Humanity has an apocalypse fetish. But wrapped up In the doomsday death wish is a utopian fantasy of the ascension that comes after a fallen and sinful world is purified by cataclysmic fire. Whether the longed-for intervention is supernatural or extraterrestrial, spirituality porn hijacks our neurobiological wet-ware to bond cults together in a shared and singular climactic focus.For this week’s Bonus, Julian traces the recurring themes between the 19th-century Great Awakening, the Heaven’s Gate mass suicide, the New Age fascination with 2012, and the QAnon fever dream.Might our vulnerability to these narratives stem from evolutionary side-effects—which, like the space between medieval cathedral archways that are decorated with ornate trumpeting angels and burgeoning flowers, serve no structural purpose, but somehow draw a hyper-focused otherworldly fixation?
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Hello, Matthew here from the Conspirituality Podcast Team.
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Miller believed that the angel Gabriel's message to Daniel about the cleansing of the sanctuary represented the earth's destruction by fire at Christ's second coming.
He became convinced that the 2300 day period referred to actually meant 2300 years, which had started in 457 BC with the king of Persia's decree to rebuild Jerusalem and would therefore end in about which had started in 457 BC with the king of Persia's decree to And would therefore end in about 1843.
So in September 1822, Miller formally stated his conclusions in a 20-point document, including, as Article 15, I believe that the second coming of Jesus Christ is near, even at the door, even within I believe that the second coming of Jesus Christ is near, even at the door, even
Though initially obscure, Miller's prediction gained exposure and popularity via a Boston pastor and publisher named Joshua Vaughan Himes, who in 1840 established a paper published twice a month called Signs of who in 1840 established a paper published twice a month called Signs of the Times, That Adventist paper is still active to this day.
In addition to Signs of the Times, the publisher was responsible for 48 other Millerite papers which sprung up in various cities.
And the strategy used was perhaps prophetic of today's demographically fine-tuned marketing.
One paper specifically targeted women.
It was called The Advent Message to the Daughters of Zion, another titled The Advent Shield Catered to Academics.
Now, Himes announced in May of 1844 that five million copies of these various papers had been distributed.
Miller was initially quoted as saying, My principles in brief are that Jesus Christ will come again to this earth, cleanse, purify, and take possession of the same with all the saints sometime between March 21st, 1843 and March 21st, 1844. and take possession of the same with all the saints
When that period passed without the Savior's arrival, a new date was calculated as April 18th, but still no Jesus. - Yes.
Finally, in a crisis camp meeting in Exeter, New Hampshire, the voice of one Samuel Snow arose in what would, in Millerite lore, become known as the Midnight Cry.
Snow delivered a complex theological discussion based on scriptural typology, which is a complex type of exegesis that relates the Old Testament to the New Testament, and concluded with the interpretation that the real date of Christ's awaited return was October 22,
1844.
Miller's movement, which had been flat and disconsolate for months, caught fire with the bold certainty of this new date.
Spoiler alert!
This day also passed like all the others without a visit from the Son of God, which left our true believers with the dilemma of how to adapt.
Some grabbed onto a string of new dates that would be proposed by different arising prophets.
Others left their jobs based on an interpretation that said the earth had in fact entered the 7th millennium, during which time the saved should not work.
Others took to behaving like children, taking to heart Mark 10.15, which says that only those who receive the kingdom of God as children can enter it.
Still others joined the Shakers who believed Jesus had already returned in the form of someone named Mother Anne Lee.
She was a fire and brimstone preacher who despised sexuality and had been frequently imprisoned for shouting and dancing ecstatically on the Sabbath.
She also claimed to have had many miraculous escapes from death and to have spoken in 72 tongues while being examined by four clergymen.
We, the shakers, she is quoted as saying, have turned the world upside down.
Now, I have only one question for you, dear listener.
Is any of this sounding familiar?
I'm going to propose that doomsday prophecy is a kind of existential inquiry pornography, in that it seeks to satisfy the drive for existential inquiry, for the discovery of authentic meaning, purpose, and depth.
But with the empty calories of meaningless numbers and signs and pedantic interpretation of hallucinatory texts that, if we are honest, are perhaps just the dehydrated ramblings of desert nomads.
Now that is not to say that the people caught up in these apocalyptic movements are not either committed or working very hard in service of their delusions.
They are.
But what they're not doing is the kind of productive inquiry that in some cases might actually save lives.
In 1997, a spiritual group called Heaven's Gate made international news because of a shocking mass suicide in their San Diego 92,000 square foot mansion commune of 39 members who believed that an alien spacecraft square foot mansion commune of 39 members who believed that an alien spacecraft riding in the tail of the Hale-Bopp comet was coming to pick them up after they exited what they called their
wearing black graduation outfits and uniform Nike sneakers and covered in purple shrouds.
The dead had all eaten applesauce and pudding laced with a fatal dose of phenobarbital and washed it down with vodka.
This death ritual was enacted in small subgroups over a four-day period Eight of the eighteen men, including their leader, Marshal Applewhite, were all found by the coroner to have been surgically castrated, which apparently had been done voluntarily some years before on a trip to Mexico.
The group had also recorded extensive video exit statements and appeared to have not only been convinced of the mythology around what their anticipated suicides represented spiritually, but also to be eagerly anticipating this climactic transition.
Most of the members had been involved in the cult for around 20 years.
They strove to look alike with similar haircuts and outfits, and I will add here that watching them talk on camera is not only chilling and sad, but there is, I think, an unavoidable impression that they all seem to share some kind of palpable mental or emotional vulnerability.
Questore, one last question.
How do you feel about what is ahead for us?
This is the happiest day of my life.
I mean, I've been looking forward to this for so long.
Some would probably sit here and, I mean, somebody on the other side of this camera watching this tape would probably say, what's going on?
You must not have a life, or you're deluded, or you're brainwashed, or whatever the thinking might be.
It's hard to tune into.
From our perspective, from my perspective, this is God-sent.
This is the answer to everything.
These fleshed vehicles...
If you use the analogy of a car, and, you know, people may keep their cars for a long time before they finally wear out, and they clunk out, and they die on them, and, you know, they go and get another car.
Or some people, they say, well, you know, here's a newer model.
It's much nicer, and this one, you know, doesn't quite perform the way I could, and I'd like to move into this new car.
Get rid of the old one, get a new one.
I mean, that's about all we're talking about.
It's not a big deal.
You know, the last thing that I would have thought on September 13, 1975 was that in a week I would find myself as part of a group and leaving behind my human life and starting on this.
But there was just a knowing and a recognition.
I think recognition is probably a better word.
Knowing that T&O were someone that I had known and respected.
Prior to this incarnations, so I'm you know, we're looking forward to this.
We're happy and excited and Well, it's probably all programming but can't help but think of In the Bible when Jesus says I am the way and the truth and the life no one comes to the father except through me he was saying I'm here and I'm sent.
The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.
I am the only way you can reach the next level of Kingdom of Heaven.
And now it's the end of the age.
It's the same thing happening again.
Tea and dough are the way and the truth and the only source of life.
And without our connection to tea and dough, we have nothing.
So, Christians miss it when they read the Bible and they just don't get it because The atmosphere is so filled with misinformation, but it's so plain and simple and real and true for us.
