Carl Johan Calleman: Shifting Through the Underworlds

Carl Johan Calleman on shifting through the underworlds.

Tami Simon: This week I dialogue with scientist Carl Johan Calleman about his unique take on the significance of the Mayan calendar. He shares with us some of the key stories of his view, including the nine galactic underworlds and the all-important tree of life.

Carl, I’m curious about your background. You’re Swedish, is that correct?

Carl Johan Calleman: Yes. Born and raised in Stockholm.

Tami Simon: How did you become interested in the Mayan calendar?

Carl Johan Calleman: Well, I’m a scientist by training, and there was a point I was a graduate student at the University of Stockholm, and felt that I needed a break from all the test tubes and stuff that I was working with. Some bulletin board that was this advertisement said, “Go to Mexico and stay in a Mexican family and learn Spanish.” I thought that might be a great break in getting away. This is now almost 30 years ago, so it was a time when, still at least from a European perspective, it was quite exotic to go to Mexico. There were no charter flights or anything like that. So I went there like an adventure just to see what would happen. Unbeknownst to myself, I landed in Mexico City on Dia de los Muertos, which is the Day of the Dead, All Saints Day. I immediately came into this very colorful culture with the ancient roots and the skeletons hanging from the light post, and bribing policeman. Very happily I took an interest in what this culture was about. After a while, I also took a third-class train down to Merida, the Yucatán peninsula. The more I got down there, the more I fell in love with the Mayan people, with all the natives. I’ve always been very interested in history, so I was interested in these cultures that emerged in the new world.

There was sort of a dilemma here—why was it these essentially have been developing at about the same time as the, I mean, within a few thousand years or something like that, as the culture of the Eurasian continent? It sort of tells you something that there must be some force or some influence that is not evident directly that has influenced cultures in the different parts of the world, and made them synchronize in their evolution in a certain way. Already then I’d heard about the Mayan calendar and its end date, and I had an intuitive sense that yeah, they are right. At that point I couldn’t at all understand why they are right. It’s a lot of research work in order to see how these different processes conform to the Mayan calendar, but anyway I just intuitively sensed that yeah, they were right.

Tami Simon: When you said they were right, they were right about what? That their calendar was an accurate predictive tool?

Carl Johan Calleman: Yes. That time has a qualitative aspect, that time synchronizes processes and leads to the experiences of the synchronicities, and that’s what I mean. Their calendar was more advanced … that’s not a good word to use, but it really had something the other calendars do not have.

Tami Simon: Now it’s one thing to think about time happening in evolutionary waves and imagining that an ancient culture could come up with what those evolutionary wave movements are, but when it comes to coming up with specific dates … XYZ is going to happen exactly on, something like October 28, 2011 … that’s when I become quizzical. And I think, how could any people predict an actual date down to the 24-hour period?

Carl Johan Calleman: Well, I don’t think they can. At least that’s not my perception. My answer to that is that I don’t think that’s possible.

Tami Simon: So when you talk about the Mayan calendar and its predictions, it seems that you do talk about specific dates, specific dates that we can look to experience between now and 2012. Is that not correct?

Carl Johan Calleman: Maybe, maybe not. I’d rather say that I’m talking about different time frames. For instance, for years, for a decade at least, I’ve said that in the year of 2008 the rule of Tezcatlipoca (that’s the fifth night) there will be a major economic crisis. But then, if you would’ve asked me I probably would’ve happened a little bit earlier in 2008. So it’s just a time frame there in which you can say things happen. It’s not an exact date. I never want to give that impression that I can predict anything of exact dates.

Tami Simon: So between now, here at the end of 2008 when we’re recording this together, between now and let’s say 2013, what do you think are the most important movements of change and the approximate range date that you want to associate with them, that we think we can look to see that the Mayan calendar has predicted?

Carl Johan Calleman: Well, I think that the sixth day, starting November 12 or 13, 2008, will be the beginning of a time period that is also chaotic but is also chaotic in a positive sense. It will be a time period of new openings to a more egalitarian world where people upon themselves as equal to another extent. Then comes the next night, then …

Tami Simon: When you’re talking about these days and nights, for people who aren’t familiar with the calendar system, what are you referring to?

Carl Johan Calleman: I’m referring to wave movements. What the Mayan calendar entails is descriptions of different kinds of wave movements. Some periods that are periods of novelty, of new things coming into existence, of forward movement, time periods that are in other words more aligned with what is the ultimate purpose of a particular wave movement. Then there are also nights that are the time periods in between. Right now, we are in such a night, the fifth night of our particular galactic underworld. These are time periods that are usually more like resting periods. Some of them are even destructive. In other words, they destroy old phenomena in order to create the opening for something new. So there’s a qualitative difference. This is what history is based off of. It is these wave movements of changing energies that the Mayan calendar describes.

