.
The Maya equivalent of Quetzalcoatl was Kukulkan. Both the Nahautl and Yucatec names translate as “quetzel bird-snake” or “plumed serpent”. Kukulkan was a post-Classical deity, perhaps introduced to the Maya by the Toltecs, who were influential at Chichen Itza and other centres in the northern Yucatan. Bishop Landa, writing in 1566 reported that

In Maya myth, Venus is the companion of the sun. This no doubt reflects the fact that Venus is always close to the sun in the sky, rising not long before sunrise as morning star or after sunset as evening star. In the Classical period (250-900 AD), Venus was associated with Hun Ahaw, who guided his twin Yax Balam, the sun, through the Underworld. Hun Ahaw later became Hunaphu in the Hero Twins myth cycle in the post-Conquest Popul Vuh. Translator Dennis Tedlock interprets these myths as an account of the apparitions of Venus from heliacal rise as morning star, through disappearance beneath the night time horizon, to rise again as evening star. See “The Chinkultic disk” for more about the Hero twins X

The association between the sun and Venus appears to date back to the pre-Classical period.  A huge pair of jaguar masks decorated a temple facade at Cerros in about 50 BC.  According to Schele and Freidel, the lower masks represent the sun at each horizon; the upper masks symbolize Venus as morning and evening star.

From: http://members.shaw.ca/mjfinley/glyphs.html

Patrick Geryl writes in Chapter 17 of his book “The World Cataclysm in 2012″, “Venus, The Key to All Mysteries”.  He writes on page 244:  ” I want to pay full attention go the planet Venus.  As you know, it takes 243 days to make an entire circle around the sun. With this number, many codes can be broken. My intuition drew me straight to the number that shows the shifting of the Zodiac.  I divided this number by the orbit period of Venus and came to the amazing conclusion:  25,920 divided by 243 = 106.66666. “

Patrick Geryl relates the number 106.66666 to the Apocalypse. After a lot of calculations, on page 247, he says, “I found it! This was exactly what the Bible predicted. The number 66666 indicates that the end of an era has been or will be reached. And Venus is the main code in it!”

On page 249, he writes: “my attention was drawn to a chapter about the period of the orbit of Venus. I thumbed through it – maybe I could discover something interesting, you never know. Suddenly I felt as thought I had been struck by lightning. What I saw that the period of the orbit of Venus was not 243 but 224.7 days. the number 243 was mentioned beneath the orbit period, and involved the number of days Venus needs to rotate on its own axis. Our earth only needs one day to do this, but Venus takes a lot more time. It turns so slowly that it takes over a Venusian year to make one rotation – the Venusian day is longer than its year. … This led me  to discover something incredibly important, you will understand in a minute. “

On page 250, he continues: ” Since 1964, radar observations have provided another point of view, proving that the rotation lasts 243 days and runs backwards! ,,,,

“1) The codes prove that the number 243 is important and was well known by the people of Atlantis.

2) The number 25,920 shows us the precession of the earth. That means that after 25,920 years, the earth has made one retrograde rotation around its axis. Each year, the earth rotates 3,333 seconds less around its axis, which amounts to 86,400 seconds (or one day) after 25,920 years. This is a similar code to the one of Venus because the movement of Venus is opposite of the earth. It takes Venus 243 days to turn around its axis in reverse mode to the earth. That is the reason why these 243 days were found amongst their code calculations. The earth and Venus have a common point of contact, the orbit period lasts one day in 25,920 years in earthly time and 243 days in Venus time! They couldn’t have chosen a more brilliant point of departure.

3) The orbit period of Venus can only be registered by a sophisticated technological apparatus. Did the people of Atlantis have such equipment? If they did, the implications are enormous, but I cannot find any other explanation. Furthermore, we know now that they had knowledge about solar magnetism, and the sunspot cycle, for which you need at least telescopes and probably other equipment. And what is more, you need precision clockwork to measure the orbit period of Venus and the earth, as well as to fix your position…… continuing: The Venus table in the Dresden Codex gives us a clear view of the ritual Maya calendar, showing the positions of Venus in the sky. This Venus table refers to 65 cycles of 584 days, which means 37,960 days all together, equal to `46 of the total number of cycles of 260 days of the Maya calendar, as well as to 104 of the Maya solar years of 365 days.

In Chapter 18, on page 254, Patrick Geryl refers us to the number 20, also prominent in Maya time references:

He writes: “The number 20 in the calculations of the solar magnetism: 68, 328 x 20 – 1,366,560 = code number  The Dresden Codex for the Maya sunspot cycle.

“68,302 x 20 = 1,366,040 = the number that refers to the 20th cycle in which the sunspot cycle switches poles. All these numbers show us very clearly the source of this number 20. In this case you still don’t believe me, divide 576 by 50 invisible days and the result is: 576 divided by 50 = 11.52.  When you now multiply this by 1000, you get the exact interval of the previous crash!

He continues: ” There were still the eight days during which Venus disappears behind the sun. When I multiplied eight by the small “Holy Numbers’ of the Maya and the Egyptians, I obtained the number of the shifting of the Zodiac and the orbit period of Venus. Now I know both numbers refer to Venus.

72 x 8 = 576
73 x 8 = 584

“Once again, this proved that the codes were related to each other. The period of eight days when Venus disappears behind the sun indicates that Venus and the sun are closely connected. Venus refers to the bygone switches of the magnetic field of the sun, and also the big one to come, which will cause the catastrophe on earth.

“I found one additional connection: Venus makes 13 orbits around the sun in eight years. This was once more a remarkable reference to the previous numbers already known.

13 x 8 = 104.  104 is a well-known Mayan number. “

After many more number calculations, all relating to Venus and the Sun, he concludes that in 2012, we are going to have a major crash catastrophe on earth because it has happened previously.

