Mayanism
Encyclopedia
Mayanism is a non-codified eclectic collection of New Age
beliefs, influenced in part by Pre-Columbian
Maya mythology
and some folk beliefs of the modern Maya peoples
. Adherents of this belief system are not to be confused with Mayanist
s, scholars who research the historical Maya civilization
.
Contemporary Mayanism places less emphasis on contacts between the ancient Maya and lost lands
than in the work of early writers such as Charles Étienne Brasseur de Bourbourg
and Augustus Le Plongeon
, alluding instead to possible contacts with extraterrestrial life
. However, it continues to include references to Atlantis
. Notions about extraterrestrial influence on the Maya can be traced to the book Chariots of the Gods? by Erich von Däniken
, whose ancient astronaut theories were in turn influenced by the work of Peter Kolosimo
and especially the team of Jacques Bergier
and Louis Pauwels
, authors of Le Matin des Magiciens
. These latter writers were inspired by the fantasy
literature of H. P. Lovecraft
and publications by Charles Fort
. However, there remain elements of fascination with lost continents
and lost civilizations, especially as popularized by 19th century science fiction
and speculative fiction
by authors such as Jules Verne
, Edward Bulwer-Lytton, and H. Rider Haggard
and the more recent pseudoscientific
nonfiction of authors such as Zecharia Sitchin
and Graham Hancock
. Mayanism experienced a revival in the 1970s through the work of Frank Waters
, a writer on the subject of Hopi
mythology. In 1970, Waters was the recipient of a Rockefeller Foundation
grant to support research in Mexico and Central America. This resulted in his 1975 book Mexico Mystique: The Coming Sixth World of Consciousness, a discussion of Mesoamerican
culture strongly colored by Waters' beliefs in astrology
, prophecy
, and the lost continent of Atlantis
. It has gained new momentum in the context of the 2012 phenomenon
, especially as presented in the work of New Age
author John Major Jenkins
, who asserts that Mayanism is "the essential core ideas or teachings of Maya religion and philosophy" in his 2009 book The 2012 Story: The Myths, Fallacies, and Truth Behind the Most Intriguing Date in History..
Mayanism therefore has a complex history that draws from many different sources on the fringes of mainstream archaeology
. It has gained growing attention through its influence on popular culture
through pulp fiction
, science fiction
, fantasy literature
, and more recently cinema
, graphic novels, fantasy
role-playing games (especially Dungeons & Dragons
), and video games. It has also drawn inspiration from the success of The Celestine Prophecy
by James Redfield
, a novel that refers to the fictional discovery of a Pre-Columbian self-help
manuscript in South America.
Mayanism has been promoted by specific publishing houses, most notably Inner Traditions - Bear & Company
, which has produced a number of books on the theme of 2012 by authors such as José Argüelles
, John Major Jenkins
, Carl Johan Calleman
, and Barbara Hand Clow. Jeremy P. Tarcher, Inc. has published works by New Age authors Daniel Pinchbeck
and John Major Jenkins
that have further contributed to a growing interest in Mayanism. The Book of Destiny: Unlocking the Secrets of the Ancient Mayans and the Prophecy of 2012, by Guatemalan author Carlos Barrios, is another recent contribution to this genre.
in the New World (an idea first explored by Christopher Columbus
in his 1501 Book of Prophecies
). However, it was most heavily influenced by the 19th century scholarship of Charles Étienne Brasseur de Bourbourg
, who made significant academic contributions (including re-discovery of the Popol Vuh
), but towards the end of his career became convinced that the ancient Maya culture could be traced to the lost continent of Atlantis
. For example, in 1857 Brasseur identified Votan
as a Phoenicia
n ruler who founded Palenque
and in an article published in 1872 attributed mythological Mesoamerican cataclysms to an early version of pole shift theory
. Brasseur's work, some of which was illustrated by the talented but very inaccurate Jean-Frédéric Waldeck
, influenced other works of pseudoscience
and pseudohistory
, such as the research of Désiré Charnay
, Augustus Le Plongeon
, Ignatius L. Donnelly, and James Churchward
. Le Plongeon and Donnelly in turn influenced the work of writers such as Madame Blavatsky
and Rudolf Steiner
, who brought misconceptions about the ancient Maya into early New Age circles. These ideas became part of a belief system fostered by psychic Edgar Cayce
in the early 20th century and later popularized in the 1960s by author Jess Stearn
. One example of early Mayanism is the creation of a group called the Mayan Temple by Harold D. Emerson of Brooklyn, a self-proclaimed Maya priest who edited a serial publication titled The Mayan, Devoted to Spiritual Enlightenment and Scientific Religion between 1933 and 1941. Attempts at a synthesis of religion and science, a common theme in Mayanism, are one of the contributions from Theosophy
while Emerson would be an early example of a plastic shaman
in Mayanism.
. This includes insights into cosmology
and eschatology
as well as lost knowledge of advanced technology and ecology
that, when known, can be used to improve the human condition and create a future Utopia. However, as a New Age belief system, Mayanism scorns academic scholarship, giving preference to knowledge gained through revelation
and prophesy and to traditional knowledge
(or what is imagined to be traditional knowledge). Mayanism literature frequently features beliefs and theories that ignore and reject physical evidence, facts, or knowledge, particularly when that evidence supports the academic Mayanist theories that contradict Mayanism's beliefs. As a result, the beliefs of Mayanism tend to be characterized by a combination of esotericism
and syncretism
, rather than being the result of either formal controlled field research or detailed scholarly research that has been based on a broad range of primary sources.
in contemporary astrology
. One example of this would be the Dreamspell
promoted by New Age
spiritual leader José Argüelles
. Maya astrology was also promoted by Kenneth Johnson in his book Jaguar Wisdom: Mayan Calendar Magic. Another example would be the "Mayan Time Science" described by Carl Johan Calleman
in his book Solving the Greatest Mystery of Our Time: The Mayan Calendar, which also promotes a model of unilineal evolution
based on the author's interpretations of calendric cycles. The work of Ian Lungold also falls into this category.
cycle of the Maya calendar
in 2012, which many believe will create a global "consciousness shift" and the beginning of a new age. This has come to be known as the 2012 phenomenon
. Speculation about this date can be traced to the first edition of The Maya (1966) by Michael D. Coe
, in which he suggested the date of December 24, 2011 as one on which the Maya believed "Armageddon would overtake the degenerate peoples of the world and all creation.". This date became the subject of speculation by Frank Waters
, who devotes two chapters to its interpretation, including discussion of an astrological chart for this date and its association with Hopi prophecies in Mexico Mystique: The Coming Sixth World of Consciousness (1975). The significance of the year 2012 (but not a specific day) was mentioned briefly by José Argüelles
in The Transformative Vision: Reflections on the Nature and History of Human Expression (1975) and (without reference to the ancient Maya) by Terence McKenna
and Dennis McKenna
in The Invisible Landscape: Mind, Hallucinogens, and the I Ching (1975).
Waters' book inspired further speculation in the mid-1980s, including revision of the date by the McKennas, Argüelles, and John Major Jenkins
to one corresponding with the winter solstice
in 2012. Interpretations of the date became the subject of further speculation by José Argüelles
in The Mayan Factor: Path Beyond Technology (1987), promoted for the 1987 Harmonic Convergence
. It received further elaboration in the Novelty theory of Terence McKenna
. The supposed prediction of an astronomical conjunction of the black hole
at the center of the Milky Way
galaxy with the winter solstice
Sun
on December 21, 2012, referred to by Jenkins in Maya Cosmogenesis 2012: The True Meaning of the Maya Calendar End-Date (1998) and Galactic Alignment:The Transformation of Consciousness According to Mayan, Egyptian, and Vedic Traditions (2002) as having been predicted by the ancient Maya and others, is a much-anticipated event in Mayanism. Although Jenkins suggests that ancient Maya knowledge of this event was based on observations of the "dark rift
" in the Milky Way as seen from Earth (this dark rift, it is said by some Mayan scholars, was believed by some Mayans to be one of the entrances to Xibalba
), others see it as evidence of knowledge imparted via ancient contact with extraterrestrial intelligence. The relevance of modern "dark rift" observations to Pre-Columbian and traditional Maya beliefs is strongly debated, and academic archaeologists reject all theories regarding extraterrestrial contact, but it is clear that the promotion of Mayanism through interest in 2012 is contributing to the evolution of religious syncretism
in contemporary Maya communities. Psychonaut author Daniel Pinchbeck
popularized New Age
concepts about this date, linking it to beliefs about crop circles, alien abduction, and personal revelations based on the use of entheogens and mediumship
in his 2006 book 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl.
Carl Johan Calleman
differs in that he sees 28 October 2011 and not 21 December 2012 as the pivotal end date. Calleman does not see the date as an apocalypse but a slow transformation of consciousness with people beginning to experience a higher 'unity consciousness'.
has become a significant component of Mayanism, in part due to the scholarly interpretation of ancient Maya rulers as shamans and the popularity of Carlos Castaneda
, whose books described his apprenticeship to a Yaqui sorcerer. However, Castaneda's work is seen as being fictional, inaccurate, misleading, and plagiaristic
, and there is no proof that don Juan (the sorcerer) is not a fictional character. Although the Yaqui are indigenous to the Sonoran Desert
region of northern Mexico and southern Arizona, far from the Maya region, Mayanism often conflates the concept of Toltec (Castaneda)
with the Toltec
who interacted with the ancient Maya. This stems from 19th century speculations by Brasseur and Charnay about the Toltecs as a white, Aryan race
that brought advanced civilization to the Americas either through a migration from Asia across the Bering Strait (according to Charnay) or emigration from the lost continent of Atlantis (according to Brasseur).
