 'lay folks' will not really be able to discern which date is 'right'... However, for someone who claims repeatedly, that your insights are a reflection of your yoga practice and meditation, you seem more like a warrior with a stubborn cause to win at all cost. That is a nasty side-growth of Ego - nothing much else.

It reflects more negatively on you than what you are trying so hard to accomplish: to discredit Callaman.
It would be wiser (in my humble opinion) to go back to your meditation and yoga practice to find some inner balance.

It will also help you find the wisdom you need to proceed with this noble work. I am respectful of the fact that you spent great many hours and energy with your research. Do not wipe it all off with all this bickering.

Blessings to You:

Elizabeth ( a future fan)

 

9-11-2007
Dear Elizabeth,

I’m sorry you feel that way. I’d like to suggest that you’ve misread my motivations and where I’m coming from in relation to Calleman and his work. I’m not on the offense chomping at the bit to discredit Calleman. I’m responding to his attacks on authentic Maya tradition, and playing defense in the hopes that he will lead less people astray through my efforts. I trust that if you look further into my writings you’d understand the background to that exchange. And yes, you may sense the frustrated and angry voice of a person who has worked for decades to defend the traditional Maya system from people like Calleman. It is important to understand this statement. It doesn’t have anything to do with “my insights” or my own pioneering work to reconstruct the 2012 cosmology (the subject of my published books). It has to do with the fundamental facts of the Maya calendar, from which follow the spiritual teachings. It has to do with our own orientation to ancient Maya tradition, and whether we approach it with open humility and respect, or if we reject the tradition and make up our own systems and models. It’s very clear that Calleman, and before him, Jose Arguelles (The Mayan Factor, Dreamspell), have chosen to reject the fundamental facts of the calendar and have deified their own idiosyncratic dates and models. By “fundamental facts”, I’m speaking of the correct placement of the 260-day calendar and the correct placement of the big cycle ending date. I little research shows that the correct end date falls on December 21, 2012. Calleman disregarded this and invented his own end date, in October 2011. The correct correlation of the 260-day calendar with our Gregorian calendar determines that December 21, 2012 is equal to 4 Ahau. The traditional Maya day-keepers in Guatemala today agree because they preserve this unbroken, ancient day-count. Arguelles disregarded this and invented his own day-count placement, now followed by thousands upon thousands of misled seekers under the banner of the 13-moon calendar movement and Dreamspell. It may seem obscure to you, at this point in your readings, how I can speak with such certainty about these fundamental facts. The answer is simply that I’ve done my homework, read the sources and understand the material. This is what anyone should do who presumes to write with any authority about the Maya calendar. My position is not merely a dry academic exercise in facts and accuracy. It is a plea for the collective discussion on 2012 to align with the traditional Maya on the basics, so that we can move forward to understand the deeper spiritual teachings.

So, I’ve found it important to engage with the work of Calleman and Arguelles. Few have seemed willing to get their hands dirty in this way. My motivation is to clarify mistaken notions so people will not be led astray. This might sound presumptuous, but you have to admit that the 2012 discussion is jammed with all kinds of goofy projections and fantasies. In my approach, I seek to revive the authentic Maya paradigm for 2012, and to be a voice for the perennial wisdom it encodes. Choosing to get into the trenches with the forces of ignorance may seem ill advised, and you may be right that I’m a fool and my words, seen superficially outside of the larger context, reflect badly on me. When Calleman launches an attack on the traditional accepted end date of 2012, as he did at the beginning of the exchange in early 2006, I hear the screams of the millions of Maya people murdered, tortured, and starved through centuries of conquest at the hands of ignorant zealots who branded them as devils. I also think of my friends among the Maya, who I’ve met on various trips since 1986, living and working with the highland Maya, and I feel compelled to defend their tradition. Has this been hurtful to my heart, been draining to my brain, and does it make me look, as it does to you, like I’m a ranting fool? Yes. Can I refrain from responding to the ax hovering over the Maya tradition, held by Calleman and others like him who do not understand the tradition and whose actions, whether consciously or unconsciously undertaken, threaten its sovereignty? No. I strive not to be right, but to be understood. And the understanding I’m trying to convey is, first and foremost, an understanding that comes from respecting and honoring the authentic Maya tradition.

My experience diving into the trenches with the wrong correlation promoted by Arguelles in the 1990s provides a precedent to what you’ve observed between myself and Calleman. Since 1991, I spent years educating the Arguelles group about the existence of the surviving traditional day-count in Guatemala. I responded to hundreds of letters, and later, hundreds of emails. They despised me, because I was bringing them the truth, that Arguelles’s day-count was simply his invention and, worse, it was out of synchronization with the traditional, surviving, authentic day-count. It goes without saying that to recognize, honor, and support the traditional day-count would be a good thing, right? As a whole, the Dreamspell people accused me of being “negative”, or egotistically needing to “be right” and promote “my” day-count. But it wasn’t “me” versus Arguelles, it was Arguelles versus the authentic tradition – I trust you understand the distinction. They had been deceived, were reacting defensively to an unavoidable truth, and were shooting the messenger. After a few years, and through my repeated efforts (what you might characterize as “stubborn”), the truth finally sank in, and now the Dreamspell group at least acknowledges (as a grudging caveat) the authentic day-count (what I called the “True Count”), and I am heartened at the positive outcome of my efforts to inject truth where distortions were being bred.

Yet the power of ignorance and darkness can morph and make house in other nearby places. Thus, Calleman appears. He is Arguelles part 2. You might think my efforts are wasted or not worth pursuing. I do so to reflect back mistaken notions to their expositors and, along the way, sneak in some corrected frameworks and better ways about thinking about these things. The goal being to correct gross errors, such as rejecting the fundamental facts that the 13-baktun cycle ending equals December 21, 2012, which equals 4 Ahau. (This basic “equation” was investigated, summarized, cited, and explored in my 1992 book Tzolkin: Visionary Perspectives and Calendar Studies. I have this on CD-Rom as an html book, available on my website. I’d be happy to send you a copy if you think it would help.) I note that Calleman has lately been using better terminology and his conceptualization of the non-dual nature of Maya time philosophy – a critique I offered – is improving. This illustrates a positive outcome of some of the exchanges we have had.

As to yoga and meditation, I encourage everyone to practice these forms of inner awakening of insight. It helps us discern the truth in an ocean of noise. I hope this helps you understand the larger picture and my belief that defending the authentic Maya tradition is a worthwhile effort, even if it taxes my patience at times and diminishes my own appearance. Best wishes,

John Major Jenkins
http://Alignment2012.com