The Calendar Claim, and Who Rejected It

The dates were justified by a reading of the Maya calendar, set out in a book Arguelles published the same year. Specialists in Maya writing and calendrics have consistently rejected that reading. Robert Sitler's study of New Age appropriation of the calendar documents the objections in detail: the correlation used does not match the one established from the inscriptions, the significance assigned to the dates does not appear in any Maya source, and the system presented as ancient incorporates elements from other traditions entirely.

Matthew Restall and Amara Solari make the same case about the related 2012 material, and add a point the atlas thinks important. Living Maya communities exist, in Guatemala, Mexico, Belize and Honduras, and daycount specialists continue to keep the ritual calendar; they were not consulted about any of this and generally did not recognise the claims made in their name. The atlas therefore records two separate things without conflating them. The Harmonic Convergence happened, it was a real religious gathering with real participants, and it matters to the history of modern religion. The account of the Maya calendar it rested on is rejected by the relevant scholarship and by the tradition it was attributed to.

Sources The 2012 Phenomenon: New Age Appropriation of an Ancient Mayan CalendarRobert K. Sitler with 2012 and the End of the World: The Western Roots of the Maya ApocalypseMatthew Restall and Amara Solari