One of many themes in Mayanism related to shamanism is the use of entheogens to induce altered states of consciousness and thereby gain insight and wisdom. The most common medicinal plant used by the ancient Maya was tobacco
(Nicotiana
), which was ingested by smoking or drinking an infusion. The use of a number of psychotropic substances is well documented in the culture of ancient Mesoamerica
. These include various mushrooms that contain psilocybin
, the morning glory
, (Ipomoea
and Rivea corymbosa
), the moonflower (Datura
spp.), the water lily (Nymphaea
), cohoba (Anadenanthera
spp.), and the cane toad
(Bufo marinus), a source of bufotenin
, However, the importance of entheogens by the ancient Maya has been inferred primarily through the study of iconography
rather than direct archaeological evidence. This includes representations of the administration of substances by enema
in ancient Maya art. Some of these methodes have been also used for Miguel Ángel Ruiz
, another author who has also used fake "Toltec" concepts in his books.
phenomenal beliefs as in the lost continent of Atlantis
, reverence for crystal skull
s, and mediumship
of extraterrestrial entities such as the Pleiadeans.
, including non-Maya groups such as the Hopi
, the Aztecs, and the Incas. Sacred sites such as Machu Picchu
, a royal estate of the Inca empire
in Peru
are a common destination for spiritual retreats that drawn upon themes from Mayanism. One of the oldest themes in Mayanism that dates to the 19th century, as emphasized in the artwork of Waldeck and the writings of Brasseur, Charnay Le Plongeon, Donnelly, and others, is the presumed relationship between the ancient Maya and ancient Egypt
. (This is also a theme in pyramidology
.) However, the Classic period period (AD 200-900), during which the ancient Maya flourished, is much later in time than ancient Egyptian
civilization.
One of the non-Maya symbols frequently associated with Mayanism is called "Hunab Ku
." This symbol is derived from illustrations in the Aztec codex known as Codex Magliabechiano
, where it appears (in yellow and black) in the upper left hand corner of p. 5/2 of a facsimile published by Zelia Nuttall
as The Book of the Life of the Ancient Mexicans, Containing an Account of Their Rites and Superstitions, an Anonymous Hispano-Mexican Manuscript Preserved at the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Florence, Italy in 1903. It is labeled as a "manta de agua de araña" ("spider water mantle") that was associated with the Festival of the Lip Plugs. The symbol was largely ignored until sometime after 1983, when Elizabeth Boone published a new facsimile of the Codex Magliabecchiano. It was reproduced by José Argüelles in his 1987 book The Mayan Factor, a text frequently referenced in contemporary Mayanism. The name "Hunab Ku" (One God) appears in the post-Conquest, syncretistic Chilam Balam
as a concept introduced by Catholic missionaries to promote monotheism among speakers of the Yucatec Maya language. Within Mayanism, the symbol evokes the concept of yin and yang
(Eastern syncretism) as well as the Milky Way
galaxy (ancient Maya knowledge of which is often explained by ancient astronaut theories).
Another non-Maya image that appears often in Mayanism is the Aztec sun stone
, itself frequently associated with the Aztec calendar
, a monument depicting either Tonatiuh
or Tlaltecuhtli
together with symbolic representations of past cataclysms.
, a Bosnian-American businessman from Houston, who claims Maya associations with Bosnian pyramids
at the site of Visočica Hill, northwest of Sarajevo, Bosnia. In his book The World of the Maya, Osmanagić asserts that the Maya came from the Pleiades by way of Atlantis. This theory has been popular in Bosnia, where investigation of the "pyramids" (identified by scientists as natural geological features) have attracted more tourists and government funding than have actual archaeological sites and academic research.
was inaugurated as the President of Guatemala. Colom is said to have been ordained as a "non-Mayan Mayan priest" by Alejandro Cirilio Pérez Oxlaj, who represented the Maya people at his inauguration. A BBC article reports that "he will regularly consult a group of spiritual leaders, known as the Mayan Elders National Council". (This group has also been identified as the National Mayan Council of Elders of Guatemala, the Consejo de Ancianos Mayas, Council of Elders of the Sacred Mayas, and other names.)
literature by William Burroughs, who had studied the ancient Maya in classes with Alfred Tozzer
at Harvard in the 1930s, and Allen Ginsberg
, who traveled in the Yucatan Peninsula
, Chiapas
, and Guatemala
in the 1950s. In 1974, Ginsberg helped found The Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University
in Boulder, Colorado, where themes that contributed to emergent Mayanism were explored in literature and art. José Argüelles
, a central figure in Mayanism, is an alumnus. Charles Olson
of Black Mountain College
had a fascination with Mayan hieroglyphs and wrote a book, The Mayan Letters (1953), based on his correspondence from Mexico with poet Robert Creeley
. The novel 2012: The War for Souls (2007) by Whitley Strieber
is heavily influenced by Mayanism.
New Age
The New Age movement is a Western spiritual movement that developed in the second half of the 20th century. Its central precepts have been described as "drawing on both Eastern and Western spiritual and metaphysical traditions and then infusing them with influences from self-help and motivational...
beliefs, influenced in part by Pre-Columbian
Pre-Columbian
The pre-Columbian era incorporates all period subdivisions in the history and prehistory of the Americas before the appearance of significant European influences on the American continents, spanning the time of the original settlement in the Upper Paleolithic period to European colonization during...
Maya mythology
Maya mythology
Mayan mythology is part of Mesoamerican mythology and comprises all of the Mayan tales in which personified forces of nature, deities, and the heroes interacting with these play the main roles...
and some folk beliefs of the modern Maya peoples
Maya peoples
The Maya people constitute a diverse range of the Native American people of southern Mexico and northern Central America. The overarching term "Maya" is a collective designation to include the peoples of the region who share some degree of cultural and linguistic heritage; however, the term...
. Adherents of this belief system are not to be confused with Mayanist
Mayanist
A Mayanist is a scholar specialising in research and study of the Central American pre-Columbian Maya civilization. This discipline should not be confused with Mayanism, a collection of New Age beliefs about the ancient Maya....
s, scholars who research the historical Maya civilization
Maya civilization
The Maya is a Mesoamerican civilization, noted for the only known fully developed written language of the pre-Columbian Americas, as well as for its art, architecture, and mathematical and astronomical systems. Initially established during the Pre-Classic period The Maya is a Mesoamerican...
.
Contemporary Mayanism places less emphasis on contacts between the ancient Maya and lost lands
Lost lands
Lost lands can be continents, islands or other regions supposedly existing during prehistory, having since disappeared as a result of catastrophic geological phenomena or slowly rising sea levels since the end of the last Ice Age. Lost lands, where they existed, are supposed to have subsided into...
than in the work of early writers such as Charles Étienne Brasseur de Bourbourg
Charles Etienne Brasseur de Bourbourg
Abbé Charles-Étienne Brasseur de Bourbourg was a noted French writer, ethnographer, historian and archaeologist...
and Augustus Le Plongeon
Augustus Le Plongeon
Augustus Le Plongeon was a photographer and antiquarian who studied the pre-Columbian ruins of America, particularly those of the Maya civilization on the northern Yucatán Peninsula. While his writings contain many eccentric notions that were discredited by later researchers, Le Plongeon left a...
, alluding instead to possible contacts with extraterrestrial life
Extraterrestrial life
Extraterrestrial life is defined as life that does not originate from Earth...
. However, it continues to include references to Atlantis
Atlantis
Atlantis is a legendary island first mentioned in Plato's dialogues Timaeus and Critias, written about 360 BC....
. Notions about extraterrestrial influence on the Maya can be traced to the book Chariots of the Gods? by Erich von Däniken
Erich von Däniken
Erich Anton Paul von Däniken is a Swiss author best known for his controversial claims about extraterrestrial influences on early human culture, in books such as Chariots of the Gods?, published in 1968...
, whose ancient astronaut theories were in turn influenced by the work of Peter Kolosimo
Peter Kolosimo
Peter Kolosimo, pseudonym of Pier Domenico Colosimo was an Italian journalist and writer. Together with the later Erich von Däniken, he is ranked amongst the founders of pseudoarchaeology .Born in Modena, he lived in Bolzano for much of his life...
and especially the team of Jacques Bergier
Jacques Bergier
Jacques Bergier , was a chemical engineer, member of the French-resistance, spy, journalist and writer...
and Louis Pauwels
Louis Pauwels
Louis Pauwels was a French journalist and writer.- Biography :Louis Pauwels was a teacher at Athis-Mons from 1939 to 1945 , Louis Pauwels wrote in many monthly literary French magazines as early as 1946 until the...
, authors of Le Matin des Magiciens
Le Matin des Magiciens
The Morning of the Magicians was first published as Le Matin des magiciens. Written by Louis Pauwels and Jacques Bergier in 1960, it became a best seller, first in French, then translated into English in 1963 as The Dawn of Magic, and later released in the United States as The Morning of the...
. These latter writers were inspired by the fantasy
Fantasy
Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...
literature of H. P. Lovecraft
H. P. Lovecraft
Howard Phillips Lovecraft --often credited as H.P. Lovecraft — was an American author of horror, fantasy and science fiction, especially the subgenre known as weird fiction....
and publications by Charles Fort
Charles Fort
Charles Hoy Fort was an American writer and researcher into anomalous phenomena. Today, the terms Fortean and Forteana are used to characterize various such phenomena. Fort's books sold well and are still in print today.-Biography:Charles Hoy Fort was born in 1874 in Albany, New York, of Dutch...
