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Why Religions Survive When Prophecies Fail · Abide Meditation App

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Rapture talk. If you scroll through TikTok in late September
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  Speaker 1: of twenty twenty five, you might have stumbled upon some
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  Speaker 1: people convinced that September twenty three, twenty twenty five, would
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  Speaker 1: be the day of the Rapture, a largely evangelical belief
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  Speaker 1: that Jesus will return and sweep true believers up into
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  Speaker 1: Heaven prior to the actual end of the world. Under
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  Speaker 1: the Rapture hashtag, people were posting everything from serious prep
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  Speaker 1: videos to ironic tips for how to look cool while
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  Speaker 1: being raptured. The date itself came from a South African
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  Speaker 1: man named Joshua Malkela, who said Jesus appeared to him
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  Speaker 1: in a dream back in twenty eighteen and told him
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  Speaker 1: he'd return on September twenty third and twenty fourth, twenty
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  Speaker 1: twenty five. Oddly enough, Jesus supposedly also mentioned that there
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  Speaker 1: would be no World Cup in twenty twenty six, which
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  Speaker 1: I guess could be proof that Jesus really doesn't care
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  Speaker 1: all that much about soccer. From there, the idea exploded
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  Speaker 1: on TikTok. Some people seemed genuinely convinced, others were in
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  Speaker 1: it for the memes, but Since you're watching this after
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  Speaker 1: the Big Day, I think it's safe to assume that
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  Speaker 1: the apocalypse got delayed once again, or maybe we're just
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  Speaker 1: all left behind. But I've got a prediction of my own.
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  Speaker 1: Even though his prophecy did not come true, he probably
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  Speaker 1: won't lose many followers. In fact, I would bet money
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  Speaker 1: on that prediction. Why do I think that it's very
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  Speaker 1: reasonable to expect a religious movement to fade away when
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  Speaker 1: a prophecy fails. You'd think witnessing your profit being wrong
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  Speaker 1: would be the ultimate letdown and also an embarrassing letdown.
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  Speaker 1: Outsiders could mock you for believing in a prediction that
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  Speaker 1: did not come true, and it would be easier to
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  Speaker 1: just quietly slip away and disassociate from a group that
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  Speaker 1: suddenly looks naive and irrational from the outside. That seems
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  Speaker 1: to be the obvious outcome. Failed prophecy equals failed movement.
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  Speaker 1: But one of the most counterintuitive findings in the sociology
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  Speaker 1: of religion is that most groups not only survived prophecy failure,
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  Speaker 1: but often come out stronger. Consider the Baptist preacher William Miller,
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  Speaker 1: who in the eighteen forties predicted that Christ would return
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  Speaker 1: in eighteen forty three, and then again in eighteen forty
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  Speaker 1: four when the predicted day came and went with no
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  Speaker 1: second coming. The event became known as the Great Disappointment,
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  Speaker 1: But rather than collapsing entirely, many of his followers regrouped
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  Speaker 1: and reinterpreted the prophecy. Some eventually formed the Seventh Day
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  Speaker 1: Adventist Church, which now has millions of members around the world.
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  Speaker 1: We see similar patterns with the Jehovah's Witnesses, who predicted
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  Speaker 1: several specific dates for the end of the world, including
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  Speaker 1: in nineteen fourteen, nineteen twenty five, in nineteen seventy five,
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  Speaker 1: none of which came true, and yet the group persists
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  Speaker 1: by reinterpreting those dates and adjusting their theology. In Japan,
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  Speaker 1: the Omeschinrinkio's movement's prophecies of a global apocalypse never materialized,
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  Speaker 1: but splinter groups survived even after the main group's violent collapse.
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  Speaker 1: And that's why I'm pretty confident that the South African
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  Speaker 1: preacher will continue with his following, because the central finding
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  Speaker 1: of decades of sociological research is that when prophecies fail,
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  Speaker 1: religious groups adapt sound simple, but the adapt by employing specific,
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  Speaker 1: predictable strategies. The sociologist of religion Lorden Dawson, one of
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  Speaker 1: the leading scholars of prophecy failure, has identified several adaptational
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  Speaker 1: strategies that maximize a group's chance of surviving a prophetic failure.
