With its wheels-within-wheels configuration, the Maya calendar was a uniquely sophisticated and remarkably accurate system of measuring time. It perfectly demonstrated the concept of prescience - and by extension the idea of a pre-existing script. It ‘traveled’ back four million years into the past, and in the future, predicted the precise year when Hernan Cortes would arrive in the Americas. An event that would initiate the final stage of Maya destruction. It also predicted much further in the future, a moment of consequence that has now become imminent.
Unlike our Western calendar with its three-part, year, month and day demarcations, the Maya calendar had five. It’s referred to as the Long Count. First known use of this system occurs around the 8th Ka’tun or 7:00:00:00:01 – 8:00:00:00:00 which originates from a start date of all zeroes equivalent to 3114 BC.
The first number in the series, representing a 400 year cycle, changes according to the interacting cycles of the other four. When all four zero out, the first number is raised one. If the system is continued to the present day we arrive at 13:19:19:17:19 on December 20th 2012. The following day - the winter solstice of December 21st - the numbers will roll forward to the 14th Ka’tun: 14:00:00:00:00 Solstice is the null point of transition at the darkest time of the year.
The first number in the series, representing a 400 year cycle, changes according to the interacting cycles of the other four. When all four zero out, the first number is raised one. If the system is continued to the present day we arrive at 13:19:19:17:19 on December 20th 2012. The following day - the winter solstice of December 21st - the numbers will roll forward to the 14th Ka’tun: 14:00:00:00:00 Solstice is the null point of transition at the darkest time of the year.
Ah Pook’s Time
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| from Day Is Done - William Burroughs |
Given that Ah Pook is Here was an apocalyptic novel in which these two worldviews played off against one another to an ultimate conclusion, Ah Pook the destroyer is in a very real sense here now.
Whether this will be the outcome or not the fact that Mayan and Biblical cosmogonies are aligned in this way makes his presence indisputable. For Armageddon buffs, 2012 is the mother of all nighs. Websites, books, movies and documentaries are already cashing in on what must surely, finally, be the actual end of the world show. Appropriately, Bill’s alien expert pal, novelist Whitley Strieber is right up front leading the charge.
In the cover notes of his book 2012: The War for Souls he summarizes the event:
“Every 26,00 years, Earth aligns with the exact center of our galaxy. At 11:11 am on December 21, 2012 , this event happens again, and the ancient Maya calculated that it would mark the end, not only of this age but of human consciousness as we know it.”
A somewhat cavalier embellishment of the astronomical facts which now introduces the further detail of the precise time of day. That would be American time of course, although which of the four zones it refers to is not specified. The overall impression is that of looking down a gun sight, but one wonders with what frame of reference he is able to arrive at the “exact” center of the galaxy.
In his usual messianic style, Strieber inserts himself into the plot as a writer who suffers the mortifications of the flesh in order to bring redemption to the world. Over the course of 300 pages he confirms that God fearing Americans are the only viable culture on the planet, that they alone are capable of confronting ‘alien’ intelligence and that they will do so the way they have always done: with brute force. Above all, with quote after quote to substantiate his claims, he establishes that the Bible has been telling the truth all along. Moving on from the little gray commuter gnomes wearing cardboard suits in Communion, Strieber’s current batch of other worldy meanies are reptilian; proving that the Biblical snakes, leviathans and ragons were real, have always been at war with mankind, and finally now have a chance of winning.
These creatures embody all the cliché characteristics of comic book evildoers and evoke nothing mysterious, otherworldly, or even remotely alien. They resort to such mundane exchanges as “Shut up bitch” and “How
dare you!” and when under stress: “...DO IT NOW GODDAMN YOU!” In comic book world this is fine. When Biblical scripture is used to legitimize the context however it’s an insidious form of religious indoctrination.
Particularly when it’s reinforced with specious ‘scientific’ data.
Astronomy scholars contend that the alignment in question already occurred in its maximum configuration in 1997 and that the sun will continue to make the same transit for the following fifteen years. It will resume an even more ideal position in 2030. The sun however can never align perfectly in this way, because its path through the heavens, as seen from the Earth, lies more than 5º above the so called 'Galactic Center.'
Maya scholars contend that there are no references to “changes in human consciousness” in the completion of the 13th Katun in any existing Maya texts; either on stellae, murals, or in codices. Neither is there anything to suggest that a specific astronomical event occurred at the beginning of the Long Count nor that one will occur in 2012. The fact that Chinese history records a lineage of Kings going back 23,000 years prior to 3114 BC suggests that human consciousness did not suffer a particularly noticeable shift at that time.
The relentless barrage of disaster movies and books expresses an impending sense of doom that is indeed based on sound evidence. In the ast however, cataclysms elsewhere on the planet were often remote and went unnoticed except by those immediately involved. Nowadays, instant worldwide communication, the need for news and its need to keep a consumer population permanently in a state of panic results in a continuous diet of disaster and planetary mayhem. Fictionalized versions of these calamities serve both to reinforce and to relieve anxieties by vicariously confronting them, defeating them and then returning to ‘normal’. A lulling Control routine oscillating between Def Cons 1 and 2 The battle against evil cannot be won, simply because the concept of good relies entirely on bad in order to exist. Everything that exists is defined by virtue of that which it is not. In order for bad to be banished from the world, good would have to go with it. The only way such an idea can be removed from human experience is by removing humans altogether. By truly “ending human consciousness as we know it.” Given the appalling insoluble insanity that prevails this is not such a bad idea.
It was the conclusion of Ah Pook is Here.
Having human sensibility mutate into a novel form of parrot say, or an elegant flying squid hardly seems like a vision of Hell. Certainly not punishment. It’s only religious indoctrination that suggests that all other life on earth is somehow inferior. The human ideals of care, altruism, and sincerity are all clearly evidenced in the rest of nature. Duplicity, insanity and the need to control on the other hand are not. The added disappointment of Ah Pook’s conclusion to me was that Bill in his textonly version reneged on that idea. The parrot it turned out was a ‘tree house’ parrot with a steering wheel up its ass.
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Ah Pook The Destroyer
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© Malcolm Mc Neill 2008
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