26 QUESTIONS CONCERNING THE MAYA CALENDAR: Key points from interview on Coast To Coast AM,

26 QUESTIONS CONCERNING THE MAYA CALENDAR:
Key points from interview on Coast To Coast AM,
April 13, 2011 from 2 am until 5 am Eastern Time

NOTE: To get on the waiting list for Lawrence Joyce’s forthcoming book, send an email with the following note in the subject line: “Please send me an email when your Maya book is available” in the subject line, and email to: [email protected]

1.) What is your background?

Pharmacist/Attorney: practicing pharmacy full-time in a hospital

Amateur astronomer and president of high school astronomy club, made my own telescope, have made two solar eclipse trips, had an observation report published in Sky and Telescope magazine concerning an aurora display when I was in high school

2.) Have you been on Coast to Coast before?

Yes. October of 2001, right after 9/11 and anthrax attacks, concerning my book on how to survive a germ warfare attack

3.) Do you believe in UFOs?

Yes, very reluctantly.
Paulden, AZ incident (March of ’97)
Gate C-17 at O’Hare (Nov. of ’06) noticed that it was at mid-point of O’Hare, a predecessor event to my discoveries about the Maya Calendar

4.) Do you believe in astrology/horoscopes?

No. There is a subtle difference, albeit an extremely important difference, between believing on the one hand that the stars, moon, planets, etc., control your destiny, and believing on the other hand that the Master Artist has left his fingerprints all over his artwork so that He can be found (e.g., the Wise Men).

5.) What got you interested in the Maya Calendar?

A friend who knows that I know more about astronomy than he does asked me if there was anything to the issue of the Maya Calendar a couple of years ago, and its prediction that our current era of human history will end on December 21st of 2012, and that a new era of human history will begin on that date. I found nothing at first, but in January of this year someone my brother knows expressed some concern about the Maya Calendar, so I looked into it again. So I did this research in order to reassure these people that there was nothing to worry about.

6.) Did you take the issue of the Maya Calendar seriously?

No, not at first, not in terms of its predictions, anyway. I just thought it entailed some interesting astronomy combined with ancient myths.

7.) So, you went into this with the same view as the scientific community, in other words?

Yes, exactly. And I think that can be a very healthy thing on the whole. The only problem is when people approach a topic like this with their minds completely made up before researching it. In scientific fields, this is called experimenter bias.

The quest for knowledge begins with curiosity. But curiosity can be squelched by experimenter bias. Also, people generally have a tendency to shy away from anything if they think they will be ridiculed even just for looking into something. This is a childish mentality, straight off the playground in sixth grade, and it has no place in serious academic pursuits. Galileo and Copernicus, for instance, never would have published their works if they had been afraid of ridicule. As for myself, I find that sometimes I even deliberately pursue an unpopular topic just to make sure I don’t get trapped by that prison which comes from fear of what other people will think of me. Sometimes that pursuit does lead to surprising results, and at other times I conclude that the crowd was right to begin with. With respect to the Maya Calendar specifically, I found some surprising results.

8.) So, you had a change of mind about it then, as a result of your research?

Yes, I did. My initial conclusion a couple of years ago was that there were some interesting points about the Maya Calendar due to the surprising level of acumen about astronomy which the ancient Mayans had, but nothing more than that. But then, my more thorough research these past two and a half months led me to conclude that there is in fact something to the Maya Calendar after all.

9.) This came as a surprise to you, then, didn’t it?

Yes, it came as quite a shock. I am a Bible-believing Christian, and normally I avoid all things related to pagan myths, the New Age Movement, or astrology like the plague; and when I went into this initially, I would not have given you two cents for the chances that I really would find something concrete and substantive to the Maya Calendar.

10.) What do you think will happen at the winter solstice next year, on December 21, 2012?

Quite frankly, I doubt very seriously that anyone will see anything, hear anything, or otherwise notice anything at all right on that particular date itself. But at the same time, I am now of the opinion that in some particular way, the course of human history will undergo some kind of change at the winter solstice next year, whether it should happen to take years before we notice any difference, or whether we will see any change right away.

11.) Are you able to prove anything about the Maya Calendar scientifically?

