Mayanism

Mayanism is a non-codified eclectic collection of New Age beliefs, influenced in part by Pre-Columbian Maya mythology and some folk beliefs of the modern Maya peoples. Contemporary Mayanism places less emphasis on contacts between the ancient Maya and lost lands than in the work of early writers such as Godfrey Higgins, Charles Étienne Brasseur de Bourbourg and Augustus Le Plongeon, alluding instead to possible contacts with extraterrestrial life. However, it continues to include references to Atlantis. Notions about extraterrestrial influence on the Maya can be traced to the book Chariots of the Gods? by Erich von Däniken, whose ancient astronaut theories were in turn influenced by the work of Peter Kolosimo and especially the team of Jacques Bergier and Louis Pauwels, authors of Le Matin des magiciens. These latter writers were inspired by the fantasy literature of H. P. Lovecraft and publications by Charles Fort. However, there remain elements of fascination with lost continents and lost civilizations, especially as popularized by 19th century science fiction and speculative fiction by authors such as Jules Verne, Edward Bulwer-Lytton, and H. Rider Haggard. Mayanism experienced a revival in the 1970s through the work of Frank Waters, a writer on the subject of Hopi mythology. His Book of the Hopi is rejected "as largely ersatz by Hopi traditionalists". In 1970, Waters was the recipient of a Rockefeller Foundation grant to support research in Mexico and Central America. This resulted in his 1975 book Mexico Mystique: The Coming Sixth World of Consciousness, a discussion of Mesoamerican culture strongly colored by Waters' beliefs in astrology, prophecy, and the lost continent of Atlantis. It has gained new momentum in the context of the 2012 phenomenon, especially as presented in the work of New Age author John Major Jenkins, who asserts that Mayanism is "the essential core ideas or teachings of Maya religion and philosophy" in his 2009 book The 2012 Story: The Myths, Fallacies, and Truth Behind the Most Intriguing Date in History.