Carl Johan Calleman: Mayanista Extraordinaire

Calleman first encountered the Mayan calendar on a visit to Mexico and Guatemala in 1979. He became fascinated with the concept of a calendar that had an "end date" and was influenced by the works of Michael D. Coe.

In 1993 he returned to Sweden and devoted himself full-time to researching and writing about the calendar. He published a short book in Swedish on the subject in 1994,Mayahypotesen. In 1998 he was invited to be one of the main speakers at a conference about the Mayan calendar in Mérida, Yucatán. This inspired him to write a more widely accessible book, The Mayan Calendar published in 2001. A second popular book The Mayan Calendar and the Transformation of Consciousness followed in 2004, and a third Purposeful Universe: How Quantum Theory and Mayan Cosmology Explain the Origin and Evolution of Life in 2009.