Quick Overview

The Maya believed in a cyclical nature of time. Maya priest provided prophetic outlook on the future or past based on the number relations of their calendars and significant past dates such as birth. If the interpretations of the priests spelled bad times to come, offerings and sacrifices would be performed with the intention of satisfying the gods. Offerings were provided to the gods in purified vessels often by burning copal resin. Copal was seen as the blood or lifeline of a copal tree. The smoke from copal was seen as an offering of blood to the gods.

Maya Vision Serpent Reveals the Future

"The future is as it was ordained to be by the gods. The people can know this future, it is not prohibited, it is just reserved to be revealed in small pieces to those that ask. For to reveal the future in its entirety all at once would surely put the fate of even the gods themselves in jeopardy", so goes the saying of Tizimin a seer who foretold many events in the Katun 5 Ahau of the ancient Mayans.

According to an ancient Mayans, it is not prohibited to know the future it is just reserved to be revealed in small pieces to those that ask.

To understand the words of the gods, it was also necessary to request the aid of someone with a direct link between the spirit kingdom of the gods and the physical world. Such a link was the Vision Serpent.

The Mayans believed that the gods had sacrificed parts of their own divine blood to give life to man. consequently, human blood was partially made up of the blood of the gods. In order to ask the gods to reveal a snippet of the future, the Mayans believed that blood had to be given back to the gods.

Maya mythology describes serpents as being the vehicles by which celestial bodies, such as the sun and stars, cross the heavens. The shedding of their skin made them a symbol of rebirth and renewal. Thus the Vision Serpent could intercommunicate and talk to the gods on behalf of someone who is requesting to know a piece of the future. But to gain the aid of the Vision Serpent was no easy matter. It would have to be brought forth in a ceremony that opened the door between the physical and the spirit world.

Such a ceremony required the use of a Maya pottery vessel that had been purified. Ancient Mayan art usually decorated the vessel with passages describing the roles of the gods and Maya ancestors. In preparation for calling the Vision Serpent, burning ambers and copal (a tree resin believed to be the blood of trees) would be situated in the vessel.

The Vision Serpent was brought forth by soaking paper strips with blood from a self inflicted wound and placing that paper upon the ashes of the burning amber and copal. This self inflicted wound had to be performed while fasting for two days. The act of burning the sacrificed blood symbolized the transfer of the offering to the gods via the rising smoke.

From this smoke the serpent appeared. Its image would emanate from the pottery vessel and rising smoke and tower over the one who called it forth. It is at this point that the caller should hear……”he who calls me forth…… what is the answer you seek from the gods”?

Tizimin further states, "Be not surprised by what you learn; the act of asking to learn the future does not require the revelation to be what you would want it to be. The truth will remain the truth".