Poleshift in 9792 BC

Slosman’s translation of Chapter 17 of the Book of the Dead implies that the Earth has previously undergone some kind of pole-shift which caused the “sun to rise at a new horizon”, and that Osiris, who was represented in the sky by the Orion constellation, had something to do with it. This could have been via an axis shift, crustal displacement, or a change in the direction of rotation. Slosman also gives “an intermediate note” that this event – the Great Cataclysm – happened on July 27th in the year 9792 BC. Gino Ratinckx checked manually, (since his astronomical software didn’t go back to 9792 BC), to see if there was any astronomical pattern on 27th July 9792 BC that repeated on 21-22 December 2012 AD. He claims to have found “the positions of Orion and Aldebaran match both data precisely”. Not only that, but Gino says (p.28) that the configuration “occurs three times in twelve thousand years! The other date is 3114 BC.” This latter year is, of course, the year in which the Mayan long count started. Later in the book, when checked with astronomical software, only 2 matches were found to be correct- 9792 BC and 2012 AD.

Eventually, Slosman’s even-rarer second book, Le Grand Cataclysme, was tracked down, in which he tells the whole story of the end of Atlantis, and how the Atlanteans had calculated the precise date 200 years before the event. They were able to do this because there had been a previous cataclysm in 21,312 BC, and a third one back in 29,808 BC. Slosman had given various lengths for 8 of the astronomical ages, and Geryl went to work decoding precessional clues. The next step was to try and find The Labyrinth, since Slosman indicated that the Atlanteans built this huge building in order to store all their astronomical and cataclysm-calculating knowledge. Gino followed the lead of Robert Bauval, and laid a sky-map over a map of Egypt, lining up Orion’s belt with the 3 Giza pyramids. The temple of Dendera was found to correspond to the star Deneb; Esna temple corresponded to the star Altair; the Hawara area corresponded to the position of the Hyades, and Hawara pyramid corresponded to the star Aldebaran. The Hyades are known to astronomers as…the Labyrinth! What is more, this place is exactly where an explorer called Lespius claimed that the Labyrinth had once been. After visiting Egypt, the pair confirmed that Dendera has an association with Deneb, and also that all the signs reported by Herodotus, who had visited the Labyrinth, showed that Hawara was the location, but that it was not destroyed, but buried right there, beneath the water table, and that Lespius had not dug deep enough! However, it would take a lot of funding to excavate under the water table.

Appleby parallels & retrograde loops

At this point, Geryl and Ratinckx’s quest was sounding very similar to that of Nigel Appleby and his Operation Hermes team (see items 26-28). Appleby had also laid a sky-map over a map of Egypt, lining up the belt of Orion with the 3 Giza pyramids, to find the position of the Hall of Records, which would contain a time-capsule of crucial information left by Atlanteans, to prepare us for another catastrophe in 2012. In Appleby’s case, the time-capsule corresponded with the position of the star Sirius. There is also another parallel: on p.359 of his book, Hall of the Gods, Appleby refers us to a figure 121 and says,

“you will notice that as Leo and the Sun are rising at the same time, Venus is visible above them, following the same path. In these particular circumstances, Venus’s path forms a planetary loop, lasting for just 6 months in any one year, which takes it across the top of the constellation of Orion. This phenomenon only occurs once every 12,500 years, and the next time it will occur happens to be the year 2012.”

When Gino got a new astronomical software package, (“Loadstar”), and was able to reconstruct the sky of 9792 BC, Patrick asked him to look for a link between Venus and Orion. Gino found that in both 9792 BC and 2012 AD, Venus makes a “planetary retrograde loop” above Orion, and near Gemini. Gino said that Venus makes the same “movement” “about every 250 years”, but “only in 9792 BC and 2012 is the precession the same!” This seems to contradict the earlier conclusion that the position of Orion (and Aldebaran), recur 3 times in 12,000 years (and we can only assume, since it is not explained, that the 3114 BC position was an error due to working it out manually). It also contradicts what Appleby said, and I asked Patrick about it in the following e-mail exchange;

I said:
Interesting about the planetary retrograde loop of Venus – Appleby said in Hall of the Gods, (p.359) that this effect occurs every 12,500 years – where it goes across the top of Orion (you said every 11,000 years). Like you, he said it will happen in 2012, but implies it last happened around 10,500 BC, where you say 9792 BC
His reply:

THE RETROGRADE LOOP HAPPENS EVERY 250 YEARS – BUT!!!!! – ONLY IN 9792 AND 2012 IS THE PRECESSION THE SAME!

I then remembered that Adrian Gilbert had referred to the same event in his book, Signs in the Sky (see item 47), but had said that in August 2012, Venus will be “stationary in the hand of Orion”. I also remembered that at the Gizagate conference in London in March 1998, I had heard lectures by Nigel Appleby, Adrian Gilbert, and Gino Ratinckx! West and Bauval were also speaking. (See SC magazine number 80 – Sep/Oct 1998 – for summary of the conference). I will have more to say about this later in this review.

Book of the dead confirms it

When Geryl turned back to Slosman’s Le Livre de l’Au-dela , de la Vie, he found that there was a paragraph that was written entirely in red to stress its importance, and in Slosman’s commentary, he said that within this paragraph (or just following it) there was a hidden code concerning the 9792 BC catastrophe. Geryl and Ratinckx were astounded to find what seemed to be corroboration for their discovery of the retrograde loop linking 9792 BC to 2012 AD. The passage concerns the “Mathematical Combinations” of the starry vault that were a portent of destruction, following which, “the old Lion turned around”. These starry combinations would seem to involve “The Twins” and “Osiris (Orion)”. “Life began again after that, under the course of the new Sun….Thus the survivors of the catastrophe coming from heaven, are purified, in order to accomplish the Orders originally passed on by Osiris (Orion).”

