The proto-QAnon "Millerite" movement of the 1800s promised the fiery return of Jesus during a period historians called the Second Great Awakening. The belief system got so big it led to something dubbed the Great Disappointment. Enjoy knowing that we've always been this dumb. Get the full episode + a new premium ep every week + access to the archives: patreon.com/qanonanonymous Thanks!
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| Those skeptics, like all skeptics throughout history, failed to stop the spread of the delusional movement. | |
| Eventually, 1843 arrived. | |
| And then William Miller wrote followers a New Year's address which said this. | |
| This year, according to our faith, is the last year Satan will reign in our Earth. | |
| Jesus Christ will come and bruise his head. | |
| Let us put forth our best energies in this cause. | |
| Let every one of us try by persuasion, by the help and grace of God, to get one of our friends to come to Christ in this last year of redemption. | |
| And if we succeed, what an army of regenerated souls may we not hail in the new heavens and the new earth! | |
| Despite the urging of Miller's supporters, he never personally set an exact date for the expected Second Advent. | |
| will be blown. This year, the long-looked-for years of years, the best it has come." | |
| Despite the urging of Miller's supporters, he never personally set an exact date for the expected | |
| Second Advent. Miller eventually narrowed the time period that the Second Coming would arrive. | |
| 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, uh, March 20th | |
| 21st 1843 and March 21st 1844 a year window for which I could possibly die | |
| and not have to face the consequences so March 21st 1844 obviously passed without | |
| But of course, despite that, the majority of the Millerites maintained their faith. | |
| On March 25th, Miller wrote this to Himes. | |
| I am still looking for the dear Savior. | |
| The time, as I have calculated it, is now filled up, and I expect every moment to see the Savior descend from heaven. | |
| I have now nothing to look for but this glorious hope. | |
| People are so... This country has been built on the most profound stupidity. | |
| I know. | |
| It really is. | |
| It's the same shit over and over and over again. | |
| It's this absolute spiritual hunger. | |
| Like you know that your belief system is awful and hollow and you just committed awful crime against your loved ones, against people of different colors. | |
| Every part of your life is just sick sadism and void. | |
| Any fucking buffoon who comes up and speaks well, they're like, absolutely, take me. | |
| Absolutely, take me. | |
| Take me for a ride, please. | |
| I am so bored. | |
| And I hate everything so much. | |
| These pantaloons are scratchy. | |
| I smell bad. | |
| My wife smells bad. | |
| My children smell worse than we do. | |
| We're out of candles. | |
| You know, like, please give us anything. | |
| I spent five hours of the day inventing new punishments for my children when they behave slightly badly, and, you know, building a variety of tourniquets and small whips. | |
| It's like, please, tell us, tell us, oh 1800s equivalent of Rachel Maddow, tell us, please, when can we expect, when can we expect redemption? | |
| More study had led the Millerites to believe that they had entered the tarrying time, which was a time of waiting after which Christ would finally return. | |
| 90 days of darkness or whatever? | |
| Yeah. | |
| It was like, there was like, well, the reference to this time of waiting, that's very sad and very difficult. | |
| And it was like, and they, after May, they're like, they're even like some preachers started experiencing doubt and they weren't feeling that, but they couldn't say it publicly because they were all in, you know? | |
| So this was a very rough time for the Millerites. | |
| My balls, they have turned a deep violet. | |
| They are ranging on the blue. | |
| It's like the QAnon grifters when Red October and the thousand other predictions never came. | |
| With QAnon, it's always a great time of waiting. | |
| I mean, look, it's all right here. | |
| The structure has been set forth in the Bible. | |
| It's like, it is holy to wait for something that possibly won't happen. | |
| When the entire cultural structure that you've created is just pain and awfulness, you have to tell yourself that there's a second life, and it's gonna be fucking awesome. | |
| Because you've spent all your time creating hell on earth, essentially. | |
| Just an awful place where no one's fucking happy, the system is highly punitive, and you just pass on sadism from generation to generation, and so you're like, please, after I die, there's something good, right? | |
| Please, there has to be, because I have been such a piece of shit to everybody on Earth. | |
| And everybody has been such a piece of shit to me. | |
| To me! | |
| I hate my parents and my children hate me. | |
| Please, Mr. Miller Light, can you help me find truth? | |
