-----The Alignment Generation-----

A review of John Major Jenkins' book
Galactic Alignment:
The Transformation of Consciousness According to Mayan,
Egyptian, and Vedic Traditions
(Inner Traditions International, 2002)

By

Willard Van De Bogart

Click on image for a brief introduction

"We are what we think,
all that we are
arises within our thoughts.
With our thoughts we
make the world."
        --- Buddha


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Over the last century philosophers, archaeoastronomers, and historians of ancient knowledge and wisdom have been deciphering ancient languages, the origins of ancient temples, and the mythology of ancient civilizations to find the source of inspiration and knowledge for the ingenious contributions these ancient civilizations have left on the earth. Past civilizations are now being newly re-discovered and interpreted for those of us who want to know of our past, our evolution as a species, and the destiny of humanity.

Unfortunately, much of the modern world has completely ignored the knowledge obtained by ancient civilizations, or have not given them any intellectual merit, thus creating a global culture, for the most part, steeped in secular and materialistic pursuits. The time has arrived when our local Milky Way galaxy is interacting with our local star system and the most dramatic changes ever to impact on human destiny are now taking place. Humanity is currently being transformed beyond anything ever imagined. Galactic Alignment,  a book by John Major Jenkins, prepares us for this transformation.

John Major Jenkins, in his seminal work Maya Cosmogenesis 2012 ,  deciphered the ultimate meaning of the Mayan end-date of December 21, 2012, used by the Maya in their long count calendrical system. What Jenkins discovered was that all of the Mayan priests knew of this end date as the renewal and rebirth of a new world age resulting from the solar meridian crossing the galactic equator, and the earth aligning itself with the center of the galaxy. Everything the ancients were doing in their civilizations was involved in recognizing the significance of the galactic center. The wealth of ancient architecture left on earth, which mirrored the heavens and had encoded in their stone monuments the direction to galactic center, indicating the ascent to a new spiritual world age, is the hallmark contribution Jenkins brings to the readers of hisGalactic Alignment.

 One of the more significant encodings of galactic information into a stone monument is the Cross at Hendaye located in Hendaye, France, as well as the Cross at Urcos in Cusco, Peru. Jenkins leads us farther back in time revealing how esoteric information was carved into these stone crosses and their relationship with medieval doctrines, such as Kabbalah and alchemy. Jenkins introduces the reader into the metaphysics of Babylonian, Sumerian, and Persian metaphysics before he launches into evidence that points to galactic center as it is expressed through so many mythologies and monuments all over the earth.

The scholarship of John Major Jenkins once again shows itself to be most insightful when uncovering the lost knowledge of the ancient civilizations. Jenkins has continually uncovered the meaning of Mayan Calendrics, and now with his latest book he takes us around the world, unveiling how other ancient civilizations knew of the same celestial alignment. The Western World has either intentionally ignored the great precessional cycle and the alignments occurring once every 26,000 years, or has suppressed it for purposes of preventing people from being able to realize their own spiritual destiny, or their own evolutionary unfoldment in this universe. Supression of awareness on a celestial scale happened once before when people were not allowed to see how the earth revolved around the sun. The vision of Galileo was suppressed by the Catholic church just 325 years ago.

But now the knowledge and truth is out, and Jenkins has revealed it through the ingenious synthesis and interweaving of scholarly works of many authors from around the world. Galactic Alignment  presents a wide-spread recognition of how all ancient cultures were aware that alignments to the galactic center do periodically occur, and that these alignments offer spiritual renewal for humanity --- not catastrophe and destruction as is commonly promoted by modern-day interpretations of the end time. Galactic Alignment  will for the first time present the work of other scholars rarely or ever seen in print, but fully documented and methodically referenced by Jenkins. Several magnificent works published in the late 20th century need to be read to fully appreciate the breadth and scope of Jenkins' synthesis. Here is mention of a few:

Hamlet's Mill  by Giorgio de Santillana and Hertha Von Dechend, a study which took over ten years of dedicated research leading to Santillana's expulsion from M.I.T. in Cambridge, Massachusetts for his unconventional point of view on interpreting the mythology of ancient civilizations. Santillana states of the completion of his life's work thus...