To the authors, here was conformation from ancient Egypt that around the time of the catastrophe, in 9792 BC, there was an astronomical phenomenon occurring near Gemini (the Twins) and Orion, and that the survivors’ task was to transmit the knowledge down the ages, that when it recurred, so would the catastrophe. The catastrophe, which came from heaven, during the age of Leo, caused the Earth’s magnetic poles to reverse, (scientists now warn this is about to happen) and (as the core disconnected from the mantle), crustal slip occurred, accompanied by earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and tidal waves. The Sun was reborn from a new horizon, as the Earth came to a stand-still in its axial rotation, and began to rotate in the opposite direction (see item item32). From this point on, the precession of the equinoxes were reversed, so that the equinox sun slowly precessed back out of Leo into Cancer. This was supported by Herodotus when he said “The Sun fell into the sea”.

Surprisingly, Geryl and Ratinckx forgot to include an even more significant quote from Herodotus, who said, when reporting the wisdom of Egyptian priests, “The sun, however, had within this period of time [341 generations], on four several (sic) occasions, moved from his wonted course, twice rising where he now sets and twice setting where now he rises.’3 Herodotus converts the figure of 341 generations into a period of 11,340 years. This fits their data very well, including the previous catastrophes. If the average age of a generation used by Herodotus was increased by about 1.4 years, from 33.25 to 34.6, it would give a period around the 11,803 year-period of Slosman.

Part 2: The down-side

Geryl and Ratinckx go on to conclude that Maurice Cotterell (in The Mayan Prophecies) was right, and that the cataclysm will be caused by a major magnetic reversal on the Sun, that reverses the earth’s magnetic poles, and they also (p.152) repeat from The Mystery of the Crystal Skulls (Morton & Thomas p.206); “just before sunset, Central American time, 21-22* December 2012″, that “Venus sinks below the western horizon, and at the same time, the Pleiades will rise above the horizon in the east. Symbolically speaking, we will see the death of Venus and the birth of the Pleiades” This, they say, means a new precessional cycle. Morton & Thomas got the whole idea from Adrian Gilbert, (Cotterell’s co-author of The Mayan Prophecies,) who based it around his discovery that the Birth of Venus occurred in the same symbolic way, on 12 August 3114 BC, at the start of the current 13-Baktun cycle (see item 35 ). However, John Major Jenkins checked and double-checked Gilbert’s claims and found Gilbert had made a mistake. He then interviewed him, but Gilbert had no explanation (click here for the interview). In the same interview, regarding the observation that the complex mathematics and graphs in The Mayan Prophecies do not actually explain the end of the 13-Baktun cycle in 2012, Gilbert’s answers were not convincing (see item 3 ) *Morton & Thomas have “21 December 2012″

Apart from the authors’ endorsement of The Mayan Prophecies, there are several other points that did not quite add up. The first is the authors’ identification of the Amenhemet III pyramid at Hawara with the star Aldebaran. As you can see in this map of the Nile area (from The Complete Pyramids by Mark Lehner, Orion added), when Orion is drawn to scale, with the belt stars aligned to the 3 Giza pyramids, Aldebaran’s position ( in the constellation of Taurus), is nowhere near the Hawara area – not even in the same direction.

This means that the identification of the Labyrinth building with the Hyades (the astronomical Labyrinth) is also wrong. I haven’t got a map showing Dendera and Esna’s positions in relation to Giza, so I can’t comment on those.

Retrograde loops: explained

I did an internet search on the retrograde loops of Venus, to try and find the facts. I found out that all the planets perform a retrograde loop, when they pass the earth (Mercury & Venus), or when the earth overtakes them (the other planets). The whole thing is covered on a site called AJ’s Cosmic Thing, which includes this explanation:

“The simplest familiar analogy to this phenomenon is perhaps that of two vehicles passing one another on a freeway. The vehicle being passed is moving forward relative to a distant object (say a tree some distance from the road) as seen from the other vehicle when at a significant distance. Once the passing vehicle comes close to and overtakes the other vehicle, the passed vehicle will briefly appear to move backwards as against the distant tree. As the passing vehicle moves farther away, the regular apparent relative motion resumes, with the passed vehicle appearing to move forward relative to the tree”.

There is also a Cosmic Thinglet (applet) at this site, where you can project the orbit of Venus and some of the other planets, forward at a variety of speeds. It only goes up to 2003 unfortunately, but you can watch as Venus goes through a loop starting on (approximately) Jan 1st 1998 where she reverses direction until 6/7 February 1998, when when she resumes normal rotation. If you keep it running, you will find that the next time Venus stops in her tracks is 2 August 1999, when she loops backward until 12 September 1999, then resumes forward motion. The period between retrograde loops (6 Feb 98 – 12 September 99) is thus 584 days. This 584-day Venus cycle was watched very closely by the Maya – 65 of these 584-day cycles = 1 Venus round (37,960 days), which equals 2 Calendar Rounds; (584 is the average figure, since there are slight variations). The first of these loops had Sagittarius in the background; the second had Leo in the background. The pattern continues, with Venus looping against another part of the zodiac every 584 days. After 5 loops, Venus is back to its starting point, so that the 5 points form a pentagram. 5 x 584 = 2920 days = exactly 8 Mayan Haab cycles (of 365 days each).

As you can see in this diagram, (which is not accurate, but just for illustration purposes), when Venus returns to the its starting point, (at the top of the circle) after 8 years, it is actually slightly further round the zodiac circle (by about 2.4 degrees). It takes 243 years for Venus to return to the exact point where it started, which is 152 of the 584-day cycles (the true average is around 583.92). This is equal to 30.4 pentagrams, or 30 pentagrams plus 2 extra 584 day cycles (or 2 points of a pentagram), bringing it into alignment with the original 5 points. NB This is not a complete revolution of the pentagram, but a 72 degree revolution. It takes more than a multiple of the 8-year pentagram because the constellations have also precessed over 240 years, by about 3 degrees. One complete revolution of the pentagram takes 1199 years. I have checked all these movements on astronomical software – thus, the pattern which starts with a standstill on 14th May 2012 AD, is a repeat of the pattern which started 243 years previously on 12th May 1769 AD, and these are both repeats of the pattern which occurred 1199 years previous to 2012, on 26th April 813 AD. Here are 3 sites where you can download free astronomical software, to check for yourself (thanks to Zyzygyz of Time Wave Zero 2012 for his help on this):