| Please, the spaceship, it will come. | |
| Carry me away. | |
| Jesus. | |
| Anybody. | |
| Anybody. | |
| Jake, tell me a story. | |
| Jake, tell me a story that I can put it in my ears just one hour a day. | |
| I work in the Amazon fulfillment place and I piss in bottles and it takes 15 minutes to walk to the bathroom and 15 minutes is the length of my break. | |
| Please, tell me another Florida Flynn story. | |
| Don't worry. | |
| Don't worry. | |
| Jeff Bezos will come down. | |
| In a magical beam, in a magical beam ship. | |
| He will communicate to you telepathically. | |
| Absolutely. | |
| He will tell you that this suffering that you are committing now is so that you can, there is an employee break room that one day you will be allowed into. | |
| Every Tuesday, there's donuts in there. | |
| There's donuts, there's donuts in there. | |
| And possibly once or maybe even twice a year, a raffle. | |
| For damaged products. | |
| Damaged products unable to be shipped to Amazon customers. | |
| We'll give them to you. | |
| It is our great displeasure to announce that we have found pieces of plastic in the donuts and that you may have poisoned yourself. | |
| But enthusiasm amongst the Millerites revised when a new prophesized date of the Second Coming was proposed, October 22, 1844. | |
| Interestingly, this date didn't come from Miller himself, but rather a Millerite preacher named Samuel S. Snow. | |
| Snow had first got the opportunity to promote his apocalyptic calculation in August of 1844 at a meeting of Millerites in Exeter, New Hampshire. | |
| Wow. | |
| For some reason, this new date spread like wildfire amongst Millerites. | |
| In September, it caught the attention of Joshua Himes, not because he was 100% sure that the date was true, necessarily, but because the new date was having a good effect on the true believers. | |
| In September, Himes wrote this to Miller about Snow's prediction. | |
| It has done away all fanaticism and brought those who were given to extravagance into a sober, discreet state of mind. | |
| 1843 never made so great and good impression as this had done upon all that have come under this influence. | |
| What I liked about this is that it shows like Himes is such kind of like a Kind of like, I don't know, I guess a manipulator. | |
| It's like, hey man, this 1844 shit is like, they love it. | |
| They love the October 22nd, 1844. | |
| Let's do it. | |
| Let's go with this. | |
| 1844? | |
| People are digging it. | |
| I don't know. | |
| We've done tests. | |
| We've got the 18-44s just really responding. | |
| I was just hanging outside last week with a group of believers. | |
| And somebody said 1844 and everyone clapped and cheered and man you should have seen the smiles on their face. | |
| They looked truly happy to know that there was a date far enough away that they wouldn't be proved wrong soon. | |
| Under pressure from other church leaders, William Miller finally gave his endorsement of Snow's date on October 6th, just a couple weeks before the apocalypse, basically. | |
| See, see, it's far enough away. | |
| It's far enough away that they don't have to worry about being wrong for a couple of | |
| years. | |
| Under pressure from other church leaders, William Miller finally gave his endorsement | |
| of Snow's date on October 6th, just a couple weeks before the apocalypse, basically. | |
| Oh, wow. | |
| So he went in last minute, eh? | |
| Yeah, because this is like... | |
| This reminds me a little bit of, apparently, if you start a movement, and people believe it, eventually you don't have to come up with new ideas. | |
| People just come up with organically, and you just gotta endorse. | |
| Be like, yep, that's right. | |
| You got it right. | |
| Whatever that is. | |
| Yeah, it's like Trump and the Q-Baby. | |
| He's like, that's a beautiful baby. | |
| You know what I mean? | |
| He didn't come up with the idea of a second coming of a Q-Baby. | |
| He just saw it, saw it was gaining traction, and went, beautiful husband, father, wife. | |
| You know, it's the same shit. | |
| As the time approached, the people prepared. | |
| In Philadelphia, believers sold their houses for less than optimal prices. | |
| Others gave away their belongings, shut up their businesses, or completely abandoned their houses. | |
| In one Philadelphia store, the shopkeeper hanged a sign that read this. | |
| This shop is closed in honor of the King of Kings who will appear about the 20th of October. | |
| Get ready, friends, to crown him Lord of all. | |
| Then, October 22nd, 1844 came. | |
| The Adventists, who numbered between 50,000 and 100,000 people, mostly in Northeastern North America, arose to greet the Second Coming. | |
| Some climbed onto rooftops or hilltops hoping to get a clear vision of the returning Lord. | |
| Others went to graveyards where their friends were buried so as to join them when they ascended as well. | |
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| Thank you. | |
| Thanks. | |
| I love you. | |
| Jake loves you. |