Mayan Calendar Prophecies: The Complete Collection of 2012 Predictions and Prophecies (2 page)

For instance, according to the Maya we currently live in the cycle named
Katun 4 Ahau
that began in 1993 and ends in 2012. The cycle that begins in 2012 is named
Katun 2 Ahau
and ends in 2032. The next cycle is named
Katun 13 Ahau
and runs until 2052 and is the final
katun
in the present 256-year cycle that began in 1796. The
katun
cycle then begins again in 2052 with
Katun 11 Ahau
.
 
(The predictions associated with these
katuns
will be discussed in Section II: The Katun Prophecies.)

The first question you might have is, “I thought the Mayan calendar ended on December 21, 2012 not in 2052?” The Maya had multiple calendars. The calendar that “ends” on December 21, 2012 is called the Long Count calendar. It consists of 13
baktuns.
One
baktun
equals 20
katuns
or 394 years. Thirteen
baktuns
equal 5125 years. The Long Count calendar has a “start date” of August 11, 3114 BC, which the Maya recorded as 13.0.0.0.0, and an “end date” of December 21, 2012.

Curiously, December 21, 2012 is also recorded as 13.0.0.0.0. How can this be? This is because the calendar “rolls over” like an odometer back to 1 after 13.0.0.0.0. For instance, the second day of the Long Count calendar, August 12, 3114 BC, was recorded as 0.0.0.0.1. The calendar will finally reach 13.0.0.0.0 again on December 21, 2012. Thus December 21, 2012 is the “completion” of 13
baktuns
but it is not the “end” of the calendar. The calendar will once again roll over.

The Mayan
katun
prophecies recorded in the books of
Chilam Balam
are based on the Short Count calendar. The Short Count calendar consists of 13
katuns
that total 256 years. The Short Count ends on
Katun 13 Ahau
then starts over. As you can see, the number 13 was important to the ancient Maya. This is because the number 13 represented “completion.” This is why the Long Count calendar reaching the 13
th
baktun
on December 21, 2012 is seen as the “completion” or “end” of the current Long Count calendar cycle.

The current Short Count calendar is out-of-sync with the Long Count and does not end on December 21, 2012 but instead in 2052, forty years later. This suggests that the world will not self-destruct on 12-21-12 as has been popularized in our sensationalist news media. So what exactly
did
the Maya predict for the future?

As noted in the previous chapters, the Maya believed a 256-year cycle governed civilizations. Interestingly, scientists have discovered a seismic cycle lasting 250 years,
[3]
a solar cycle that lasts approximately 250 years,
[4]
and an approximately 300-year cycle of impact events on Earth.
[5]
Could there be any connection between these 250-year cycles and the 256-year
Katun
cycle?

It does not take much imagination to see the connection between seismic activity and the downfall of civilizations. Not only do earthquakes destroy the physical infrastructure of civilizations but they can also produce other effects. Earthquakes can cause volcanic eruptions by destabilization. This results in a collapse of the volcano that releases built up pressure resulting in an eruption. This is exactly what occurred at Mount St. Helens in the state of Washington in 1980.

Earthquakes can also trigger massive tsunamis like the Indonesian and Japanese earthquakes in 2004 and 2011. Thus there is a clear cause-and-effect between earthquakes and the downfall of small-scale civilizations that is easy to see.

Probably the most shocking cycle is the recent discovery that the Earth experiences impact events large enough to wipe out a large metropolitan area much more frequently than originally believed perhaps as often as every 300 years. This research concluded, “based on various strands of evidence (for example, the number of meteorites discovered on earth that originated on the moon) that the average time between impacts on earth is no more than 300 years, probably less.”
[6]

Three such impact events happened within the twentieth century alone. The most famous of these was the Tunguska event wherein a small comet or comet fragment exploded in the atmosphere over Russian Siberia with an explosive power equal to a nuclear bomb 1,000 times more powerful than the one dropped on Hiroshima, Japan.
[7]
This explosion flattened trees over an area of 830 square miles. (Eyewitness accounts of this event will be discussed in
Part 3, Chapter 15 “Decoding the Mayan Flood Myth
.”) The same event happening over any major metropolitan area today would kill millions and be devastating to the region.

Both the seismic cycle and impact cycle offer clear cause-and-effect relationships between cyclical events and the downfall of small-scale civilizations. But how could the solar cycle be associated with the rise and fall of civilizations?

One possible connection between solar cycles and the rise and fall of civilizations is the effect the sun has on climate and precipitation. For instance, one researcher found that Iron Age settlements expanded during periods of high solar activity.
[8]
This was believed to have been the result of changing levels of rainfall caused by variations in solar output. As rainfall increased these Iron Age settlements could grow and expand. When rainfall decreased and droughts occurred these settlements would naturally contract again. Interestingly, the highest levels of activity in these settlements were recorded between 700-450 BC and 300-50 BC. Each of these time periods lasted exactly 250 years.

A link between disease outbreaks and solar cycles has also recently been discovered that could offer another possible connection between solar cycles and the downfall of civilizations. It was found that pandemic outbreaks of Influenza A only occurred during periods of increased solar activity.
[9]
This was initially hypothesized to have resulted from solar-induced climate change which altered the arrival times of disease-carrying birds.
[10]
Later research showed it was more likely related to biological vitamin D production that fluctuated with solar activity.
[11]

Vitamin D is primarily produced in humans from exposure to sunlight. Research has noted that vitamin D has been shown to generate positive responses in “the immune, cardio-vascular, muscle, pancreas, and brain systems, as well as positive involvement in ageing and control of the cell cycle and thus of cancer disease process.”
[12]
Production of vitamin D was shown to be highest during periods of
decreased
solar activity and lowest during periods of
increased
solar activity. Thus during increased solar activity the body, due to this lack of vitamin D production, was especially susceptible to infections such as Influenza A. It is likely other diseases would increase similarly due to the same effects.

