Meditating on the Maya Calendar for 2012
New America Media, Profile, Marcelo Ballvé Posted: Sep 02, 2009
José Argüelles, author of the 1987 New Age classic, “The Mayan Factor,” lives in Jan Juc, a tiny coastal town in southern Australia. At dawn, the 70-year-old art historian says he has been up for three hours already, meditating and reading.
"I find that if I can get up and have two or three hours before the rest of the world wakes up, that's the best time to tune into the cosmic frequencies," Argüelles says, "tune into God, the higher forces that govern the universal order of reality."
Argüelles has lived in Australia since early 2008, lately in a small rented house. It's 100 kilometers south of Melbourne, a 10-minute walk to the sea and not far from a well-known surfer paradise, Bells Beach.
José ArgüellesMuch of Argüelles's energy these days is focused on preparing for Dec. 21, 2012, the date around which the ancient Maya "Long Count" calendar resets, at the end of a 5,125-year cycle.
It's in large part thanks to Argüelles's writings, beginning with “The Mayan Factor: Path Beyond Technology,” that the year 2012 has emerged as shorthand for apocalypse in global pop culture, resulting in a slew of Internet sites, books, documentaries, as well as a Hollywood movie due out this fall. A new authorized biography of Argüelles written by his apprentice, Stephanie South, “2012: Biography of a Time Traveler,” calls him "the man behind the 2012 phenomenon."
According to the biography, Argüelles believes 2012 will bring, not destruction, but "the transformation of the present material-industrial order of the planet into a full renewal of the human mind, where telepathy is universal."
As with any trend in mass culture, 2012 is larger than a single person. But Argüelles was popularizing his ideas related to the Maya calendar and 2012 as early as 1975. He doesn't fret about 2012 going viral.
"Once it has left your hands it goes into the mass mind, it's really not yours to control any more," he says in a phone interview with New America Media.
A-bomb for peace
Argüelles himself has ambitious plans for 12/21/12: a simultaneous worldwide meditation. He led a similar global event, the widely publicized Harmonic Convergence, in August 1987, after publishing “The Mayan Factor.” The Harmonic Convergence attracted thousands of New Age types to gatherings at Maya and Egyptian ruins, New York's Central Park, Hawaiian volcanoes, and California mountainsides. The goal was to emanate positive energy ahead of a 25-year period, ending in 2012, during which Argüelles said the earth would experience a string of cataclysmic events.
Johnny Carson mentioned the event on the Tonight Show.
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User Comments
bob/who knows on Sep 16, 2009 at 21:24:51 said:
My Question more then a comment is how do you ppl think the mayans even knew about this " end of days " happening? email me with your answers please. goodold420@yahoo.com
bob/who knows on Sep 16, 2009 at 21:24:23 said:
My Question more then a comment is how do you ppl think the mayans even knew about this " end of days " happening? email me with your answers please. goodold420@yahoo.com
HotConflict on Sep 15, 2009 at 03:12:28 said:
Is there a real change coming in 2012. What did the Mayans understand about the Dark Rift? Is the world going through an evolutionary change. The prophet Muhammed told the believers about the Changing direction of the sun and the coming Ascension !
www.hotconflict.com/blog/stories-of-the-prophets.html
S.V.Ramanan on Sep 04, 2009 at 00:16:33 said:
Apocalypse or nothing of the sort shall take place.Maya year cycle is 5125 years. According to The Hindu Kali Yuga calendar began on 18 February 3102 B.C. There is only a difference of 12 years between the Hindu\\\'s beginning of the Kali Yuga and the Mayan\\\'s beginning of the Fifth Great Cycle.
Transition from the present age to a new age and values shall dawn,just as Industrial Revolution brought in change.
According to Hindus, Time is Non Liner and Cyclic.For details ; ramanan50.wordpress.com
Rohaan Solare on Sep 03, 2009 at 08:50:26 said:
Excerpt from Harmonic Deconvergence, The Origins of Mayan Calendar Confusion and 2012 Mania: Separating Facts from Fantasy.
[ Found and Lost in Translation
Earlier I mentioned that Argüelles simultaneously unveils and obscures the Tzolkin in his book the Mayan Factor. Argüelles is simply not content to reveal what the Tzolkin is and what it implies.
And as a result he buries the Tzolkin under an ungainly mixture of supra-mystical new age notions, hyper-speculations, extra-terrestrialism, psuedo-science, numerology, myth, history and wholly unsubstantiated theories of geo and astro – physics.
Thus, his first presentation of what could be one of the greatest rediscoveries of all times is relegated to the already overflowing bin of New Age mysticism.]
Frank Eng on Sep 02, 2009 at 22:56:51 said:
Bravos to NAM, Marelo Balive, AND the subjects, Arguelles and South, of this piece.
-->And whereas that dweller of Floridian academe may be "correct" in his assay of the Arguelles "factor" here, what makes him think, beyond the scholarly "citations" and bottom-line assumptions of the then "real-world" Maya any more "authentic" OR relevant?
And, on a purely personal note, I am stunned by the reference to the astrologer, Dane Rudhyar, who, in '34/'36 was also a composer of musical scores for the pioneering American choreographer Lester Horton.
Dancing convergences? Esthetic for sure. And "radical" and "intuitive" as well.
Today, a CounterPunch piece on Mexico City poignantly counterpoints South's notation of Arguelles's Teutonic grandparent's racist bigotry. Imposed on a seven-year-old at that.
Apocalypse or simple exit of a worn-out model of "western" socioeconomic and sociocultural hubris, I, for one, would like to live just long enough to witness whether the Big Bang will turn out to be a Big Whimper or even a tiny gasp. No rainbows needed, not even pyrotechnics. Only the facts, guys.