Maya Cosmogenesis 2012: The True Meaning of the Maya Calendar End-Date

Jenkins, who has researched Mesoamerican cosmology and calendrics since 1986, has written five other books and numerous articles about the Maya. In Maya Cosmogenesis 2012, he ties together Mayan mythology and astronomy in a scholarly discussion of the source and meaning of "end date" indicated by the Long Count calendar.

He supports his theories with nearly 200 line drawings, and provides extensive appendices, end notes, and a comprehensive bibliography.

Each "wobble" (or precessional cycle) lasts 25,800 years. Researchers believe that the current precessional cycle will end in the year 2012. This date is known as the "End-Date" in Maya calendrics. At that time, the Earth will begin a new cycle in the opposite direction.

Jenkins says his focus is "on how the precession of the equinoxes was mapped and calibrated among the ancient civilizations." He adds that his book "is devoted to exploring the Maya's understanding of the 2012 end-date and the philosophy and cosmology that go with it. This is a book about cosmogenesis, the creation of the world. The Maya believed that the world will be reborn, in a sense 're-created,' in the year we call 2012."

What does all that mean? Will humans survive cosmogenesis? Jenkins thinks we will. He says the end-date marks the beginning of a new and better world. He believes that "what looms before us is a great opportunity for spiritual growth, both individual and planetary." Others, of course, disagree, and foresee a time of cataclysmic destruction.

Regardless of whether they see the predicted end-date as a non-event, as destructive, or as an opportunity for growth, readers will find Maya Cosmogenesis 2012 a fascinating book. Astronomers and students of cosmology and mythology will especially appreciate Jenkin's research and thorough documentation.


Timley Explication   September 2, 2002
John W. Blyth (Buffalo, NY USA)
16 out of 20 found this review helpful

Notice the favorable reviews by the quality reviewers; ie. those published authors who can and do understand the momentous material contained in this work (and try to ignore the glib quips by those who admit having difficulty with scholarship.)
I am amazed to see Jenkins constantly associated at Amazon with 'new age' and 'millenium' authors rather than scholars like de Lubicz and John Michell. By all means read this book, and see his new Galactic Alignment as well!


***** The Authority on 2012: The "Time" Odyssey *****   April 3, 2006
John Jay Harper (Spokane, WA United States)
17 out of 29 found this review helpful


John Major Jenkins generously wrote an appendix to my book Tranceformers: Shamans of the 21st Century, that really added a remarkable confirmation to my contact with a "dead" optics physicist colleague, and his telepathic communication to me about our End Time scenario. Indeed it was his scholarship that forced me to seek my own scientific answers to these spiritual questions: Does God Exist? Who are we? Why are we here? Where are we going? After immersing myself for 15-years into the academic disciplines of astronomy, biology, computer science, genetics, mythology, physics, psychology, medicine, sacred geometry, and theology, did I finally find the Rosetta Stone that deciphered ancient visions into modern wisdom--as had John Major Jenkins but only many years previous to my musings. I learned from him that we are becoming fifth-dimensional beings of light with third eye open, telepathic, psychic solar powers. That, moreover, I saw too now what modern astronomers define as Solar Cycle 24, ancient Mayan (and Egyptian) astrologers called shaman-priests portrayed symbolically as the Eternal Return of the Sun of God. That the End Time is our golden window of opportunity for transformation between the Venus transits of our Sun in June 2004 and June 2012. Although his book is extremely uplifting in tone, I describe the visions that I have been given to share with my readers with respect for our need to prepare for the "shift of the ages" and the overwhelming natural disasters to come. A runaway violent and weird weather oscillation cycle that vacillates between global warming and global cooling with Super Oceanic Storms that these thermal tug-of-wars will generate worldwide. Also explained is the melting of the polar ice caps by increased galactic and solar radiation inputs to the core of our planet, triggering the eruption of previously dormant undersea volcanoes. This process will slowly build in intensity as Jenkin's knows too, as gravity wave movement coincides with the earthquakes and tsunamis that will be devastating our coastlines in the USA--and elsewhere around the globe as in Indonesia in 2004. I in fact saw that the eruption of Mount Rainier will be part of this lengthy list of geophysical change events as electromagnetic "symptoms" leading to the North-South pole shift quickens. Notwithstanding these sobering events, Maya Cosomogenesis 2012 is not about doom and gloom forecasts. My insights are simply the result of having my third eye opened to our "flexible" future, given that enough of us awake and create our world anew. At a minimum, John Major Jenkins has written a fact-packed intellectual survivor's guide and provided a map for all of us sojourners planning on surfing knowingly into the Age of Aquarius: The Water Bearer of cataclysmic yet miraculous Earth Changes.

Dr. John Jay Harper is the author of Tranceformers: Shamans of the 21st Century.



2012 Research starts here   February 17, 2007
G. Stray (Glastonbury, Somerset, UK)
12 out of 14 found this review helpful

John Major Jenkins has looked into the question of why the Maya ended their 13-baktun cycle in the Gregorian year 2012, and has researched the matter in incredible detail, and comes to conclusions that result from detailed study of many archaeological and specialist works. His study shows that the Maya deliberately targetted this point in time as the end of the cycle, and the evidence is found in king-accession rites, mythology, architecture, and the ball-game.

As you will know if you've read other reviews, the reason is the alignment of the winter solstice sun with the galactic equator - an event that happens only once in a cycle of precession - around 26,000 years. This IS NOT the "alignment of the solar system with galactic centre" or any of the other misrepresentatations of his work that have appeared.

This work stands whether or not anything noticeable happens in the years around 2012 - the fact is, that the Maya predicted that something would happen around 2012. This has become evident since the publication of this book, since the Tortuguero prophecy entered the public domain. In April 2005, the existence of Tortuguro monument 6 was revealed, (though known to a few specialists before that). The stela gives the end-date 4 Ahau, 3 Kankin, 13 Baktun (a combination of 3 calendars that gives the 21 December 2012 date) and gives an accompanying prophecy of the return of the Nine Gods.


Maya Cosmogenesis 2012   March 9, 2007
Jerry L. Reed (New Mexico)
4 out of 7 found this review helpful

This work of Jenkins was all and more than I thought it would be. I share his path to where we are going in 2012. I would purchase any work of Jenkins as I know I would not be disappointed.