Long before it became a matter of widespread interest, Carl-Johan Calleman read about the Mayan calendar coming to an end in the year 2011. “Why would a calendar end?” he wondered. As a graduate student in toxicology at the University of Stockholm in Sweden, the idea of an “end of time” was certainly not a part of his education. With his scientific background, Carl-Johan began to work full-time exploring the native cultures of Mexico to find proofs of real events that matched the energy shifts of this calendar. He started to lecture and publish articles in a number of languages about the Mayan calendar, later offering courses on an international scale.
Today, Carl-Johan is an internationally recognized authority in the studies of the Mayan Calendar. He has appeared on Swedish, Finnish and Mexican television and American Web-TV, and has authored several books, including Solving the Greatest Mystery of Our Time: The Mayan Calendar, covering many aspects of the Mayan Calendar. He has now visited 20 countries with his message, which is that the Mayan Calendar is not predicting the end of the world 2012, but a planetary awakening and transformation of mankind into enlightenment.
CARL CALLEMAN: Thank you very much.
RIC THOMPSON: Carl, there is something I think we should start off quickly with. Everybody talks about the Mayan calendar, and you’ve written a number of books about this. The first one I was exposed to was Solving the Greatest Mystery of Our Time: The Mayan Calendar. Of course, you also have other ones out there, including The Mayan Calendar and the Transformation of Consciousness, which was published in 2004.
You have other books, like The Purposeful Universe: How Quantum Theory and Mayan Cosmology Explain the Origin and Evolution of Life, which came out in 2009. When people refer to the Mayan calendar, I think there’s a misunderstanding there. Really, the Mayans didn’t have just one calendar, did they?
CARL CALLEMAN: No, I prefer to refer to it as a system of calendars. It may also be a little bit misleading to say they had many different calendars because all of these calendars were related. A good metaphor for it might be the cog-wheels within a clock, or something like that. There are many different cog-wheels, and each of these cog-wheels is describing some kind of a cycle within the Mayan calendar.
Thus, there are cycles within cycles within cycles. In a sense, that may sound very frighteningly complex, but it really isn’t. It’s very important, I think, to focus on the most evident cycles. Then if you really want to go into complexity, you can do that. However, I think it’s important to start with the cycles that prove evidence of some real events and processes that have been happening through cosmic history.
RIC THOMPSON: I think the key phrase there is ‘cycles’. The way Mayans viewed time and measured and tracked time is very different than how we view time today, isn’t it?
CARL CALLEMAN: Yes, but the Mayan calendar is both cyclical and linear, I would say. That’s the whole reason people are talking about what you call the 2012 phenomenon. In other words, there is sort of a line of evolution that is coming to some kind of a completion. In that particular sense, it is a very linear way of looking at time. I think it’s very important also that another background that is implicit to the 2012 phenomenon is the Book of Revelation, the Christian source of knowledge.
Personally, I don’t look upon the Bible as though every word is true or anything like that, but I do look upon it as something that may inform us and that has very deep truths. I think without that as a background to our culture, nobody would really pay attention to the 2012 phenomenon.
RIC THOMPSON: Why is that, do you think?
CARL CALLEMAN: Why? Could you specify?
RIC THOMPSON: What’s the connection there? The information the Mayans wanted to share in their calendars, why is that also shared in other religions, like the Bible for Christians?
CARL CALLEMAN: I see. I think the ancient people-whether they were Jewish, Mayan, Chinese or anything else-were in contact with the truth in a different way, in a less shallow and less superficial way, than modern human beings are in their everyday lives. For this reason, we still are very impressed by these ancient sources, one way or another. Just take one very relevant parallel between the Bible and the Mayan calendar: the fact that they talk about cycles.
For instance, there are the seven days and six nights of creation, which is something that is specified in time in the Mayan calendar. I’d like to talk a little bit about what is different about the Mayan calendar compared to other calendars. The only reason, of course, that we would pay attention to this 2012 phenomenon is that we have trust that there is some truth to the Mayan calendar.
What, then, makes it different? The way I look upon it, to speak a little bit scientifically here, is that in the center of the universe there is a huge axis, which the ancients would call the Tree of Life. This is a recent discovery, you might say, or a rediscovery by science. Only in 2003 was it discovered that there is a big axis that is at the center of the universe, which emerged in the Big Bang 16 billion years ago.
