Ebook: When Prophecy Fails

Front Cover; Title Page; Copyright; Contents; I Unfulfilled Prophecies and Disappointed Messiahs; II Teachings and Prophecies from Outer Space; III Spreading the Word on Earth; IV The Long Wait for Orders; V Four Days of Very Imminent Salvation; VI An Unfulfilled Prophecy and an Elated Prophet; VII Reactions to Disconfirmation; VIII Alone and Dry; Epilogue; Methodological Appendix; Notes to Chapter I.;The study reported in this volume grew out of some theoretical work, one phase of which bore specifically on the behavior of individuals in social movements that made specific (and unfulfilled) prophecies. We had been forced to depend chiefly on historical records to judge the adequacy of our theoretical ideas until we by chance discovered the social movement that we report in this book. At the time we learned of it, the movement was in mid-career but the prophecy about which it was centered had not yet been disconfirmed.