Prophesies, Concepts and Theories
Mayan - Hopi - I Ching
Mayan
PROPHECIES OF THE MAYAN AND AZTEC INDIANS
Mayan/ Aztec prophecies The Mayans, a civilisation of great sophistication and excellence in Astronomy, disappeared suddenly from the jungles of Central America around 830 AD. Like the Aztecs after them, the Mayan's made reference to the world being created and destroyed several times. They believed they were living in the 5th age of the sun, and that 4 previous ages had existed. The Mayans believed that there had been great death and destruction at the end of each of the previous worlds. The Aztec description of the end of the 4 suns is as follows:
1st sun - destroyed by water
2nd sun - destroyed by wind
3rd sun - destroyed by fire
4th sun - destroyed by rain of fire and blood.
(there is some controversy concerning the correct ordering).
The Mayans date the end of the previous world (4th sun) as 13 August 3114 BC (Long count calendar). The date for the end of the current world has been decoded as just before sunset, Central American time, 21 December 2012.
THE GREGORIAN CALENDAR AND THE MAYAN CALENDAR
Gregorian Mayan
1991 2000
1992 2001
1993 2002
1994 2003
1995 2004
1996 2005
1997 2006
1998 2007
1999 2008
2000 2009
2001 2010
2002 2011
2003 2012
Great Pyramid at Giza's timeline for events 2000 AD
It has been long seen that the passages and chambers of the Great Pyramid appear to map human history - in terms of the passages angles, directions, sizes and shapes. A time scale seems to indicate important events, indeed sometimes accurately to the day. The Great Subterranean Chamber appears to apply to our time. It is entered around 1914. It brings humanity to the deepest part of the pit around 2003 plus or minus three years (Lemesurier, P. 'The Great Pyramid Decoded'). The first of the steps leading out of the pit do not appear till around 2055 A.D. As Mr. Lemesurier, who has conducted one of the most recent analyses, describes in 'The Final Reckoning': "The crisis is essentially a material one. We should expect the basic structures that underlie our whole civilisation to suffer severe damage. Our financial structures, our communications networks, our supplies of raw- materials and consequently our whole standard of living are at severe risk. For some decades we may be forced back into a much more primitive way of life characterised by self- sufficiency and closeness to the land. Especially during the change over, social unrest, conflict and disintegration may result."
PROPHECIES Native American Prophecy
I detail here a prophecy of an Apache wise man called Stalking Wolf. This prophecy is recounted by Tom Brown Jr. who knew this wise man in his early years as 'The Grandfather'. A brief summary follows, however I advise interested readers to investigate the full text of 'The Quest'.
The Grandfather had many personal and global prophecies which he shared with Tom Brown. However, in the 1920's he had a series of 4 prophecies concerning the destruction of man. He said that we could still change things, even after the first two prophecies came true, but there could be no turning back after the third.
A spirit warrior guided the Grandfather through a series of visions. In each, he saw the effects of each via a form of spirit (or astral) travel. The spirit warrior said: "These are the things yet to come that will mark the destruction of man. These things you may never see, but you must work to stop them and pass these warnings on to your grandchildren. They are the possible futures of what will come if man does not come back to the earth and begin to obey the laws of Creation and the Creator. These are four signs, four warnings, that only the children of earth will understand. Each warning marks the beginning of a possible future, and as each warning becomes reality, so too does the future it marks."
1st Vision The Grandfather found himself in a dry place with little vegetation. He entered a village, from which the stench of death came forth. A horrific sight of living starvation and the bodies of the dead greeted him - the frail frames telling of death by starvation. The Grandfather was met by an man, who he felt was the spirit of an elder of these people. The elder told him "Welcome to what will be called the 'land of starvation'. The world will one day look upon this with horror and will blame the famine on the weather and the Earth. This will be the first warning to the world that man cannot live beyond the laws of Creation, nor can he fight Nature. If the world sees that it is to blame for this famine, then a great lesson will be learned…This will be the first sign. There will come starvation before and after this starvation, but none will capture the attention of the world with such impact as does this one. The children of the earth will know the lessons that are held in all of this pain and death, but the world will only see it as drought and famine, blaming nature instead of itself."