In Mayan cosmology, this Tree of Life was the source of all life. That’s sort of hinted at and implied in the first book of the Bible. The Tree of Life is a myth that is actually real, but it’s a myth that exists all over the planet in different traditions. From this it seems that this Tree of Life has different states of energy that shift, like quantum shifts, between different time periods.
These quantum shifts are what we may see as evidence in historical eras. We have certain time periods-like the period of antiquity, the Dark Ages, the Renaissance and these things-that are dominated by what you would call, loosely speaking, an energy. These energies are exactly what the Mayan calendar describes, and they all go back to these shifting energies of the cosmic Tree of Life.
The picture I’m pointing out here is that the Mayan calendar is a calendar of the whole universe. It’s not something specific or localized to our own planet, solar system, or galaxy. It’s bigger than that. It’s universal; it’s cosmic; it’s something that expresses a large-scale plan for how the minds and creativity and consciousness of people will evolve throughout cosmic evolution.
RIC THOMPSON: If the Mayan calendar tries to explain different periods of time, and if part of that explanation helps define the type of energy that is reflected in that period of time, what does it mean when everybody says the calendar will end on December 21st, 2012?
CARL CALLEMAN: The way I look upon it is this. On October 28th, 2011, this Tree of Life will attain its highest state of energy. It’s been shifting all the way from the Big Bang until the present time. Then comes the highest state of energy of the cosmic Tree of Life. This is something that has already been going on throughout cosmic history, but we’re already sensing how things are beginning to change in anticipation of this particular higher state of consciousness, this higher state of energy of the cosmic Tree of Life.
It’s not an end of the world. There have been, for instance, these documentaries on the History Channel where they-ridiculously, I should say-present the end of the Mayan calendar as some kind of predetermined doomsday, as if there was some kind of a plan leading up to the end of the world. I suspect and I wouldn’t be surprised if this upcoming Hollywood movie will present things exactly like that, as if it’s a doomsday.
It’s completely ridiculous. There is simply no Mayan source that says there will be a catastrophe at the end of the calendar. You hear that even from people who are supposedly knowledgeable about the Mayan calendar. They keep repeating that, and it’s something that’s been wired into their minds. It depends on how you look upon it, and as I look upon it, it’s all like a progression coming to a completion to a higher state of energy of the cosmic Tree of Life.
When that happens there is a significant shift in consciousness. It’s also an end in a sense then, because there will be no more of these changes that have been driven by evolution. What that means is this. I perceive it like a stop, in a sense. I think that’s what’s happening now with the economy. It’s not a recession; it’s not a depression. It’s basically a cosmic stop.
This is it. We’ll no longer be able to have a growth economy that destroys the earth, so it will be back to a sort of harmony, a stabilized situation when this higher state is attained in the cosmic Tree of Life in October 28, 2011.
RIC THOMPSON: You’re basically saying that we’re approaching what, in my words, I’d call a time period of balance.
CARL CALLEMAN: Yes, and of stability and harmony. I’m convinced that’s what the cosmic plan is all about. In my way of looking at this, it can never really be denied that there is an intelligence behind this whole plan. I also think, despite all the difficulties inherent in carrying out this kind of cosmic plan on the scale of 16 billion years, it’s ultimately a benevolent intelligence behind it.
It’s not an intelligence that has planned for people a lot of catastrophes and for the world to come to an end. Rather, it’s an intelligence that has planned all this time for a kind of return to the Garden of Eden, if you like.
RIC THOMPSON: Let me make sure I understand the whole thing. You were talking before about the Mayan calendar system and all of these different components being cogs in the wheel of a greater system, as well as about the Mayas measuring different cycles and cycles within cycles. To make sure I understand this properly, are you then saying that the calendar system-this system of cycles-will stop, or will we be starting a new cycle?
CARL CALLEMAN: No, I think it will stop. There might be some kind of ongoing small cycles; that’s true. However, essentially I’m saying that yes, it will stop. It’s not a new cycle. I think here I’m differing from a lot of other people thinking about 2012. It’s not a new cycle; it’s the end of the cycle. It’s back to harmony, to a stable Garden of Eden.