Tami Simon: Okay, so you were talking about the night that we can anticipate coming after this chaotic day that we’re about to enter.

Carl Johan Calleman: I would probably be very careful in using dates in this particular time ahead. I would like to much more talk about very broad matters of change. Over the years, I made a lot of predictions, and there are a lot of people who are immensely impressed with how accurate they have been. Really the reason I’ve been doing them is to make people aware that the Mayan calendar system is true and so forth. But I have essentially stopped doing that. Things will be so complicated toward the completion of the overlapping wave movements of change that it’s not really something I would like to or be able to do at this point.

Tami Simon: So let’s pretend it’s 2013. How will I know if this great 2012 mystery has occurred or not? Are there any indicators that would be clear to me that would be like, wow, what Carl was saying about the Mayan calendar was true, look! It’s 2013 and the world is different in this way.

Carl Johan Calleman: Well, that’s a very good way of asking the question. You would see that in the sense there would simply be a much less tense world. I don’t think there is, as I said earlier, I’ve never said there is a specific date when things will happen. Rather there is a particular date when the wave movement comes to an end. But I don’t think things will just sort of settle immediately. But what will happen is that a new, more morphogenetic field (if I can use that) a new spiritual influence will dawn upon the planet. But exactly how that will manifest in human beings, it’s not something that I believe will happen over a day or something like that. I don’t know if it will settle over a period of one year or many years or so forth. The way I understand it is that it all goes toward this harmonizing of human relationships, of a downfall of hierarchical structures, and an increased world of compassion and seeing the divine in everybody else. Those are the very generalized rules of thumb that I would like to use to have that.

Tami Simon: Do you think that’s something that will be universally true, as in every single person on the planet will be having that experience, or do you think that there will be more of a general acceptance of that as the norm in society?

Carl Johan Calleman: Well this is a very difficult thing. How well is this planet prepared for this change, and have we made the right decisions—are we making the right decisions as a planet, and so forth? I don’t think everybody will be part of the whole thing.

Tami Simon: Hard to imagine.

Carl Johan Calleman: It’s hard to imagine, yeah. It’s almost impossible to imagine.

Tami Simon: So we’re talking about a change in the zeitgeist, if you will.

Carl Johan Calleman: I think that’s the word. Zeitgeist, that would be the spiritual inference of the world, is that correct?

Tami Simon: Yes, the sort of commonly held collective view.

Carl Johan Calleman: Yes, okay. Change in the zeitgeist. Yes.

Tami Simon: Okay, so you made this reference that we’re currently in the galactic underworld. And I know that you have a system of nine underworlds. At least that’s your interpretation of the Mayan calendar, that it lays out these nine underworlds, and that we’re in the eighth one right now, moving into the ninth. So I’m curious if you could describe more what this eighth underworld is like and why it’s called the galactic underworld. First of all, why is it called an underworld if it’s just the world we’re in, and then why galactic underworld, and then what the heck are we moving into in the ninth underworld for?

Carl Johan Calleman: Underworld is basically a term used borrowed from the ancient peoples in Mexico and also the Maya. They would talk about underworlds. The meaning of this world is very different from what you might spontaneously think. It really is a period of a particular kind of evolution. The reason it has been chosen may have to do with there might being influences from the core of the earth on our particular mentality. So I think that may be an origin to this particular word. Galactic underworld … it really hasn’t happened, I would say.

Tami Simon: So we’re in the eighth underworld but we haven’t really entered into this galactic underworld period, per se, at least not to the level that you think we will?

Carl Johan Calleman: Yes. My sense is that I’m a little bit surprised that we haven’t become more galactic, you might say.

Tami Simon: When I hear that word, I think that we’re going to be like, “Hey, aliens are going to be coming into the studio tomorrow for a quick 2-o’clock visit.” But it doesn’t seem like that’s what’s happening.

Carl Johan Calleman: Another way, though, of looking upon it is that what would change would be our perspective of the world. In other words, that we would be looking upon the world from a much higher perspective, from the perspective of the whole, from a holistic perspective. That’s another way of looking at the term galactic underworld. And I think in that sense, yes, that has changed. There is such a broader way of looking at the world than previously. Then you had a third question?