[Comment: would seem to describe the great African famine that inspired Live Aid]
Later, the spirit warrior came again to the Grandfather. Again he spoke: "It is during the years of the famine, the first sign, that man will be plagued by a disease, a disease that will sweep the land and terrorise the masses. The white coats will have no answers for the people, and a great cry will arise across the land. The disease will be born of monkeys, drugs and sex. It will destroy man from inside, making a common sickness a killing disease. [Comment: AIDS] Mankind will bring this disease upon himself as a result of his life, his worship of sex and drugs, and a life away from Nature. This, too, is a part of the first warning;but, again, man will not heed this warning and he will continue to worship the false gods of sex and the unconscious spirit of drugs. The drugs will produce wars in the cities of man, and the nations will arise against those wars, arise against that killing disease. But the nations will fight in the wrong way, lashing out at the effect rather than the cause. It will never win these wars until the nation, until society, changes its values and stops chasing the gods of sex and drugs. It is then, in the years of the first sign, that man can change the course of the probable future… But once the second sign of destruction appears, the Earth can no longer be healed on a physical level. Only a spiritual healing can then change the probable futures of mankind."
PROPHECIES Native American Prophecy
2nd Vision
After a period of rest, The Grandfather is transported to another scene. A dry landscape, barren of vegetation was the scene with animals laid dying. The heat was oppressive. The Sun seemed to be larger and more intense and no birds or clouds could be seen. It was then that the sky seemed to surge and huge holes began to appear. These holes tore with a resounding, thunderous sound, and the very Earth, rocks and soil shook. Grandfather saw further visions of dying fish and dolphins, accompanied by tremendous upheavals of the Earth and violent storms. Piles of garbage reached to the skies, forests lay cut and dying, coastlines were flooded and storms grew more violent and thunderous. With each passing moment, the Earth shook with greater intensity. The spirit warrior confirmed Holes in the Sky would be the second sign. "The holes in the sky and all that you have seen could become man's reality. It is here, at the beginning of this second sign, that man can no longer heal the Earth with physical action. It is here that man must heed the warning and work harder to change the future at hand. But man must not only work physically, he must work spiritually, through prayer, for only through prayer can man now hope to heal the Earth and himself…It is the time of these holes that will mark a great transition in mankind's thinking. They will then be faced with a choice - a choice to continue following the path of destruction, or a choice to move back to the philosophy of the Earth and a simpler existence. It is here that the decision must be made, or all will be lost."
[Holes in the Sky: holes in the Ozone layer??]
3rd Vision
After a period of four days of contemplation the Grandfather received the third vision. He saw the sky turning to a liquid and then blood red. The red colour of the sky was like nothing he had seen before in a sunrise or sunset. The colour was that of man, not of Nature, and it had a vile stench and texture. It seemed to burn the Earth wherever it touched. As sunset turned to night, the stars shone bright red, the colour never leaving the sky, and everywhere the cries of fear and pain were heard. The spirit warrior explained: "This, then, is the third sign, the night of the bleeding stars. It will become known throughout the world, for the sky in all lands will be red with the blood of the sky, day and night. It is then, with this sign of the third probable future, that there is no longer hope. Life on Earth as man has lived it will come to an end, and there can be no turning back, physically or spiritually. It is then, if things are not changed during the second sign, that man will surely know the destruction of the earth is at hand. It is then that the children of the earth must run to the wild places and hide. For when the sky bleeds fire, there will be no safety in the world of man."
