Help: The End of the World

Subject: The End of the World
From: Abby Sale
Date: 04 Jan 00 - 07:56 AM

Of course, we're all deeply disappointed that the World has not ended. I'm interested in that.

Ever since reading & being most impressed with _When Prophesy Ends_ in the 60's, I've been looking forward to the millennium. The book dealt with the psychological & psycho-sociological effects on cults when their "End-of-the- World prophesy failed to come about. Just how do humans deal with such a devastating blow the next day - sure, the night before, that the world was over. I was sure that apocalyptic millennialism would be fascinating to see at year 2000. I've been waiting the results & studies all this while.

I was so happy to start hearing of the Y2k hysteria and how far people were prepared to go for what was, at the heart, Christian millennialism gone public.

Anyway, I'm asking any academic types and/or any "in the loop" (I'm in Orlando) to please advise me when the serious academic papers & books, dealing not with banks or people buying a few batteries but with those that were sure disaster _could not_ be averted by any human means.

I expect it will be some months before they begin to appear, if they're serious studies, but will any that happen across such please advise me?

Thank you very much.

Subject: RE: Help: The End of the World
From: gervase
Date: 04 Jan 00 - 08:51 AM

Try 'Living at the End of the World' by Marina Benjamin - published in 1999 in the UK. In it Benjamin (former arts editor of the New Statesman) deals with all aspects of millennarianism right back to the months following the cricifixion, and comes up to date with plenty of detail on more recent beliefs (including the surprising (to me) fact that Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons are devout End of the Worlders. You shuld find it on Amazon.com

Subject: RE: Help: The End of the World
From: Danlbear
Date: 04 Jan 00 - 09:41 AM

"This" is obviously not a popular subject...

Subject: RE: Help: The End of the World
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 04 Jan 00 - 01:46 PM

Heck, I thought this was about Skeeter Davis's great song, (Don't they know it's)"The End Of The World". "Her" world ended when she spoke out against the Vietnam war during a Grand Ol Opry appearance in the 70s.

Rick

Subject: RE: Help: The End of the World
From: ddw
Date: 04 Jan 00 - 10:47 PM

Abby,

Don't know if it's really what you're looking for, but your thread name made me think of a recent book called The Bible Code. It's by a former (if I remember correctly) Wall Street Journal reporter who stumbled into this thing and followed up on it, then found out he was finding prophecies in it. Some of them are pretty scary, if you give any credance to what he has to say. Sorry, I can't remember the author's name offhand....

david

Subject: RE: Help: The End of the World
From: johnp
Date: 05 Jan 00 - 04:22 AM

Bible code by Michael Drosnin

Don't waste your money or time on this discredited nonsense...Drosnin has already made a bundle.

If you believe the end will be supernatural then perhaps you deserve it.

Subject: RE: Help: The End of the World
From: Abby Sale
Date: 05 Jan 00 - 08:40 AM

Gervase,

Thanks for the citation. I'll get it. Sounds like a good recap for Millerism & millennialism in general, right up to the End - 1999. And that will re-set the scene for future studies.

What I'll be looking for will be the books not yet written on current studies (if any.) Let me know if you come across any in the next months, I'd be grateful.

FYI, most Christian and Jewish groups have at least some notion of "End of Days." To the best of my knowledge, Jehovah's Witnesses believe the End of the World actually happened in 1917 when the Great War seemed to fulfill the usual propheses. We are living in the extended End of Days now. (I find that a little tough but it's one of the few possible answers to the problem of the world not ending...holding to the belief that it did!)

Subject: RE: Help: The End of the World
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 05 Jan 00 - 11:34 PM

Fortean Times regularly has well-informed articles and book-reviews on the subject, from a number of (generally sceptical) perspectives. Worth looking out for.

Malcolm

Subject: RE: Help: The End of the World
From: annamill
Date: 06 Jan 00 - 10:46 PM

You know, this was not funny. I know of someone who is normally a stable intelligent woman who was crying and terrified because she had read several books explaining why the world was definitely going to be destroyed. Her husband normally spends that day (12/31) with his relatives, but because of her great fear she cried and begged him to stay with her, so he did. Her fear seemed well founded. I'm glad I live in a country with the freedom to express feelings, but on the other hand, I'm angry that these people ( I won't say writers) are allowed to just put forth ideas turning facts to prove falsehoods.

I can only hope she realizes what jerks these people were!!! Are!!!

Love, annap

Subject: RE: Help: The End of the World
From: Wolfgang
Date: 07 Jan 00 - 06:18 AM

Abby, first a minor correction: I guess you mean the book 'When Prophecy Fails' by L. Festinger et al. (I loved reading it)
The studies you are looking for are not out yet (I'll look for them, for I'm interested as well), but here's a fairly recent overview: Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. 23, No. 1, Jan./Feb 1999, has a special report titled Armageddon and the Prophets of Doomsday.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: Help: The End of the World
From: Abby Sale
Date: 07 Jan 00 - 10:32 AM

Wolfgang,

Yes, of course that's it. Thank you. No, if the studies I'm looking forward to are really academic, not just journalistic fillers, they will now be beginning the end phase of observation - could be years before the best are printed. I just wanted to ask people to please let me know when (if) they see anything.

The first response that you'll most often hear is a throwaway, "I wasn't really serious - just going along with it." And the real crazies will be rarish. In the same thinking that in the year 1000, although there was much talk of End of the World, very few people actually headed for the hills. But, again, it's the human reaction to the failure, the "cognitive dissonance" that shows human social psychology. The reaction to the initial fear is less interesting - it will just show the usual bell curve of human responses to rumor.

THanks for the lead.