Twilight of the Gods: The Mayan Calendar and the Return of the Extraterrestrials (23 page)

Having fixed the start date of the Maya calendar at August 13, 3114 BC, we can now start playing with our cogwheels again. How long will it take until all of the cogwheels of the long count get back to their starting positions? Working that out in today's computer age is a mere trifle. We know the start date and we know how many teeth are on the cogs. If we transfer the result to our calendar, we see that the Maya calendar comes to an end on Sunday, December 23, 2012. That is when the gods are expected to return from their long journey. This is what the inscription on Monument No. 6 in Tortuguero tells us (see the start of this chapter for more). It seems that Bolon Yokte is coming back.

One of the Maya people's main gods is known by the experts as "Lady Beastie." Her birth date is given as December 7, 3121 BCin other words, six years before the start of the Maya calendar. Lady Beastie is not the only one of the Mayan gods to have come to Earth before the start of the Mayan calendar: There are a number of others, too. In Temple No. XIV in Palenque, Bolon Yokte appears with a deed that took place on the unimaginable date of July 29, 931,449 BC. How did this date come about if the Maya didn't start counting until August 13, 3114 BC?

Well, it's like this: The calendar may start on August 13, 3114 BC, but Maya used a special glyph to show what happened before or after the start of their calendar-just as we use the abbreviation BC to describe events that took place before the start of the Christian calendar. But the $64,000 question is this: What's going to happen on Sunday, December 23, 2012? Will Bolon Yokte and his cohort of Mayan gods really come back down to Earth? Will we experience a "god shock" in a couple of years? How can we prepare for this?

Prepare? I recommend this book! What else? And what about December 23, 2012? Will this day be a catastrophe for mankind? Well, before we can claim anything like that we'd need to be sure as hell that it's the right date and-despite the Mayan cogwheels-we're certainly not. Maya specialists spent years arguing when the Mayan calendar began. The theories covered everything from 8498 BC to 3114 BC. The only thing the experts could really agree on, was that whichever starting point they took it would be before the Mayans even existed. They finally settled for August 13, 3114 Bc, because they were able to recalculate religious Maya dates noted during the age of the Spanish conquistadores. So is this date really final and definite? Well, I wouldn't swear to it.

iscalculation?

How does this relate then to our calendar? Put it this way: I'm sitting here in the year 2009, typing this book into my computer. Two thousand and nine: That's the number of years that are supposed to have passed since Jesus was born in a lowly cattle shed in Bethlehem. Assuming that the early Christians didn't start counting until 20 years after Jesus' birth, our calendar would be 20 years short. Twenty years that exist nowhere. The number 2009 would be wrong. The conversion of the Maya calendar to the Christian calendar is not based on the effective time that has past, but on the actual dates we use. Two thousand and nine is just a number-a number that does not necessarily actually represent the number of years that have really past. And if the number 2009 isn't right-because a number of years were not even countedthen the number 2012 can't be right either. On top of that, we're not even totally sure which calender corrections were carried out in the early middle ages.

If we accept that the early Christians left out 20 years, then the correct date today-in terms of actual elapsed time and not simply the year date-would be 2029, not 2009. In that case, the start date of 3114 BC calculated for the Maya calendar would be wrong. Why? Because all the calculations are based on the year dates and not the effectively elapsed time. The calculations run either from before Christ's birth or after it. Regardless of which direction you go, you're still missing 20 years in your calculation. If 20 years after Christ were missing, and in truth 2029 years had actually passed, then the ominous year 2012the year in which the gods are set to return-would already be in the past. As we know, nothing happened-leaving aside a number of scientifically well-documented UFO sightings.24 So is it all humbug?

No. The so-called gods of antiquity, those teachers who instructed our Stone Age forefathers in arts such as astronomy, will return. I know that only too well; there is too much proof available to leave me in any doubt. We cannot fixate on Sunday, December 23, 2012, though. It's not just the cultures and religions that I've mentioned already that have this belief in the second coming. It pretty much applies to the entire ancient world, from thousands of years ago to the present day.

The Christians are waiting for Jesus to return. You can read about it in the Gospel of Mark (Chapter 13, Verse 26): "And then shall they see the Son of man coming in the clouds with great power and glory."