. However, there remain elements of fascination with lost continents
Lost lands
Lost lands can be continents, islands or other regions supposedly existing during prehistory, having since disappeared as a result of catastrophic geological phenomena or slowly rising sea levels since the end of the last Ice Age. Lost lands, where they existed, are supposed to have subsided into...
and lost civilizations, especially as popularized by 19th century science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
and speculative fiction
Speculative fiction
Speculative fiction is an umbrella term encompassing the more fantastical fiction genres, specifically science fiction, fantasy, horror, supernatural fiction, superhero fiction, utopian and dystopian fiction, apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction, and alternate history in literature as well as...
by authors such as Jules Verne
Jules Verne
Jules Gabriel Verne was a French author who pioneered the science fiction genre. He is best known for his novels Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea , A Journey to the Center of the Earth , and Around the World in Eighty Days...
, Edward Bulwer-Lytton, and H. Rider Haggard
H. Rider Haggard
Sir Henry Rider Haggard, KBE was an English writer of adventure novels set in exotic locations, predominantly Africa, and a founder of the Lost World literary genre. He was also involved in agricultural reform around the British Empire...
and the more recent pseudoscientific
Pseudoscience
Pseudoscience is a claim, belief, or practice which is presented as scientific, but which does not adhere to a valid scientific method, lacks supporting evidence or plausibility, cannot be reliably tested, or otherwise lacks scientific status...
nonfiction of authors such as Zecharia Sitchin
Zecharia Sitchin
Zecharia Sitchin was an Azerbaijani-born American author of books promoting an explanation for human origins involving ancient astronauts. Sitchin attributes the creation of the ancient Sumerian culture to the Anunnaki, which he states was a race of extra-terrestrials from a planet beyond Neptune...
and Graham Hancock
Graham Hancock
Graham Hancock is a British writer and journalist. Hancock specialises in unconventional theories involving ancient civilizations, stone monuments or megaliths, altered states of consciousness, ancient myths and astronomical/astrological data from the past...
. Mayanism experienced a revival in the 1970s through the work of Frank Waters
Frank Waters
Frank Waters was an American writer. He is known for his novels and historical works about the American Southwest...
, a writer on the subject of Hopi
Hopi
The Hopi are a federally recognized tribe of indigenous Native American people, who primarily live on the Hopi Reservation in northeastern Arizona. The Hopi area according to the 2000 census has a population of 6,946 people. Their Hopi language is one of the 30 of the Uto-Aztecan language...
mythology. In 1970, Waters was the recipient of a Rockefeller Foundation
Rockefeller Foundation
The Rockefeller Foundation is a prominent philanthropic organization and private foundation based at 420 Fifth Avenue, New York City. The preeminent institution established by the six-generation Rockefeller family, it was founded by John D. Rockefeller , along with his son John D. Rockefeller, Jr...
grant to support research in Mexico and Central America. This resulted in his 1975 book Mexico Mystique: The Coming Sixth World of Consciousness, a discussion of Mesoamerican
Mesoamerica
Mesoamerica is a region and culture area in the Americas, extending approximately from central Mexico to Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, within which a number of pre-Columbian societies flourished before the Spanish colonization of the Americas in the 15th and...
culture strongly colored by Waters' beliefs in astrology
Astrology
Astrology consists of a number of belief systems which hold that there is a relationship between astronomical phenomena and events in the human world...
, prophecy
Prophecy
Prophecy is a process in which one or more messages that have been communicated to a prophet are then communicated to others. Such messages typically involve divine inspiration, interpretation, or revelation of conditioned events to come as well as testimonies or repeated revelations that the...
, and the lost continent of Atlantis
Atlantis
Atlantis is a legendary island first mentioned in Plato's dialogues Timaeus and Critias, written about 360 BC....
. It has gained new momentum in the context of the 2012 phenomenon
2012 phenomenon
The 2012 phenomenon comprises a range of eschatological beliefs that cataclysmic or transformative events will occur on December 21, 2012. This date is regarded as the end-date of a 5,125-year-long cycle in the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar...
, especially as presented in the work of New Age
New Age
The New Age movement is a Western spiritual movement that developed in the second half of the 20th century. Its central precepts have been described as "drawing on both Eastern and Western spiritual and metaphysical traditions and then infusing them with influences from self-help and motivational...
author John Major Jenkins
John Major Jenkins
John Major Jenkins is an American author and independent researcher, best known for his works that theorize certain astronomical and esoteric connections of the calendar systems used by the Maya civilization of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica...
, who asserts that Mayanism is "the essential core ideas or teachings of Maya religion and philosophy" in his 2009 book The 2012 Story: The Myths, Fallacies, and Truth Behind the Most Intriguing Date in History..
Mayanism therefore has a complex history that draws from many different sources on the fringes of mainstream archaeology
Archaeology
Archaeology, or archeology , is the study of human society, primarily through the recovery and analysis of the material culture and environmental data that they have left behind, which includes artifacts, architecture, biofacts and cultural landscapes...
. It has gained growing attention through its influence on popular culture
Popular culture
Popular culture is the totality of ideas, perspectives, attitudes, memes, images and other phenomena that are deemed preferred per an informal consensus within the mainstream of a given culture, especially Western culture of the early to mid 20th century and the emerging global mainstream of the...
through pulp fiction
Pulp magazine
Pulp magazines , also collectively known as pulp fiction, refers to inexpensive fiction magazines published from 1896 through the 1950s. The typical pulp magazine was seven inches wide by ten inches high, half an inch thick, and 128 pages long...
, science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
, fantasy literature
Fantasy literature
Fantasy literature is fantasy in written form. Historically speaking, literature has composed the majority of fantasy works. Since the 1950s however, a growing segment of the fantasy genre has taken the form of films, television programs, graphic novels, video games, music, painting, and other...
, and more recently cinema
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
, graphic novels, fantasy
Fantasy
Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...
role-playing games (especially Dungeons & Dragons
Dungeons & Dragons
Dungeons & Dragons is a fantasy role-playing game originally designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, and first published in 1974 by Tactical Studies Rules, Inc. . The game has been published by Wizards of the Coast since 1997...
), and video games. It has also drawn inspiration from the success of The Celestine Prophecy
The Celestine Prophecy
The Celestine Prophecy is a 1993 novel by James Redfield that discusses various psychological and spiritual ideas which are rooted in many ancient Eastern Traditions and New Age spirituality. The main character of the novel undertakes a journey to find and understand a series of nine spiritual...
by James Redfield
James Redfield
James Redfield is an American author, lecturer, screenwriter and film producer. He is notable for his novel The Celestine Prophecy .-Biography:...
, a novel that refers to the fictional discovery of a Pre-Columbian self-help
Self-help
Self-help, or self-improvement, is a self-guided improvement—economically, intellectually, or emotionally—often with a substantial psychological basis. There are many different self-help movements and each has its own focus, techniques, associated beliefs, proponents and in some cases, leaders...
manuscript in South America.
Mayanism has been promoted by specific publishing houses, most notably Inner Traditions - Bear & Company
Inner Traditions - Bear & Company
Inner Traditions – Bear & Company, also known as Inner Traditions, is a book publisher founded by Ehud Sperling in 1975 and based in Rochester, Vermont in the United States....
, which has produced a number of books on the theme of 2012 by authors such as José Argüelles
Jose Arguelles
Joseph Anthony Arguelles , better known as José Argüelles, was a world-renowned author, artist, visionary and educator. He was the founder of Planet Art Network and the Foundation for the Law of Time. He held a Ph.D...
, John Major Jenkins
John Major Jenkins
John Major Jenkins is an American author and independent researcher, best known for his works that theorize certain astronomical and esoteric connections of the calendar systems used by the Maya civilization of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica...
, Carl Johan Calleman
Carl Johan Calleman
Carl Johan Calleman, , is a toxicologist as well as an author and speaker on the millenarian New Age interpretation of the Mayan calendar known as Mayanism. He differs from professional Mayanists in seeing 28 October 2011 and not 21 December 2012 as a significant date...
, and Barbara Hand Clow. Jeremy P. Tarcher, Inc. has published works by New Age authors Daniel Pinchbeck
Daniel Pinchbeck
Daniel Pinchbeck is an author living in New York’s East Village, where he is editorial director of Reality Sandwich, a blog website centered around New Age philosophy and activism. He is the author of Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism and 2012:...
and John Major Jenkins
John Major Jenkins
John Major Jenkins is an American author and independent researcher, best known for his works that theorize certain astronomical and esoteric connections of the calendar systems used by the Maya civilization of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica...
that have further contributed to a growing interest in Mayanism. The Book of Destiny: Unlocking the Secrets of the Ancient Mayans and the Prophecy of 2012, by Guatemalan author Carlos Barrios, is another recent contribution to this genre.
History
Mayanism can be traced to the sixteenth-century book Utopia by Sir Thomas More, who developed the concept of a utopiaUtopia
Utopia is an ideal community or society possessing a perfect socio-politico-legal system. The word was imported from Greek by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book Utopia, describing a fictional island in the Atlantic Ocean. The term has been used to describe both intentional communities that attempt...
in the New World (an idea first explored by Christopher Columbus
Christopher Columbus
Christopher Columbus was an explorer, colonizer, and navigator, born in the Republic of Genoa, in northwestern Italy. Under the auspices of the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, he completed four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean that led to general European awareness of the American continents in the...
in his 1501 Book of Prophecies
Book of Prophecies
The Book of Prophecies is a compilation of apocalyptical religious revelations written by Christopher Columbus towards the end of his life, probably with the assistance of his friend the Carthusian monk Gaspar Gorricio...