The spirit next described the time frame: "From this time, when the stars bleed, to the fourth and final sign, will be four seasons of peace [i.e. one year]. It is in these four seasons that the children of the Earth must live deep in the wild places and find a new home, close to the Earth and the Creator. It is only the children of the Earth that will survive, and they must live the philosophy of the Earth, never returning to the thinking of man. And survival will not be enough, for the children of the Earth must also live close to the Spirit. So tell them not to hesitate if and when this third sign becomes manifest in the stars, for there are but four seasons to escape."
PROPHECIES Native American Prophecy
4th Vision
Finally, the 4th vision, this time described by the voice of a young child, was given to the Grandfather. "The fourth and final sign will appear through the next ten winters [i.e. following 10 years] following the night that the stars will bleed. During this time, the Earth will heal itself and man will die. For those ten years, the children of the Earth must remain hidden in the wild places, make no permanent camps, and wander to avoid contact with the last remaining forces of man. They must remain hidden, like the ancient scouts, and fight the urge to go back to the destruction of man. Curiosity could kill many."
The Grandfather asked about what was to befall the worlds of man. The child's voice told him: "There will be a great famine throughout the world, like man cannot imagine. Waters will run vile, the poisons of man's sins running strong in the waters of soils, lakes and rivers. Crops will fail, the animals of man will die, and disease will kill the masses. The grandchildren will feed upon the remains of the dead… Roving bands of men will hunt and kill other men for food, and water will always be scarce, getting scarcer with each passing year. The land, the water, the sky will all be poisoned, and man will live in the wrath of the Creator…Man will be destroyed, his cities in ruin, and it is then that the grandchildren will pay for the sins of their grandfathers and grandmothers."
The voice reiterated that they would only hope during the 1st and 2nd signs."…Man will be given these warnings, if unheeded, there can be no hope, for only the children of the earth will purge themselves of the cancers of mankind, of mankind's destructive thinking. It will be the children of the Earth who will bring a new hope to the new society, living closer to the Earth and Spirit."
The full prophecy can be found in 'The Quest - by Tom Brown Jr (1991)'.
Hopi
PROPHECIES OF THE HOPI INDIANS
Dan Katchongva (1865-1972), Hopi Primary Source: Excerpts, The Hopi Story: Teachings, History, and Prophecies of the Hopi People: as told by Dan Katchongva, Sun Clan. Translated by Danagyumptewa
This talk was recorded on 1/29/70 and was published because Mr. Katchongva hoped that those causing this tragedy could not persist if they had an idea of the purpose behind Hopi resistance to foreign control. Dan agreed to the publication of this booklet on condition that it never be sold, insisting that to sell Hopi teachings would be like selling his own mother. In addition to the prophecies fulfilled during his lifetime, Dan was told by his father that he would live to see the beginning of the final event of this era, the Great Day of Purification. Dan Katchongva died in 1972.
Arrival of Another Race Foretold Time passed on, people passed on, and the prophecies of things to come were passed from mouth to mouth. The stone tablets and the rock writing of the life plan were often reviewed by the elders. Fearfully they waited as they retold the prophecy that one day another race of people would appear in their midst and claim our land as his own. He would try to change our pattern of life. He would have a sweet tongue or a forked tongue and many good things by which we would be tempted. He would use force in an attempt to trap us into using weapons, but we must not fall for this trick, for then we ourselves would be brought to our knees, from which we might not be able to rise. Nor must we ever raise our hand against any nation. We now call these people Bahanna.
