Media, Movies, and 2012: Getting Past the Big Lie

Video clip from 2012 Hollywood Movie Premier with John Major Jenkins

Media, Movies, and 2012: Getting Past the Big Lie
John Major Jenkins

I have had the opportunity to speak and do interviews at two press conferences organized for the new 2012 movie, which adopted the unfortunate, and incorrect, premise that the ancient Maya predicted the end of the world in 2012. This is the Big Lie of 2012. I have never taken this position on 2012. Why? Because there is no evidence for it in the Maya material on 2012. To the contrary, all of the evidence for how the Maya actually thought about 2012 falls into two categories: 1) 2012 was intended to target a rare astronomical alignment; 2) 2012 was conceived as having the potential for transformation and renewal, should human beings choose to engage the spiritual teachings that can facilitate such a transformation.

I have studied Maya traditions since the mid-1980s, and have traveled, lived, and worked among the Maya in traditional communities in Highland Guatemala. I have worked to dispel misconceptions that increasingly confuse the 2012 discussion, and have worked to reconstruct the lost aspects of ancient Maya cosmology, especially in relation to the Long Count calendar and the 2012 cycle ending.

Despite having had access to the mass media at many events through October and November, the doomsday talking point has a tenacity that is hard to counter. People who haven’t studied the Maya traditions much say I’m wrong to emphasize how the evidence does not point to the ancient Maya applying a doomsday concept to 2012. Critics who do this are interfering with the accurate reconstruction of ancient Maya cosmology. I realized, therefore, that a clever kind of counter-media would be necessary. I was invited to attend the big red carpet 2012 movie release in Hollywood on November 3. My brother Bill and I, along with our friend Dario, conceived of our own publicity that would allow the accurate information to be broadcast. We pulled it off on the red carpet, which resulted in a popular YouTube clip: www.youtube.com/user/mandalay37.

I have always believed that if we could get past all the doomsday noise, we would begin to see what the 2012 material is really about. What I have found and have written about in ten books since 1989 is an impressive astronomical science and a profound spiritual teaching, found in the Maya Creation Myth. The implications of what this means are explored in all their multifarious ramifications in my new book, The 2012 Story: The Myths, Fallacies, and Truth Behind the Most Intriguing Date in History. My presentation at The Prophets Conference in January in Cancun will cut to the chase and get right to the core of what the ancient Maya believed about 2012, drawing from authentic sources including Maya inscriptions and the carvings preserved at the early Maya site of Izapa --- the origin place of the 2012 calendar. What better way to get a handle on what 2012 is really about, but by looking at what those who created the 2012 calendar were saying. Doomsday? No, it’s not there. Let’s get over it.

In my experience of doing dozens of radio and TV spots and appearances on all the prime time networks over the past two months, I can testify that the media loves to hammer the doomsday angle, and almost always avoids allowing the simple facts of the Maya information to get through. Here we have a problem that can be identified as stupidity and ignorance in the marketplace. On a larger collective level, consciousness is choosing to remain stuck to lies and misinformation, but there is no time like the present to open up and see the thing-in-itself, the authentic Maya teachings and cosmology in all their profundity.

A revolution is underway. We in the Western world are encountering, finally, the incredible genius of the ancient Maya, which was eclipsed and buried at the time of the European conquest and occupation. This revolution is growing outward from Mayaland. What better place to find out what 2012 is really about, beyond all the doomsday noise? I hope to see you there.

John Major Jenkins is a pioneer of the 2012 movement and a leading voice in elucidating the mysteries of ancient Mesoamerican cosmology. The author of nine books on the subject, he has investigated the authentic sources of the 2012 tradition and has identified the astronomy, prophecy, and spiritual teachings connected to 2012. In reconstructing how the rare galactic alignment of earth, the solstice sun, and the dark rift in the Milky Way was encoded into Maya traditions, Jenkins’ work restores lost aspects of ancient Maya cosmology. In his 1998 opus, Maya Cosmogenesis 2012, Jenkins finds in the Maya Creation Mythology a cyclic time philosophy and a doctrine of World Ages that reveal how the ancient Maya thought about 2012. Contrary to the modern media’s obsessions with doomsday, and the countless inventive models flooding the marketplace, 2012 is about transformation and renewal.

Order and read John's new book: The 2012 Story: The Myths, Fallacies, and Truth Behind the Most Intriguing Date in History