"Whatever fate awaits this last enterprise for my latter years, and be it that of Odysseus' last voyage, I feel comforted by the awareness that it shall be the right conclusion of a life dedicated to the search for truth" (In his Reflections on Men and Ideas, 1967:xi).

It will take several months to read this book, but upon completion an entirely new understanding of human mythology and its relationship to astronomy will take place.

A most astounding work, published in 1999 by Jay Weidner and Vincent Bridges, is called A Monument to the End of Time: Alchemy, Fulcanelli and the Great Cross at Hendaye.  It clearly shows how significant the understanding of the galactic alignment was to all ancient civilizations going back to pre-Egyptian times, and right up to the present day. This is a study showing the profound vision of time and human evolution and the high secret of ancient Egyptian eschatology. The Weidner/Bridges research on the complete history of the esoteric teachings has to be the most significant book on this subject in the late 20th century, and is a mandatory book to read to fully prepare oneself for the revelations Jenkins gives to his understanding of the galactic alignment and its impact on humanity's spiritual destiny.

 Another masterpiece of synthesis is Cosmic Humanism  by the late Dr. Oliver L. Reiser from the University of Pittsburgh's philosophy department. Here is a book presenting the galactic center as a formative influence on the evolution of consciousness. Reiser states...

". . . what is here being proposed is that we explore at greater length the possibilities inherent in the analogy between the human brain and the spiral galaxy, thus transforming the galactic disc into the cosmic lens by endowing it with the generative capacity that the brain of man possesses. This, if valid, would mean that both galaxy and brain can serve as time-spanning (intelligent) guidance systems for their respective sensoria."

Jenkins' chapter, "Reiserian Cosmecology: Galactic Alignments and Evolution", is a concise scientific summary of Reiser's work, and a most revealing insight into how Reiser shows the effects of cosmic forces on our consciousness which emanate from the center of our galaxy. Jenkins also reviews and integrates other scholarly scientific works such as Paul LaViolette's superwave theory, showing how precession and the distance to the galactic center are linked by some kind of entrainment between superwave bursts at regular long-range intervals that entrain the earth's wobble to the superwave periodicity, which corresponds to the distance in light years between earth and the galactic center.

Jenkins also offers his own detailed discoveries with the chapter, "The Portal of Spiritual Conception," to provide for the first time an interpretation of the embeddedness of the galactic alignment in Christian sacred architecture, via a convent in Antigua, Guatemala. With the same inquisitive nature that produced Maya Cosmogenesis 2012  Jenkins shows how the merging of Indigenous and Christian symbology during the Spanish Conquest in Guatamala was able to keep the Hermetic Knowledge from the Old World of the 12th century alive by veiling the Indigenous knowledge behind a veneer of Christian pageantry at the convent of La Concepcion.

But, nowhere is Jenkins' synthesis more apparent than when he brings to light the work of Dr. Reiser and his scientific humanistic research to show how precession has the same ratios of frequency and cycles on the quantum levels of existence as it does on the macro levels of our solar system in relation to the galactic center. It may be difficult to find a copy of Reiser's now out of print book Cosmic Humanism, but the search would be well worth it. In Cosmic Humanism  one will learn of how the changing field dynamics of the electromagnetic fields emanting from galactic center are linked to biological evolution. Reiser even states:

". . . the coil of life (DNA) which supplies the architectural pattern for the fabrication of all organisms has something to do with the earth's rotation and its magnetic polarities, and the cosmic ray showers which originate in our own spiral galaxy."

Little is known of Dr. Reiser today, but during his tenure at the philosophy department for over 50 years (1925-1974) at the University of Pittsburgh, he maintained a close relationship with Dr. Albert Einstein. It was Einstein in fact who made the suggestion that Dr. Reiser change his original title "Scientific Humanism" to "Cosmic Humanism". Dr. Reiser coined the term "Psi Bank" which referred to the relationship between geomagnetic field forces and human evolution, which was far more scientific than de Chardin's Noosphere concept. Reiser challenged the Darwinian model of progressive evolution, and was credited with anticipating the discovery of the Van Allen Radiation Belts as well as the discovery of reverse-magnetized rocks as reported in his 1937 article "Cosmecology: A Theory of Evolution".