). However, it was most heavily influenced by the 19th century scholarship of Charles Étienne Brasseur de Bourbourg
Charles Etienne Brasseur de Bourbourg
Abbé Charles-Étienne Brasseur de Bourbourg was a noted French writer, ethnographer, historian and archaeologist...
, who made significant academic contributions (including re-discovery of the Popol Vuh
Popol Vuh
Popol Vuh is a corpus of mytho-historical narratives of the Post Classic Quiché kingdom in Guatemala's western highlands. The title translates as "Book of the Community," "Book of Counsel," or more literally as "Book of the People."...
), but towards the end of his career became convinced that the ancient Maya culture could be traced to the lost continent of Atlantis
Atlantis
Atlantis is a legendary island first mentioned in Plato's dialogues Timaeus and Critias, written about 360 BC....
. For example, in 1857 Brasseur identified Votan
Votan
Votan is a legendary or mythological figure mentioned in early European accounts of the Maya civilization.-Origins of the Votan story:The story of Votan in Mexico dates back to at least the late 17th century. It was first published in Constituciones diocesanas del obispado de Chiappa by Francisco...
as a Phoenicia
Phoenicia
Phoenicia , was an ancient civilization in Canaan which covered most of the western, coastal part of the Fertile Crescent. Several major Phoenician cities were built on the coastline of the Mediterranean. It was an enterprising maritime trading culture that spread across the Mediterranean from 1550...
n ruler who founded Palenque
Palenque
Palenque was a Maya city state in southern Mexico that flourished in the 7th century. The Palenque ruins date back to 100 BC to its fall around 800 AD...
and in an article published in 1872 attributed mythological Mesoamerican cataclysms to an early version of pole shift theory
Pole shift theory
The cataclysmic pole shift hypothesis suggests that there have been geologically rapid shifts in the relative positions of the modern-day geographic locations of the poles and the axis of rotation of the Earth, creating calamities such as floods and tectonic events.No form of the hypothesis is...
. Brasseur's work, some of which was illustrated by the talented but very inaccurate Jean-Frédéric Waldeck
Jean-Frédéric Waldeck
Jean-Frédéric Maximilien de Waldeck was a French antiquarian, cartographer, artist and explorer.-Biography:...
, influenced other works of pseudoscience
Pseudoscience
Pseudoscience is a claim, belief, or practice which is presented as scientific, but which does not adhere to a valid scientific method, lacks supporting evidence or plausibility, cannot be reliably tested, or otherwise lacks scientific status...
and pseudohistory
Pseudohistory
Pseudohistory is a pejorative term applied to a type of historical revisionism, often involving sensational claims whose acceptance would require rewriting a significant amount of commonly accepted history, and based on methods that depart from standard historiographical conventions.Cryptohistory...
, such as the research of Désiré Charnay
Désiré Charnay
Claude-Joseph Désiré Charnay was a French traveller and archaeologist notable both for his explorations of Mexico and Central America, and for the pioneering use of photography to document his discoveries....
, Augustus Le Plongeon
Augustus Le Plongeon
Augustus Le Plongeon was a photographer and antiquarian who studied the pre-Columbian ruins of America, particularly those of the Maya civilization on the northern Yucatán Peninsula. While his writings contain many eccentric notions that were discredited by later researchers, Le Plongeon left a...
, Ignatius L. Donnelly, and James Churchward
James Churchward
James Churchward is best known as a British born occult writer. However, he was also a patented inventor, engineer, and expert fisherman....
. Le Plongeon and Donnelly in turn influenced the work of writers such as Madame Blavatsky
Madame Blavatsky
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky , was a theosophist, writer and traveler. Between 1848 and 1875 Blavatsky had gone around the world three times. In 1875, Blavatsky together with Colonel H. S. Olcott established the Theosophical Society...
and Rudolf Steiner
Rudolf Steiner
Rudolf Joseph Lorenz Steiner was an Austrian philosopher, social reformer, architect, and esotericist. He gained initial recognition as a literary critic and cultural philosopher...
, who brought misconceptions about the ancient Maya into early New Age circles. These ideas became part of a belief system fostered by psychic Edgar Cayce
Edgar Cayce
Edgar Cayce was an American psychic who allegedly had the ability to give answers to questions on subjects such as healing or Atlantis while in a hypnotic trance...
in the early 20th century and later popularized in the 1960s by author Jess Stearn
Jess Stearn
Jess Stearn , born in Syracuse, New York, was a journalist and author of more than thirty books, nine of which were bestsellers. He was a prize-winning reporter for the New York Daily News for 17 years, and was later an Associate Editor at Newsweek...
. One example of early Mayanism is the creation of a group called the Mayan Temple by Harold D. Emerson of Brooklyn, a self-proclaimed Maya priest who edited a serial publication titled The Mayan, Devoted to Spiritual Enlightenment and Scientific Religion between 1933 and 1941. Attempts at a synthesis of religion and science, a common theme in Mayanism, are one of the contributions from Theosophy
Theosophy
Theosophy, in its modern presentation, is a spiritual philosophy developed since the late 19th century. Its major themes were originally described mainly by Helena Blavatsky , co-founder of the Theosophical Society...
while Emerson would be an early example of a plastic shaman
Plastic shaman
Plastic shaman is a pejorative colloquialism applied to individuals who are attempting to pass themselves off as shamans, holy people, or other traditional spiritual leaders, but who have no genuine connection to the traditions or cultures they claim to represent...
in Mayanism.
Basic beliefs
Since Mayanism is used to refer to a diverse collection of beliefs, it has no central doctrine. However, a basic premise is that the ancient Maya understood aspects of the human experience and human consciousness that remain poorly understood in modern Western cultureWestern culture
Western culture, sometimes equated with Western civilization or European civilization, refers to cultures of European origin and is used very broadly to refer to a heritage of social norms, ethical values, traditional customs, religious beliefs, political systems, and specific artifacts and...
. This includes insights into cosmology
Cosmology
Cosmology is the discipline that deals with the nature of the Universe as a whole. Cosmologists seek to understand the origin, evolution, structure, and ultimate fate of the Universe at large, as well as the natural laws that keep it in order...
and eschatology
Eschatology
Eschatology is a part of theology, philosophy, and futurology concerned with what are believed to be the final events in history, or the ultimate destiny of humanity, commonly referred to as the end of the world or the World to Come...
as well as lost knowledge of advanced technology and ecology
Ecology
Ecology is the scientific study of the relations that living organisms have with respect to each other and their natural environment. Variables of interest to ecologists include the composition, distribution, amount , number, and changing states of organisms within and among ecosystems...
that, when known, can be used to improve the human condition and create a future Utopia. However, as a New Age belief system, Mayanism scorns academic scholarship, giving preference to knowledge gained through revelation
Revelation
In religion and theology, revelation is the revealing or disclosing, through active or passive communication with a supernatural or a divine entity...
and prophesy and to traditional knowledge
Traditional knowledge
Traditional knowledge , indigenous knowledge , traditional environmental knowledge and local knowledge generally refer to the long-standing traditions and practices of certain regional, indigenous, or local communities. Traditional knowledge also encompasses the wisdom, knowledge, and teachings...
(or what is imagined to be traditional knowledge). Mayanism literature frequently features beliefs and theories that ignore and reject physical evidence, facts, or knowledge, particularly when that evidence supports the academic Mayanist theories that contradict Mayanism's beliefs. As a result, the beliefs of Mayanism tend to be characterized by a combination of esotericism
Esotericism
Esotericism or Esoterism signifies the holding of esoteric opinions or beliefs, that is, ideas preserved or understood by a small group or those specially initiated, or of rare or unusual interest. The term derives from the Greek , a compound of : "within", thus "pertaining to the more inward",...
and syncretism
Syncretism
Syncretism is the combining of different beliefs, often while melding practices of various schools of thought. The term means "combining", but see below for the origin of the word...
, rather than being the result of either formal controlled field research or detailed scholarly research that has been based on a broad range of primary sources.
Maya calendar themes
A relatively recent current in Mayanism is the use of novel, non-Maya interpretations of the Maya calendarMaya calendar
The Maya calendar is a system of calendars and almanacs used in the Maya civilization of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, and in many modern Maya communities in highland Guatemala. and in Chiapas....
in contemporary astrology
Astrology
Astrology consists of a number of belief systems which hold that there is a relationship between astronomical phenomena and events in the human world...
. One example of this would be the Dreamspell
Dreamspell
The Dreamspell is an esoteric calendar based on a modern interpretation of the Maya calendar by New Age spiritualist, Mayanist philosopher, and author José Argüelles, initiated in 1987 and released as a board game in 1993.-General overview of the calendar:...
promoted by New Age
New Age
The New Age movement is a Western spiritual movement that developed in the second half of the 20th century. Its central precepts have been described as "drawing on both Eastern and Western spiritual and metaphysical traditions and then infusing them with influences from self-help and motivational...
spiritual leader José Argüelles
Jose Arguelles
Joseph Anthony Arguelles , better known as José Argüelles, was a world-renowned author, artist, visionary and educator. He was the founder of Planet Art Network and the Foundation for the Law of Time. He held a Ph.D...
