2012

There is a lot of frightening copy concerning the date Dec.21, 2012, and it's alleged significance in the Mayan calendar. What do actual Mayans think of this? Not much, it seems. They generally feel the date's significance has been confused by western myths "read into" their ancient calendar. As Kabbalists, it's important to keep belief specific to its origin, so we should at least consider what the Mayans actually say.

The Mayan calendar is not based on our planet's annual orbit of the sun. It's really based on the nine month human gestation period. Numerous complicated cycles of the fundemental nine month period result in major 394-year cycles, called Kartums. After each Kartum, the calendar reverts back to zero, just as our calendar does on midnight of each December 31. In contradiction to general western belief, Mayans say their calendar does not "just end" on Dec. 21, 2012. Rather, it continues on in it's 394-year cycles until 4772, when the whole thing reverts back to a new first Kartum. Each Kartum is said to have historical significance, marking cycles in human development, both spiritual and political. However, there is no such thing as an end of days or end of times in the Mayan calendar. It just isn't there.

The date December 21, 2012 is the end of the 13th Kartum of the Mayan calendar. To Mayans, the number 13 is special, for it has spiritual significance. As it turns out, the end of the 13th Kartum marks the end of a turbulent period of spiritual and political change in the world, which has certainly been the case. The next Kartum will see a spiritual calming in the world, marked by a rebirth of old doctrines that have been mutated or lost over the past several Kartums. This will also mark a new age of politics, because all political systems are necessarily intertwined with the spiritual systems in vogue at the time they were created. Thus, the 14th Mayan Kartum will see the formation of a new world politic based on a re-emergence of long-forgotten or hidden spiritual doctrines.

Could this be related to bringing Kabbalist Doctrine to the non-Jewish theosophies of the world? Kabbalism is certainly an ancient doctrine, said to find its roots some 4000 years ago. It has been held in "secret" for nearly all of that period because it's methodologies of scriptural understanding have been judged as heretical and damnable by all non-Jewish Judeo-Christian religions for nearly 2000 years. In our relatively enlightened age, Kabbalism can be expanded beyond it's historically Jewish domain for the first time, and bring the potential of universal human brotherhood to fruition.

December 21, 2012 will not witness the end of the world, end of times, end of days, or whatever! If the prophetic influences attached to the cycles of the Mayan calendar are in any way correct, the date will mark the beginning of a new age of spirituality and peace, in stark contrast to the terrible events that have inundated the western world for the past 400 years.