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Dear reader, my name is Luis Miguel
Goitizolo. Below is an abstract from my book The
Wheel of Time -
A Study in the Doctrine of Cosmic Cycles which I recently
translated from my Spanish original and will shortly be published in the United States.
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The
Circular Numbers
On this page we will deal with numbers, which in the matter
of ages and cosmic cycles eras are not only consistently
circular but even show amazing coincidences among
different traditions.
Particularly suggestive are those numbers that
center on the “great year” of 12,960 common years, a
half of the
Zodiacal Year. According to Latin author
Censorinus (third century AD), who was Varro’s
compilator, in this “great year”, also called
“Platonic Year” and “Supreme Year of Aristotle,”
there is a great winter or kataklysmos (which
means “deluge”) and a great summer or ekpyrosis
(which means “combustion of the world”). Now, at
some point in history this “great year” was rounded
up by Persians and Chaldeans as 12,000 years, a
period of time which, to the former, came to be the
totality of time. (To the present-day Persians, the
year 2000 was the year 11,630 of that time.) Also,
it is not unlikely that the Jews, in contact with
those cultures, took this “great year” and
divided it, for religious reasons, by two, to
establish in turn their “total duration of the World” as
6,000 years.
In this connection, however, according to
a previously mentioned Rabbinical tradition (see
here), each of the
Seven Eras of
the World would have a length of 1,656 years,
a circular figure that multiplied by seven
yields a total number of years closer to 12,000 than to
6,000 years: 11,952 years.
In addition to the “great year” of 12,960 common
years, other “Greek” cycles, similarly connected
to global catastrophes, are known to have
suggestive correlations in the Hindu tradition.
According to philosopher Heraclitus of Efesus
(540–475 BC), for instance, the period between
two great conflagrations such as the one that
would have submerged Atlantis, thousands of
years before his time, is 10,800 years, a
“circular” period of time which divided by one
hundred becomes 108, a number which for
Hinduists and Buddhists is an object of special
veneration, as it is the number of Upanishads
in the Buddhist canon and is placed before the
name of the venerable acharyas or
teachers of the great disciplic lines, apart
from the fact that it is the number of stone
figures along the lanes at the temple of Angkor
in Camboya, etcetera; and whose basic form, 18,
which corresponds, as we have seen
elsewhere, to
the number of breaths of a human being in one
minute, is – among other many “coincidences” –
equal to the total number of Puranas and
of Bhagavad–gita chapters. For the
rest, it should be noted that the total number
of the Rig Veda verses is 10,800 and those of
Bhagavata Purana 18,000, distributed into
twelve “Cantos” or chapters; and that within the
Judean–Christian esoterism, the number of
chapters of the enigmatic Book of Enoch
is, again, 108.
At this point we had better make a pause, as it
is impossible that this copious reiteration of
numbers is only owed to the fact that they are
all cyclic or “circular”, and therefore readily
divisible among each other; the coincidences are
too numerous to be just the product of chance,
particularly when they derive from places and
traditions so distant from one another. There is
obviously something else, and this "else" will
be dealt with below.
The
Destruction of Atlantis
So there is
obviously something here
–
maybe a wish
to draw attention, though in a veiled fashion, towards a mysterious, awe-inspiring fact that would
allow to penetrate the very essence of the mechanism
of cycles so as to anticipate their starting and
ending dates.
For example, according to certain
sources,
the sinking of Atlantis would have occurred 7,200
years before the year 720 of the present Kali–yuga
- which corresponds, if its starting date is
considered to be 3102 BC, to 9582 BC. And this date
is perfectly reasonable in spite of its being a
product of obviously symbolic figures, i.e. based on
72 which, as we know, is the key element in the
context of a circular time. We would certainly need
to be blind to see a mere product of chance in all
this.
Another cycle that would span between two
consecutive destructions of the Earth is the one
calculated by Aristarchus of Samos (310–230 BC), a
few centuries after Heraclitus, as 2,484 years, a
number that is also circular – yet considerably
smaller than the ones previously mentioned. And here
we can see yet another clue: the newer the
calculation, the lesser the calculated period. This
assertion is supported by a curious fact narrated by
historian Herodotus (c.480 – c.420 BC): the Teban
priests would have shown him 341 colossal statues,
each representing a generation of priests from
11,340 years before – a period also “circular” but
much closer to the “great year” of 12,960 common
years.
So it comes as no surprise that also in the Bible,
in whose first chapters there is an account of the
two best known and most emblematic catastrophes ever
to occur on the Earth – the Flood and the
conflagration that destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah –
there are many references to rather short,
“circular” periods of time. For example, in the New
Testament (Revelation 11:3, 12:6) is mentioned a
mysterious period of 1,260 “days”, and the enigmatic
references to “time, two times, and a half time” in
Daniel 12:11, 12 and Revelation 12:14 obviously
allude to the same period if, as is undoubtedly the
case, each “time” consists of 360 “days”. For the
rest, in Daniel 12:11, 12 are mentioned two
equally enigmatic periods: 1,290 and 1,335 “days”,
numbers whose digits, even though they do not sum up
nine, do sum up three, which also makes them
circular.