. Maya astrology was also promoted by Kenneth Johnson in his book Jaguar Wisdom: Mayan Calendar Magic. Another example would be the "Mayan Time Science" described by Carl Johan Calleman
Carl Johan Calleman
Carl Johan Calleman, , is a toxicologist as well as an author and speaker on the millenarian New Age interpretation of the Mayan calendar known as Mayanism. He differs from professional Mayanists in seeing 28 October 2011 and not 21 December 2012 as a significant date...
in his book Solving the Greatest Mystery of Our Time: The Mayan Calendar, which also promotes a model of unilineal evolution
Unilineal evolution
Unilineal evolution is a 19th century social theory about the evolution of societies and cultures. It was composed of many competing theories by various sociologists and anthropologists, who believed that Western culture is the contemporary pinnacle of social evolution...
based on the author's interpretations of calendric cycles. The work of Ian Lungold also falls into this category.
December 21, 2012
The significance of this date in Mayanism stems from the ending of the current baktunBaktun
A baktun is 20 katun cycles of the ancient Maya Long Count Calendar. It contains 144,000 days, equivalent to 394.26 tropical years. The Classic period of Maya civilization occurred during the 8th and 9th baktuns of the current calendrical cycle. The current baktun will end, or be completed, on...
cycle of the Maya calendar
Maya calendar
The Maya calendar is a system of calendars and almanacs used in the Maya civilization of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, and in many modern Maya communities in highland Guatemala. and in Chiapas....
in 2012, which many believe will create a global "consciousness shift" and the beginning of a new age. This has come to be known as the 2012 phenomenon
2012 phenomenon
The 2012 phenomenon comprises a range of eschatological beliefs that cataclysmic or transformative events will occur on December 21, 2012. This date is regarded as the end-date of a 5,125-year-long cycle in the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar...
. Speculation about this date can be traced to the first edition of The Maya (1966) by Michael D. Coe
Michael D. Coe
Michael D. Coe is an American archaeologist, anthropologist, epigrapher and author. Primarily known for his research in the field of pre-Columbian Mesoamerican studies , Coe has also made extensive investigations across a variety...
, in which he suggested the date of December 24, 2011 as one on which the Maya believed "Armageddon would overtake the degenerate peoples of the world and all creation.". This date became the subject of speculation by Frank Waters
Frank Waters
Frank Waters was an American writer. He is known for his novels and historical works about the American Southwest...
, who devotes two chapters to its interpretation, including discussion of an astrological chart for this date and its association with Hopi prophecies in Mexico Mystique: The Coming Sixth World of Consciousness (1975). The significance of the year 2012 (but not a specific day) was mentioned briefly by José Argüelles
Jose Arguelles
Joseph Anthony Arguelles , better known as José Argüelles, was a world-renowned author, artist, visionary and educator. He was the founder of Planet Art Network and the Foundation for the Law of Time. He held a Ph.D...
in The Transformative Vision: Reflections on the Nature and History of Human Expression (1975) and (without reference to the ancient Maya) by Terence McKenna
Terence McKenna
Terence Kemp McKenna was an Irish-American philosopher, psychonaut, researcher, teacher, lecturer and writer on many subjects, such as human consciousness, language, psychedelic drugs, the evolution of civilizations, the origin and end of the universe, alchemy, and extraterrestrial beings.-Early...
and Dennis McKenna
Dennis McKenna
Dennis Jon McKenna is an American ethnopharmacologist, author and brother to well-known psychedelics proponent Terence McKenna.-Profile:...
in The Invisible Landscape: Mind, Hallucinogens, and the I Ching (1975).
Waters' book inspired further speculation in the mid-1980s, including revision of the date by the McKennas, Argüelles, and John Major Jenkins
John Major Jenkins
John Major Jenkins is an American author and independent researcher, best known for his works that theorize certain astronomical and esoteric connections of the calendar systems used by the Maya civilization of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica...
to one corresponding with the winter solstice
Solstice
A solstice is an astronomical event that happens twice each year when the Sun's apparent position in the sky, as viewed from Earth, reaches its northernmost or southernmost extremes...
in 2012. Interpretations of the date became the subject of further speculation by José Argüelles
Jose Arguelles
Joseph Anthony Arguelles , better known as José Argüelles, was a world-renowned author, artist, visionary and educator. He was the founder of Planet Art Network and the Foundation for the Law of Time. He held a Ph.D...
in The Mayan Factor: Path Beyond Technology (1987), promoted for the 1987 Harmonic Convergence
Harmonic Convergence
The Harmonic Convergence is the name given to the world's first globally synchronized meditation, announced by José Argüelles, and which occurred on August 16–17, 1987, which also closely correlated to an exceptional alignment of planets in our solar system, see below .The timing of the Harmonic...
. It received further elaboration in the Novelty theory of Terence McKenna
Terence McKenna
Terence Kemp McKenna was an Irish-American philosopher, psychonaut, researcher, teacher, lecturer and writer on many subjects, such as human consciousness, language, psychedelic drugs, the evolution of civilizations, the origin and end of the universe, alchemy, and extraterrestrial beings.-Early...
. The supposed prediction of an astronomical conjunction of the black hole
Black hole
A black hole is a region of spacetime from which nothing, not even light, can escape. The theory of general relativity predicts that a sufficiently compact mass will deform spacetime to form a black hole. Around a black hole there is a mathematically defined surface called an event horizon that...
at the center of the Milky Way
Milky Way
The Milky Way is the galaxy that contains the Solar System. This name derives from its appearance as a dim un-resolved "milky" glowing band arching across the night sky...
galaxy with the winter solstice
Solstice
A solstice is an astronomical event that happens twice each year when the Sun's apparent position in the sky, as viewed from Earth, reaches its northernmost or southernmost extremes...
Sun
Sun
The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is almost perfectly spherical and consists of hot plasma interwoven with magnetic fields...
on December 21, 2012, referred to by Jenkins in Maya Cosmogenesis 2012: The True Meaning of the Maya Calendar End-Date (1998) and Galactic Alignment:The Transformation of Consciousness According to Mayan, Egyptian, and Vedic Traditions (2002) as having been predicted by the ancient Maya and others, is a much-anticipated event in Mayanism. Although Jenkins suggests that ancient Maya knowledge of this event was based on observations of the "dark rift
Dark Rift
Dark Rift is a 3D fighting game for the N64, notable for being the first N64 game to use 60frame/s, as well as being N64's first native fighting game...
" in the Milky Way as seen from Earth (this dark rift, it is said by some Mayan scholars, was believed by some Mayans to be one of the entrances to Xibalba
Xibalba
Xibalba , roughly translated as "place of fear", is the name of the underworld in Maya mythology, ruled by the Maya death gods and their helpers. In 16th-century Verapaz, the entrance to Xibalba was traditionally held to be a cave in the vicinity of Cobán, Guatemala. According to some of the...
), others see it as evidence of knowledge imparted via ancient contact with extraterrestrial intelligence. The relevance of modern "dark rift" observations to Pre-Columbian and traditional Maya beliefs is strongly debated, and academic archaeologists reject all theories regarding extraterrestrial contact, but it is clear that the promotion of Mayanism through interest in 2012 is contributing to the evolution of religious syncretism
Syncretism
Syncretism is the combining of different beliefs, often while melding practices of various schools of thought. The term means "combining", but see below for the origin of the word...
in contemporary Maya communities. Psychonaut author Daniel Pinchbeck
Daniel Pinchbeck
Daniel Pinchbeck is an author living in New York’s East Village, where he is editorial director of Reality Sandwich, a blog website centered around New Age philosophy and activism. He is the author of Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism and 2012:...
popularized New Age
New Age
The New Age movement is a Western spiritual movement that developed in the second half of the 20th century. Its central precepts have been described as "drawing on both Eastern and Western spiritual and metaphysical traditions and then infusing them with influences from self-help and motivational...
concepts about this date, linking it to beliefs about crop circles, alien abduction, and personal revelations based on the use of entheogens and mediumship
Mediumship
Mediumship is described as a form of communication with spirits. It is a practice in religious beliefs such as Spiritualism, Spiritism, Espiritismo, Candomblé, Voodoo and Umbanda.- Concept :...
in his 2006 book 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl.
Carl Johan Calleman
Carl Johan Calleman
Carl Johan Calleman, , is a toxicologist as well as an author and speaker on the millenarian New Age interpretation of the Mayan calendar known as Mayanism. He differs from professional Mayanists in seeing 28 October 2011 and not 21 December 2012 as a significant date...
differs in that he sees 28 October 2011 and not 21 December 2012 as the pivotal end date. Calleman does not see the date as an apocalypse but a slow transformation of consciousness with people beginning to experience a higher 'unity consciousness'.
Mayanism, shamanism, and "Toltecs"
ShamanismShamanism
Shamanism is an anthropological term referencing a range of beliefs and practices regarding communication with the spiritual world. To quote Eliade: "A first definition of this complex phenomenon, and perhaps the least hazardous, will be: shamanism = technique of ecstasy." Shamanism encompasses the...
has become a significant component of Mayanism, in part due to the scholarly interpretation of ancient Maya rulers as shamans and the popularity of Carlos Castaneda
Carlos Castaneda
Carlos Castaneda was a Peruvian-born American anthropologist and author....
, whose books described his apprenticeship to a Yaqui sorcerer. However, Castaneda's work is seen as being fictional, inaccurate, misleading, and plagiaristic
Plagiarism
Plagiarism is defined in dictionaries as the "wrongful appropriation," "close imitation," or "purloining and publication" of another author's "language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions," and the representation of them as one's own original work, but the notion remains problematic with nebulous...