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  Speaker 1: Take notes if you're planning on becoming a failed prophet.
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  Speaker 1: Among the most important strategies is rationalization. As the sociologist
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  Speaker 1: Brian Wilson wrote, for people whose lives have become dominated
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  Speaker 1: by one powerful expectation and whose activities are dictated by
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  Speaker 1: what that belief requires, abandonment of faith because of disappointment
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  Speaker 1: about a date would usually be too traumatic an experience
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  Speaker 1: to contemplate. Reinterpretation is demanded. In a study published in
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  Speaker 1: the late nineties, Dawson noticed that when a prophecy fails,
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  Speaker 1: the groups that outlive the failure deploy several types of rationalization. First, spiritualization,
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  Speaker 1: groups spiritualize the prophecy while they were expecting an empirically
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  Speaker 1: verifiable event in the here and now, They say the
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  Speaker 1: event actually did happen, but in a spiritual sense, maybe
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  Speaker 1: in our hearts and minds. One of the most explicit
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  Speaker 1: examples of a group rationalizing a prophetic failure by spiritually
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  Speaker 1: reinterpreting the outcome. Is ichigen Nomia, a Japanese new religious
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  Speaker 1: movement that draws ideas from Shinto and Buddhism that arose
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  Speaker 1: after World War Two. On June fourteenth, nineteen seven, before
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  Speaker 1: the leader prophesied that an apocalyptic earthquake which strike Japan
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  Speaker 1: four days later on June eighteenth at eight o'clock am
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  Speaker 1: sharp a very precise prediction. But when the earthquake never materialized,
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  Speaker 1: the leader of the movement claimed that God had transferred
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  Speaker 1: the cataclysm to my own body. In other words, he
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  Speaker 1: pulled a Jesus Christ maneuver and took on all the
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  Speaker 1: pain and burden of humanity onto himself to avert the disaster. Thus,
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  Speaker 1: the apocalypse was spiritually reinterpreted, and the movement continues to
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  Speaker 1: this day. Another form of rationalization is what sociologists call
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  Speaker 1: the test of faith. In this framing, the failed prophecy
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  Speaker 1: isn't treated as a mistake at all, but a divinely
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  Speaker 1: intended trial to separate the week from the true believers.
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  Speaker 1: The logic goes that only those who remain steadfast in
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  Speaker 1: the face of disappointment are worthy to carry on. This
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  Speaker 1: interpretation can take a lot of forms, depending on the
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  Speaker 1: group's theology, history, and leadership. One striking case is the
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  Speaker 1: Pentecostal Christian movement called the Church of the True Word.
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  Speaker 1: After spending forty two days huddled in a bomb shelter
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  Speaker 1: for an apocalypse that never arrived, the members of urged,
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  Speaker 1: celebrating their leader, reframed the anti climax as proof that
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  Speaker 1: they had passed the test, their willingness to persevere and
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  Speaker 1: endure had pleased God, and their faithfulness stood as an
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  Speaker 1: example to the world. The third form is human error.
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  Speaker 1: The group announces that they simply interpreted the signs of
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  Speaker 1: the prophecy incorrectly. This might lead to a new date
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  Speaker 1: being set. For example, the late evangelical radio broadcaster Harold
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  Speaker 1: Camping predicted that the rapture would occur on May twenty first,
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  Speaker 1: twenty eleven, but when that date came and went without incident,
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  Speaker 1: he recalculated it to October eleventh instead, which he also
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  Speaker 1: got wrong, as it turns out, though he kept a
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  Speaker 1: loyal following to his death despite his multiple failed prophecies.
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  Speaker 1: And finally, the fourth form of rationalization is blaming others.