Tami Simon: So now we’re entering the ninth underworld in 2012. So from the galactic underworld, which I think we’ve barely entered … thinking of the Earth as a whole, yes, through climate change and our other sense of recognition of our interdependence as a human species, I think we’re coming to that. But I’m curious what’s beyond that. And also I don’t think we have this view right now of ourselves as part of a galactic system, per se.

Carl Johan Calleman: I agree with you.

Tami Simon: Anyway, what’s coming next?

Carl Johan Calleman: It’s then the universal underworld that should be a shift to a cosmic frame of consciousness—even one higher step of perspective. But it’s not only that there are different levels of perspective associated with these underworlds. It’s also then that certain underworlds make you see the world through a dualistic frame of mind, and other worlds tend to make you see the world through a unitary frame of mind. This is something very important, because you can see that if people see the world through a dualistic frame of mind, they would be much more inclined to hierarchies, they would be much more inclined to warfare, they would be much more inclined to see themselves as being separate and so forth. What happened 5,000 years ago when there was one of these significant shifts of an activation of a new underworlds, you might use the metaphor of being expelled from the garden of Eden and going into a world of conflicts, warfare, hierarchies, patriarchal rule, and so forth. This universal underworld means in a sense a return to a unitary frame of mind. It’s a time when there is balance between the two brain halves with their relationships to the feminine and masculine cultures, and if the frame of mind changes in such a way, it means that people will perceive the world differently, and how we perceive the world differently is also how we create our world. That’s a reason that I believe that the activation of this zeitgeist as you were saying, or this morphogenetic field, it will settle down in the form of more harmonized relations than has been the case.

Also, the present underworld is actually a dualistic underworld. It’s a different kind of dualistic underworld, but nonetheless it certainly has generated conflicts. For instance, as I said, in the past often I was doing predictions. In the ‘90s when the world looked upon us as very, very peaceful (it certainly is the most peaceful area in the history of humankind, at least in the last 5,000 years) I would say that when the new underworld is coming there will be an activation of new conflicts between the East and the West. This is in my first book. This is exactly what has happened, it was very evident with 9/11 and the later various warfare of the United States in the Middle East. This is something that is still, despite the nature of favoring the feminine, one that means that people look upon the world through this conflict-generating, dualistic consciousness.

Tami Simon: So the eighth underworld, the one we’re in right now … I know you don’t pin things to dates, but you’ve said that began at the end of the 20th century, basically.

Carl Johan Calleman: Yeah.

Tami Simon: So we’re going to move from the eighth underworld to the ninth underworld in 13 short years?

Carl Johan Calleman: That will happen February 11, 2011.

Tami Simon: So in 11-12 short years we’re moving from the eighth to the ninth underworld.

Carl Johan Calleman: Yes.

Tami Simon: That seems pretty swift to me for a global culture that neither you nor I think has really entered this galactic phase of consciousness.

Carl Johan Calleman: Yeah, it does. It may just be that’s the way it’s all designed, but the swiftness may be the primary reason a lot of people find it very difficult to move along with the stream of evolution.

Tami Simon: So when you talk about these nine underworlds, you somehow connect the changes from an influence that’s coming from “the core of the Earth,” or something related to the center of the Earth. Help me understand this.

Carl Johan Calleman: Everything emanates from the tree of life, or the world tree.

Tami Simon: So what do you mean by that?

Carl Johan Calleman: All ancient peoples would have in their mythology the idea that at the center of the cosmos there was a tree of life, or the world tree. In Sweden, where I come from, the Vikings would talk about this huge ash called Yggdrasil, and the Maya had their Hunahpu, and you find it all over the worlds. A few years ago, this tree was discovered.

Tami Simon: So when I hear you talking about the world tree, I presume this is a kind of symbol.

Carl Johan Calleman: It’s not. It’s reality.

Tami Simon: Is there a specific tree somewhere? I can get on a plane and take a car and go visit the tree?

Carl Johan Calleman: Well, it’s a little bit big for that. It’s a scale of billions of light years.

Tami Simon: You’re freaking me out here, Carl.

Carl Johan Calleman: Oh, I see.

Tami Simon: What are you talking about? What world tree that was discovered that was light years in measurement? I’m not following you.

Carl Johan Calleman: Okay, it would have to be a little bit detailed, though.

