Of all the unexamined assumptions and criteria upon which we base and gauge our daily lives as human beings on planet Earth, by far the greatest and most profoundly unquestioned is the instrument and institution known as the Gregorian Calendar.
A calendar, any calendar, is commonly understood as a system for dividing time over extended periods. A day is the base unit of a calendar, and the solar year is the base extended period.
The length of the solar year is currently reckoned at 365.242199 days. The Gregorian calendar divides this duration into twelve uneven months – four months of 30 days, seven of 31 days, and one of 28 days. On the Gregorian calendar, the accrued quarter-day is handled by inserting February 29th every four years. This is not necessarily the most logical, or only way of handling the accrued quarter day.
“30 days hath September, April, June, and November; all the rest have 31; except for February which has 28.” So goes the folk rhyme underscoring the illogical nature of the Gregorian calendar. By contrast, a far easier and more logical way to divide the solar year would be by thirteen 28-day months with one extra free day.
The point is this: there is no logical or scientific relation between the exact length of the year and the use of the Gregorian calendar to measure and divide that length.
Nonetheless, the Gregorian calendar is held up as the perfect instrument for dividing time and is in use worldwide as the official standard. Although the lunation-based calendar of Islam, the Hindus, Jews, and Chinese are still used for religious or ritual purposes, in daily economic and political affairs the Gregorian calendar prevails throughout the planet. How and why did this happen? What is the Gregorian calendar and where did it come from? Why do we continue to use it? Indeed, what is the relationship between calendars and human behavior?
If one looks under the heading ‘calendar,’ in the Micropaedia of the most recent Encyclopedia Britannica (1985), a full 80% of the article is devoted to the Gregorian calendar. This exemplifies the unquestioned authority granted to the Gregorian calendar. What is the basis of this authority?
All authority granted to this calendar is actually an allegiance to a late medieval Christian timing device. The authority of this device is held by the Vatican, geographically the smallest political state on the planet, yet given full political protection by the major Western powers (the G-7: USA, Canada, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, plus Japan).
The Gregorian came about as the result of a Papal Bull issued by Pope Gregory in 1572 and implemented October 5-15, 1582. The historical context in which this calendar became the fixed standard is of the greatest significance. On the one hand, European power, instigated by acquisitive material greed and the Church’s need to gather all souls under its cross, had literally straddled the globe. Henceforth, no one could receive the ‘blessings’ of Christianity without receiving the Gregorian calendar.
In Europe itself, the Gregorian calendar succeeded at the precise moment when the final mechanization of time was being achieved. By AD 1600 the twelve-month year and the 60-minute hour had become the standard of time.
Thus, accompanying and giving form to the very origins of modern materialistic science was the final codification of the third-dimensional timing frequency, the 12:60. needless to say, the authority and impact of this timing frequency were never questioned much less realized. Though men like Kepler and Galileo were persecuted by the Church, they did not question the authority of the calendar. And so it has been with virtually all men of science to accept without question this calendar by which they live.
It is to the fundamental discredit of all modern science and the society governed by its principles that it has continued to unquestionably accept living under what is essentially a medieval yoke of time. The Gregorian calendar is a hypnotic spell that holds all the unresolvable issues of history hidden in its illogical sequence of days, weeks, months, and years. Following this calendar can only lead to the place where we find ourselves today: a season of apocalypses, where disaster, ignorance, and error perpetuate themselves in grinding mindlessness.
The dark apocalyptic disasters of history can only repeat themselves under this medieval yoke of time. This is how Sarajevo could be the flashpoint of World War One in AD 1914 and an unresolved battleground in AD 1992. On an even vaster scale under this medieval yoke, we see how Babylon at the beginning of history, is now the stage-set for the end of history in present-day Iraq.
Accepted by the consensus community of Europe and the United States by the 1750s, the Gregorian calendar also proved the perfect template for the maxim ‘time is money,’ by which all modern life is valued or, more precisely, devalued. Interest banking and the tax structure of all modern states follow the illogical construct of the Gregorian calendar: all the loopholes are for those with money and power, and the rest is to keep you confused.
Clearly, history is not democratic, and democracy itself is a hoax to keep us in the illusion of power and security. History is the script of those in power, and whoever holds the power writes the history. No one was even asked about the Gregorian calendar, and so we all follow it as if this were the only way to deal with time.
No one has ever considered the effects of the timing frequency or standard under which we live, nor have we ever been given the opportunity to consider, “what if?” yes, what if we lived under a different standard of time? Ask the Australian aborigine, the Amazon forest dweller, the Native American on the ‘res’ (reservation), what happened to their time and you’ll soon see that it is in the interest of the G-7 to keep us in the Vatican’s yoke.
Yes. To think about the Gregorian calendar is to think about the unthinkable. But if you don’t take the time to start thinking about it now, you may forfeit the only time you’ve got.”
– José Argüelles
Thirteen Moons in Motion
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