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  Speaker 1: The leader blames the followers, or sometimes blames outsiders for
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  Speaker 1: somehow foiling the prophecy. This happened among Jehovah's witnesses when
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  Speaker 1: a prophecy that Jesus Christ's millennial reign would start in
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  Speaker 1: nineteen seventy five failed to materialize. In a speech in
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  Speaker 1: the following year to a group of Canadian Jehovah's witnesses,
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  Speaker 1: the Watchtower Society's president blamed the followers, pointing to the
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  Speaker 1: audience in saying, do you know why nothing happened in
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  Speaker 1: nineteen seventy five? It was because you expected something to happen.
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  Speaker 1: But clever rationalizations alone do not guarantee survival. A group
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  Speaker 1: also needs the right social conditions to sustain them. Lorne
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  Speaker 1: Dawson points to four sociological conditions that consistently shape whether
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  Speaker 1: a movement whether's the storm or splinters apart. First is
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  Speaker 1: what he calls the prophetic milieu, which is academic speak
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  Speaker 1: for the cultural and religious environment that primes a community
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  Speaker 1: to expect, tolerate, and reinterpret prophecy. For example, Dawson has
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  Speaker 1: found that the scope and sophistication of a group's ideological
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  Speaker 1: system can affect a group's response to prophecy failure. If
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  Speaker 1: a very specific prophecy is anchored in a much broader
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  Speaker 1: and much more sophisticated worldview with a communal mission instead
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  Speaker 1: of beliefs. A single failed prophecy is very unlikely to
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  Speaker 1: derail the whole system. Part of the reason why I
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  Speaker 1: think Lakla will not lose his following is because his
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  Speaker 1: ideas about the Rapture are rooted in dispensationalism, the theological
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  Speaker 1: system that undergirds so much of modern evangelical ideas about
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  Speaker 1: the end times. Dispensationalism divides human history into distinct eras
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  Speaker 1: or dispensations, in which God relates to humanity in different ways.
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  Speaker 1: It weaves together biblical prophecy, Israel's role in God's plan,
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  Speaker 1: the Rapture, the Tribulation, and Christ's millennial Rain into a
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  Speaker 1: sweeping narrative of cosmic history. The ideology lends itself to
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  Speaker 1: trying to read modern political events through its lens, giving
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  Speaker 1: new fuel and energy to it all the time. Because
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  Speaker 1: it's such a broad, complex and flexible framework, a single
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  Speaker 1: failed prophecy doesn't necessarily topple the whole system. Another factor
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  Speaker 1: shaping how groups respond to failed prophecy is the nature
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  Speaker 1: and extent of the activities that members put into preparing
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  Speaker 1: for the prophecy. As Dawson writes, the more extreme the
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  Speaker 1: investments of time, energy, and resources asked to followers, the
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  Speaker 1: greater the likelihood of severe disappointment in the face of failure. Now,
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  Speaker 1: in some cases, intense preparation can bind people together in anticipation,
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  Speaker 1: but can also backfire if the investment leaves people depleted
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  Speaker 1: or unable to recover after the disappointment. For example, let's
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  Speaker 1: consider the case study of the Church Universal and Triumphant,
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  Speaker 1: which is a new Age New religious movement. Under the
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  Speaker 1: leadership of Elizabeth Clare Prophet, members prepared extensively for a
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  Speaker 1: predicted nuclear war with the Soviet Union in March nineteen ninety.
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  Speaker 1: They even constructed an elaborate, multimillion dollar bomb shelter in Montana.
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  Speaker 1: On March fourteenth, hundreds of members gathered underground with food, fuel,
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  Speaker 1: and supplies, bracing for the world ending catastrophe. When nothing happened,
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  Speaker 1: the group was left reeling and largely disintegrated. Followers had
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  Speaker 1: sold their homes to move into the bunkers, but when
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  Speaker 1: nothing happened, those extreme sacrifices quickly became liabilities. One way
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  Speaker 1: groups softened. That blow is through what Dawson calls ritual framing. Rituals,
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  Speaker 1: whether stage before or after a prophecy date, provide a
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  Speaker 1: powerful structure for transforming disappointment into meaning. Anthropologists note that
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  Speaker 1: rituals do a lot for communities. They can create altered
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  Speaker 1: states of consciousness, intensified group identity and solidarity, and channel
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  Speaker 1: of groups emotions. A striking case comes from the Unarians,
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  Speaker 1: a ufobe religion that was found in the nineteen fifties.
