Response to Magical Blend, March 1999 Endors


Dear Magical Blend,

In my work with Maya cosmology and the 2012 end-date of the Maya calendar, I recognized the solstice-galaxy alignment of era-2012 as the reason why the Maya chose December 21, 2012 A.D. to end a World Age. Wanting to document how and why this concept was important to the Maya, I embarked on an interdisciplinary synthesis of the available academic literature, and decoded several ways that this end-date alignment concept was incorporated into basic Maya institutions. No one, including academic scholars, had done this before. For example, I show how the 2012 alignment is symbolized by the Maya ballgame. It is also the underlying meaning of visionary journeys undertaken by Maya kings. Most importantly, I decoded how the Maya Creation myth encodes the end-date alignment. Beyond these examples, I reconstruct several other important aspects of Mesoamerican cosmology, including the astronomy of the Pyramid of Kukulcan at Chichen Itza, the New Fire ceremony, and the initiatory monuments of Izapa.
Generally speaking - and here's the important and very basic distinction in our respective interpretations - McKenna and I differ in our approach to the 2012 date in that his Time Wave Zero theory is based in a mathematically precise fractal waveform derived from the I Ching that must culminate in 2012, whereas I explain that the ancient Maya believed era-2012 will be a time of great transformation, a World Age shift, because of the alignment of the solstice sun with the Galactic Center that is due to occur. I also suggest a field-effect model for understanding these galactic dynamics and how consciousness on earth may be stimulated by our changing relationship to the Galactic Center during the 26,000-year precessional cycle. Thank you for this opportunity to clarify the nature of my work. Sincerely,

John Major Jenkins

Dear Magical Blend,

I read with interest the recent review in Magical Blend of John Major Jenkins' new book Maya Cosmogenesis 2012. The reviewer stated: "Jenkins' work echoes the theme, if not the method, of theories put forth by one of Magical Blend's favorite philosophers, Terence McKenna." While I was happy to write the introduction to Jenkins' book and while we both share an enthusiasm for the lost calendrical astronomy of the Maya it is not fair to John Major Jenkins to cast his work as derivative of my own. He has placed a number of new ideas on the table, among them the importance of the sun/zenith day in the thinking of Meso American peoples. His work is innovative and deserves to be encouraged and judged independently of my own ideas about the archeo-mathematics of the ancient Maya. All the best,

Terence McKenna