The Maya Long Count calendar can be broken down into numerous cycles. Being named the 13 Baktun calendar it is reasonable to suggest the smallest unit in which to expect a notable change would be a single Baktun, just under 400 years. Personally I am sceptical that major change events happen in such short periods on a global scale. I will then forgo that examination leaving it perhaps to others less dismissive.

Let us then work on the more plausible theory in which global disasters recur every complete 13 Baktun cycle. This is a span of 5126 years. It is fair to note that once we go back further than a couple of these cycle’s events become rather hazy. We shall however do our best to go back through the last five such periods remembering that we are now approaching the Maya 5th sun.

Just to make things clear, the following are my parameters for this investigation:

Taking each Long Count end-date I will look at events within the 36 years either side. This 72-year window is equivalent to one degree of precession of the zodiac constellations. It is also one reasonable human lifetime, though not the average span. Within that period I will be looking for significant environmental upheavals or sudden negative or adaptive changes in the human cultures of the time. These changes in humanity may suggest unknown catalytic environmental events. Clearly mega quakes, super-volcanoes, pole-shifts, crust-slips, comet impacts, massive tsunamis or global pandemics are what we are really hoping to find however (maybe even alien invasions or nuclear apocalypse).

Below we have our target dates:

First Great Cycle 23.614 B.C. - 18.489 B.C.
Second Great Cycle 18.489 B.C. - 13.364 B.C.
Third Great Cycle 13.364 B.C. - 8.239 B.C.
Fourth Great Cycle 8.239 B.C. - 3.114 B.C.
Fifth Great Cycle 3.114 B.C. - 2.012 A.D.

1. In the year 23,614BC the world was in the worst ravages of the ice age according to modern calculations. If any moderately advanced civilisation had existed around this time it was likely utterly eradicated. We do know that modern man (beings exactly like us) existed for at least the last 200,000 years. We can be sure that a community of humans should not require 200,000 years to achieve an advanced culture. Our current global civilisation took much less than 10,000 years to rise from its hunter gatherer ways to space flight. Whatever may be the truth regarding this period, it is impossible to expect clear evidence for a sudden cataclysmic event within our 75 year window. If there was a sudden disaster event it has been eradicated from pre-history amidst the rolling destruction of the expanding ice. Nobody alive at the time needed a calendar to tell them things were getting bad.

2. The close of the first cycle coincides fairly neatly with the start of a period labelled the Mesolithic. This point in time is considered to mark a change in the climate of the planet. Generally it is excepted that ice went into rapid retreat and humanity flourished. The Magdalenian culture spread out leaving its mark in the form of complex cave art. The Kebara culture leaves a record of advances in stone technologies. These coincide with a period in which whole regions were dramatically changed by new climatic conditions, and entire new landscapes formed by retreating ice, likely causing humanity to require adaptation. No sudden events are notable just several centuries of interesting change.

3. The close of the second cycle falls within a rather broad period in which we record the end of the last ice age. There is no doubt that this period was beset by some catastrophic flood events as huge lakes filled with melted glaciers broke containment and emptied across the lands. The America’s and Europe saw massive destruction events due to this process. It is however a process that occurs during vague window of time around two millennia in length. The only other notable events are that man domesticates dogs and within a few hundred years begins dog burials. Any sudden flood events were seemingly regional and spaced out over a long time.

4. The close of the third cycle occurs in the middle of a millennium of amazing progression for mankind. Farming involving both crops and animals becomes widely established. New human settlements appear in previously uninhabited countries. Climate changes occur due to the Gulf Stream swinging to the south. Warming oceans expand and swallow large areas of land, alongside further extensive flooding from melting glaciers. There are also a number of volcanic eruptions during this period. Once again the changes are over hundreds of years and the climatic disasters are regional and stepped over centuries.

5. The close of the fourth cycle coincides with the start of our current long count period in 3114BC and is thus the one we have the most historical evidence available for. There is in fact a mass of very interesting data for our 72 year window, however little of it relates to disasters. Quite the contrary in fact as the largest amount of evidence relates to leaps forward for human civilisation around the planet. Once again we are presented only with a vague period for climate changes sometime around 5200 years ago. It would seem that a sudden cold and dry period fell upon large regions of the globe, certainly affecting the area from Central Africa to Central Asia. Over the course of perhaps a century or two the Sahara desert was born from fertile lands. There are theories that either a great flood or meteor storm occurred at this time. Unfortunately they remain just that. Even if true no specific date is given for either possibility that can be substantiated by solid evidence or trustworthy eyewitness testimony (accurately dated). Even looking this recently we find no singular dated global catastrophe. Even the sudden climate change is only so in the sense of geological time.