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  Speaker 1: In the late nineteen seventies and early nineteen eighties, Unarian
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  Speaker 1: leaders predicted that a fleet of spaceships carrying advanced space
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  Speaker 1: Brothers would land on Earth and usher in a new
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  Speaker 1: age of enlightenment. When the predicted landings never materialized, rather
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  Speaker 1: than abandon their expectations, the group ritualized the failure by
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  Speaker 1: transforming it into a repeatable psychodrama that they called the
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  Speaker 1: isis Osiris cycle. A psychodrama is a kind of structured
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  Speaker 1: role play where people act out imagined or remembered events
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  Speaker 1: as if they were happening in real time. In the
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  Speaker 1: Unarians case, members re enacted cosmic dramas of betrayal, destruction,
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  Speaker 1: and redemption, casting themselves as actors in an internal story
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  Speaker 1: that stretched across lifetimes and planets. Even for those who
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  Speaker 1: only watched. Participation was said to have a healing effect,
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  Speaker 1: confirming the deeper truth of the prophecy. In this way,
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  Speaker 1: the Unarians didn't simply explain away the failure. They enacted it.
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  Speaker 1: They ritualized it. The mist Ufo landing became a sacred
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  Speaker 1: drama to be relived, reinterpreted, and embodied through ritual, which
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  Speaker 1: leads us to Dawson's next factor, a decisive response from leadership.
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  Speaker 1: What often proves critical to survival is how quickly and
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  Speaker 1: convincingly leaders step in once a prophecy fails. The group's
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  Speaker 1: leaders must not waiver. They need to provide a clear
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  Speaker 1: explanation and chart a path forward. This happened following that
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  Speaker 1: failed prophecy in nineteen seventy five for Jehovah's Witnesses, when
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  Speaker 1: leadership reinterpreted the outcome, reassured the faithful, and kept the
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  Speaker 1: movement on course. When the Church of the True Word
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  Speaker 1: emerged from that bunker, the leader almost immediately held a
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  Speaker 1: prayer service, telling her followers it was a test of faith.
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  Speaker 1: Did you have victory? The Lord has brought the people
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  Speaker 1: closer to him. There is not division, there's a fellowship
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  Speaker 1: here and we are the holiness people. But other groups
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  Speaker 1: show what happens when that kind of leadership falters, which
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  Speaker 1: brings us back to the church universal and triumphant, that
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  Speaker 1: New Age religion we mentioned earlier. Sociologist Lorn Dawson and
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  Speaker 1: Bradley Woodzell argue that the collapse of Cut was not inevitable. Yes,
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  Speaker 1: it was shaped by how much members had sacrificed. Remember
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  Speaker 1: many of them sold all their stuff to go into
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  Speaker 1: those bunkers, but it was also shaped by how poorly
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  Speaker 1: their leaders responded. Elizabeth clear Profit did not offer a
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  Speaker 1: swift and persuasive rationalization. She hesitated and retreated into her
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  Speaker 1: inner circle and provided only vague reinterpretations without a clear
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  Speaker 1: narrative to anchor them. Members grew disillusioned and most abandoned
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  Speaker 1: the movement. The lesson is clear. Decisive leadership can help
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  Speaker 1: a group survive prophecy failure in that critical window of disappointment.
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  Speaker 1: Leaders who can swiftly redirect their followers with a plausible
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  Speaker 1: explanation can preserve and even strengthen their movement. Leaders who
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  Speaker 1: hesitate or fail to communicate effectively can preside over rapid collapse.
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  Speaker 1: Even so, the Church Universal and Triumphant never fully disappeared.
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  Speaker 1: It lost the bulk of its membership, but it does
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  Speaker 1: continue to this day in a much smaller form, though
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  Speaker 1: with less apocalypticism and a return to New Age spirituality.