Loops – all loopy

This explains Geryl & Ratinckx’s “250-year” Venus retrograde loop cycle, but what about the 11,803-year cycle (between 9792 BC & 2012 AD)? None of the above free software is designed to go back as far as 9792 BC, but the My Stars software can be “forced into it” by entering the date BC 9792/11/25, then running it back & forth till you find it. (The display date will probably show something like” BC 9790/-8/-12 “; but be warned: my computer crashed several times trying this). However, just around here was the exact pattern shown by Geryl & Ratinckx for 9792 BC:

The Venus loop in 9792 BC

The loop in 2012 was at first thought by the authors of The Orion Prophecy to be the same as the 9792 BC loop, (p.137-138), then they realized that in 2012, the loop appeared to the right of Orion, while in 9792 BC, it had appeared to the left of Orion:

The “opposite” Venus loop in 2012

Patrick Geryl had thought this loop was the code they were looking for, but now, he was “starting to doubt it” (p.138), until Gino reassured him that it only happens “about every 250 years”, but that precession only matched in 9792 BC and 2012. The authors then concluded that, since the 9792 BC & 2012 loops are “opposites of each other” in 3 ways,4 and that “the Earth also starts turning in the OPPOSITE direction after a polar reversal”, then this must be a code of OPPOSITES. However, they failed to spot that, since every 8 years, the point of the pentagram returns to a point about 2 degrees away from its position 8 years previously, this means that between 1924 and 2012 there are 12 retrograde loops of Venus above Orion.

Positions of 12 Venus loops at 8-year intervals above Orion, between 1924 and 2012

This has all been checked on the free software mentioned above. Every 243 years, the loops recur in exactly these same 12 positions over another 88-year period (1681-1769). As a result, the “opposite” status of the 9792 BC loop position and the 2012 loop position becomes much less obvious. Scroll up to the 9792 BC loop, above, and then back to this selection of 12 loops, to decide which is “opposite” to the 9792 BC one. All of them have the same 3 opposite criteria 4 as the 2012 loop. I would say that the 1980 loop is the best candidate for opposite, ( 9792 BC: 2nd standstill above hand of Orion, 1980: first standstill above hand of Orion) while the 1924 loop is the best match (which is what authors were originally searching for p.137-138) to the 9792 BC loop, since these both stand still in Gemini and loop back towards the hand of Orion.

The implication of this finding is that, either…

a)…the 11,803-year period is wrong, and it should be a period of the same length as that between 9792 BC and 1980 AD (or 1924), but obviously not this particular period itself, since the world did not end in 1980 (or 1924). Therefore it should be a period of 11,715 (or 11,771) years (don’t forget there was no “year zero”, if you’re working this out!), and that, presuming that the 2012 AD pattern is the warning sign, the original catastrophe must have been in 9704 (or 9648)BC. We are not told how Slosman got the year 9792 BC, so cannot speculate further… except, maybe it should be 11,520 years, since that is the period between the catastrophe in 21,312 BC and 9792 BC; and 11,520 = 7200 x 584, or 7200 Venus cycles. However, there was no Venus loop in 21,312 BC, so the authors say…so maybe that’s wrong too.

or…

b)…the whole theory is seriously flawed.

This means that not only is Appleby’s conclusion erroneous as he was connecting it with 10,500 BC, but also Adrian Gilbert’s, since the position of Venus as “stationary in the hand of Orion” was more accurate in 1924.

“Esoteric numerology”

Since we have now determined that the 11,803-year period is wrong, it makes most of the mathematics in the book superfluous. However, on p.135, Geryl says, “I’m begging you on hands and knees to review my calculations and maybe find other connections”, so let’s have a look: (skip this paragraph if big decimals make you giddy)

On p.129, Geryl admits that he made an error in calculating the period between the 9792 BC catastrophe and the one which follows it. He forgot about the fact that there is no “year zero” in the Gregorian calendar, since the year following the theoretical birth of Christ was 1 AD and the year previous to it was 1 BC. So one year always has to be taken off the calculation from minus to plus numbers. As a result, he initially calculated 11,804 years for the cycle length, and went on to play with the figure to see what he came up with. He claims that this helped him to solve the riddle, even though it was the wrong number. On p.130 he divides 11,804 by 117, which he got from The Mayan Prophecies (p.296-297), “because it was known and used by the Maya to obtain large numbers”. The result is 100.8888888888. He then divided by 36 and 52 “because they were known by the Maya and old Egyptians”, to get the numbers 327.88888888 and 227. He then subtracted 100.888888888 from 327.88888888 and got 227 (despite there being 10 eights after the first 100.8etc and 9 after the second, and eight after 327.8etc. – probably just a “misprint”). He then started to “multiply the number of days in a year, following the two calendars” (i.e. 11,804 multiplied by 365.25; 365; and 360 – Julian year, Haabs & Tuns). He got 3 numbers as a result – 4,311,411; 4,308,460; and 4,249,440. He then divided these 3 numbers by 227 to get 18,993; 18,980; 18,720. Then he couldn’t believe his eyes, when he recognised the “”holy” numbers of the Maya” – 18,980 and 18,720.

18,980 is the number of days in a Calendar Round of 52 Haabs (52 x 365 = 18,980). Geryl probably takes 18,720 as a holy number because there are 1,872,000 days in the 13-Baktun cycle, and 18,720 is a harmonic of this number.

However, ANY number could have been used in place of 11,804, even 11,803 (we’ll take 18,980 as an example, but this is true of all 3 calculations), because he originally got the number 227 by dividing 11,804 by 52. Then he multiplied the same number by 365, to get 4,308,460. He then divided the second result by the first to get 18,980. We can do the same thing with any number, such as 104 for example: 104 divided by 52 = 2. 104 x 365 = 37,960. 37,960 divided by 2 = 18,980. That’s a simple example, but it will work with any number! Here is a similar problem:

if 10/5 =2; and 10 x 3 = 30; then 30/2 = 5 x 3

The numbers are developed further, until the conclusion is reached that the Maya and Egyptians predicted the same day for the end of the world.