However, it is in the longer cycles that we find the
most significant correlations with the Hindu
tradition. For example, it is known that in the
Library of Alexandria there was a World History
written by the Chaldean priest Berosus (c. 250 BC),
in three volumes, the first of which comprised a
period of 432,000 years from the Creation to the
Flood – exactly one tenth of the Hindu maha–yuga.
And a fascinating coincidence: according to the
Scandinavian legends, 432,000 was the number of
warriors stationed at Asgard, the dwelling of the
gods.
Among
the Ancient Mayas and Aztecs
Similar correlations are found on this side
of the World, among the ancient Mayas. For example,
in Tikal, in present-day Guatemala, there is a stela
– the number 10 – that records a period of
5'040,000 years, a circular number that divided by
ten is that of Manus in a total universal
manifestation. As to the liturgical calendar, in
addition to the tuns or years of 360 days,
consisting of 18 uinals or months of 20 days, the
Mayas count was by katuns (7,200 days), baktuns
(144,000 days), etc., all of them “sacred” circular
numbers whose importance I have emphasized
repeatedly – with the exception of 144,000, which,
incidentally, is the number of saints ascended to
Heaven at Revelation 7, 7.
As to the Xiumolpili, or periods of 52 years used by
the Aztecs for the computation of the four ages or
“Suns” by multiplying them by certain factors (apparently
13, 7, 6 and 13, even though, confirming the
aforementioned tendency, the factors are bigger on
the earlier versions), it is believed that they
originated with the Olmecs, who had discovered that
the Solar, sacred and Venusian’s calendars coincided
every 37,960 days, equivalent to 104 years (or two
times 52). In fact, although these cycles were so
important that it is believed they required from
the Mayas the remodeling of all their sacred
structures at their beginning or end, at any rate we
are dealing here with an anomaly – the exception
that confirms the rule. However, there is an
interesting correlation with the great celebrations
that the Dogon in Mali, Africa, make every 52 years,
rites intended, according to them, to “regenerate
the World” and which apparently correspond to
the cycle made by Sirius “B”, a white dwarf, around
Sirius. But apart from these likely connections, it
can be noted that 52 is four times 13, this number
being, according to scholars, a particularly
auspicious one throughout the Mayas' world – unlike
elsewhere in the World, where it is particularly ill-omened.
However, what definitely links this “anomalous”
system with the “orthodox” circular one is, in my
view, the fact that after 52 years of the liturgical
calendar of 360 days, there appears to have elapsed
exactly 72 years of the magical calendar of 260 days,
i.e. a total 18,720 days – a circular number by
excellence, as it is made up of 18 and 72.
The
Search for Clues
And here I will conclude this overview which has let
us glimpse, through the assortment of data and
figures presented, a sort of needlework of Four Ages
of Mankind – of varying lengths according to the
different traditions, but always circular –
interwoven in the fabric of a more general scheme of
Seven Eras of the World, in turn somehow correlated
to the precession of the equinoxes. In the
middle of it all we have glimpsed at the third and
most dramatic element in the problem: the dreadful
catastrophes at the beginning and end of every
cycle, out of which the most emblematic is
undoubtedly the Flood that usually separates the
Eras from each other, and which is a favorite and
specially recurring topic in the myths and legends
from all over the World. In the next days and weeks
I will try to recapitulate all the information
provided and draw as many conclusions as possible,
which will hopefully let us get a deeper insight
and, at the same time, a wider view of the problem
in its entirety.
Lima, May
2010
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The Universal Doctrine
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The Primordial Civilization
A Message from The Author
Dear Friend,
Ever since I was
a youth I was fascinated by Oriental wisdom and particularly by the Hindu
doctrines. However, it was not until a few years ago that I undertook the task
of studying the ancient doctrine of cosmic cycles from different perspectives,
though mainly using the most relevant sacred texts from all around the world. In
time, I felt the urge to write a book about my studies in that matter in my
mother tongue, Spanish, which I titled "La rueda del tiempo" (in English, "The
Wheel of Time"). It is excerpts of that book and other original articles dealing
with similar topics which I will start publishing through this medium as of
today.
More recently, after some years as a networker promoting various programs, I
decided to translate my book into English, a task that was successfully
completed a few month ago. And over the past weeks and months I have been
publishing excerpts of this translation, as well as other original articles in
English that also deal with similar topics, on various online media of the
United States and other countries.
Thank You,
Luis Miguel Goitizolo
Lima - Perú
miguelgoitizolo@gmail.com
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