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  Speaker 1: The last, and maybe the most decisive factor is in
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  Speaker 1: group social support. A lone believer rarely has the resilience
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  Speaker 1: to whether a failed prophecy. The ridicule and doubt are
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  Speaker 1: simply too overwhelming, But in a tightly nick community, the
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  Speaker 1: collective bonds act as a kind of buffer, making in
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  Speaker 1: the most far fetched rationalizations feel plausible. Dawson stresses that
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  Speaker 1: it's not about sheer raw numbers, as in the number
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  Speaker 1: of people who happen to belong to the group is
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  Speaker 1: really not a determining factor for whether or not will
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  Speaker 1: survive prophecy failure. What matters more is the density of
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  Speaker 1: connections within the group, how often members interact, how many
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  Speaker 1: overlapping social ties they share, and how much of their
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  Speaker 1: daily life is bound up with the community. A large
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  Speaker 1: but tightly knit community can whether disappointment more effectively than
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  Speaker 1: a small but loosely organized membership. So overall, rationalizations provide
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  Speaker 1: the script. They offer ready made explanations like it was
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  Speaker 1: a test of faith or it was fulfilled spiritually. But
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  Speaker 1: those explanations only take hold if there's a stage for
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  Speaker 1: them to be performed. In that stage is the social
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  Speaker 1: conditions of the group itself. Without strong in group bonds,
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  Speaker 1: decisive leadership, or ritual framing, members drift away because there's
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  Speaker 1: no supportive network to reinforce the rationalization. In that context,
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  Speaker 1: even the sting of a failed prophecy can be transformed
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  Speaker 1: into a moment of dude solidarity. Okay, Let's take all
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  Speaker 1: of these pieces rationalization, prophetic milia, leadership, social support and
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  Speaker 1: see how they play out in a real world case study.
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  Speaker 1: One of the most fascinating examples, and one that Dawson
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  Speaker 1: himself analyzes, is the story of Lubavich Hasidic Judaism, in
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  Speaker 1: some members messianic hopes for their Rabbi Menacham Mendel Shniersen HBBAD.
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  Speaker 1: Lubavitch Hasidism is a branch of Haredi Judaism, sometimes called
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  Speaker 1: ultra Orthodox Judaism. The movement was founded in the late
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  Speaker 1: eighteenth century, and it traces a line of seven rebez,
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  Speaker 1: or spiritual leaders. The seventh and most recent reba was
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  Speaker 1: Menachem Mendel Shniersen, who led the movement from nineteen fifty
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  Speaker 1: until his death in nineteen ninety four. In Hasidic Judaism,
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  Speaker 1: the figure of the rebez stands at the very center
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  Speaker 1: of religious life. The reba is not simply a teacher
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  Speaker 1: or scholar, but is believed to be at sadik, a
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  Speaker 1: supremely righteous individual whose spiritual authority extends into every corner
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  Speaker 1: of a follower's life. For the Lubavich Hasadim, Schneerson embodied
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  Speaker 1: this role completely. He was a scholar, miracle worker, and
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  Speaker 1: trusted adviser. Dawson interviewed one man who said, life without
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  Speaker 1: the rebbe is unfathed thinkable. Everything on this earth is
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  Speaker 1: dependent on him. Every major decision on issues of health, business, education,
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  Speaker 1: and marriage was made by writing to him, or later
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  Speaker 1: by faxing or emailing him. Every week, thousands would gather
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  Speaker 1: at his home at seven to seventy Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn,
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  Speaker 1: often simply called seven seventy. By the late nineteen eighties,
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  Speaker 1: many Lubavich Hasadeen began to believe he was not just
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  Speaker 1: a holy man, but the long awaited Messiah Moshiak. Now
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  Speaker 1: he himself never explicitly claimed the title, but his teachings,
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  Speaker 1: his mystical interpretations of current events, and the Messianic songs
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  Speaker 1: chanted at his gatherings created an atmosphere of expectation among
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  Speaker 1: many of his followers that he was indeed the Moshiak.