No. But let me dispel a fallacy about the role of science in this. There are innumerable instances every single day in which people judge the truth or falsity of various facts without doing so scientifically, even though they do rely on science to give them the foundation they need for their conclusions. This is easily noticed in a court of law. For instance, a jury may be faced with the question of whether someone committed a homicide with malice aforethought. Or perhaps the question will be whether some company was negligent in the way it designed a product which hurt someone. Or a judge might be faced with the question of who would be the parent for a child in a child custody dispute.

Forensic science can play an indispensable role in helping the jury determine whether someone was hit on the head with the amount of force that corresponds to an accidental, glancing blow to the head, or whether the person was hit by a blow that would require all the force that the defendant’s arm could possibly deliver. And expert engineering testimony can play an indispensable role in helping the jury understand whether a particular product could have been designed in a safer way. But the ultimate question of the heart, whether someone had malice aforethought, or whether someone was negligent, is not something which itself can be proven or disproven scientifically. Likewise, in a child custody case, simple math can prove, scientifically, whether a particular parent has the financial means of supporting a child. But neither by mathematics nor by any other branch of science can you prove, ultimately, that the father or the mother will be the better parent.

So it is appropriate to rely on science to give you the data background you need in order to approach many of life’s questions intelligently. But it is inappropriate—and in fact, it is bad science—to think that something can’t be true simply because you can’t prove the ultimate question of fact scientifically.

12.) How is it that you are able to prove anything at all, then, about your conclusions?

In law it is the case, just as it is in science, that it is easiest to establish facts by direct evidence, such as a fingerprint. But facts can also be proven by indirect evidence, that is to say, circumstantial evidence.

For example, if you suspect that someone stole $10,000 in cash, and you found out that the next day he deposited $10,000 into his bank account, that would not be direct evidence that he stole the money, but it would be one thing for the jury to consider in reaching its verdict.

If you put enough circumstantial evidence about something together, you can prove something beyond a reasonable doubt. But there is a danger which comes along with circumstantial evidence, and that danger is that one might draw conclusions too quickly, only to find out later on that what appeared to be proof of a particular fact was nonetheless just an extraordinary coincidence.

I have seen unusual coincidences in my practice as a pharmacist. For instance, in checking what a technician has filled, I have sometimes poured out ten small tablets into the cap of the vial to check them, only to find that all ten tablets were facing the same way as they lay there in the cap. That certainly would not happen often, but it did in fact happen from time to time. So I am familiar with the fact that unusual coincidences can and do happen.

Nonetheless, famed 20th century British author G.K. Chesterton had this to say about coincidences: “For the more complicated seems the coincidence, the less it can be a coincidence.” So we have to strike a balance between being too eager to accept coincidences as the proof of the matter on the one hand, and on the other hand being so stubborn or resolute in our reluctance to accept coincidences that we cannot accept even obvious conclusions which can be safely drawn from them, even when the truth of such conclusions stares us plainly in the face.

13.) What sort of evidence did you find which led you to your conclusions?

There is an observatory dating back to at least 1500 B.C. on a hill named Catequilla in Ecuador in South America, just north of Quito, the capital of Ecuador. It was built just as the ancient Mayan Civilization was emerging, and the ancient Olmec tribe was the dominant culture at the time.

This observatory is the key to the unraveling the mystery as to why the Long Count of the Maya Calendar ends on December 21, 2012.

NOTE: THIS ENDS PART ONE OF A TWO PART COLUMN BY LAWRENCE JOYCE ON THE MAYA CALENDAR. WATCH FOR PART TWO COMING SOON THAT WILL INCLUDE ANSWERS TO THE FOLLOWING 13 QUESTIONS:

14.) Why is this ancient observatory significant?

15.) Why is sunrise at the winter solstice important?

16.) How did you come across this ancient observatory in your research?

17.) What were you looking for?

18.) What did you find there?

19.) What is it that makes this ruin an observatory?

20.) And this obelisk will cast a shadow, then, at sunrise of the winter solstice next year?

21.) What is the other evidence which supports your conclusion that it is sunrise at the winter solstice, as seen from this observatory, that the ancients had in mind in developing their ancient calendar?

22.) How does this fit in with the other evidence you were talking about?

23.) You say that there is other evidence as well. What is that other evidence?

24.) And you have other evidence as well?

25.) So you think the name of the god itself which this hill was named after is significant, then?

26.) Well, what do you think? Do you think they had help of some kind in developing their astronomy and their ancient calendar?

–Lawrence Joyce

“The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.

“Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge.

“There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard.

“Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun … ” Psalm 19: 1-4

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