RIC THOMPSON: Thank you very much for that clarification. That is a very powerful interpretation of what’s going on. What the Mayans were measuring was this whole system of cycles all building and progressing up to this point. Is it almost an evolution of time?
CARL CALLEMAN: An evolution of what?
RIC THOMPSON: Of time? Of these energies?
CARL CALLEMAN: Yes, it’s all evolution. Evolution in this way of looking at it is sort of driven by these changing energies. Whenever a new energy is emanating from this cosmic Tree of Life, it sort of changes the life. There are waveforms that are being emitted throughout the universe, to which people are receptive. The waveforms are of such a nature that they change the way people think about things. They change the way people create their reality. That’s how evolution is driven, ultimately. The framework of evolution is planned.
RIC THOMPSON: One of the things that comes up in my mind is this. As the Mayans were recording this, they were creating or tracking these systems, these cycles, of how time progressed. As each cycle transitioned into the next, it was frequently, from my understanding, not necessarily a smooth transition. Some of those cycles were actually chaotic going from one cycle to the next cycle.
CARL CALLEMAN: Yes. The basic structure of the Mayan calendar system is that there are nine fundamental levels of evolution. That’s the reason why, if you go down to the Mayan sites in Mexico or Guatemala, you’ll find that their central pyramids are built in nine levels. Each level builds upon a lower fundament so a wave of evolution is always based on the previous evolution.
Within each of the nine underworlds there is a wave movement of shifting 13 heavens, as they would call it. If you want to translate that into Biblical language, it is seven days and six nights. If we look at history, which is basically that particular wave movement that started 5,125 years ago, we will find then that there is a wave movement of shifts between what you might call days and what you might call nights.
Whenever there is a shift between such fundamentally different energies, there will be all kinds of chaotic phenomena occurring. By comparing these shift points and studying the whole picture, patterns will emerge in such a way that you will also be able to understand something about what will happen in the future. To give you an example of this, in my first book I predicted that in November of 2007 there would begin an economic collapse.
That book was written in 1998, and I don’t know many professional economists who, 10 years before it happened, were able to exactly pinpoint when this economic decline would start. There is no debating that I actually did this. It’s written in two books; it says exactly when the decline would begin. It turned out to be true. Today, economists agree the economic meltdown started in December, 2007.
In other words, it started two weeks after I predicted it would occur. That doesn’t mean that I’m this fantastic prophet with some kinds of unusual abilities or something like that. What it does mean is that once you learn to see these patterns of the wave movements according to which the Mayan calendar describes creation, then you’re also able to see-and I’m not saying you’ll be able to see everything-some very crucial things about how things will evolve in the future.
RIC THOMPSON: Really quickly, for everyone listening who wants to go check this out for themselves, what are the two books of yours that you are specifically mentioning here?
CARL CALLEMAN: The first book is called Solving the Greatest Mystery of Our Time: The Mayan Calendar, which I think was published in 2001. The second book is The Mayan Calendar and the Transformation of Consciousness, which was published in 2004. It has a section on economy that shows these changing energies of the Mayan calendar have influenced the human mind in such a way that there are certain time periods where there is a lot of innovativeness, a lot of technologic and economic creativity.
These time periods alternate according to a certain pattern. There are time periods with depression and periods of, you might say, economic rest. In this way of looking at things, the economy-as an example I think is topical to talk about here-is really a function of how the human mind is influenced by these pulses emanating from the cosmic Tree of Life.
Once we understand that it is an effect of consciousness that has brought the economic cycles about, then we can start to track it. There are very clear patterns emerging because it’s all about the influence on the human mind: how we think, how we create our reality, and so forth.
RIC THOMPSON: What you’re saying is there are a lot of parallels in our recorded history to the different periods of time that the Maya defined. These are now currently our past, but for the Mayans it was their future. They had no way of knowing. Would you mind, for our listeners’ sakes, sharing some of the parallels you’ve seen in your research?
Coming soon, an opportunity to read this transcript in full.
To learn more about Carl Calleman and his work, go to www.calleman.com.