The Forces of Purification We have teachings and prophecies informing us that we must be alert for the signs and omens which will come about to give us courage and strength to stand on our beliefs. Blood will flow. Our hair and our clothing will be scattered upon the earth. Nature will speak to us with its mighty breath of wind. There will be earthquakes and floods causing great disasters, changes in the seasons and in the weather, disappearance of wildlife, and famine in different forms. There will be gradual corruption and confusion among the leaders and the people all over the world, and wars will come about like powerful winds. All of this has been planned from the beginning of creation. We will have three people standing behind us, ready to fulfil our prophecies when we get into hopeless difficulties: the Moha Symbol (which refers to a plant that has a long root, milky sap, grows back when cut off, and has a flower shaped like a swastika, symbolizing the four great forces of nature in motion), the Sun Symbol, and the Red Symbol. Bahanna's intrusion into the Hopi way of life will set the Moha symbol in motion, so that the four great forces of nature (the four directions, the controlling forces, the original force) will rock the world into war. When this happens we will know that our prophecies are coming true. We will gather strength and stand firm. This great movement will fall, but because its subsistence is milk, and because it is controlled by the four forces of nature, it will rise again to put the world in motion, creating another war, in which both the Moha and the Sun Symbol will be at work. [My note: apparently referring to the swastika-like Moha (Germany) in conjunction with the Rising Sun (Japan)] Then it will rest in order to rise a third time. Our prophecy foretells that the third event will be the decisive one. Our road plan foretells the outcome. This sacred writing speaks the word of the Great Spirit. It could mean the mysterious life seed with two principles of tomorrow, indicating one, inside of which is two. The third and last, which will it bring forth, purification or destruction?
PROPHECIES OF THE HOPI INDIANS
The third event will depend upon the Red Symbol, which will take command, setting the four forces of nature (Moha) in motion for the benefit of the Sun. When he sets these forces in motion the whole world will shake and turn red and turn against the people who are hindering the Hopi cultural life. To all these people Purification Day will come. Humble people will run to him in search of a new world, and the equality that has been denied them. He will come unmercifully. His people will cover the Earth like red ants. We must not go outside to watch. We must stay in our houses. He will come and gather the wicked people who are hindering the red people who were here first. He will be looking for someone whom he will recognize by his way of life, or by his head (the special Hopi haircut) or by the shape of his village and his dwellings. He is the only one who will purify us. The Purifier, commanded by the Red Symbol, with the help of the Sun and the Moha, will weed out the wicked who have disturbed the way of life of the Hopi, the true way of life on Earth. The wicked will be beheaded and will speak no more. This will be the Purification for all righteous people, the Earth, and all living things on Earth. The ills of the earth will be cured. Mother Earth will bloom again and all people will unite into peace and harmony for a long time to come.
But if this does not materialize, the Hopi traditional identity will vanish due to pressure from Bahanna. Through the white man's influence, his religions, and the disappearance of our sacred land, the Hopi will be doomed. This is the Universal Plan, speaking through the Great Spirit since the dawn of time. The Hopi have been placed on this side of the Earth to take care of the land through their ceremonial duties, just as other races of people have been placed elsewhere around the Earth to take care of her in their own ways. Together, we hold the world in balance, revolving properly. If the Hopi nation vanishes, the motion of the Earth will become eccentric, the water will swallow the land, and the people will perish. Only a brother and a sister may be left to start a new life.
PROPHECIES OF THE HOPI INDIANS The Prophecy Rock.
The Hopi Indians have a prophetic tradition dating back thousands of years. One of their crucial prophecies was carved on a rock cliff in the Black Mesa of Arizona, some 2000 years ago. This petroglyph (as described by Sun Bear and others) depicts the great spirit pointing to two divergent historical paths across the era of our world (the fourth world).
[The above drawing is an interpretation of the carving on Prophecy Rock. Both the drawing and the explanation below come from Thomas Banyacya, Hopi Elder. There are other interpretations; most are similar to this one.]
Our Hopi history tells us that at the time of emergence we met the spirit who owns this world. He met us, and we asked him to be our leader. He refused, saying that we had our own mission to fulfil before he would consider becoming our leader. He set this life out for us. He gave us instructions. This is symbolized by his figure holding the line. Now the circle at the bottom of the drawing symbolizes the physical world and creation. We went forth into our journeys. We reached a certain point in time, who knows, maybe a thousand years. There we were met by Massau’u again. Here he gave us more instructions. To the Hopis he gave a path of life to follow. This is shown by the straight line that goes across. To the white brother he gave different instructions. The white brother went up, and the Hopis went another direction.