All these scientific offerings in Galactic Alignment  are truly supportive evidence of humankind's evolutionary development on earth. The scientific paradigm, when imbued with the physics of concrescence and a higher order of understanding, which Jenkins has done, unveils the same secret revelations that are now being re-discovered in all ancient scriptures, and mirrored in ancient architecture from around the world. Jenkins provides the reader with these thoughts on the electromagnetic entrainment between the earth, the plane of our solar system, and the galactic plane as a highly improbable statistic.

"The Milky Way and the ecliptic cross at a 61º angle. The ecliptic zodiac passes through the Milky Way very close to where the Galactic Center is located along the Milky Way. The zodiac is the plane of the earth's orbit around the sun --- it is the plane of our solar system. No known law exists to explain why the earth's orbital plane should be locked to the coordinates of the Galactic Center, unless some kind of magnetic entrainment were involved."

It is this entrainment which we are experiencing today, and the magnetic fields will be the strongest, and have the most impact on our spiritual evolution as we approach the North Gate for our passage through this galactic portal.

The author Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet, and her book The Gnostic Circle  (published in 1978) has also been a keystone piece of information which allowed Jenkins to futher confirm aspects of the galactic center as written into ancient Vedic philosophies. Jenkins states that The Gnostic Circle  is "a deep, intuitive, and complex work." The book, according to Jenkins, contains an almost matter-of-fact description of the evolutionary implications of our periodic alignments with the Galactic Center. Norelli-Bachelet states:

"There is the mysterious center that keeps all the stars in orbit around itself. This Centre, that Science knows so little of as yet, is located with respect to our Sun and planet in the direction of the Constellation Hercules or the zodiacal sign Capricorn, and slowly, at the rate of 12 miles per second ... our sun orbits around and moves closer to this solar apex, as it is called. That is, at the end of December each year, the earth is directly behind the sun with respect to this Great Void; our solar system with our planet is being drawn ever closer to this colossal Magnet."

The aspects of the metaphysical and mythological impact of the coming galactic alignment is made clear by Jenkins through his review of the works of two other noted authors: Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy and René Guénon.

 Jenkins retrieved unpublished papers of Coomaraswamy from the Princeton University Press archive. Some of Coomaraswamy's collected papers were published in 1977, and Jenkins was able to bring to light how Coomaraswamy explored the distinction between sacred and secular power as a fundamental cause of modern civilization's inability to connect with the transcendent realm. Jenkins indicates for the reader the great contribution Coomaraswamy made in reconstructing the lost artifacts of the Primordial Tradition.

Most significant is the wealth of unpublished research Coomaraswamy did on the mythology of the constellation of Sagitarius and the significance of this Archer constellation pointing its arrow to the galactic center.

 Likewise Jenkins pulls together the works of the little-translated French thinker, René Guénon. His review of the collected essays by Guénon (Fundamental Symbols,  Quinta Essentia, 1995) reveals Guénon as the premiere symbolist philosopher and the primary exponent of the Traditionalist school of thought. The collaboration of these two authors is made clear by Jenkins in showing the mythological motifs and astronomical references that come into play at the end of the Kali Yuga. Jenkins opens intellectual and cosmological doors that will provide ongoing insight, based on the progression of his ideas in Galactic Alignment.

One recurrent theme that flows throughout Galactic Alignment  is the concept of the PRIMORDIAL TRADITION or the PERENNIAL PHILOSOPHY. Both refer to an ageless wisdom which comes from a transcendent realm. Coomaraswamy preferred to call it "sophia perennis et universalis": the eternal and universal  wisdom. The key thought here is that "even though the ancient wisdom may be forgotten, it will inevitably resurface, for it is a wisdom based upon universal principles that operate whether or not human beings are directly aware of them." These universal operating principles are found in all the ancient sacred sciences. The advent of rationalism brought forth the profane sciences, and over the centuries these universal truths have been buried. But now these sacred truths are reemerging as the ascent phase of the precessional cycle begins once again.

In the chapter called "Galactic Alignment: The Key to the Primordial Tradition", Jenkins offers concluding concepts that will impact our existence on earth. Jenkins states:

"It should be significant that we can now describe the Perennial Philosophy as being galactic in nature; the Galactic Center is its orientational locus and the transcendental source of the perspectives it encodes. Like a lost Atlantean dimension of the human soul, the Primordial Tradition now appears ready to make a dramatic reappearance on the stage of human history.