(Solar activity should not be confused with sunlight. Solar activity refers to the magnetic cycles of the Sun which result in sunspots and solar flares. Increased solar activity
decreases
vitamin D production whereas increased exposure to sunlight
increases
vitamin D production. This is also why more people catch colds during Winter than other times since sunlight exposure is decreased due to the shorter days.)

Other recent research has shown a connection between solar cycles and the human brain including both mental diseases and creativity. The researchers noted that people born during “radiation peaks in solar cycles…[were] associated with a higher incidence of mental disorders, suggesting the sensitivity of ectodermal embryonic tissues to UVR [ultraviolet radiation.]”
[13]
Other research noted that an increase in first admissions to a psychiatric hospital were associated with increased solar activity.
[14]
(Perhaps this was due to hallucinations, which appear to increase due to solar activity as well.
[15]
) Still other research showed bursts of human creativity were strongly correlated with solar cycles.
[16]
As history has shown it only takes one madman or one genius to cause a civilization to reach new lows or new highs. Thus the Sun could be playing a decisive role in this process.

Russian researcher A. L. Chizhevsky found many more links between human civilization and solar cycles. He found that solar cycles were associated with insect infestations as well as disease epidemics. Insect infestations can, of course, lead to famines and disease outbreaks can likewise bring a civilization to its knees. But these were not the only solar connections Chizhevsky found to the rise and fall of civilizations. According to Wikipedia:

“Chizhevsky proposed that not only did geomagnetic storms resulting from sunspot-related solar flares affect electrical usage, plane crashes, epidemics and grasshopper infestations, but human mental life and activity. Increased negative ionization in the atmosphere increased human mass excitability. Chizhevsky proposed that human history is influenced by the eleven year peaks in sunspot activity, triggering humans en masse to act upon existing grievances and complaints through revolts, revolutions, civil wars and wars between nations.”
[17]

The preceding examples make logical connections between solar cycles, disease outbreaks, insect infestations, rainfall patterns, and mental health (both positive and negative), all of which can have impacts on the rise and fall of civilizations. Yet economists have also noted a connection between stock prices and celestial cycles that do not have such logical, clear-cut, cause-and-effect explanations.

Much research has been conducted trying to find a link between solar cycles and the stock market without success. Yet one line of research found statistically significant correlations between stock prices and, of all things, planetary alignments. Stranger still, these correlations seemed strongest when the planetary alignments occurred while also aligned with the galactic center of our Milky Way galaxy.

Edward Dewey, founder of the Foundation for the Study of Cycles noted in 1969:

“since 1897 there has been a correspondence between stock price movements and the times of conjunctions and oppositions of certain planets (the ones nearest the sun) when these conjunctions and oppositions took place in a certain direction in space.”
[18]

He noted that stock prices usually moved up, 92% of the time, when the planets were aligned near the galactic center where the Celestial Equator intersected the Galactic Equator. Dewey stated,

“The consistency with which stock prices tend to advance during the 30 days prior to conjunctions or oppositions of Mars, and Jupiter, and the superior and inferior conjunctions of Mercury, when in the same segment of space, is truly remarkable, and is surely not chance.”

The cause of such correlations is still unknown but, as will be seen later, this will not be the only connection between the galactic center and events here on earth. What we do know is that the galactic center emits gamma ray radiation.
[19]
Since stock prices are ultimately the result of human sentiment perhaps the galactic center gamma ray source has cycles that influence the human psyche in ways similar to the previously discussed solar cycles.

It should be noted that all of the above discoveries were made possible by analyzing large data sets. In other words, all one needs to discover such cycles are large sets of accurate, time-based records with which to cross-reference and find correlations. Did the Maya have such records?

Since most of the Mayan books were burned by Spanish priests, we will never know for sure. The Mayan books that
do
remain show they did, in fact, keep detailed chronicles of events in their history. (See Appendix B.) They also kept detailed records of astronomical observations. Did they also keep sunspot records? Many cultures made sunspot observations throughout history thus an astronomically sophisticated culture like the Maya undoubtedly did so as well.  By comparing patterns in their astronomical data with patterns in their historical chronicles did the Maya make similar discoveries a thousand years ago as those we have only made in the past one hundred years?

As we will see in
Part 3, Chapter 16, “Decoding the Mayan Flood Myth
,” the Maya do seem to have had accurate chronologies dating back at least 5,000 years. This is proven by the fact that they recorded the exact date of a series of catastrophic events near the end of their last calendar cycle. Evidence proving that such events actually occurred has been discovered in the geologic and Antarctic ice core records corresponding to this same date.

Clearly this is no coincidence. The Maya did not simply get lucky and picked a random date from 5,000 years ago that just-so-happened to match real events researchers would corroborate in the 20
th
century. The simplest explanation is that the Maya did, in fact, have detailed and dated historical chronologies going back thousands of years. Access to such a large set of data would have undoubtedly given them the ability to detect patterns that even our scientists today are unaware of.  More evidence of the existence of these ancient records will be explored in
Part 2, “New Age of Disasters
,” and
Part 3, “Cycle of Cosmic Catastrophes
.”