More about The Aztec Book of Destiny


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the Aztec Sacred Calendar in full color return to The Aztec Book of Destiny the ethnographic context of The Aztec Book of Destiny meet Rick Holmer future books by Rick Holmer return to Rick Holmer's homepage Purchase The Aztec Book of Destiny: return to HolmerArts.com	More about the book: The Aztec Book of Destiny summarizes traditional Mesoamerican beliefs about the spiritual nature of time and its influence on the personality and fate of all people. Much like Western astrologers, the Aztec, Toltec and Maya believed that the day of birth affects one’s destiny. This has been known by scholars since the sixteenth century but there is little or no agreement about how it was perceived to work by the people who created it, and lived by it. This book condenses the scattered and disparate academic literature into a fun and informative narrative composed for the general reader, but it goes far beyond what academics have published to date. Dr. Holmer presents a unique perspective shaped by the teachings of an elderly traditional calendar-keeper he met in Mexico while conducting field work in 1973. The Aztec Book of Destiny is about the sacred calendar, which is an endlessly repeating 260-day cycle of time (not 365 as for most other cultures around the world). All Mesoamerican societies for the last 3000 years, probably much longer, have tallied the passage of time using this calendar, and they have used it to guide and interpret everything in life and death. Dr. Holmer in his review of traditional beliefs surrounding the sacred calendar coins the term "tonallogy" to aid the discussion about the centrality of the calendar in Mesoamerican philosophy. This anglicized word is based on the native Aztec appellation for their ancient codices, which illustrate the calendar and were relied upon by priests, politicians, merchants, farmers, artisans and soldiers to direct all their activities. They called them Tonalamatl which translates as "the book of destiny," hence the title selected for Dr. Holmer’s book. Tonallogy is the traditional way indigenous people perceive the universe and how all of its parts work, including humans. It is truly a holistic theory used to explain every aspect of existence, all unified by the sacred calendar. It has been variously described as a sophisticated system of chronology, horology, astronomy, medicine, psychology, propaganda, politics, meteorology and cosmology. It is all of these and more. It not only provides an accurate way to keep track of events in the passage of time (as precise as the Julian day numbers used in modern astronomy), but it also helps people deal with why things happen, why individuals are the way they are, and why people do what they do. The Aztec Book of Destiny does not stop at discussing tonallogy as an ancient and forgotten curiosity. The book projects its unique viewpoint into the context of contemporary Western society. Using a statistical analysis of sacred-calendar birthdays for 37,400 historic people who have achieved recognition for their accomplishments, universal and fundamental patterns are revealed. The book is organized to encourage readers to examine themselves and others from the perspective of this ancient and timeless philosophy. What makes tonallogy distinctive in human philosophy is that each day has its own combination of spiritual influences that are radically different from previous and following days. Whereas Western astrology lumps days and people together into broad trends, tonallogy spotlights the uniqueness of each and every individual and why they are the way they are. This is the true importance of the book and is the reason why people will be interested in purchasing it. The Aztec Book of Destiny is ultimately founded upon the voluminous amount of calendar glyphs depicted on ancient stone monuments throughout Mesoamerica and on eight surviving paper and hide codices produced by native scribes and scholars around the time of the Spanish Conquest in 1519-1521. Because facsimiles of these codices are difficult to access and expensive to purchase, and not everyone has the luxury of traveling to Mexico and Guatemala to study the monuments themselves, a complete rendition of the calendar is included in The Aztec Book of Destiny as line art and is also available in full color on this web site. The ancient calendar glyphs and codices are intriguing pictorial depictions of fundamental philosophical and metaphysical concepts for those who know how to read them. They are visually fascinating and The Aztec Book of Destiny maintains this appeal through the inclusion of over 370 original drawings by the author. All illustrations were created using a computer graphics program and are reproduced as black-and-white line art in the book. To aid the uninitiated reader, a glossary of all the glyphs is included so they can be explored in depth, if desired. With the publication of The Aztec Book of Destiny, tonallogy is, for the very first time, accessible to the general public for their edification and enjoyment. There are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of books about Western and Chinese astrology, biorhythms and numerology. This is the first complete exposition of the world’s other great vatic system, The Aztec Book of Destiny.