'he Mahdi of the Muslims

It's no different in the Islamic world: The Muslims await the coming of the Mahdi. The Imams-the teachers of Islam-continually reiterate that it is wrong to speculate upon the date of the Mahdi as that is a secret that only Allah may know. Once, a stranger asked the fifth Imam, al-Baqir, what signs would precede the return of the Mahdi. The Imam answered:

It will be when the women act like men and the men act like women; and when the women sit with spread legs upon saddled horses. It will be when false witnesses are believed and when truth is rejected; then when men spill the blood of other men for no good reason, when they fornicate and squander the money of the poor .21

According to these criteria, the Mahdi should have been here long ago. But-the Islamic scholars tell us-before it can happen, 60 false prophets must come. I have no idea how many false prophets there have been, but the number must have exceeded 60 a long time ago. Islamic literature is totally unclear on when and where this coming will take place. The Mahdi is the redeemer of the final days. He will come "on the twenty-third night of the month of Ramadan."" This night "is The Night of Power (Laylat al-Qadr) in which the Qur'an was revealed, the night in which the angels descend.""

Judaism is no stranger to this idea, either: Faithful Jews have been waiting for the second coming of their Messiah for more than five thousand years. The Jews, of course, never accepted Jesus as the Messiah.

The concept also crops up in the ancient Iranian Parsee religion. The "Avesta"-it means "basic text" or "teaching"-contains the religious texts of the Parsees, the followers of Zarathustra." Zarathustra himself is said to have been born as a result of an immaculate conception. According to Zoroastrian tradition, a mountain swathed in pure light descended from heaven. A youth emerged from this mountain bearing the embryo of Zarathustra, which he then implanted in his mother's womb. Fragments of this ancient religion are preserved in cuneiform texts that were made at the order of King Darius the Great (circa 549-486 Bc), his son Xerxes (485-465 Bc), and his grandson Artaxerxes (464-424 Bc). The highest object of worship is the divinity "Ahura Mazda." He is depicted as a ring with wings who reigns over the world. The similarity to the winged sun disks in Egypt can hardly be missed.

4.6. Depiction of Ahura Mazda from the Parsee religion. Author's own image.

11 the Gods Are Coming Back!

According to the texts of the Parsees, the constellations are subdivided into star clusters that are ruled by various commanders. Then it gets quite military-sounding, as they talk about the soldiers of the star systems who fight their battles throughout the universe. The Quadriga solis, the four-wheeled chariot pulled by winged horses, has its roots in Iranian culture.29 Here, the gods of the various planets are said to steer the chariot of the sun. In the "Yashts," a kind of subdivsion of the Avesta, you can read in Chapter 10, verses 67 and 68: "Who drives along on his high-wheeled chariot made of a heavenly substance from the Karshvare of Arezahi to the Karshvare of Xwaniratha...white, shining, seen afar, beneficent, endowed with knowledge, swiftly carry along the heavenly space.... (Chapter 10, Verse 125) Four stallions draw that chariot, all of the same white color, living on heavenly food and undying."

Space seems to be full of such flying machines, and the differences between terms like arrow, bird, heavenly food, and made of a heavenly substance show that the Parsees knew what they were talking about.

Of course, the Parsees too expected their gods to return 30 "Light beings" would descend from heaven, they believed. Zarathustra himself asked his god Ahura Mazda about the end of time and was told that "all-conquering ones" would come down from the skies. They are immortal; their intellects perfect. Before these divinities appear in the firmament, the sun will go dark, the world will be battered by a mighty storm wind, and a star will fall from heaven. Following a terrible battle, a new dawn will break for humanity. Then mankind will be so wellversed in healing that "even those who are close to death will not die."

The difference here to the redeemers of other religions is not so dramatic at a glance, except for the fact that this time it is the "allconquerors" who are coming to save the world. These are the ones that the Parsees were waiting for: the gods from the canopy of the stars.

In Hinduism it gets even more complex because of the panoply of gods. Originally, so they believe, the world was free of greed or desires-a place of such happiness that we could scarce imagine it. This enviable paradise survived until negative spirits, but also gods, confused the minds of men. The gods were, admittedly, omnipotent and immortal beings with great power. However, they also displayed a distinctly human nature and had a penchant for taking on human form. The greatest of them all was the Ruler of the Heavens (Indra), who was lord over all.

In Vanaparvan-part of the ancient Indian epic Mahabharata (Chapters 168-173)-the gods are said to have lived in veritable space cities that orbited high above the Earth. Here we can say with some certainty that any religious-psychological interpretation is barking up the wrong tree. The following quotes prove it.

In the volume Drona Parva (also a part of the Mahabharata) you can read on page 690, verse 62 how three exquisitely built space cities circled the Earth. What followed was a veritable space battle: "Civa, riding on that excellent car which was composed of all the celestial forces, proceeded for the destruction of the tripple [sic] city.... When, however, the three cities came together in the firmament, the lord Mahadeva pierced them with that terrible shaft of his, consisting of three knots." [author's emphasis]"