, and there is no proof that don Juan (the sorcerer) is not a fictional character. Although the Yaqui are indigenous to the Sonoran Desert
Sonoran Desert
The Sonoran Desert is a North American desert which straddles part of the United States-Mexico border and covers large parts of the U.S. states of Arizona and California and the northwest Mexican states of Sonora, Baja California, and Baja California Sur. It is one of the largest and hottest...
region of northern Mexico and southern Arizona, far from the Maya region, Mayanism often conflates the concept of Toltec (Castaneda)
Toltec (Castaneda)
The term "Toltec" is used in the works of writer Carlos Castaneda to denote a person who was recruited into a band of sorcerors with a tradition that had its origin in the Native American culture of that name....
with the Toltec
Toltec
The Toltec culture is an archaeological Mesoamerican culture that dominated a state centered in Tula, Hidalgo in the early post-classic period of Mesoamerican chronology...
who interacted with the ancient Maya. This stems from 19th century speculations by Brasseur and Charnay about the Toltecs as a white, Aryan race
Aryan race
The Aryan race is a concept historically influential in Western culture in the period of the late 19th century and early 20th century. It derives from the idea that the original speakers of the Indo-European languages and their descendants up to the present day constitute a distinctive race or...
that brought advanced civilization to the Americas either through a migration from Asia across the Bering Strait (according to Charnay) or emigration from the lost continent of Atlantis (according to Brasseur).
One of many themes in Mayanism related to shamanism is the use of entheogens to induce altered states of consciousness and thereby gain insight and wisdom. The most common medicinal plant used by the ancient Maya was tobacco
Tobacco
Tobacco is an agricultural product processed from the leaves of plants in the genus Nicotiana. It can be consumed, used as a pesticide and, in the form of nicotine tartrate, used in some medicines...
(Nicotiana
Nicotiana
Nicotiana is a genus of herbs and shrubs of the nightshade family indigenous to North and South America, Australia, south west Africa and the South Pacific. Various Nicotiana species, commonly referred to as tobacco plants, are cultivated and grown to produce tobacco. Of all Nicotiana species,...
), which was ingested by smoking or drinking an infusion. The use of a number of psychotropic substances is well documented in the culture of ancient Mesoamerica
Mesoamerica
Mesoamerica is a region and culture area in the Americas, extending approximately from central Mexico to Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, within which a number of pre-Columbian societies flourished before the Spanish colonization of the Americas in the 15th and...
. These include various mushrooms that contain psilocybin
Psilocybin
Psilocybin is a naturally occurring psychedelic prodrug, with mind-altering effects similar to those of LSD and mescaline, after it is converted to psilocin. The effects can include altered thinking processes, perceptual distortions, an altered sense of time, and spiritual experiences, as well as...
, the morning glory
Morning glory
Morning glory is a common name for over 1,000 species of flowering plants in the family Convolvulaceae, whose current taxonomy and systematics is in flux...
, (Ipomoea
Ipomoea
Ipomoea is the largest genus in the flowering plant family Convolvulaceae, with over 500 species. Most of these are called "morning glories", but this can refer to related genera also. Those formerly separated in Calonyction are called "moonflowers"...
and Rivea corymbosa
Rivea corymbosa
Turbina corymbosa Turbina corymbosa Turbina corymbosa ((syn. Rivea corymbosa), the Christmas vine, is a species of morning glory, native throughout Latin America from Mexico in the North to Peru in the South and widely naturalised elsewhere. It is a perennial climbing vine with white flowers, often...
), the moonflower (Datura
Datura
Datura is a genus of nine species of vespertine flowering plants belonging to the family Solanaceae. Its precise and natural distribution is uncertain, owing to its extensive cultivation and naturalization throughout the temperate and tropical regions of the globe...
spp.), the water lily (Nymphaea
Nymphaea
Nymphaea is a genus of aquatic plants in the family Nymphaeaceae. There are about 50 species in the genus, which has a cosmopolitan distribution.-Name:The common name, shared with some other genera in the same family, is Water Lily....
), cohoba (Anadenanthera
Anadenanthera
Anadenanthera is a genus of South American trees in the Legume family, Fabaceae. The genus contains two to four species, including A. colubrina and A. peregrina...
spp.), and the cane toad
Cane Toad
The Cane Toad , also known as the Giant Neotropical Toad or Marine Toad, is a large, terrestrial true toad which is native to Central and South America, but has been introduced to various islands throughout Oceania and the Caribbean...
(Bufo marinus), a source of bufotenin
Bufotenin
Bufotenin , or 5-hydroxy-dimethyltryptamine , is a tryptamine related to the neurotransmitter serotonin...
, However, the importance of entheogens by the ancient Maya has been inferred primarily through the study of iconography
Iconography
Iconography is the branch of art history which studies the identification, description, and the interpretation of the content of images. The word iconography literally means "image writing", and comes from the Greek "image" and "to write". A secondary meaning is the painting of icons in the...
rather than direct archaeological evidence. This includes representations of the administration of substances by enema
Enema
An enema is the procedure of introducing liquids into the rectum and colon via the anus. The increasing volume of the liquid causes rapid expansion of the lower intestinal tract, often resulting in very uncomfortable bloating, cramping, powerful peristalsis, a feeling of extreme urgency and...
in ancient Maya art. Some of these methodes have been also used for Miguel Ángel Ruiz
Miguel Ángel Ruiz
Don Miguel Ángel Ruiz , better known as Don Miguel Ruiz, is a Mexican author of New Age spiritualist and neoshamanistic texts. His teaching is significantly influenced by the work of Carlos Castaneda....
, another author who has also used fake "Toltec" concepts in his books.
Indigenous promoters
A growing number of individuals of indigenous or reportedly indigenous Maya ancestry have emerged as advocates and supporters of Mayanism. These include César Mena Toto (also known as Hunbatz Men) and the K'iche' spiritual guide Alejandro Cirilo Pérez Oxlaj (also known as "Wandering Wolf"). These individuals identify themselves as traditional shamans, but do also interact with, and refer to modern New AgeNew Age
The New Age movement is a Western spiritual movement that developed in the second half of the 20th century. Its central precepts have been described as "drawing on both Eastern and Western spiritual and metaphysical traditions and then infusing them with influences from self-help and motivational...
phenomenal beliefs as in the lost continent of Atlantis
Atlantis
Atlantis is a legendary island first mentioned in Plato's dialogues Timaeus and Critias, written about 360 BC....
, reverence for crystal skull
Crystal skull
The crystal skulls are a number of human skull hardstone carvings made of clear or milky quartz rock, known in art history as "rock crystal", claimed to be pre-Columbian Mesoamerican artifacts by their alleged finders. However, none of the specimens made available for scientific study have been...
s, and mediumship
Mediumship
Mediumship is described as a form of communication with spirits. It is a practice in religious beliefs such as Spiritualism, Spiritism, Espiritismo, Candomblé, Voodoo and Umbanda.- Concept :...
of extraterrestrial entities such as the Pleiadeans.
Non-Maya elements
Despite its name, Mayanism tends to conflate traditions of many different indigenous peoples of the AmericasIndigenous peoples of the Americas
The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...
, including non-Maya groups such as the Hopi
Hopi
The Hopi are a federally recognized tribe of indigenous Native American people, who primarily live on the Hopi Reservation in northeastern Arizona. The Hopi area according to the 2000 census has a population of 6,946 people. Their Hopi language is one of the 30 of the Uto-Aztecan language...
, the Aztecs, and the Incas. Sacred sites such as Machu Picchu
Machu Picchu
Machu Picchu is a pre-Columbian 15th-century Inca site located above sea level. It is situated on a mountain ridge above the Urubamba Valley in Peru, which is northwest of Cusco and through which the Urubamba River flows. Most archaeologists believe that Machu Picchu was built as an estate for...
, a royal estate of the Inca empire
Inca Empire
The Inca Empire, or Inka Empire , was the largest empire in pre-Columbian America. The administrative, political and military center of the empire was located in Cusco in modern-day Peru. The Inca civilization arose from the highlands of Peru sometime in the early 13th century...
in Peru
Peru
Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....
are a common destination for spiritual retreats that drawn upon themes from Mayanism. One of the oldest themes in Mayanism that dates to the 19th century, as emphasized in the artwork of Waldeck and the writings of Brasseur, Charnay Le Plongeon, Donnelly, and others, is the presumed relationship between the ancient Maya and ancient Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
. (This is also a theme in pyramidology
Pyramidology
Pyramidology is a term used, sometimes disparagingly, to refer to various pseudoscientific speculations regarding pyramids, most often the Giza Necropolis and the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt...
.) However, the Classic period period (AD 200-900), during which the ancient Maya flourished, is much later in time than ancient Egyptian
Ancient Egypt
Ancient Egypt was an ancient civilization of Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. Egyptian civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh...
civilization.
One of the non-Maya symbols frequently associated with Mayanism is called "Hunab Ku
Hunab Ku
Hunab Ku is the name of a supposed Maya deity, described as "the supreme god" whose name appears in only two colonial sources: the Motul Dictionary and the Chilam Balam of Chumayel...
." This symbol is derived from illustrations in the Aztec codex known as Codex Magliabechiano
Codex Magliabechiano
The Codex Magliabechiano is a pictorial Aztec codex created during the mid-16th century, in the early Spanish colonial period. It is representative of a set of codices known collectively as the Magliabechiano Group. Others in the group include the Codex Tudela and the Codex Ixtlilxochitl.The Codex...