Now at this second meeting with Massau’u, he told us that within the life of this current world, there would be three phases of life where the whole world would be shaken up. Three nations would rise up and shake the world. This we interpret to mean world wars. Now up at the left side we see a symbol. This is what is painted on the Hopi ceremonial rattles that are given to children. The rattle symbolizes the world. The painting on the rattle shows the symbols of the countries that would shake the world three times. I think that the swastika in the middle symbolizes the German people, who had that for a symbol. They brought the United States into the First and Second World Wars. The sun symbol signifies the Japanese people who brought the United States into the Second World War. Pasivaya, an old religious leader from Shipaulovi, told me that the third nation to rise up would have its national symbols in red. The people would wear red caps or red robes. The world has been shaken up twice already. There is one more war left.
So after the second meeting with Massau’u the white brother went on his way, and we went on our way, according to instructions. But it was told that we would meet again some day, that this white brother would come back to purify us so that we would become one people again. So on the top, the line means this -- it shows the journey of this white brother. In the life of the white peoples, they would show themselves to be clever and gifted. They would invent many scientific things.
PROPHECIES OF THE HOPI INDIANS The Prophecy Rock.
So the first three figures shown on the top line symbolize the stages of the white people, their scientific advancement, from the carriage to the automobile to the airplane. The circles right underneath the figures prophesy the three gourds of ashes that would fall on earth. The first and second circles are interpreted to mean the bombs that fell on Japan in WWII. The four headless figures on top show our Hopis who have become like the white people. These are Hopis who have forsaken their Life Plan and who have become like the Pahana [whites]. They have fallen for the white way of life -- the easy life, the modern conveniences -- and do not care for Hopi life anymore. These Hopis will say to other Hopis to follow their ways. Now if all Hopis fall for this trap, then life will be like the jagged line going up, toward the upper right corner. It will be up and down, turmoil, earthquakes, floods, drought. The old people say we are at this stage of life now.
But it is prophesied that a phase of life will come when those Hopis who have become like the white people will realize their wrongdoings and attempt to join again the Hopis who are holding on. This is symbolized by the line going down, back to the Life Plan of the Hopis. Now if this happens, then there will be times of unity, of all Hopis working together. We would have then come back to this Life Plan set out by the Great Spirit for us. This is symbolized by the circle and the corn. Now it is foretold that we would meet up with Massau’u one more time as symbolized by the figure on the right. He will judge us and, if we are deserving to go with him, he will accept to be the leader of the Hopis. And thereafter we will have a happy life.
Like the Maya, Aztec, and other Native American tribal wisdom traditions, the Hopi tell of a series of 'worlds' which have existed. Each may be thought of as a cycle of civilisation. A common aspect is that we are currently in the 4th world. The Hopi describe the demise of the other worlds as follows:
1st world: ended when all of the volcanoes of the world erupted and an all consuming fire engulfed and destroyed the first world.
2nd world: ended when the poles shifted and the earth was covered in ice. Mountains fell into oceans and seas.
3rd world: "The third world was very corrupt and this time it would be destroyed through water. Taiowa sent Spider Woman to talk to the people who still carried the Creator's song in their hearts. She taught them how to build large boats out of reeds.This, they did, and when their boats were sealed, the waters began to flood the world. The noise of the rushing waters was incredible. Large continents sunk and broke apart into small islands. Incredible rains fell. Then it stopped, and there was silence. The reed boats drifted the people over the silent waters for a long time. When their boats finally stopped on a new coastline, the people walked onto the dry lands for the first time. They had emerged into the fourth world. This is the world we are all living in today."