The Maya and Egyptians used 10 decimal places!

On p.235-6, Geryl says that if he sees a decimal with repeating numbers, he takes it as a clue, and his calculations involve up to 10 decimal places (after the point), subtracting certain numbers “without knowing why” (p.131), or multiplying and dividing “purely out of curiosity” (p.133) any numbers used by the Maya or Egyptians. I pointed out to Patrick that the Maya did not use a decimal point (and that is why they used so many calendars as cross-checks, and counted long cycles to get extra accuracy using whole numbers):

I said:
But the Maya did not use the decimal point!

His reply:
I’M VERY SORRY BUT YOU CAN ONLY DECODE THE DRESDEN CODEX WITH OUR NUMBERING SYSTEM! => SO THEY KNEW IT AND USED IT – EVERY MATHEMATICIAN WILL SEE THAT MY DECODING IS VERY, VERY RIGHT

It’s time to name that mathematician! There are many more examples of this number-play, and Geryl himself, comes up with the term “esoteric numerology” (p.182), to describe these kind of machinations, even going as far as to say, (p.237), “If this is not a brilliant game, I am insane” (!) but thank Osiris, I don’t have to go through them all because we have now shown that the cycle is not 11,803 years, unless the retrograde loops have nothing to do with it, and even if they don’t, the maths needs to be completely re-done.

Other wild claims

p.184: “Finding the precession requires the knowledge of two points in a year when days and nights were equal”

Sorry, not true: Precession can just as easily, if not more easily, be measured from the Winter Solstice as Jenkins has shown the Maya did, (see item 5) or from the Summer Solstice, as Gilbert has suggested the Egyptians did (see item 47).

p.133-134: By a logic impossible to follow, Geryl concludes that “each year the earth is 3.33333 seconds behind, compared with the year before”.

If you do an internet search on the slowing rotation of the Earth, you will find 3 main groups of answers to this. they lie in the range of 1.1-2.0 milliseconds per century; 4 to 5 milliseconds per year; 0.6-2.3 milliseconds per day; or the highest single claim I found: 0.8395 seconds per year. A huge variation, but none as large as Geryl’s. Three examples: http://pages.prodigy.com/suna/earth.htm http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answers/980421b.html http://bowie.gsfc.nasa.gov/ggfc/tides/intro.html

p.110: Having found, with a GPS meter, that the Dendera Zodiac, the axis of the Dendera Temple, and the Temple at Esna all showed a deviation of 5 degrees to the East, the authors were unsurprised to find that the Great Pyramid and its 2 companions, were all aligned 5 degrees East of North.

Mark Lehner was director of the Giza Plateau Mapping Project, and in his book, The Complete Pyramids, p.108 &109, he gives the Great pyramid’s deviation from North as 3 minutes and 6 seconds of arc. This is about 0.05 degrees, not 5.00 degrees! – More trouble with decimal points. This is even worse than Wilkie and Jones in their book Giza-Genesis – (see Whats New 29 ). The Great Pyramid has always been a marvel of precision, and famous for its accurate alignment to North. Either the GPS meter needs destroying or a visit to the optician may be in order.

Nit-pickin’…

The most crucial passage is given by the authors in the French translation of Slosman, and in the English version of the Belgian authors. On p148, the following announcement is made, regarding this translation:

“Anyone who can prove that we have incorrectly translated Slosman’s work can have our royalties from this book.”

Directly after this, on p.149-150, the French text is given, from line “161 to 167″, (= Budge Ch. 17 line 126-132), followed by 2 paragraphs of Slosman’s Commentary. The English translation of the verses can be found between pages 140 -145, while the English translation of Slosman’s 2-paragraph commentary is on page 141-142. I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news for our authors…

In line 164, the words “…DES IMPORTANTES COMBINAISONS D’EN HAUT…” is translated as “…of the higher Important Orders…” Obviously, the word “Orders” here, is a mis-translation of the word “Combinaisons”. “Commandements” has been translated as “Orders” 3 times; “Combinaisons” as “Combinations”, once.5

If that’s not enough to secure me the cash prize, brace yourselves for the 2 original French paragraphs (sorry – can’t do the accents on this keyboard):

“Revenons plutot a l’explication de ce verset tres important qui merite que l’on s’y arrete du point de vue astronomique avec la Constellation du Lion. Car manifestement il s’agit d’une explication concernant le plus important changement dans les configurations astrales de notre ciel. Et elle vient apres un paragraphe ecrit presqu’entierement en rouge qui montre l’extreme importance du texte, tout en cachant la fin de l’alinea non pas pour en amoindrir la portee, mais plutot par une crainte instinctive d’en decrire les effets!

Lors du Grand Cataclysme, survenu le 27 juillet 9792 avant Christ, donc dans ce que nous appelons pour les natifs “en Lion” ou le Soleil durant son periple annuel y sejourne 30 jours environ. Mais le Soleil avancait aussi precessionnellement (durant plus de 2000 ans) devant la constellation du Lion, la Terre bascule sur son axe. Et, comme l’ecrivait Herodote “le Soleil tomba dans la mer”. Ceci n’etant qu’une apparence puisque notre astre du jour est “fixe”. Ce fut donc notre globe qui se retourna sur lui-meme et fit apparaitre depuis ce jour memorable le Soleil reculant dans l’Espace . Ce qu’il continue de faire encore aujour-d’hui.”

The parts in bold red have been totally ignored in the English translation. That constitutes gross mis-translation. Here’s the English translation as given by Geryl & Rattinckx:

“This is undoubted(ly) the most important explanation concerning the changing of the star-world in the sky. And this comes after a paragraph almost entirely written in red to stress its importance. The code is hidden in the end of the paragraph, so the full significance of the effects blows you in the face!

The Great cataclysm happened on 27th of July, 9792 BC. This was the age of the Lion and the earth turned on its axis. And as Herodotus wrote, “The Sun fell into the sea”. This is because the earth started turning the other way around, which she still does to this today.”

