Patricia Mercier - Crystal Skulls and the Enigma of Time: A Spiritual Adventure into the Mayan World of Prediction and Self Discovery

Patricia Mercier (Alloa) has written six books about mind-body-spirit and ancient civilizations. She is an artist, lecturer, the co-director of The Sun & Serpent Maya Mysteries School in the UK and Spain, and a focal point for healing and shamanic training. She has studied and travelled widely in the lands of the Maya in Central America. In 1995 she received a shamanic Solar Initiation and in 2000 she was initiated into the Sovereign Solar Order of Chichn Itz (Mexico) by shamans and elders using quartz crystal skulls. This complements her experiences as a crystal healer and yoga teacher. She lives with her husband Mikhail in southern Spain and the UK.

By the same author

Maya Shamans Travellers in Time

Secretos de los Chamanes Mayas

The Maya End Times a Spiritual Adventure

Chakras

The Chakra Bible

The Chakra Experience (workbook and CD)

This edition first published in the UK and USA 2011 by
Watkins Publishing, Sixth Floor, Castle House,
75-76 Wells Street, London W 1 T 3 QH

Text Copyright Patricia Mercier 2011
Patricia Mercier has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.
All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without prior permission in writing from the Publishers.

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Designed and typeset by Paul Saunders
Printed and bound by Imago in China
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data Available
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Available

ISBN : 978-1-78028-135-3
www.watkinspublishing.co.uk

1. Rare Tibetan crystal skull Amar, surrounded by twelve crystal skulls. From http://www.crystalskulls.com/gathering.html Photo 2010 Lee Simmons, award-winning photographer and creator of the extraordinary Secret World of Crystals oracle deck

2. Amakua and Xamuku. Photo Star Johnsen-Moser

3. Rare Tibetan crystal skull Amar. Photo crystalskulls.com

4. AsKaRa. Photo M Baker, courtesy of AsKaRas guardians

5. Author and husband. Photo M Baker

6. The Sun God Kinich Ahau breathing and speaking. Photo M Baker

7. Ball-players skull speaks within the ball as he achieves cosmic consciousness. Photo M Baker

8. Vision serpent arising during ceremony. Photo M Baker

9. Compassion. Photo J Bennett

10. Early Maya carving of Sun God Kinich Ahau. Photo M Baker

11. Hunbatz Men. Photo M Baker

12. Jomcata Mayab. Photo Lia Scallon

13. Red obsidian late-Neolithic shamanic tribal skull. Photo LionFire

14. Crystal skull guardians presenting their skulls at a Maya initiatory ceremony. Photo M Baker

15. Star Johnsen-Moser and Xa-mu-ku. Photo Alex Domingo

16. Xa-mu-ku. Photo Star Johnsen-Moser

17. The labyrinth Temple 19, Yaxchiln, Mexico. Photo M Baker

I got up early and looked across the valley. Some 6okm away the sea at Malaga was touched with a silver streak. In the distance, the smoky-grey Andalucian mountains formed a magical silhouette against a blazing orange ball of fire as Great Father Sun rose into a violet dawn sky.

Standing quietly watching, breathing in the essence of this spectacular sunrise quickly melting into rose-gold, the clouds twisted into the shape of a serpent undulating across the sky. Immediately other wisps of fine cloud gathered into the image of a skull just behind the serpents head an excellent portent! Today I was to speak to my publisher and, little was I to know this morning, this book was to be conceived.

What is your fascination with crystal skulls? people often ask me. Finding no immediate or rational answer to this question, I embarked upon a quest to find out. My deep experiences and traditional initiations with crystal skulls had begun in 1995 when Maya elders in Yucatn, Mexico, invited me to take part in ceremonies to manifest spiritual energies for the coming new age of the Maya, connected with the 2012 predictions and their calendars.

By handling and especially meditating with the skulls I underwent many transformations. I discovered that life-sized crystal skulls, particularly those carved from quartz, reveal to us the presence of a higher consciousness which, with focused intention, we can seek to embody in our own lives. Through what I learned I now believe the crystal skulls are a deep-memory trigger, urging us to use that consciousness in ways that animals cannot. Because of our place in species evolution, our development enables us to rise above both individual and immediate needs, to conceive a bigger picture of life.

Unlike other creatures, humans can study the past to learn from it. We can look forwards into the future to plan and make choices which affect all life-forms. We have the ability to give ourselves a better quality of life and, most importantly, leave something worthwhile for our children. This enables us to value the present moment, to appreciate our interactions with one another, with our wider environment and, along the way, it teaches us how to care for our planet.

I will always remember a little shiver passing down my spine as I heard the following Native American wisdom at a gathering of indigenous elders from the whole of the Americas. It is vital that we cherish the Earth. We must leave her in a better way than we found her for the sake of our children, our grandchildren and our grandchildrens children, seven generations into the future.

My journeys took me to wild and exotic places where I studied with wisdom-keepers and shamans. In ancient temples and the remote rainforest I received a number of initiations with crystal skulls and, as a practising crystal healer, I have come to understand the different vibrational qualities of crystals and stones. I have seen amazing jade skulls and other ancient artefacts recently discovered in the Himalayas between Tibet and China, and I have wondered at the huge pyramids in central China.

I asked Great Spirit the words I use for God or Creative Intelligence to show me connections between crystal skulls found in very different parts of the world, from Tibet to Mexico. Even in London, in a section of the British Museum, I gazed upon a stunningly clear quartz crystal skull said to have unusual properties, if rumours of its emission of sounds, light and movement are to be believed.

People seeing crystal skulls for the first time find them either spooky or fascinating its hardly surprising that few appear to be indifferent to them. Throughout the world are a number of collectors or, as they prefer to be called, guardians of crystal skulls. Occasionally, permission is given for their skulls to be handled by people with psychic abilities or to be placed upon a modern altar as a meditation focus. Sometimes these skulls are used as channels for spiritual, crystal or vibrational energy healing.

Crystal skulls, ancient and contemporary, are attracting a great deal of interest because of their apparent connection with the Maya people of Central America. I shall explain the reason for this as I take you with me on my colourful journeys to exotic places and inner realms. Along the way we will meet myth and magic and their companions on the flip side of the coin, history and science.