Now, as we enter a new millennium by our own calendric reckoning, we can expect a re-spiritualizing (and dematerializing) of life on earth, to increase for another 12,800 years. The new 'ascent' of galactic awareness should parallel the re-establishment of the Primordial Tradition."

In his endorsement of Jenkins' work, author Joscelyn Godwin (The Theosophical Enlightenment  and Arktos: The Polar Myth ), wrote: "John Major Jenkins is the most global and erudite voice in a swelling chorus of Galactic Center theorists. By framing the subject in the context of the Primordial Tradition, he raises it to a new level of seriousness, and of reassurance." It is this Primordial Tradition aspect of Galactic Alignment  where Jenkins has added to the meaning of such mythological concepts as the Symplegades, the solstice doorways, the theft of Soma, the Clashing Cliffs, and the Scorpion Men who guard the gates of the transcendent "Sundoor at World's End". This "Sundoor" that lies between the Clashing Cliffs, is also called the North Gate. We now have the opportunity to pass through this galactic portal. Galactic Alignment  is so rich in history, mythology, astronomy, and the significance of our spiritual evolution that it is very difficult to touch on every aspect mentioned in this masterful synthesis of scholarship drawn from manuscripts around the world. However, even though my own understanding of the contents of Galactic Alignment  may be implicit in this review, it is not my aim to demonstrate how much I understand Galactic Alignment,  but more to state emphatically that the work itself is a significant contribution to anyone's understanding of human destiny.

In a world filled with a materialistic mindset, fueled by a system of profit and loss on accounting ledgers which penalize the poor (as made so clear in recent Oxfam reports) it is self evident that the information provided in Galactic Alignment  is as significant as was Galileo's discovery of a heliocentric solar system. Likewise, Oliver Reiser points out how the galaxy and our consciousness are directly interrelated. The information revealed in Galactic Alignment  is embedded all over the planet in monuments and temples.

For all students and seekers of ancient knowledge, the material offered in Galactic Alignment  will fill in many gaps and misunderstandings of the archaeoastronomical evidence left behind by cultures all over the world. It is time that a resurgence of interest be taken up by a new generation. Jenkins refers to this new generation as the "alignment generation". This is humanity's chance to utilize these great galactic forces for spiritual renewal. Galactic Alignment  clearly demonstrates how to become aware of the destiny we are about to inherit on this planet. The unveiling of this information is profound and very real and effects every human being on Earth. John Major Jenkins has provided a galactic portal we can all pass through by just paying attention to his own discovery of the galactic parameters of Maya cosmology, and in his revealing of supportive documentation from researchers around the world. We all owe it to ourselves and to the future of humanity to listen to what Jenkins has to say. This very well may be the blueprint for a new heaven on earth, a new global humanity which will assume a respect and devotion to the knowledge that is embedded in the universe, but not directly observed or measured. Jenkins' suggestion that the people of a new alignment generation recognize this galactic cosmology may be our only hope to survive as a human species in this solar system.

 As I begin to close my review of Galactic Alignment  I am drawn to include a passage from a well known fictional novel by David Malouf entitled "An Imaginary Life". In the first-century A.D., Publius Ovidius Naso, the most urbane and irreverent poet of imperial Rome, was banished to a remote village on the edge of the Black Sea. This is Ovid speaking as he resigns himself to his fate:

"I have stopped finding fault with creation and have learned to accept it. We have some power in us that knows its own ends. It is that that drives us on to what we must finally become. We have only to conceive of the possibility and somehow the spirit works in us to make it actual. This is the true meaning of transformation This is the real metamorphosis. Our further selves are contained within us, as the leaves and blossoms are in the tree. We have only to find the spring and release it. Such changes are slow beyond imagination. They take generations. But it works, this process. We are already the product of generation after generation of wishing to be thus. And what you are reader, is what we have wished. Are you god already? Have you found wings?"

Our own transformation with the coming galactic alignment has already been destined to take place, and it is our own realization for personal and planetary growth that will see our successful passage through this galactic portal. The material covered in Galactic Alignment  spans the world and the cultures that developed their beliefs around the knowledge of the solstice-galaxy alignment. Galactic Alignment  needs to be read several times to break out of the materialistic paradigm, and enter into a new spiritual realm. How we elevate ourselves to see the dawning of this new world age depends on how successfully we pass through the North Gate. The time to act is now, and we only have a few years left to take full advantage of the forces that have been known by ancient civilizations for thousands and thousands of years. Humanity must pass through the Symplegades if it wants to continue the evolution of human consciousness in this part of the galaxy. This is not a fairy-tale.