, where it appears (in yellow and black) in the upper left hand corner of p. 5/2 of a facsimile published by Zelia Nuttall
Zelia Nuttall
-References:-External links:* by Alfred M. Tozzer on American Ethnography....
as The Book of the Life of the Ancient Mexicans, Containing an Account of Their Rites and Superstitions, an Anonymous Hispano-Mexican Manuscript Preserved at the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Florence, Italy in 1903. It is labeled as a "manta de agua de araña" ("spider water mantle") that was associated with the Festival of the Lip Plugs. The symbol was largely ignored until sometime after 1983, when Elizabeth Boone published a new facsimile of the Codex Magliabecchiano. It was reproduced by José Argüelles in his 1987 book The Mayan Factor, a text frequently referenced in contemporary Mayanism. The name "Hunab Ku" (One God) appears in the post-Conquest, syncretistic Chilam Balam
Chilam Balam
The so-called Books of Chilam Balam are handwritten, chiefly 18th-century Mayan miscellanies, named after the small Yucatec towns where they were originally kept, and preserving important traditional knowledge in which indigenous Mayan and early Spanish traditions have coalesced...
as a concept introduced by Catholic missionaries to promote monotheism among speakers of the Yucatec Maya language. Within Mayanism, the symbol evokes the concept of yin and yang
Yin and yang
In Asian philosophy, the concept of yin yang , which is often referred to in the West as "yin and yang", is used to describe how polar opposites or seemingly contrary forces are interconnected and interdependent in the natural world, and how they give rise to each other in turn. Opposites thus only...
(Eastern syncretism) as well as the Milky Way
Milky Way
The Milky Way is the galaxy that contains the Solar System. This name derives from its appearance as a dim un-resolved "milky" glowing band arching across the night sky...
galaxy (ancient Maya knowledge of which is often explained by ancient astronaut theories).
Another non-Maya image that appears often in Mayanism is the Aztec sun stone
Aztec sun stone
The Aztec calendar stone, Mexica sun stone, Stone of the Sun , or Stone of the Five Eras, is a large monolithic sculpture that was excavated in the Zócalo, Mexico City's main square, on December 17, 1790. It was discovered whilst Mexico City Cathedral was being repaired...
, itself frequently associated with the Aztec calendar
Aztec calendar
The Aztec calendar is the calendar system that was used by the Aztecs as well as other Pre-Columbian peoples of central Mexico. It is one of the Mesoamerican calendars, sharing the basic structure of calendars from throughout ancient Mesoamerica....
, a monument depicting either Tonatiuh
Tonatiuh
In Aztec mythology, Tonatiuh was the sun god. The Aztec people considered him the leader of Tollan, heaven. He was also known as the fifth sun, because the Aztecs believed that he was the sun that took over when the fourth sun was expelled from the sky...
or Tlaltecuhtli
Tlaltecuhtli
Tlaltecuhtli, Tlaltecutli is a pre-Columbian Mesoamerican deity figure, identified from sculpture and iconography dating to the Late Postclassic period of Mesoamerican chronology , primarily among the Mexica and other Nahuatl-speaking cultures...
together with symbolic representations of past cataclysms.
Bosnian connection
Mayanism is a central theme in the work of Semir OsmanagićSemir Osmanagic
Semir Osmanagić , also known as Sam Osmanagich is an author, amateur archaeologist and contractor in metalworking residing in Houston, United States....
, a Bosnian-American businessman from Houston, who claims Maya associations with Bosnian pyramids
Bosnian pyramids
The term Bosnian pyramids has been used for a cluster of natural geological formations sometimes known as flatirons near the Bosnian town of Visoko, northwest of Sarajevo...
at the site of Visočica Hill, northwest of Sarajevo, Bosnia. In his book The World of the Maya, Osmanagić asserts that the Maya came from the Pleiades by way of Atlantis. This theory has been popular in Bosnia, where investigation of the "pyramids" (identified by scientists as natural geological features) have attracted more tourists and government funding than have actual archaeological sites and academic research.
Influence in politics
On January 14, 2008, Álvaro ColomÁlvaro Colom
Álvaro Colom Caballeros is the President of Guatemala for the 2008–2012 term and leader of the social-democratic National Unity of Hope .-Early years:...
was inaugurated as the President of Guatemala. Colom is said to have been ordained as a "non-Mayan Mayan priest" by Alejandro Cirilio Pérez Oxlaj, who represented the Maya people at his inauguration. A BBC article reports that "he will regularly consult a group of spiritual leaders, known as the Mayan Elders National Council". (This group has also been identified as the National Mayan Council of Elders of Guatemala, the Consejo de Ancianos Mayas, Council of Elders of the Sacred Mayas, and other names.)
Literature
Mayanism occasionally draws upon references from Beat generationBeat generation
The Beat Generation refers to a group of American post-WWII writers who came to prominence in the 1950s, as well as the cultural phenomena that they both documented and inspired...
literature by William Burroughs, who had studied the ancient Maya in classes with Alfred Tozzer
Alfred Tozzer
Alfred Marston Tozzer was an American anthropologist, archaeologist, linguist, and educator. His principal area of interest was Mesoamerican, especially Maya, studies. He was the father of figure skating champion Joan Tozzer....
at Harvard in the 1930s, and Allen Ginsberg
Allen Ginsberg
Irwin Allen Ginsberg was an American poet and one of the leading figures of the Beat Generation in the 1950s. He vigorously opposed militarism, materialism and sexual repression...
, who traveled in the Yucatan Peninsula
Yucatán Peninsula
The Yucatán Peninsula, in southeastern Mexico, separates the Caribbean Sea from the Gulf of Mexico, with the northern coastline on the Yucatán Channel...
, Chiapas
Chiapas
Chiapas officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Chiapas is one of the 31 states that, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 118 municipalities and its capital city is Tuxtla Gutierrez. Other important cites in Chiapas include San Cristóbal de las...
, and Guatemala
Guatemala
Guatemala is a country in Central America bordered by Mexico to the north and west, the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, Belize to the northeast, the Caribbean to the east, and Honduras and El Salvador to the southeast...
in the 1950s. In 1974, Ginsberg helped found The Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University
Naropa University
Naropa University is a private American liberal arts university in Boulder, Colorado. Founded in 1974 by Tibetan Buddhist teacher and Oxford University scholar Chögyam Trungpa, it is named for the eleventh-century Indian Buddhist sage Naropa, an abbot of Nalanda.Naropa describes itself as...
in Boulder, Colorado, where themes that contributed to emergent Mayanism were explored in literature and art. José Argüelles
Jose Arguelles
Joseph Anthony Arguelles , better known as José Argüelles, was a world-renowned author, artist, visionary and educator. He was the founder of Planet Art Network and the Foundation for the Law of Time. He held a Ph.D...
, a central figure in Mayanism, is an alumnus. Charles Olson
Charles Olson
Charles Olson , was a second generation American modernist poet who was a link between earlier figures such as Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams and the New American poets, which includes the New York School, the Black Mountain School, the Beat poets, and the San Francisco Renaissance...
of Black Mountain College
Black Mountain College
Black Mountain College, a school founded in 1933 in Black Mountain, North Carolina, was a new kind of college in the United States in which the study of art was seen to be central to a liberal arts education, and in which John Dewey's principles of education played a major role...
had a fascination with Mayan hieroglyphs and wrote a book, The Mayan Letters (1953), based on his correspondence from Mexico with poet Robert Creeley
Robert Creeley
Robert Creeley was an American poet and author of more than sixty books. He is usually associated with the Black Mountain poets, though his verse aesthetic diverged from that school's. He was close with Charles Olson, Robert Duncan, Allen Ginsberg, John Wieners and Ed Dorn. He served as the Samuel P...
. The novel 2012: The War for Souls (2007) by Whitley Strieber
Whitley Strieber
Louis Whitley Strieber is an American writer best known for his horror novels The Wolfen and The Hunger and for Communion, a non-fiction account of his perceived experiences with non-human entities. Strieber also co-authored The Coming Global Superstorm with Art Bell, which inspired the film about...
is heavily influenced by Mayanism.
Art
- Tales from Topographic OceansTales from Topographic Oceans-2003 CD re-issue:A remastered edition was released in 2003, which restored a two-minute ambient section at the beginning of the album's first song. This section was deleted at the last minute before the album was originally pressed...
(1973), a music album by the band YesYes (band)Yes are an English rock band who achieved worldwide success with their progressive, art, and symphonic style of rock music. Regarded as one of the pioneers of the progressive genre, Yes are known for their lengthy songs, mystical lyrics, elaborate album art, and live stage sets...
, had cover art by Roger Dean (artist) that featured a surrealistic submarine landscape with a pyramid inspired by El Castillo, Chichen ItzaEl Castillo, Chichen Itza;El Castillo , also known as the Temple of Kukulkan, is a Mesoamerican step-pyramid that dominates the center of the Chichen Itza archaeological site in the Mexican state of Yucatán...
next to a monkey geoglyphGeoglyphA geoglyph is a large design or motif produced on the ground and typically formed by clastic rocks or similarly durable elements of the geography, such as stones, stone fragments, gravel, or earth...
inspired by the Nazca linesNazca LinesThe Nazca Lines are a series of ancient geoglyphs located in the Nazca Desert in southern Peru. They were designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1994. The high, arid plateau stretches more than between the towns of Nazca and Palpa on the Pampas de Jumana about 400 km south of Lima...
in Peru. These are visual references to the supposed links between the Maya and ancient South American cultures and the lost continent of AtlantisAtlantisAtlantis is a legendary island first mentioned in Plato's dialogues Timaeus and Critias, written about 360 BC....
. The artwork also depicts numerous constellations, an allusion to both Maya and Nasca astronomy and cosmology. The lyrics of the album are based on scriptures by Paramahansa YoganandaParamahansa YoganandaParamahansa Yogananda , born Mukunda Lal Ghosh , was an Indian yogi and guru who introduced many westerners to the teachings of meditation and Kriya Yoga through his book, Autobiography of a...