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  Speaker 1: But when Shneerson suffered a series of strokes and then
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  Speaker 1: died in nineteen ninety four, it looked like a prophecy
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  Speaker 1: failure on a massive scale. If he was the Moshiach,
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  Speaker 1: how could he die? For outsiders, the obvious conclusion was
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: that the messianic hopes would collapse. And yet that's not
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  Speaker 1: what happened. What did happen was a fracture within Lubovich itself.
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  Speaker 1: Some followers often called the Messianists and insisted that Schneerson
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: was still the Messiah. Many others, called anti Messianists, rejected
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  Speaker 1: these interpretations. While exact numbers are difficult to pin down,
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  Speaker 1: by all accounts, the anti Messianist faction is the majority
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  Speaker 1: within Hbbald Lubavitch as citizen today, the mainstream Rabbad leadership
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  Speaker 1: who runs the formal institutions actively discourage Messianic declarations, but
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  Speaker 1: Messianist factions still exist, particularly in Brooklyn, where you can
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  Speaker 1: see science proclaiming Schneerson as the Moshiach. So how does
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: this Messianist faction continue to this day? While Dawson and
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: his co author Simon Dane argue, it's because we see
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: all of the psychological and sociological factors that we've identified. First,
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: there's a strong prophetic milieu. Generations of Lubavich teaching had
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: primed members to see their leader as a tsadik, a
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  Speaker 1: supremely righteous person. This enabled some Messianist followers to rationalize
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  Speaker 1: his death in various ways. Some said he didn't really die,
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  Speaker 1: Others said he would be resurrected, and some insisted that
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  Speaker 1: the Rebbe is mushiach and he is indeed dead, but
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  Speaker 1: his departure from the physical world only deep in his
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  Speaker 1: presence among the living. Still, others said he was in
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  Speaker 1: some form of occultation, like some sort of coma. One
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  Speaker 1: man Dawson interviewed put it this way. For me, the
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  Speaker 1: question as to whether or not the Rebba underwent a
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  Speaker 1: physical death is not so important. What is important is
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  Speaker 1: that we continue to follow his teachings about the Messiah
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  Speaker 1: and redemption. I personally believe that he is sleeping like
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  Speaker 1: he is in a coma. When someone is in a coma,
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  Speaker 1: they are still alive for it Sadikim. The term death
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  Speaker 1: does not mean that they lose their physical body. The
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: Rebbit was buried. He is in his grave, but his
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  Speaker 1: body is intact. This is not unusual for Ittsadig. Here
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  Speaker 1: we see the rationalization that Dawson calls spiritualization, attempts to
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  Speaker 1: reinterpret his death as something else, something greater. A fringe
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  Speaker 1: group within this Messianist movement even suggested that he might
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  Speaker 1: be God. In a nineteen ninety six issue of a
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  Speaker 1: Messianist Lubavich magazine, an author wrote, the Rebba is, in essence,
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  Speaker 1: the being of God enclosed in a body. He is
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  Speaker 1: by nature omniscient and omnipotent, and all material and spiritual
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  Speaker 1: blessings flow from the Rebbe. The Rebba is, in fact
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  Speaker 1: the boss over nature. He delivered a symphony of countless
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  Speaker 1: harmonized details of particular divine providence and has an effect past,
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  Speaker 1: present and future. So who is our God? The Rebe Moshiach?
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  Speaker 1: That's who? This, of course is a scandalous idea to
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  Speaker 1: most Jews, even to many Messianists Lubavitch Jews. Regardless, it
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: is one example of spiritualizing a failed prophecy. Next, the
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: preparations and leadership response set the Messianist movement up for success.
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: Leading up to the death of Schneerson, there were not
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: financial sacrifices like selling your homes to move into a bunker. Instead,
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: they were taking part in massive outreach programs. Throughout the
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: nineteen eighties, Schneerson launched a big we Want the Moshia campaign.