Tami Simon: I want to understand this. Take your time. I have a mythic connection to what the world tree is, but if you’re going to help me have a more real connection …

Carl Johan Calleman: Yeah. Now first it’s been thought for ages that the idea of Yggdrasil or the tree of knowledge in the Bible, these are myths, these are just symbols that ancient people were using. Throughout the physics of all the 20th century, it’s based on the idea that the universe is sort of uniform; it’s homogenous, basically, on the largest scale. The basic theories of physics are based on this idea that the cosmos is homogenous.

What happened in 2003 was that they have sent out this satellite, it’s called the WMAP Satellite, that is measuring the afterglow of the Big Bang. In other words, it’s to take an infant picture of the universe. You’re actually looking at the temperature distribution, the way it looked maybe 300,000 years after the Big Bang. What happened was this time (they’d done this before) this time they had a higher resolution and took new pictures. What happened was that they discovered this time that at the largest scale and from the very beginning of the universe, there is something they came to call the Axis of Evil. This is a stupid way of labeling it, but the point of this is to realize that they have found that at the largest possible scale, the universe has an axis.

Tami Simon: Why did they call it the Axis of Evil when it’s just a cosmic axis?

Carl Johan Calleman: You’ll have to ask … there are stupid scientists around that do so. The answer, I should say, is that it is so troubling for quantum mechanics, for relativity theory, it’s so troubling for the mainstream theories of physics. From a physicist’s perspective, they would call it the Axis of Evil. What I’m saying is that this is the world tree. It’s been discovered. It is the world tree on the largest level. This is the cosmic world tree that was born in the Big Bang exactly as it is said in the Mayan creation story, where the Hunahpu, which is the big polarizing force of the universe, was activated by God.

Now, this world tree then has many different levels. You have a galactic world tree, which is the rotating center of the galaxy. You have an earthly world tree, which is the center of the Earth and the polar axis of the Earth. Then you have human world trees, you have seminal world trees, and so forth. Right now, today, I completed my latest book, and tomorrow I’ll be going to Inner Traditions to deliver this manuscript. This is a book that takes us to the beginning, the finding of this cosmic axis. It’s a very interesting thing. It tells us that the universe had a structure from the very beginning. There is more known about this, that it is aligned with several of the ancient views of the tree of life.

Tami Simon: So basically what we’re calling a tree is an axis.

Carl Johan Calleman: Yeah, it’s not a physical tree, not a green tree, but it’s a big axis.

Tami Simon: And this axis is at the center of our galaxy, and there’s also an axis at the center of the earth, and they’re connected in some way?

Carl Johan Calleman: Yes. But there is one more level. It is an axis at the center of the cosmos. There are 200 billion galaxies, so it’s an unfathomably large scale that this axis exists on.

Tami Simon: Okay, so now we’ve got three different axes. What is the relationship between these different trees and the nine underworlds?

Carl Johan Calleman: They’re synchronized.

Tami Simon: They’re synchronized, okay.

Carl Johan Calleman: Yes. This is the reason that everything that happens not only on our planet—the Mayan calendar is not an earthly calendar, it is a cosmic calendar. Because ultimately all of these energies come from the central axis of the cosmos. It is actually synchronistically influencing the entire cosmos.

Tami Simon: And what is an axis? Is it sort of the birth of duality?

Carl Johan Calleman: Yes. This is exactly from where the 15 dualities are emerging in the cosmos.

Tami Simon: So the theory you’ve interpreted from the Mayan calendar of these nine underworlds … we’ve talked about the ninth underworld being this time of a universal underworld. How long is this supposed to last, and then what happens? Do we go back to number one?

Carl Johan Calleman: So … that’s the mystery of 2012! The ninth underworld, as I understand it, will last for 260 days. It’s a very rapid …

Tami Simon: 260 days?

Carl Johan Calleman: 260 days, yes.

Tami Simon: You’re kidding me! That’s like, a blink! That’s it? We get universal consciousness for 260 days?

Carl Johan Calleman: Yeah.

Tami Simon: Okay. I was hoping after all this hard work we would at least get a few, you know, centuries or something.

Carl Johan Calleman: Don’t ask me, ask the tree of life.

Tami Simon: 260 days. I’m devastated now, but let’s keep going. And then what happens? What’s going to happen in 2014? What’s the next cycle?

Carl Johan Calleman: The cycles end, as far as we can say. What this may mean is that so far in history, human beings have been like the puppets of all these energies coming in. At this point, it would . . . a particular energy that would allow things to settle. One way of putting it is that there will be a shift from the evolution of consciousness to conscious evolution. This could be a little bit hard to grasp.

Tami Simon: That’s okay, we just got a cosmic world tree, a galactic world tree, and a center of the earth world tree. I’m with you here, Carl.