, linking Eastern, Pre-Columbian, and Western motifs for an expression of the esotericismEsotericismEsotericism or Esoterism signifies the holding of esoteric opinions or beliefs, that is, ideas preserved or understood by a small group or those specially initiated, or of rare or unusual interest. The term derives from the Greek , a compound of : "within", thus "pertaining to the more inward",...
and syncretismSyncretismSyncretism is the combining of different beliefs, often while melding practices of various schools of thought. The term means "combining", but see below for the origin of the word...
that are typical elements of Mayanism. - Great Temple (2003), the central art piece of the 2003 Burning ManBurning ManBurning Man is a week-long annual event held in the Black Rock Desert in northern Nevada, in the United States. The event starts on the Monday before the American Labor Day holiday, and ends on the holiday itself. It takes its name from the ritual burning of a large wooden effigy on Saturday evening...
festival, was a large, multi-stage, Maya-style pyramid (resembling The Temple of Inscriptions at PalenquePalenquePalenque was a Maya city state in southern Mexico that flourished in the 7th century. The Palenque ruins date back to 100 BC to its fall around 800 AD...
, El Castillo, Chichen ItzaEl Castillo, Chichen Itza;El Castillo , also known as the Temple of Kukulkan, is a Mesoamerican step-pyramid that dominates the center of the Chichen Itza archaeological site in the Mexican state of Yucatán...
, and the Feathered Serpent Pyramid at TeotihuacanTeotihuacanTeotihuacan – also written Teotihuacán, with a Spanish orthographic accent on the last syllable – is an enormous archaeological site in the Basin of Mexico, just 30 miles northeast of Mexico City, containing some of the largest pyramidal structures built in the pre-Columbian Americas...
) designed by Larry HarveyLarry Harvey]Larry Harvey is the main co-founder of the Burning Man festival, along with his friend Jerry James. What started in 1986 as a summer solstice evening ritual burning of their artistic creation of an effigy of a man with a group of just a dozen people at San Francisco's Baker Beach, which then...
and Rod Garrett. As the platform for "The Man," it was constructed in the summer of 2003 and burned to the ground during the festival. The work, designed and announced in 2002, evoked the 2003 art theme of the festival: "Beyond Belief." The artists noted, "We will consider it to mark an axis mundi – that type of cosmic center that was anciently believed to be the origin of all existence. Such sacred spaces were regarded as engendering the underlying order of the universe". - Stanton St. Bernard Crop Circle (2007), a work of performance artPerformance artIn art, performance art is a performance presented to an audience, traditionally interdisciplinary. Performance may be either scripted or unscripted, random or carefully orchestrated; spontaneous or otherwise carefully planned with or without audience participation. The performance can be live or...
in the form of a crop circleCrop circleA crop circle is a sizable pattern created by the flattening of a crop such as wheat, barley, rye, maize, or rapeseed. Crop circles are also referred to as crop formations, because they are not always circular in shape. While the exact date crop circles began to appear is unknown, the documented...
appeared in Wiltshire, UK on August 18, 2007. It depicted one bar and one dot, the way "6" is written in Maya numeralsMaya numeralsMaya Numerals were a vigesimal numeral system used by the Pre-Columbian Maya civilization.The numerals are made up of three symbols; zero , one and five...
, evoking ancient astronaut theories due to the popular belief that crop circles are the result of intelligent extraterrestrial lifeExtraterrestrial lifeExtraterrestrial life is defined as life that does not originate from Earth...
.
Film
- Yellow Submarine (1968), an animated feature film based on music of The BeatlesThe BeatlesThe Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
. Near the beginning of the film, the submarine is found "parked" on top of a pyramid whose form was inspired by the Pyramid of the SunPyramid of the SunThe Pyramid of the Sun is the largest building in Teotihuacan and one of the largest in Mesoamerica. Found along the Avenue of the Dead, in between the Pyramid of the Moon and the Ciudadela, and in the shadow of the massive mountain Cerro Gordo, the pyramid is part of a large complex in the heart...
at TeotihuacánTeotihuacánTeotihuacan – also written Teotihuacán, with a Spanish orthographic accent on the last syllable – is an enormous archaeological site in the Basin of Mexico, just 30 miles northeast of Mexico City, containing some of the largest pyramidal structures built in the pre-Columbian Americas...
. Although Teotihuacán was not a Maya city, the Mesoamerican-style pyramid in the undersea paradise of Pepperland was inspired by the myth of AtlantisAtlantisAtlantis is a legendary island first mentioned in Plato's dialogues Timaeus and Critias, written about 360 BC....
and its associations with the ancient Maya. - The Road to El DoradoThe Road to El DoradoThe Road to El Dorado is a 2000 American animated adventure comedy film by DreamWorks. The soundtrack features songs by Elton John and Tim Rice, the music team from Disney's The Lion King....
(2000), an animated feature comedy film by DreamWorksDreamWorksDreamWorks Pictures, also known as DreamWorks, LLC, DreamWorks SKG, DreamWorks II Distribution Co., LLC, DreamWorks Studios or DW Studios, LLC, is an American film studio which develops, produces, and distributes films, video games and television programming...
, drew upon many utopian themes, combining imagery of the ancient Mayas, Aztecs, Incas and other cultures as well as references to AtlantisAtlantisAtlantis is a legendary island first mentioned in Plato's dialogues Timaeus and Critias, written about 360 BC....
to reconstruct a setting within an imaginary lost civilization of South America. - Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008), a film directed by Steven Spielberg. A large part of the premise deals with an alien civilization having imparted knowledge of farming and technology to a fictional Amazonian society, with numerous references to Maya and Inca society (the aliens themselves speak a form of Mayan). Reference to Mayanism includes the concept of the crystal skullCrystal skullThe crystal skulls are a number of human skull hardstone carvings made of clear or milky quartz rock, known in art history as "rock crystal", claimed to be pre-Columbian Mesoamerican artifacts by their alleged finders. However, none of the specimens made available for scientific study have been...
itself, an artifact supposedly found within ancient Maya contexts but which revealed knowledge of advanced technology. (In the early 20th century, this was used to imply contact with AtlantisAtlantisAtlantis is a legendary island first mentioned in Plato's dialogues Timaeus and Critias, written about 360 BC....
but in the late 20th century this shifted to contact with extraterrestrial lifeExtraterrestrial lifeExtraterrestrial life is defined as life that does not originate from Earth...
.) Much of the action in the film takes place at a Precolumbian site with a huge Maya-style stepped pyramid located somewhere in in the Amazon RainforestAmazon RainforestThe Amazon Rainforest , also known in English as Amazonia or the Amazon Jungle, is a moist broadleaf forest that covers most of the Amazon Basin of South America...
. A scene of an alien autopsyAlien autopsyAn alien autopsy refers to a medical examination and dissection of the dead body of an extraterrestrial being. Such a procedure would more accurately be called an "alien necropsy", since an "autopsy" is, by definition, performed on a subject who is the same species as the examiner...
in Roswell, New Mexico and references to Indiana Jones' service in the Office of Strategic ServicesOffice of Strategic ServicesThe Office of Strategic Services was a United States intelligence agency formed during World War II. It was the wartime intelligence agency, and it was a predecessor of the Central Intelligence Agency...
are used to link Maya mysteries with UFO lore and conspiracy theoryConspiracy theoryA conspiracy theory explains an event as being the result of an alleged plot by a covert group or organization or, more broadly, the idea that important political, social or economic events are the products of secret plots that are largely unknown to the general public.-Usage:The term "conspiracy...
. - 2012: The Odyssey (2006), a documentary directed by Sharron Rose that includes interviews with José ArgüellesJose ArguellesJoseph Anthony Arguelles , better known as José Argüelles, was a world-renowned author, artist, visionary and educator. He was the founder of Planet Art Network and the Foundation for the Law of Time. He held a Ph.D...
, John Major Jenkins, Geoff Stray, Alberto Villoldo, Gregg Braden, Rick Levine, Moira Timms, and Jay Weidner. - Shift of the Ages (2006), a documentary directed by Steve Copeland that includes references to pole shift theoryPole shift theoryThe cataclysmic pole shift hypothesis suggests that there have been geologically rapid shifts in the relative positions of the modern-day geographic locations of the poles and the axis of rotation of the Earth, creating calamities such as floods and tectonic events.No form of the hypothesis is...
and interviews with Alejandro Oxlaj. - 2012: Science Or Superstition (2008), a feature-length documentary, features opinions from a broad spectrum of contributors including Graham Hancock, Daniel Pinchbeck, Anthony Aveni, Alberto Villoldo, John Major Jenkins, Lawrence E. Joseph, Jim Marrs, Robert Bauval, Alonso Mendez, Walter Cruttenden and others.
See also
- David IckeDavid IckeDavid Vaughan Icke is an English writer and public speaker, best known for his views on what he calls "who and what is really controlling the world." Describing himself as the most controversial speaker in the world, he has written 18 books explaining his position, and has attracted a substantial...
- DreamspellDreamspellThe Dreamspell is an esoteric calendar based on a modern interpretation of the Maya calendar by New Age spiritualist, Mayanist philosopher, and author José Argüelles, initiated in 1987 and released as a board game in 1993.-General overview of the calendar:...
is a calendar invented by José ArgüellesJose ArguellesJoseph Anthony Arguelles , better known as José Argüelles, was a world-renowned author, artist, visionary and educator. He was the founder of Planet Art Network and the Foundation for the Law of Time. He held a Ph.D...
that is a modern interpretation of the Maya calendarMaya calendarThe Maya calendar is a system of calendars and almanacs used in the Maya civilization of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, and in many modern Maya communities in highland Guatemala. and in Chiapas....
.