PROPHECIES OF THE HOPI INDIANS
The Hopi account of the end of the previous 3rd world by a 'cleansing' by way of great flood fits in well with Cayce and others. In fact, similar traditions of a worldwide catastrophe exist among peoples of all continents including Scandinavians, Greeks, Egyptians, Hebrews, Sumerians, Babylonians, Persians, Hindus, Fiji Islanders, Eskimos, native North and South Americans and many other sources.
The Hopis mark the end of the 4th world as a purge by fire (cf. Edgar Cayce above). The end of the fourth world (called Tuwaqachi by the Hopi) is described thus (see Book Of The Hopi, by Frank Waters). Eventually a gourd full of ashes would be invented, which if dropped from the sky would boil the oceans and burn the land causing nothing to grow for many years (atomic bomb). This would be the sign for a certain Hopi to bring out his teachings in order to warn the world that the third and final event would happen soon. That it could bring an end to all life unless people correct themselves and their leaders in time.
The final stage, called "The great day of Purification", has been described as a "Mystery Egg" in which the forces of the swastika and the Sun plus a third force symbolized by the colour "red" culminate either in total rebirth or total annihilation, we don't know which. But the choice is yours, war and natural catastrophe may be involved. The degree of violence will be determined by the degree of inequity caused among the peoples of the world and in the balance of nature. In this crisis rich and poor will be forced to struggle as equals in order to survive.
Some markers and signs: Before the time of the great Purification, they will make metal roads for iron horses and hang metal ropes in the air. (pre-Colombian Hopi prophecy) First they will bring back pieces of the Moon which will upset the balance and unleash disastrous forces. (ibidem) Near the day of the Great Purification, there will be cobwebs spun back and forth in the sky through which 'people will walk' . (ibidem) The Purification will begin shortly after humans build a great house in the sky (MIR and/ or new European/US space station?). By then there will be fires everywhere and greedy, selfish, power-mad leaders, internal wars. (ibidem)
I Ching
The I Ching, also known in the West as The Book of Change, may be the oldest book in the world. Originating thousands of years ago among the courtly shaman-diviners of ancient China, it springs out of the unconditioned consciousness of primeval humanity. Here are truly fundamental perceptions of reality, distilled into inter-related images of physical and spiritual reality. The images are associated with numbers, and the numbers may be derived from certain technical manipulations that enable a skilled psychic reader to use the book as an oracle. In fact, the book has been used and abused for fortune telling from its earliest days. It had itself evolved out of a still more ancient divining tool known as the Tortoise Oracle, which wisdom it incorporated.
In Chinese, "ching" means book. "I" means change, or changes. Thus the name may be translated as The Book of Changes. But "I" means not only change. Strangely enough, it also means permanence, or the unchangeable. The Book of Changes views all of the changes that we and the world go through as an unfolding of the immutable laws and principles of existence. By explaining our present situation in terms of the natural laws that have given rise to it, we can know where we are headed and what the future is likely to be.
The I ching views the universe as a natural and well-coordinated system in which the process of change never ceases. It presents human nature and destiny as based on principle and order. Study of the I ching thus makes it possible for us to orient individual human activities and situations within the larger context of harmonious interactions between people, nature, and the cosmos.
Emergent behaviour from complex systems, elementally founded upon fundamental, indivisible, and subatomic elements presents a pattern that if we stare into far enough we can see all of reality imprinted inside it. To a certain degree, everything has analogous properties, bearing elements of likeness, within a family of self-similar attributes. Time, as contemporary Westerners organize it, breaks into segmented parts: milliseconds, seconds, minutes, hours, days, months, years. We know this system to be flawed; within our 365 days per year model, we are occasionally required to modify a month with a given extra day here and there. Our flawed measurement of time differs from saying that time itself is flawed. Time appears to be mutable, or at least at times bent and yet time is not a thing, it is not material— meeting at the cusp of space in a fractional universe, exerting force ever forward (to our perceptions). Chaos reveals itself as a dominant force in the universe, with its strange attractors allowing the more admirable and beautiful natural phenomena to occur. Is there perhaps some attractor pulling us forward through time?