Blue = should have been included; green = should have been omitted. This should be enough to release a few Euros.

Conclusion

I had high hopes that this book might shed some new light on the 2012 Mayan end-point, but when the most fascinating part turned out to be a mistake, (the retrograde loops of Venus “code”), and the next most interesting item – the discovery (by overlaying sky maps onto a map of Egypt) that the “astronomical Labyrinth” (the Hyades) corresponds to the already known position of the Labyrinth building – also turned out to be wrong; that only left a French translation of the Egyptian Book of the Dead (or Chapter 17 of it, anyway), that has been partly translated into English (by a Belgian), and may contain codes about a catastrophe.

On the plus side, the book gives us access to part of a rare translation of Chapter 17 of the Egyptian Book of the Dead, encoding 3 catastrophes, (for which, as I said above, David Pratt has found corroboration in the Dendera zodiac). On the negative side, there is alot of misinformation in the book, but at least it does not add much to any anxiety we might have about the World ending soon.

When we’re ready for another brilliant game, Geryl promises us (p.171), that when we read his “unbelievably accurate” decoding of the Dresden codex, in his next book, that we “will be almost shocked to death”. I look forward to it.

UPDATE (1st /Nov/03)

When I reviewed the Orion prophecy, the three astronomical software programs I used, (all freeware or shareware), would not go back as far as 9792 BC (one of them almost did it, but kept crashing the computer & giving nonsense readings).

I recently tried the same thing on a program called Skyglobe. If that sounds familiar, that’s because its the one used by Cotterell, Gilbert, Hancock and Bauval in their investigations of ancient Egyptian skies. Well, Skyglobe will reproduce any sky configuration visible from any from any of 120 cites on Earth, between 30,000 BC and 30,000 AD!

Skyglobe shows the 2012 loop exactly as described by Geryl and Rattinckx, when set to show the sky from a Cairo vantage point between May 14th 2012 and June 26th 2012 (the two standstill points in the loop of Venus. However, the 9792 BC loop is not at all the same as that shown in the Orion Prophecy. Skyglobe shows the loop in the Orion Prophecy to be one that occurred 96 years later, in 9696 BC.

In fact, the Venus retrograde loop of 9792 BC as shown on Skyglobe, has an exact match in the year 1609 AD! The exact match for the 2012 AD loop, actually happened in 9389 BC, (starting on 12 February), I found after much searching with Skyglobe. Check it for yourself if you don’t believe me:

Download Skyglobe (shareware)

Notes

1.Orion Prophecy p.25: Book of the Dead Ch. 17, lines 5-9 (Budge 1999 edition, p.376); Orion Prophecy p.25-26: Book of the Dead Ch. 17 lines 25-30; Orion Prophecy p.139-141: Book of the Dead Ch.17, lines 121-130; Orion Prophecy p.145: Book of the Dead Ch.17, lines 131-132; Orion Prophecy p.149-150: Book of the Dead Ch.17, lines126-132 (=Slosman’s lines 161-167).

2. They are by P.Pierret, M. Lepage-Renouf, E. Amelineau, and Vicomte Emmanuel de Rouge,

3. Herodotus, The Histories, translated by G. Rawlinson, Everyman’s Library, 1992, p. 194

4. Firstly (p.151): ” in 9792 BC Venus made its circle above Orion AFTER the cataclysm. In 2012, Venus will make it BEFORE the cataclysm. Secondly (p.151): “In 2012, Venus will turn to the right above Orion, and in 9792 BC, it turned to the left above Orion. Thirdly (p.151): “in 2012, Venus will reach its furthest point at the 30th of June and then turn back to Orion. At that moment, Venus will be between Orion and the Pleiades. In 9792 BC, Venus reached its furthest point at the 25th of December, and then turned back toward Orion.”…”The OPPOSITE turnings are very close to the days of the cataclysm.” In other words, 30th June (2012 loop date) is close (ish) to 27th July, when the cataclysm supposedly occurred in 9792BC; 25th December (9792 BC loop date) is close to 21st December, when the next cataclysm will supposedly happen.

UPDATE 1/12/2004

Patrick Geryl replies:

On 7th November 2004, Patrick Geryl e-mailed me:
“I have send you my defintive answer to your remarks concerning the Venus-Orion code for 2012.
If you are a honest person, you will put it in RED on your review.
=> The facts are from experienced astronomers!”

“I had seen on the computer simulation that Venus makes its retrograde movement slightly to the right-hand side above Orion. But, was that true? Wasn’t the screen giving an unclear image? I therefore decided to go to Urania, a star observatory and planetarium near my home. On an “open day” they simulated planetary movements, and I asked them to plot the movement of Venus in 2012. It was projected on an immense screen on which you could clearly see the circle-shaped movement. Some adjustments relating to the angle of the earth in relation to Venus were made, in such a way that Betelgeuse and Bellatrix came to lie aligned beneath Venus. The outcome was sensational!”

“In 2012 Venus will stand still exactly above Betelgeuse, a red super giant, and will make its retrograde loop. But this is not all. Venus also stands still above Bellatrix after which it will continue its loop! This means therefore that Venus will make an exact circle-shaped movement above the most important and highest stars of Orion, among which is found Betelgeuse! You cannot imagine a more spectacular code than this one! By this and other reasons am I so convinced of the fact that 2012 is the date of the next cataclysm.”

“A Double Even More Spectacular Code!

While Venus makes her retrograde loop, it will pass before the Sun!

Venus passes before the Sun on the sixt of June 2012. She will be in the middle of the Sun at exactly 1.30 AM.

Venus will be in the middle of her retrograde loop the fifth of June at 20.18 PM. This means that Venus will stand in the middle above Orion while it passes before the middle of the Sun! Hence the connection from Venus, Orion and the Sun.

It is for this obvious reason that these scientists took this code as a warning for the End Times! The glyphs from my book The Orion Prophecy will become much clearer now!”

