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.


Don't expect anything to happen in 2012.   June 25, 2003
 39 out of 51 found this review helpful

The book is rambling and almost unreadable. It is filled ideas that are presented without any substantiation and no other interpretations of the Maya glyphs are discussed. I have the feeling that the author falls into the trap of seeing what he wants to see. He uses incredible stretches to create a link between his own beliefs and the Maya remains. His many words seem to contain little substance, other than a reiteration of his own ideas. He keeps repeating his main theme as if it is a proven fact. When his ideas are contradicted by others, in keeping with most writers who are proposing incredible beliefs without proofs, he attacks the person rather than the person's ideas.
Most of his scientific ideas are false or make little sense. He does not mention that the center of the Galaxy cannot be located with the naked eye and can only be located by infrared and radio astronomy. Setting his unimportant alignment to a particular date would require incredible precision in locating the galactic center. In chapter 17 he descends into incredible foolishness. What can he have been thinking when he wrote, "The universe is revealed as a multidimensionally interwoven ecology of evolving intelligences, set to make their presence known by AD 2012." Or, "How else do transdimensional influences emerge into our world unless they have been brought through the central nexus via a type of conjuring." These silly statements that make no sense go on and on in this chapter and in chapter 25. Maybe some people are fooled into believing that his use of long, important sounding words give the writing a semblance of deep erudition. To me they are just nonsense. How can he say, "They gazed deeply into the cosmic center, the Black Hole in the center of our galaxy, and to them the work of modern physics would probably seem like child's play." All these foolish comments cast a dark cloud over everything in the book and hide any real ideas it may contain.
In summary, I think the book is nonsense to the extent that I am familiar with the material. For an assessment of his extreme interpretations of Mayan glyphs it will be necessary to talk to an expert on the subject. To me his explanations seem to be too farfetched to have any credibility.


2012: Celestial Cataclysm or Mayan Metaphor for Change?   September 28, 2000
 32 out of 38 found this review helpful

Are we linked in some way we do not understand to the greater cosmos?
Your daily horoscope is unlikely to tell you. Yet, the ancient Maya,
builders of stone monuments that intricately measured the movement of
the heavenly bodies and thus the passage of time, surely thought
so. Following the lead established in Giorgio de Santillana's HAMLET'S
MILL, Jenkins reaffirms the importance of the Precession of the
Equinoxes, the stately sliding and displacement of the morning risings
of the constellations of the zodiac -- each reigning for 2,160 years
-- until a "Great Year" of 25,920 has elapsed, and the
Precession has come full circle. Unlike Santillana, Jenkins
establishes the Maya, not the Sumerians, as the most ancient of
astronomers. And his hero is not Gilgamesh but the Hero Twins of the
POPOL VUH, the creation myth of the Maya. Jenkins believes that the
act of one of the twins, Hunahpu, in shooting the heavenly ruler,
Seven Macaw, from his throne, was in fact the removal of the reign of
the polar regions of the galaxy, and the reestablishment of the
galactic center. Jenkins views the falling from the sky of Seven Macaw
as a metaphor for a change in the way we view the cosmos, not as an
actual falling of a star, or a comet. Similarly, Jenkins views the
2012 end date for the current Mayan Age as a time when, "All the
values and assuptions of the previous World Age will expire, and a new
phase of human growth will commence." His vision of the
individual's connections to the galactic center owes much to Jose
Arguelles' THE MAYA FACTOR: PATH BEYOND TECHNOLOGY. It is a hopeful
look, but so, eventually, is the view of cyclical periods of
destruction and regeneration.








Needs some TLC from a good editor   August 8, 2006
 32 out of 35 found this review helpful

This book seems to hold lots of promise when skimmed, but when I actually sat down to read it, I got bogged down in it very quickly. The first chapter seems like an extended foreword. The author makes some references to his travels in Central America, and some anecdotes from his travels might have livened things up quite and made the book more engaging, but no dice. The author seems to repeat himself a lot to no apparent end, and, most frustratingly, he does not provide a big picture before starting his slow slog through the details.

I think a readable book lurks between the covers of this title, but it needs a good editor to bring it out. Readers looking for something which engages the imagination like the works of Terence McKenna, Daniel Pinchbeck, and Jim DeKorne will probably come away disappointed.


What the Mckenna Do We Know?!   July 28, 2005
 20 out of 33 found this review helpful

Time seems to be agreeing with Mckenna's discoveries, Terence created a time line based on his deciphering of the mysteries of the oldest book known to humanity, over 5000 years old, the I-Ching. This time line, which is mathematically sound, charts novelty throughout history (def. Novelty - the quality or state of being new : quality of being different from anything in prior existence). The I-Ching is a Binary Code like that used in computers similar to the Yin-Yang that consists of opposing energies. The I-Ching is able to give advice based on the idea that every possible event that does happen, that can happen, has happened and will happen again, for example people fall in love, fall out of love, people are born, people die, people make peace and people war and all of those things that have happened before will happen again. Terence's line graph which he called Time Wave is explained in detailed length in his book "The Invisible Landscape" and how he came to this revelation is captured in wonderful fun detail, and I recommend you read first, in "True Hallucinations", Terence's time line goes up and down charting novelty throughout history but the line graph also went into the future! This graph charted that 2005 would be the most novel year in humanity's existence to date, only then to be surpassed by a happening of novelty so extraordinarily that it was off the chart on December 22, 2012 and then the line stops. According to the magazine "Scientific America" 2012 also happens to be the year in which a, not global which happens with some frequency, but a galactic polar shift or a reversal in the Milky Way is to take place, like for example how on Earth in the northern half of the planet's equator water goes down a drain in one direction and in the southern half it goes in the opposite direction and this actually reverses.

Also unbeknownst to Terence at the conception of his planetary calendar was the fact that his 2012 end date coincidentally corresponds with one thousands of years old found in the Mayan pyramids. I was also recently informed when retelling this prophecy to a devout Christian friend that the events in the book of Revelations are suppose to take place over a seven year period, like that between the years from 2005 to 2012, but unless people disappear and Jesus (who's real name was Yeshua) returns as describe in the Bible I wouldn't worry to much about that but perhaps the events of the Bible aren't to be read as being literal. Terence himself suggested some possible ideas as an attempt to convey the magnitude of the coming changes all of which he believed to be positive for humanity. I myself believe if you have been paying attention to the events of 05' I think you'd have to agree that a change in consciousness is taking place with the success of things such as The Da Vinci Code and the film What the Bleep Do We Know!?, the popularity of the liberal radio station Air America Radio and the awakening to Bush's wicked administration and corporate greed and the up coming 3 gay television stations. Trust me a cultural revolution in consciousness is happening that is penetrating sexual, political, and philosophical beliefs causing an evolution in neuro-processes. The time line isn't trying to suggest novelty hasn't happened in 2004 or wont happen in 2006 and 7 just that it's culminating in 2005 in a way more unique and novel then has ever been before and it will happen again in 2012 and then life as we know it will end! The only foreseeable biological organic evolution left for the human body is the maturation of the human mind but on the other hand who says the possibilities are foreseeable.