Carl Johan Calleman: Good. It’s what they sometimes called a nested hierarchy, different levels of the same thing coming back, even down to the electrons. It’s the same; it’s just different manifestation levels.

Tami Simon: But you’re saying that we have the potential here to move from the evolution of consciousness to conscious evolution. What would conscious evolution be like, and how would it be different?

Carl Johan Calleman: I don’t know. What I do know, and what I don’t think everyone knows, is that so far, people have actually been like puppets in the divine creation process. The way we have looked upon our world (and we have thought as human beings that we have created from our own power and so forth) but if you start looking at the Mayan calendar, you find that all of these things have their origin in the cosmic plan of shifting energies, where we have been very little more than puppets. There’s nothing wrong with that, you can have fun as a puppet as well, but that’s a way that I look upon it. I think it’s only from that starting point that you may understand then that there could be a shift to conscious evolution, where human beings have gone through this whole evolution that is guided and determined by the tree of life, and instead becomes the creator of her destiny. And that is what would happen.

Tami Simon: So in the Mayan calendar, they say that after these nine underworlds, it’s not that we go back to another repeat of a cycle, we start back at level one.

Carl Johan Calleman: I wouldn’t think so. I don’t think there would be any evidence that that would be the case.

Tami Simon: It’s that we’re now at an unknown zone at the end of the calendar.

Carl Johan Calleman: Yes.

Tami Simon: I’m curious, speaking of evidence … you’ve gone in and researched and studied and created this interpretation of the Mayan calendar. Are there people who confirm your interpretation?

Carl Johan Calleman: It depends on whom you’re asking.

Tami Simon: I’m asking if there are any scholars or researchers that have confirmed your interpretation.

Carl Johan Calleman: If you were asking professional Mayanists, I would say that there’s no one. If you were going to the academic community, I would say there is no one. But at this point, there is a high number of books and people that are outside of that particular frame, that have been written on the basis of this particular way of looking on the calendar.

Tami Simon: You told me that when you began in Stockholm, you were a scientist. Sometimes when I hear about interpretations from the Mayan calendar, I wonder how much are they the perspective of a scientist versus more like the perspective of a poet or a mythmaker. I’m curious what you think about that as someone who has a background in science.

Carl Johan Calleman: I, unlike most people, have a background in science. It means I usually don’t say anything unless it’s backed up by empirical evidence. So that’s what my books are about. I track these different evolutions from seed to mature fruit, and see stepwise how well they align with the different shift points in the calendar and so forth. That is the evidence. Now just because somebody is a Mayanist, they might say that has no value, it doesn’t fit their worldview. But what I think makes my own work very valuable is this very fact. I’m not telling people that I’m not a fantastic prophet and they should listen to me because I’m a prophet. What I’m saying is that here we have the empirical evidence, here you can track different things, and then you can make your own judgment. Then you can understand by yourself the different patterns of the Mayan calendar and make your own conclusions.

Tami Simon: What do you mean, empirical evidence? What empirical evidence has there been for your interpretations?

Carl Johan Calleman: Well, an enormous amount. Anybody who reads my book knows there is a lot of that.

Tami Simon: Can you tell me maybe two or three of the main pieces of empirical evidence that will impress me?

Carl Johan Calleman: You know, there’s so much of this in my books … the question is, what does not follow the Mayan calendar. So I’m throwing it back to you.

Tami Simon: I would say I’m not knowledgeable enough to respond, either about what the calendar has predicted or about what’s happening worldwide.

Carl Johan Calleman: The question is serious. Can you find anything that evolves that does not follow the Mayan calendar?

Tami Simon: Well, just in the course of our conversation, we’re talking about this being the “galactic underworld,” and as I said, I think we can think of plenty of examples of what is happening in the world that we wouldn’t think reflects an appreciation of our interdependence as a species, let alone a bigger view. There are so many parts, so many humans, so many actions, so many parts of the world, so many political groups and people in power in different countries that don’t seem to be part of anything that I would call a high consciousness or galactic phase of history.

Carl Johan Calleman: Yeah, I agree.

Tami Simon: That’s what I would say contradicts the claim of the calendar. Just at a very simple level based on our conversation.

Carl Johan Calleman: Does that mean you don’t believe in it?

Tami Simon: I would say I have a curiosity about the mystery of 2012, which is why I’ve enjoyed our conversation, but I’m skeptical and cautiously optimistic that we are going through a positive evolutionary shift.

Carl Johan Calleman: Good. Good.

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