Straydog’s comment:

So, if the software (“Loadstar”), showing the 2012 loop of Venus to the right of Orion is inaccurate, it is quite amazing that the independent software package, SkyGlobe, shows the exact same configuration for 2012 (see 2003 update, above). If both these packages have got the 2012 configuration wrong, and Venus will actually reach standstill in its loop above Betelgeuse, thus matching the pattern that Geryl and Rattinckx found for 9792 BC, then this means the modern software packages can’t even predict the position of Venus just a decade from the event, so surely their configuration for the pattern in 9792 BC is far more unreliable than the pattern they predicted for 2012! In order to prove his point, Mr. Geryl needs to get the observatory to show him the pattern for 9792 BC. The need for this confirmation for the 9792 position is heightened by the 2003 update above, in which we found that SkyGlobe disagreed with the pattern for 9792 BC, and found that the SkyGlobe version of the 9792 BC pattern actually matched the pattern for 1609 AD!

The Venus Transit of 2012, which happens during the loop, may well be significant (it is already covered in several places on this site) and the Venus retrograde loop may also be significant (see 2012 & crop circles page), but as for any evidence that there was a catastrophe in 9792 BC, and that Atlanteans encoded the pattern of Venus looping over Orion as a warning of a repeat catastrophe in 2012; the evidence is still absent.

Birth and Death of Venus. In The Mayan Prophecies, Adrian Gilbert said that he used astronomical software called SKYGLOBE to look at the sky as it was at dawn, on 12 August 3114 BC (where he dates the beginning of the Great Cycle). He found that as the Pleiades were on the meridian, the Sun was preceded by Venus as the morning star. This he took to be the mythical “Birth of Venus” associated with the start of the Great Cycle. Just as in ancient Egypt, the dawn rising of Sirius heralded the flooding of the Nile and the beginning of a new year, and the meridian transits of Orion correlated to the First Time and Last Time of Osiris; to the Maya, the meridian transit of the Pleiades announced the “Birth of Venus” as it rose over the horizon.

Gilbert used SKYGLOBE to check the sky on 22 December 2012 (where he dates the end of the Great Cycle), and found that, just before sunset, as the Pleiades rise over the eastern horizon, Venus sinks below the western horizon. This, he thinks, is the symbolic “Death of Venus”, indicating the start of a new precessional age.

Velikovsky                                                                        The elliptical orbit of Venus following “her birth”

Immanuel Velikovsky has said in his book Worlds in Collision, that the Birth of Venus occurred when Venus was “born” from Jupiter. A cosmic collision caused a part of Jupiter to burst out, becoming a comet, and leaving the famous red spot where it burst out.  This is clearly illustrated in the Greek myth of Athene who sprang from the head of Zeus, making Mount Olympus tremble and stirring the sea, (Athene, reasons Velikovsky, is the planet Venus, and Zeus is the planet Jupiter). Velikovsky dated this event as contemporary with the Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt, explaining the plagues and parting of the Red Sea. Several Mayan and Aztec myths were also cited as evidence, including the fact that Quetzalcoatl, which means feathered serpent, is the well-known name for the planet Venus. It was also called “the star that smoked”. Velikovsky quotes from Brasseur de Bourbourg’s Histoire Des Nations Civilisees du Mexique:
“…the sun refused to show itself and during four days the world was deprived of light. Then a great star …appeared; it was given the name Quetzal-cohuatl …the sky, to show its anger…caused to perish a great number of people who died of famine and pestilence…It was then…that the people [of Mexico] regulated anew the reckoning of days, nights, and hours, according to the difference in time.”

Quetzalcoatl, the plumed serpent causes death                       The planet Venus, associated by the Maya & Aztecs with Quetzalcoatl
This would explain the Mayan obsession with Venus, and we can now see why the Birth of Venus has been associated with the start of the Great Cycle. However, Velikovsky dated the event around 1500 BC with the Exodus. Graham Phillips has also convincingly explained the events of the Exodus as side-effects of the eruption of the volcano Thera (in his book Act of God), but Nigel Appleby has unified the theories with that of Nibiru, the tenth planet (see item 27).

The existence of Nibiru was postulated by Zecharia Sitchin in his book The Twelfth Planet-(12 counting the Sun and Moon). Ancient Sumerian mythology implies that there is a large planet –Nibiru- on an elliptical orbit, which enters the solar system every 3,600 years. Velikovsky and Sitchin actually used the same Sumerian myth as part of the evidence for their respective theories (the Marduk and Tiamat myth). According to Sitchin’s chronology, the next return is due in 3400-3600 AD.

Appleby suggests that it was Nibiru that caused the disasters of the Exodus as it “shunted both Earth and Mars close to each other’s orbit…” and that it was this which triggered the eruption of Thera. However, Velikovsky didn’t say Mars was involved in the original Birth of Venus incident, but two later ones around 700 BC. Anyway, it IS an interesting idea, since it provides a large passing body to interfere with Jupiter and cause the ejection of Venus. What is more, it would mean that Nibiru is due to return soon (1500 BC to 2000 AD =3500 years), as Appleby suggested: 2012 – 2036 (see item 27).

If we prefer  to correlate the Birth of Venus incident to 3114 BC, then the implication is that the Great Cycle is measuring the period of return of some OTHER huge planetoid (see items 8 & 10), due in 2012, on Snake Day.

FROM: http://www.diagnosis2012.co.uk/5.htm

Venus orbits the Sun just a bit faster than 8 thirteenths of a year, more like 7.997. As we shall see this is a small but crucial difference.

Venus crossing the Sun at 6:30 am EDT on June 8th. Venus is the round black disk near the Sun’s limb; the other object is a sunspot. This is a single frame from a movie created by Frank Reddy of Astronomy magazine.

The transit begins at 1:13 a.m. EDT (in the middle of the night) and ends at 7:26 a.m. EDT. If you can see the Sun before 7:26 a.m. EDT, then you can see the transit. Sky watchers east of the Mississippi River are favored. The transit will not be visible at all from Mexico, British Columbia and the following US states: Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, Montana, Oregon, Texas, Utah, Washington, Wyoming.

