| Some of John Major Jenkins' Detractors are Energy Vampires Who'd Deny Us Our Multidimensional Birthright. |
(All links in this article were retrieved 29 June 2010.)
The title of this piece expresses, arguably, what Jenkins himself believes.
What Jenkins believes
Many of us will be surprised to hear this, since Jenkins is promoted as an erudite, scholarly “moderate” in the 2012 movement. However, his own words indicate that he’s actually on its fringe. Much of what follows is from the website of Jenkins’ close friend, Jonathan Zap, and especially the 2009 article they co-authored: “A Mutant Convergence—- How John Major Jenkins, Jonathan Zap and Terence McKenna met during a Weekend of High Strangeness in 1996”. [1]
Jenkins, Zap and McKenna
Early in that article, Jenkins describes his admiration for Terence McKenna, and the key role Jenkins’ own drug use played in the writing of his “magnum opus”, Maya Cosmogenesis 2012 (MC 2012). Of Jonathan Zap, Jenkins says, “His assessments of my own difficulties and dilemmas with other 2012 authors have always been psychologically astute and on target.”
What are those assessments? Among them, that his detractors (e.g., Stephen Tonkin)1 have a “brittle, neurotic power complex”, and egos that are “playing a masturbatory game” with themselves. [3][4]
As an even more bizarre example of Jenkins’ confidence in Zap’s infallible diagnoses, I’m in possession of a private communication2 in which Jenkins accuses a detractor of being an “energy vampire”, and refers him to Zap’s website for a “diagnosis” of that condition[8].
Surprises in Maya Cosmogenesis: 2012
Jenkins’ MC 2012 holds surprises of its own. Before we go into them, please note that I’m not aware that Jenkins has retracted anything in that book. Moreover, as of this date he still promotes MC 2012 heavily on his website, even calling it one of the “Essential books by John Major Jenkins for exploring Maya calendars, galactic cosmologies, and perennial wisdom for 2012”.[5]
Jenkins is not a "Transformationalist"
One of the MC 2012’s surprises is that Jenkins, who’s usually classed as a “transformationist”, believes that the Maya foresaw an apocalypse:
What is the metaphysical meaning of the end-date alignment? My interpretation is derived as much as possible from Maya iconography and calendar tradition. According to Maya calendar cosmology, the end of time and space is 13.0.0.0.0, December 21, 2012. [9]
Similarly,
The ancient Maya understood that the future alignment would have apocalyptic effects, and designed their World age mythology to remind us of what is essential, and what can help us through the transformation. [10]
But then, in a footnote to the passage from p. 210 as well as in the main text, Jenkins promptly over-rules the Maya on the basis of his own astronomical research, which indicates to him that the Maya prophecy is actually about a period of transformation that might last “about 50 years on each side of 2012” [11]
This is only one of many places where Jenkins decides he knows better than the ancient Maya. A curious belief, considering the powers he attributes to them. As one example, Jenkins seems to believe, seriously, that the players in the sacred Mesoamerican ball game were
… heroic semi-human deities whose job it was to keep the sun rolling toward its meeting with the dark-rift. … Through a kind of sympathetic magic, they kept the precessional frame rolling so that the doorway through the source and center of the cosmos … can open. Through their efforts, an alignment between the foreground framework of the sky (the local solar system defined by the ecliptic, with its four seasonal quarter positions of the sun) and the cosmic background of the sky (the Milky Way) will occur in 2012.” [12]
If it seems hard to believe that Jenkins means this literally, consider that according to Jenkins, the ancient Maya were also capable of interdimensional travel to any time, place, and plane of existence they chose [13]. As a result,
Ironically, the progressive theories of quantum mechanics are hailed as advanced, recent discoveries. The Maya, however, not only knew about quantum anomalies, but were able to conjure them up at will and travel into them. 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[14].
But remember: Jenkins nevertheless seems to believe he knows more than they did about what will happen in 2012. And good fellow that he is, he offers the following advice to the leaders of the world:
Scholars know that Maya rulers took mind-expanding plants, undertook vision journeys, and were glorified as great shamans, but they have not explored the implications of this kind of socio-political system. The reasons are many, not the least of which are fear of the unknown and the current institutionalized anathema toward hallucinogens. And yet, looked at objectively, the Mayas’ use of such knowledge-bestowing tools is completely understandable, even desirable. The leaders of society should be able to journey into the deep psyche, to access the fount of all creativity and genius, to commune with the ancestors and beings from other realms and times, and to deliver into their country the organizational frequencies emanating from the cosmic source[15] (emphasis in original)
If you balk at this suggestion, shame on you, you enemy of humanity! As Jenkins points out,
On the 13.0.0.0.0 date itself, the door will be open [to the channeling of transdimensional beings,] and at that time some people may be more interested in figuring out how to close it. In fact, the current proliferation of fundamentalist closed-mindedness in political and religious discourse is already on the upswing. This may be a reactionary and regressive response to the alignment, which, properly understood, is the opening door to our multidimensional birthright as we approach the Galactic Zero Time of the Maya.[16]
Even if the transdimensional beings should happen to find the door closed on 21 December 2012, there’s no need to worry. Jenkins is convincingly reassuring about this. First, he notes that although the Maya weren’t necessarily as knowledgeable as he is, they really did know quite a bit about the cosmological basis of the Galactic Alignment:
Our inner growth should now be able to expand beyond the superiority complex of our own civilization, now that we know that the ancient Maya had attained a level of cosmic understanding that modern science has not grasped.3
But why not hear what Jenkins himself believes?
I believe that the Galactic alignment stimulates consciousness evolution on this planet, whether or not beings alive during the alignment era are aware of it happening. I also feel that it occurs every 26,000 years, whether or not beings alive during the alignment era are aware of it happening.[17]
Whew! That’s a relief! Our consciousness would evolve even if we were unaware of the Alignment. Just to make sure he was not misunderstood on this point, Jenkins repeated it in a response to Magical Blend’s review of MC 2012:
[In MC 2012] I also suggest a field-effect model for understanding these galactic dynamics and how consciousness on earth may be stimulated by our changing relationship to the Galactic Center during the 26,000-year precessional cycle. Thank you for this opportunity to clarify the nature of my work. [6]
Having expressed himself so lucidly, Jenkins confidently leaves history to judge his work:
I trust that MC2012 will be judged by its own merits, on its own internal consistency, and on its honest approach to the truth. [7]
Conclusion
Jenkins’ own words show him to be an advocate and user of hallucinogens. His wholehearted approval of Zap’s bizarre “diagnoses” of his (Jenkins’) critics is frankly disturbing, as is Jenkins’ apparent belief that those critics are trying to close the door against communication with transdimensional beings.
I saw no indication that Jenkins has retracted anything I’ve quoted here, either on his various websites or in his article “A Mutant Convergence”. But of course I will apologize most humbly if he can show me that he has. He can reach me through the “Tom B.” mentioned in the footnote.
Jim Smith
Palenque
29 June 2010
