The Nine Underworlds & Thirteen Heavens

The author Carl Calleman has written several excellent books that give very detailed explanations of the significance of the Nine Underworlds and 13 Heavens to the Mayans. He also clearly articulates his theories around how the Nine Underworlds describe the evolution of Earth consciousness. This article summarises Carl's theory as I believe his work is a vital part of understanding how our consciousness has evolved and will continue to evolve as we approach 2012. I encourage you to spend some time on Carl's website and to read his books. A good starting point on this subject is Carl's website article on the Nine Underworlds.

The Nine Underworlds

The Mayan's believed that the Cosmos was made up of Nine Underworlds and to evolve one moved through those underworlds. Their temples exemplified this, having nine steps, so ascending to the top of the temple represented the evolutionary journey through the underworlds.

Each Underworld represents a level of evolution and Calleman models the evolution of the Earth and humanity through the nine underworlds. His book, The Mayan Calendar and the Transformation of Consciousness is a good read and illustrates this well. His explanation has a lot of synergies with other models of evolution such as Spiral Dynamics, with waves of evolution that alternate between being individualistic and dualistic. The synergies are interesting given Spiral Dynamics is a 1990s concept developed from work in the 1950s and the Mayan theory came somewhat earlier.

The key principles of the Nine Underworlds theory of evolution are:

1. All underworlds start at different times and complete at the same time;
2. Each subsequent Underworld starts after the previous one and represents an acceleration in our evolution;
3. Each Underworld has the tzolkin (260 days) as a factor and all Underworlds start on the same tzolkin day and end on the same tzolkin day;
4. The energy within an Underworld is cyclical and each underworld is made up of 13 Heavens; seven days and 6 nights.

The Thirteen Heavens

Each Underworld has a waveform energy similar to a sinusoidal waveform. It is made up of seven days and 6 nights, with the days having positive waveforms and the nights negative waveforms. This article on Calleman's website explains it in more detail and illustrates how the 13 heavens represent a lifecycle.

The number thirteen is very important in Mesoamerican culture, with the most important calendar, the tzolkin, having 13 tones and one cycle being 13 periods of 20 days. Therefore this cycle of creation vibrates throughout the culture, with a each Tzolkin representing a cycle of 13 heavens of 20 days, but underlying that the tzolkin also represents 20 complete 13 day cycles of 13 heavens.

The 13 heavens can be used to identify where you are in the Nine Underworlds and at the time of writing Calleman suggests we are in the sixth night, which started on the 8 November 2009

When does the Nine Underworlds End ?

The nine underworlds describe a period of evolution that ends on a particular day. The most obvious end date is the one that is stated on Tortuguero Monument 6, 4 Ajaw, 3 K'ank'in, 13.0.0.0.0 which predicts the coming of Bolon Yokte K'uh. It is reasonable to think that this event would happen at the end of a cycle.

Calleman suggests that an end date of 4 Ajaw doesn't fit in a culture where the Tzolkin is so important and the 13 heavens describe a lifecycle. He suggests that the end of such an important cycle could only happen on a 13 Ahau day which is not only the end of a 13 day cycle, but the end of a tzolkin cycle.

I find Calleman's suggestion convincing. The tzolkin is just too fundamental to be ignored and the nine underworlds is such a significant evolutionary period, to end it on any day other than a 13 Ajaw does not make sense.

So accepting 13 Ajaw is the end date, the next question is which 13 Ajaw and where does 4 Ajaw 3 K'ank'in fit ? Calleman suggests 28 October 2011 as the end date and all his calculations are based on that. For me that date does not elicit a feeling of correctness. In fact it feels as wrong to me as 13 Ajaw as an end day feels right. Given we have this clearly started 4 Ajaw date on 21 December 2012, the more obvious 13 Ajaw date is 14 July 2012, which is 160 days before 4 Ajaw.

I have absolutely no evidence to offer to support 14 July 2012 as an end date apart from it feeling right and having confirmation from my mate Mo that this is the correct date. What has happened since establishing this date is that it fits into a theory that converges the nine underworlds with the galactic alignment theory of John Major Jenkins.

How long do the Nine Underworlds last ?

The nine underworlds, according to Calleman, lasts a long time and I believe he has based it on a number of assumptions:

• That the Nine Underworlds covers all of Earth's evolution;
• that there is only one of these cycles and on 28 October 2011, our evolution stops and we are where we are;
• That each underworld is a factor of 20 smaller than the previous one;
• That the largest number the mayans had, the hablatun, (1.25bn years) was the length of a day or heaven in the First Underworld.

Based on the assumption that there is only one cycle and that the nine underworlds covers the whole of Earth's evolution, Calleman has come up with a 16bn year timeline and mapped all the underworlds and 13 heavens onto history. He has then looked at the more known areas of history and looked for evidence that fits this theory and his books have significant detail on historical periods and how they support the theory.

There were two pieces of this that do not sit well with me:

• Repeating cycles show themselves throughout nature, science, spirituality etc and the assumption that there is one evolution through 9 levels that stops just doesn't feel right. As a result I made an assumption that when the nine underworlds ends a new nine start, and we begin a new period of evolution;
• If evolution is cyclical, isn't it more likely that the period that a nine underworlds cycle covers is shorter and repeats ?

After reading John Major Jenkins Maya Cosmogenesis 2012, a shorter cycle was exposed. John suggests that the 4 Ajaw 3 K'ank'in date predicts the next galactic alignment, when the winter solstice sun eclipses the galactic centre. This alignment happens every 26,000 years, or 65 Baktuns - 5 Great (long count) cycles.

The next logical thought was that if the Nine Underworlds is a cycle that lasts 5 great cycles we have some convergence - a 26,000 year evolutionary cycle that finishes on 13 Ajaw (14 July 2012), followed 160 days later by a galactic alignment. If they could be linked there may be a single theory hiding in there somewhere.....

Mike

10 Eb', 10 Kumk'u
12.19.17.3.12
19 March 2010