2012 cartoonAs we have yet to close the fifth cycle our journey must stop there. I will happily admit that I am not an expert historian, geologist or archaeologist. Nor is it likely that we have exhausted all possible sources of data. For the moment though I am satisfied enough to reach a personal conclusion, pending new data.

I personally can’t find any convincing evidence for fixed certain and specific catastrophic events that occurred within the lifetime of a human living during previous cycle end dates. If there were such events then we simply have no solid evidence of them. To fit with the sudden disaster theory would require me to broaden my window of time to hundreds, if not thousands, of years wide (forget 72!). Frankly I can’t correlate the excitement of the current 2012 subject to an event that would only be observable should one live for at least 500 years. Besides which, the changes we are seeing in modern times are far more rapid than those mentioned above.

During my investigation it was abundantly clear to me that there were sudden events and indeed exciting things happening in the past. The problems is they were way outside of my time window and thus only strengthen the case against the Maya long count being useful for tracking major cyclical physical upheavals. A culture reliant on the long count for such affairs would have been blind-sided countless times over the last 26,000 years whilst preparing rigorously for several non-events.

If there is a major cataclysmic event during our current 72-year window it is seemingly the exception rather than the rule. There is far more evidence for humanity being in stages of rapid progression during long count endings than there is of us being obliterated. I think people need to abandon the idea of a Maya long count catastrophe calendar completely. The only source of this theory from within Maya culture is seemingly the Popul Vuh myths. These ancient stories depict the creation and destruction of differing forms of humans by the creator Gods. However these stories are not dated and there seems to be no concrete evidence that the Maya ever linked them to their 13-Baktun calendar cycles. Even more problematic is the fact that tales of these world ages and their destruction’s vary wildly throughout the different Mesoamerican cultures!

I think it is time people asked themselves just what kind of singular natural event occurs on a rigid 5126 year cycle?
In what manner can something destroy entire civilisations world-wide without leaving clear evidence?
If something apocalyptic occurs why is it that cultures existing during these times seem to have carried on regardless or actually made rapid progression throughout?

It seems to me that whatever is happening now as we approach 2012 and beyond it is related to something far grander than a mere 5126-year cycle. The rapid changes we are recording are perhaps unprecedented in all of the last 26,000 years or more. If not so then it certainly seems it will be the first time in known history that rapid climate change, cosmic shifts, cultural degradation, resource depletion, spiritual emergence and overt militaristic aggression have all coincided with the cycle tracked by the Maya long count system. Seemingly a time cycle that has far more to do with evolving consciousness than anything else, judging by the information I have found in my years of studies at least.

This all begs some new questions of course.

Accepting then that there is precious little evidence for either a Maya doomsday prophecy or a 5126-year destruction cycle, but that we really are in the middle of some kind of major cosmic event, what the heck is it?
What kind of genuinely possible occurrence can potentially radically alter both our physical and non-physical realities?
What does the ancient calendar system really track and how long is the important cycle?

Are you ready to find out?

By Bruce Fenton

Sai Baba in his last interview is talking about 5125 years long cycles :

"Well, in one way there are several prophecies that signal this date like a term or important conclusion in the history of humanity, but the most significant is the end of the Mayan calendar, which prophecy has been interpreted in different ways. The most negative ones think that during this year the world will end, but it will not be like that, it is known that during that year a new era will start, the Age of Aquarius.

This has to do with the rotation of the whole solar system (solar cycle) that goes passing through the different eras each one of them lasts 5125 years. The era in which we now are, called the Age of Pisces, started on the year 3113 B.C. and ends on 2012. If there is a change on the earth’s magnetism, there is a change on the consciousness and also an adaptation at the physical level for this new vibration. The changes are not only on our planet, but also affect the whole universe, and today’s science can verify that..."

David Wilcock explains differeence between 2160 and 5125 year cycles:

This 25,920-year cycle isn't just a feature of mythology -- it represents the apparent motion of the stars in the night sky, which drift by 1 degree every 72 years when you look at them on the same day each year -- such as the Winter Solstice.

In Western astrology, the cycle is divided up into 12 parts of 2,160 years each -- known as the "Ages of the Zodiac." We are now moving into the "Age of Aquarius."

The most exciting aspect of this cycle is that the ancient prophecies almost always tell us the end of this cycle will usher in a profoundly wonderful Golden Age on earth -- unlike anything we've ever seen before.

It does appear that the Mayan Calendar end-date of December 21st is a technically accurate day for when this shift-point will occur. The scholarship on this being the correct end-date for the calendar is certainly compelling.

At 5,125 years, the Mayan Calendar is very nearly one-fifth of this "master cycle" in length. [Technically it comes out to 25,625 years as opposed to 25,920 -- or a mere 295 days shy of the "ideal harmonic" cycle length of 25,920 years.]