It should be said that those who propose December 21, 2012 as an end date, such as Terence McKenna and John Jenkins, are basing their entire interpretations of the Mayan calendar on this particular date of ending, as if this was what the entire calendar was about. What is most important for us to know today is the processes leading up to the completion of creation and the attainment of Cosmic Consciousness. This process is driven forward by the roller-coaster-like Galactic Creation Cycle, and for those seeking to understand this process and its many manifestations an exact calibration of this cycle is imperative. This is now available in calendar form.
Baktun no Duration (Corrected)
1. 3115-2721 BC
2. 2721-2326
3. 2326-1932
4. 1932-1538
5. 1538-1144
6. 1144-749
7. 749-355
8. 355- AD 40
9. AD 40-434
10. 434-829
11. 829-1223
12. 1223-1617
13. 1617-2011
Corrected durations of the Thirteen Heavens baktuns of the Long Count
But Mayan astronomers and mathematicians on the 10th day of August 3113 BCE, added up the total number of years and days to the next "end of the world, 5124" years later, on December 24, 2011.
Jenkins suggests that the Maya based their calendar on observations of the Great Rift, a band of dark dust clouds in the Milky Way, which the Maya called the Xibalba be or "Black Road." Jenkins claims that the Maya were aware of where the ecliptic intersected the Black Road and gave this position in the sky a special significance in their cosmology. According to the hypothesis, the Sun precisely aligns with this intersection point at the winter solstice of 2012. Jenkins claimed that the classical Mayans anticipated this conjunction and celebrated it as the harbinger of a profound spiritual transition for mankind.