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: This involved placing advertisements and Jewish newspapers, sending emissaries around
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: the world, and urging Lubavic Jews to make the coming
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: of the Messiah this centerpiece of their lives, encouraging followers
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: to see their everyday religious duties as concrete steps towards
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: hastening redemption. In effect, the campaign created a worldwide movement
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: of highly motivated members whose activism gave them both a
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: sense of purpose and a shared mission. So when the
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: Rebbe died in nineteen ninety four, the Messianist movement did
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: not collapse. They already had a framework of outreach and
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: daily practice to channel their disappointment into renewed commitment. The
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: leadership was also decisive. The Schneerson left no successor, his
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: inner circle quickly reframed his death. Within days, mass gatherings
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: in Brooklyn taught followers to honor the reb not by
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: grieving passively, but by redoubling outreach efforts. Dawson writes a
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: week after Schneerson's death, for example, a day long teaching
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: was held in Brooklyn. Speaker after speaker drove home the
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: same message to the missionary core of the Lubavitch. There
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: was little doubt in this case what people should do.
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: They were turned to their task, reaffirming who they were
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: before their disappointment could raise any really damaging doubts about
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: the overall validity of their commitments. And finally, the in
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: group support was overwhelming. Lubavis Hsidism is a famously tight
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: knit community where nearly every aspect of life is shaped
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: by religious practice and the rebe's guidance. Members share schools,
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: summer camps, match making networks, businesses, and recreational spaces that
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: all orbit around Hubbad Labavic identity. Daily rhythms are infused
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: with study, prayer, and outreach so that social life, family life,
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: and religious life are woven into one whole. That kind
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: of totalizing social environment means that when doubts arise, members
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: are not weighing one isolated belief, they are weighing their
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: place in an entire world of meaning and belonging. So
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: the messianist movement survives to this day within Lubavic communities.
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: Older theories about prophecy failure, like those developed by Leon
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: Festinger back in the nineteen sixties, focused a lot on
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: the cognitive dissonance model, focused narrowly on the psychology of
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: belief and the discomfort of being proven wrong. But newer
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: research like what we've covered here shows that survival depends
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: on something broader, the cultural resources, leadership, rituals, and social
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: networks that help people reinterpret failure and carry on. Outsiders
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: tend to overestimate how central a prophecy is to day
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: to day religion. From the outside, it might look like
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: everything hinges on that prediction, but belonging to a religious
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: community is so much more than a prophecy. Religious communities
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: offer friendships, family ties, marriage and dating prospects, and a
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: framework for making sense of suffering and hope. In many cases,
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: these social rewards outweigh the embarrassment of a failed prediction.
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: In fact, in these settings, even when the outside world
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: mocks a failed prophecy, that scorn can actually drive members
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: closely together, confirming their identity as a chosen remnant who
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: see what others cannot. So when we see yet another
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: failed prophecy, whether on TikTok, in a Brooklyn synagogue or
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: in a Montana bomb shelter, we should not just ask
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: how could they still believe? A better question is what
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: keeps them together? Because in the end, prophecy is not
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: only about predicting the future. It's about building communities in
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: the present, and those communities can prove remarkably resilient even
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: when the world stubbornly refuses to end. If you want
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: to go deeper, I've just published a companion video to
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: this one. I take everything we've discovered, why people stay
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: after a failed prophecy, how they rationalize disappointment, and how
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: communities turn failure into faith and apply it to QAnon,
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: a conspiracy movement that arose in twenty seventeen. QAnon followers
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: made all kinds of prophecies that JFK. Junior would miraculously
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: return from the dead to endorse Donald Trump, or that
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: a coming event called the Storm would unleash mass arrests
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: of political elites. None of it ever happened, and yet
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: the movement still didn't collapse. I dig into research explaining
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: how these repeated failed prophecies fit this same sociological patterns
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: we just explored. This is published exclusively on Nebula, and
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: you can watch it right now by signing up at
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  Speaker 1: nebula dot tv slash Religion for Breakfast. Nebula is a
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• 21:36
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  Speaker 1: genuinely thoughtful, and sometimes a little bit weird content, the
• 21:57
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• 22:17
  Speaker 1: don't forget to check out my companion video on QAnon.
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: Thanks everyone,