Modern physicists and ancient Asian philosophies agree— time is change. Time is flux, from Heraclitus to the Tao Te Ching. The I Ching, or The Book of Changes has long led as guidance to Oriental cultures, originating in China. Though artificial and of human conception, the I Ching, if its mathematical and qualitative features are validated (besides its efficacy as a work of art and poetry), is a direct product of the complex interactions of the people who created it and their understanding of time.
The King Wen sequence of the I Ching divides into 64 hexagrams, each a combination of six lines holding the properties of yin or yang. Each hexagram, according to the tradition, represents the archetypes of human interactions. Assuming that the world is governed by seemingly random events and causality, the chaos in hexagram selection by the I Ching diviner compliments the chaotic nature of reality, thus tapping in to its very nature allowing insight to life's possibilities. The I Ching influenced and confounded such modern intellectuals as the psychologist and mystic Carl Jung, Philip K. Dick the author and cosmic by-product, and most relevant to the theories discussed here, Terence McKenna.
Terence McKenna was a psycho nautical explorer, a special kind of genius who believed in the power of psychedelics to unlock the mind's ability to ascertain the secrets of the universe. If anything can be learned through the theories of complexity, it is the interconnectedness and gestalt through all things. Through the use of psilocybin-containing fungi and DMT-containing aboriginal mixtures, McKenna began formulating a theory of time that at first was very intuitive and abstract. Through the aid of his ethnobotanist brother, Dennis McKenna, morphogenetic fields theorist Rupert Sheldrake, and chaos scientist Ralph Abraham, McKenna further clarified his theory of novelty with a refined mathematical base.
A few basic terminologies must be established so that I am making sense in my descriptions here. First and foremost, I establish that my knowledge of mathematics is limited to pre-calculus. My knowledge of chaos theory and fractals are limited to the handful of books and classes I've taken on the subject. I am no physicist— just a guy with a sincere interest in reality, perhaps more open-minded than I should be. I make no claims that these theories are entirely scientifically sound, nor do I believe in them any more than I believe in a time model without structure. As humans, we are pattern-forming creatures, and for our own personal comfort we tend to invent rationalizations of the universe that fit within a model that can make us happy— that says something is happening beyond randomness. As I understand complexity theory, it only further enhances the arguments that can be made here&mash; that time and a fractional imprint could possibly dictate causality.
Timewave One is the evolved theory, as it stands today. Through many revisions by the meticulous investigations of mathematicians Matthew Watkins and John Sheliak, it has evolved into more than just an abstract psychedelic whim. Consider that like light, time fluctuates in a waveform, albeit one more complicated than one of such simplicity as a sine wave. This wave is a fractal, wherein the wave when plotted over time (x) remains the same shape regardless of whether time is seen as a large portion of time or a smaller unit. In this graph y would represent novelty, or the occurrence of time.
According to Alfred North Whitehead:
Creativity is the principle of novelty. Creativity introduces novelty into the content of the many, which are the universe disjunctively. The creative advance is the application of this ultimate principle of creativity to each novel situation which it originates. The ultimate metaphysical principle is the advance from disjunction to conjunction, creating a novel entity other than the entities given in disjunction. The novel entity is at once the togetherness of the many which it finds and also it is one among the disjunctive many which it leaves; it is a novel entity, disjunctively among the many entities which it synthesizes. The many become one, and are increased by one. In their natures, entities are disjunctively many in process of passage into conjunctive unity. Thus the production of novel togetherness is the ultimate notion embodied in the term concrescence. These ultimate notions of production of novelty and concrete togetherness are inexplicable either in terms of higher universals or in terms of the components participating in the concrescence. The analysis of the components abstracts from the concrescence. The sole appeal is to intuition.