A transit of Venus isn’t like a solar eclipse. The Sun won’t be blotted out or even noticeably dimmed. Venus is too small; the disk of the planet covers only 0.1% of the Sun.

Above: A visibility map of the 2004 transit of Venus for North Americans. In the yellow zones, sky watchers can see, at most, Venus taking a tiny bite out of the sun’s limb. In Alaska the transit begins at sunset on June 7th. Also available: A world map and a more detailed US visibility map.

From: http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2004/02jun_viewersguide.htm

Using data from NASA’s SORCE satellite, scientists noticed that, when Venus came between the Earth and the sun on June 8, the other planet reduced the amount of sunlight reaching Earth by 0.1 percent. This Venus transit occurs when, from an earthly perspective, Venus crosses in front of the sun. When it happens, once every 122 years, there are two transits eight years apart. The next crossing happens in 2012 and will be visible to people on the U.S. West Coast.

“Because of its distance from Earth, Venus appeared to be about the size of a sunspot,” said Gary Rottman, SORCE Principal Investigator and a scientist at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP), at the University of Colorado at Boulder. The SORCE team had seen similar reductions in the sun’s energy coming Earthward during the October 2003 sunspot activity.

In October 2003 the Earth-bound sunlight dimmed 0.3 percent for about four days, due to three very large sunspot groups moving across the face of the sun.

“This is an unprecedented large decrease in the amount of sunlight, and it is comparable to the decrease that scientists estimate occurred in the seventeenth century,” Rottman said. That decrease lasted almost 50 years, and was likely associated with the exceptionally cold temperatures throughout Europe at that time, a period from the 1400s to the 1700s known as the “little ice age.”

Solar conditions during the little ice age were quite different, as there were essentially no sunspots. Astronomers of the time, like Galileo, kept a good record of sunspot activity before and during the period, encountering only about 50 sunspots in 30 years.

Rottman said, “Something very different was happening during the seventeenth century, and it produced a much more permanent change in the sun’s energy output at that time.” Today, the large sunspots are surrounded by bright areas called “faculae.” Faculae more than compensate for the decrease in sunlight from sunspots, and provide a net increase in sunlight when averaged over a few weeks.

The large number of sunspots occurring in October/November 2003 indicated a very active sun, and indeed many very large solar flares occurred at that time. SORCE observed the massive record-setting solar flares in x-rays

The flares were accompanied by large sunspots, which produced a 0.3 percent decrease in the sun’s energy output. SORCE simultaneously collected the energy from all wavelengths, something that had never been done before.

“The SORCE satellite instruments provide measurements of unprecedented accuracy, so the sun’s energy output is known with great precision, and precise knowledge of variations in the sun’s energy input to Earth is a necessary prerequisite to understanding Earth’s changing climate,” said Robert F. Cahalan, SORCE Project Scientist and Head of the Climate and Radiation Branch at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.

From: http://www.spacedaily.com/news/solarscience-04u.html

The time of 1.6 years between Sun, Venus and Earth lining up is called the synodic period (synod = meeting). Fig 1 shows the lined-up positions from 1996 to 2002. You can see that there is a five spoke pattern. (Ignore for the moment the dotted line). The planets travel anti-clockwise and each lined-up position is 3/5 of the circle on from the previous one.

If we continue the pattern we can see that the next lining-up after 2002 will be in June 2004 in the same place as June 1996, 8 years previously. Almost, but not quite. Since Venus travels a little bit faster than one orbit in 8/13 of a year it catches up with the Earth a little bit before the meeting place 8 years previous. Consequently, if you draw the five spoke pattern 8 years on from Fig 1 it will look like Fig 1 but with the spokes rotated slightly clockwise.

We can start to see that 8 years might be a significant interval but it is still not clear how it relates to transits. For a start we have said that Earth, Venus and the Sun are lined up every 1.6 years, so why is there not a transit of Venus every 1.6 years? The answer is there would be if the orbital planes were exactly aligned. However, the orbit of Venus is at a small angle (3.4 degrees) to that of Earth. The result is that, although the planets appear lined up when looking down on the orbital planes, most of the time Venus viewed from the Earth will be either above or below the Sun. For a transit to occur the planets not only have to line up as in Fig 1 but they have to do it just in the place where the orbital planes cross, which makes it a much rarer event.

Referring back to Fig 1 the dotted line shows where the orbit planes of Earth and Venus cross. The crossing line corresponds to about 7 June and 8 December. We can see that the lining-up in 1996 was very close to the orbit-crossing line but was not quite there. Venus was near to the Sun but passed just south of it. On 8 June 2004 the lining-up will be even closer to the orbit-crossing line, in fact so close that Venus will transit the south side of the Sun for some 6 hours from about 5h 15m to 11h 15m UT. Eight years later in 2012 the lining-up will occur just the other side of the orbit-crossing line and there will be another transit, this time with Venus transiting the north of the Sun.

Fig 2 illustrates the position of the Sun seen from Earth relative to the orbit path of Venus on the three occasions. (The orbit angle has been exaggerated so Fig 2 is an illustration rather than a precise picture).

After that there is a long wait until the January 1998 “spoke” in Fig 1 slowly makes its way round clockwise in eight year ticks until it gets close to the December orbit-crossing line in 2117. Eight years later in 2125 there will be another transit when the “spoke” ticks through to the other side of the orbit-crossing line. This time the orbit path rises from south to north so the first transit will be north of the ecliptic and the second transit south. There is then a long wait while the “spokes” tick round until the lower one arrives close to the June orbit-crossing line again. And so the process continues.

On a final note we saw that because the orbit time of Venus (measured in units of Earth-orbit time, ie one year) was close to 8/13 it led to 8 year cycles. A closer approximation to the orbit time of Venus is 243/395 years, which by similar logic leads to a longer run 243 year cycle.

FROM: http://www.chocky.demon.co.uk/oas/venus.html

SPACEWEATHER.COM – Shows current sunspots