Galactic Alignment: The Transformation of Consciousness According to Mayan, Egyptian and Vedic Traditions by John Major Jenkins

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Table of Contents

Read an Excerpt

Introduction
Galaxia Nuncias (A Message from the Galaxy)

The phrase ‘Galaxia Nuncias’ (message from the galaxy) follows the lead of two great pioneers, Galileo and Oliver Reiser. Galileo’s seminal work, Sidereus Nuncias (Message from the Stars) is now recognized for the paradigm-shattering breakthrough that it was, even though he died a heretic. Reiser’s work, which includes his unpublished book Messages To and From the Galaxy, has yet to be recognized as such. Perhaps someday it will. I will confess that sometimes I feel a deep kinship with these thinkers, along with Johannes Kepler, because the discoveries and concepts I write about are also unpopular, even heretical, to the establishment paradigm. However, let us pursue the analogy. Galileo’s revolutionary discovery was that all things do not revolve around the earth and a higher center, the sun, must be recognized. Likewise, my work has sought to break the bubble again, so that we might recognize an even higher center, the Galactic Center, and integrate it into conventional thought as a fundamental player in the affairs of earth. And like Galileo, my work is really just a reintroduction, a rediscovery, of perspectives that were espoused thousands of years ago by ancient metaphysicians and cosmologists who we are just beginning to understand.
Galactic Alignment: The Transformation of Consciousness According to Mayan, Egyptian, and Vedic Traditions is perhaps more ambitious than I intended it to be. I wanted to simply assemble and present all the evidence I was uncovering, evidence among ancient traditions for a particular knowledge about the galaxyand our changing orientation to it over vast periods of time. In the process of tracking down the underlying meaning of often fragmented ancient systems of belief, new ideas and connections emerged that were worth exploring. This is not to say that the main thread of the book unravels, because there is one concern retained throughout, a singular pursuit that follows upon the discoveries in my book Maya Cosmogenesis 2012. In that book, I identified the rare alignment of the December solstice sun with the Galactic Center as the reason why the Maya chose to end their 13-baktun calendar on December 21, 2012. This is a complicated topic that nevertheless must serve as a foundation for everything in this new book, so I thought it necessary to summarize those findings and address my critics. Thus, Part 1 is dedicated to that purpose, as well as to sharing some new discoveries in my reconstruction of the galactic parameters of Mayan cosmology. And then we are ready to pose the questions: Did other ancient civilizations know, as the Maya did, about the Galactic Center? Did they know about our impending alignment to it, as encoded into the 2012 end-date? If so, what did these other traditions have to say about it?
And so we embark on a round-the-world journey, an adventure of ideas on the cutting edge of new paradigm thinking. We explore sacred topography in Greece and England, esoteric astronomy in Homer's Iliad, the symbolism of obelisks in France, alchemy, kabbalah, Gothic architecture, Islamic astrology, Egypt’s wonders, and finally arrive in ancient Vedic India to examine the doctrine of the Yugas (World Ages) as found in the Laws of Manu. In all of these traditions, I identify important concepts, some buried but others overt, relating to a widespread recognition that alignments to the galaxy do periodically occur and that these alignments offer spiritual renewal for humanity.
Always wanting to identify the precedent for my interpretations in the works of others, to show the continuity and development of my reconstruction, I explore the Traditionalist school, including the writings of esteemed scholar Ananda Coomaraswamy and symbolist philosopher René Guénon. These writers pioneered the resurrection of the Primordial Tradition, or Perennial Philosophy, made popular by Aldous Huxley and Huston Smith, and a major idea in this school is that the current cycle of history is ending amidst a proliferation of inverted spiritual values and rampant materialism--we are approaching the end of Kali Yuga. In the Vedic doctrine of World Ages, Kali Yuga is the final age, the age of greatest spiritual darkness, and its end signals the shift to a new World Age. Clarifying some undeveloped areas within Traditionalist thought, and drawing from the insights of various Vedic commentators, I identify the galactic alignment of era-2012 as the key to the timing of this transition, anchoring the Vedic yuga doctrine to a real astronomical event.
Finally, a model of how the cycles of time map onto the globe and manifest as a westward flow of civilization is discussed, bringing us to explore esoteric mysteries in the Americas, including the Masonic origins of Washington D.C.’s layout and the ley-line grid over the early Maya site of Izapa--the site that invented the Long Count calendar that gives us the famous 2012 end-date. And in all of this, the uniting thread that reemerges at various points, like the full moon from behind clouds, is the archetype of the Great Mother: Isis. We find her, of course, in the Mayan material, as the womb of the Milky Way from which the solstice sun god is reborn at the end of the age. She is also in the Vedic material, the Finnish Kalevala, Egyptian cosmology, in Masonic symbolism, Peruvian mythology and even in Spanish colonial architecture. How far back into history she goes is one of the great unsolved mysteries. As the ultimate source and center of all life, her true domain is, of course, beyond time and space, but I think we can now say with confidence exactly where her throne is in the sky.