On the timewave's graph, periods of high novelty are where key events in history have taken place. McKenna's plotting, through his Timewave Zero software developed by John Sheliak, indicates at its highest novelty points key moments in history, such as the formation of the sun, the earth, and onward.
When looked at over a smaller timescale, the graph repeats itself with new key points.
The graph presents time over a scale of 6 billion years, or the same illustrates the last 94 million years. Or one can leap ahead to the past 360 years; the timewave remains the same as key events are plotted according to McKenna (which I admit may be the more subjective, arbitrary flaw of the theory):
The most compelling piece of information within these graphs is the end point at 2012. According to the software McKenna used, and the information supposedly released upon him by the collective unconscious (or the logos) was a future end date in that year, precisely December 21, 2012. This end date is not the Armageddon usual in end-of-the-world theories; instead it is the point of highest novelty throughout time. This could be interpreted as the most major paradigm shift we have ever known, and limiting it only to humankind would be folly. McKenna has theorized that it may be the year we make contact, or realize some means to transverse space and time, or artificial intelligence becoming such a reality that it becomes an omega point of sorts for the universe. His personal conviction, and also the one I most subscribe to if I were subscribing to any of this, is a return to the Invisible Landscape, a means to leave our fleshy bodies behind and become one with the cosmos.
Rupert Sheldrake's morphogenetic field theory here enters into the equation. The morphogenetic field is the idea of the collective unconscious married to physics, and while highly experimental and without verifiable proof, anyone with any serious encounters with psychedelic spiritual plants like DMT, Salvia Divinorum, and psilocybin have come into contact with this field, and its morphic resonance within us has been more real than any hallucination-model would suggest. It is a shame that most psychedelic research in this country has been stifled over the years, and such a social stigma has been placed upon their use. One need just mention the word psychedelic and all their research flies out the window as incredible. Ralph Abraham hypothesizes 2012 as the strange attractor time has been following all along, that we are being pulled towards this point through complexity.
A means to discovering this pull may be within the supposedly-reflexsive nature of the I Ching. One may attribute this ability to the controversial, experimental, quite possibly false but unfalsfiable theory of the morphogenetic field. From this field, it could be speculated, the ancients had withdrawn their knowledge and encoded within the fortune-telling device. It is interesting to note than independent to Terence McKenna's ruminations on the subject, the Mayan calendar had a projected end date of 2012 as well. This corroborating evidence further suggests the possibility of a morphic resonance through time of this end point.
The Timewave theory is not without its criticism. In 1994, Matthew Watkins raised an issue with what he thought to be arbitrary construction of McKenna's math. Later, at least according to McKenna, the mathematical errors were corrected in the computer program. According to Watkins, "The timewave is a mathematical function defined by applying a 'fractal transform' to a piecewise linear function. The latter function is an expression of 384 'data points' (positive integer values) derived from the King Wen sequence." Watkins' objection was that at some point in the math, numbers are brought to the -1nth power. He saw no clear reason why. The mathematician who wrote the computer software called this the half twist. Despite his doubt in the significance of the timewave itself, Watkins says "It wouldn't surprise me if a fractal map of temporal resonance was encoded into the King Wen sequence, just as it wouldn't surprise me if something quite remarkable does occur on December 21, 2012. The world can be a very strange place, and we all have much to learn. McKenna's hyper-imaginative speculation has fired the imagination of many. With this particular 'theory' he has spread awareness of the I Ching and the Mayan calendar, both fascinating and poorly understood systems of ancient human thought. I should therefore end by suggesting that the remainder of his published thought should not be dismissed as a result of my findings which are discussed here."
But these are just words; these are not necessarily belief. I find these ideas incredibly fascinating, and only wish I could understand the math to any degree. The concept of a novelty wave, oriented with time is yet another attractive alternative to God and destiny; an endpoint both terrifies and excites, because it's the end of one thing, and the beginning of another.
To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.
---Ralph Waldo Emerson.