 In finishing this review the words again of Norelli-Bachelet from her book The Gnostic Circle  seem very appropriate:

". . . at this time we are given the means whereby we can know the so-called esoteric truth of our System and its evolution, and the part the Earth plays therein, as well as each of its inhabitants. We can go so far as to know that there is a great Centre to which we in our system are related and which determines our course, because it is this Centre that finally holds the key to the Precession of the Equinoxes. It is this Centre that makes of the axis Capricorn and Cancer the Evolutionary Axis of our planet. And through our study we can know that in ourselves, in our very bodies, we can find the exact reproduction of this Galaxy which then gives us the revelation of the Supreme Herself."

Galactic Alignment can be ordered on-line at the Portal Market


Footnote:

How my own personal life has aligned itself in such a way that I came to review Galactic Alignment  is worth mentioning. During the early 1970s I was the Director of the Media Department for the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Pittsburgh. I was also a member of the "Committee for the Future", a Washington D.C. think tank, headed by Barbara Marx Hubbard who later ran for the Presidency of the United States. Barbara informed me that I must go see Dr. Oliver L. Reiser in the philosophy deptartment, which I did. Dr. Reiser and myself befriended one another, and on many occasions he and his wife would visit my home, then in Bethl Park in the suburbs of Pittsburgh.

I became very fascinated in Dr. Reiser's work and read and discussed his galactic cosmology often. He was busy writng another book titled Man's Message to the Galaxy  but it was never published. Oliver Reiser passed on in 1974 and much of his work was bequeathed to me to pass on to other seekers of the truth. I faithfuly kept his published books and unpublished papers knowing that one day someone would be able to utilize them. That person would be John Major Jenkins.

In the summer of 1999 I attended a workshop given by John at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California. One evening as John and I were looking at the Milky Way Galaxy over the Pacific Ocean John pointed to the great nuclear bulge at the center of the galaxy. It was that simple visual reference in the sky that triggered in my mind that John must read Resier's work Man's Message to the Galaxy.  I returned home to San Francisco and immediately sent John all the material I had saved for over 25 years. It was pivotal information that John needed to make the connection with the precession of the proton in sub-molecular structures of nature, and its relationship to the precession of the Earth. John knew it took 26,000 light years for light to travel from the center of the galaxy to the earth and here again was another synchronous piece to the puzzle.

We all have a path in life, and my path brought me closer to the mysteries of the Mayan civilization, and ultimately to the work of John Major Jenkins in the early 1990s with his book Tzolkin: Visionary Perspectives and Calendar Studies  (Borderland Sciences Research Foundation, 1994), an analysis of the Mayan sacred calender. Reiser's philosophy was about how life on earth was effected by intergalactic processes leading ultimately to his understanding of the emergence of a Galactic Federation and a Temple of Wisdom on Earth. What John Major Jenkins has done is to further expound on this galactic entrainment by showing how the Mayan culture and civilizations all around the earth in times of antiquity developed their cultures with the full knowledge of how the precession of the equinoxes had a direct relationship to the spiritual evolution of the human race.

The ascent phase of spiritual growth, defined by the solstice doorway aligning with the galaxy, began on December 21, 1998. It was by no accident that I presented this knowledge to the World Spiritual Foundation on top of Fraser Hill outside Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on that very same date.

Today I reside in Southeast Asia, and in August of 2002, I will travel to Angkor Wat to witness the great bas-relief depicting the Churning of the Milky Ocean. It was here that the Khmer civilization in 1113 AD (perhaps much earlier), under the reign of King Suryavarman II, mirrored their great temple on the constellation Draco exactly 72 degrees from the great pyramids of Giza. It takes 72 years to complete 1 degree in the 26,000-year great precession cycle. I am now ready to listen to the secrets that lie hidden in these great stone pillars, each with faces smiling as they reach to the heavens.

Completed July 2, 2002, Banphot Phisai, Central Thailand

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