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Millerism: America’s First End Times Gospel · Ridiculous History

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Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. It's
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Speaker 1: the end of the kidding. Welcome back to the show
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Speaker 1: Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always for tuning in. Let's
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Speaker 1: hear it for our own profit. The one and only
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Speaker 1: super producer, Mr Max Williams. I don't feel fine. I
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Speaker 1: have a dummy ache. Well, uh, as we'll find you
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Speaker 1: have some time to resolve that, Tommy ache Noeld before
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Speaker 1: the world does actually end at least as we know it,
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Speaker 1: They called me, Ben. We are here today to talk
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Speaker 1: about one of one of our show's favorite things, cults,
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Speaker 1: spiritual leaders, messianic figures, and as always, prediction about the
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Speaker 1: end of the world. Uh. This goes a lot of places,
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Speaker 1: and I thought it would be I thought it would
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Speaker 1: be really helpful for us at the very beginning of
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Speaker 1: today's show on Millerism, one of America's first end time Gospels.
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Speaker 1: I think it'd be very important for us to put
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Speaker 1: a little disclaimer here to say, of course, we do
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Speaker 1: not discriminate against anyone's personal spiritual beliefs. They are your own. However,
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Speaker 1: this story Millerism is going to give us a distinct
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Speaker 1: and unique look at American culture and at the way
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Speaker 1: the United States approaches religious concepts, especially if they are
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Speaker 1: somewhat distinct from from the the dominant religious cultures of
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Speaker 1: the time. Would you say it's a fair disclaimer. I
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Speaker 1: would say so. And I will also say that by
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Speaker 1: the end of this episode, the phrase Miller time is
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Speaker 1: going to mean something completely different to you. The end times,
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Speaker 1: not not happy hour. Uh So, in the early eight hundreds, um,
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Speaker 1: right after the Revolutionary War, you know, we go west,
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Speaker 1: young man and all of that stuff, right, pushing out
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Speaker 1: west to achieve a new frontier. Um. And this is
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Speaker 1: a period that along with that comes a lot of
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Speaker 1: other new developments and happenings and spreading of various flavors
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Speaker 1: of religion, bringing that religion to the quote unquote Heathens,
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Speaker 1: you know, um, in that part of the country that
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Speaker 1: was being settled all of that. So there's this westward
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Speaker 1: expansion of religion too, and along with that comes a
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Speaker 1: lot of weird apocalyptic kind of vibes. You know, you
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Speaker 1: think of the Sandwich board man walking around with the
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Speaker 1: sign saying, you know, scrawled in like some sort of
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Speaker 1: red paint, saying the end is nigh. Repent now or
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Speaker 1: forever hold your piece maybe that's not quite how it goes,
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Speaker 1: but the in his an ipart for sure. Yeah. Maybe
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Speaker 1: with maybe with a particularly juicy excerpt from the Book
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Speaker 1: of Revelations. You probably have seen those, folks. And I
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Speaker 1: myself am a big fan of sandwich board messaging. I
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Speaker 1: wish it was around more often. Maybe we'll bring it
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Speaker 1: back to advertise a live show for ridiculous history. But
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Speaker 1: the thing about a lot of these new developments happening
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Speaker 1: as this nation is forming and expanding, is that many
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Speaker 1: of these movements have apocalyptic overtones, kind of a kind
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Speaker 1: of a metaphysical hard cell and act now lest you
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Speaker 1: regret it, soon vibe to them. And this period of
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Speaker 1: history gives rise to what is commonly known as the
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Speaker 1: Second Great Awakening. It's a period of revival. It's totally thematically,
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Speaker 1: it's in step with the great physical expansion of the country.
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Speaker 1: There is a great way for us to set it
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Speaker 1: off with a quote from PBS. You can read a
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Speaker 1: great article by L. Michael White called Prophetic Belief in
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Speaker 1: the United States, And what better way than uh, this quote.
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Speaker 1: We're gonna summarize a little, but they say one of
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Speaker 1: the interesting things about the Second Great Awakening is it
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Speaker 1: gives rise to a number of new religious sects within
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Speaker 1: the American cultural experiment. This is what some people have
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Speaker 1: called the rise of a free market religious economy in America.
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Speaker 1: I love that phrase. But there are new groups popping
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Speaker 1: up all over the place. And the article goes on
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Speaker 1: to name utopian groups who moved to places like Armana
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Speaker 1: and Oneida, which you may know for cutlery today true story, uh,
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Speaker 1: and New York was known as the burned Over District
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Speaker 1: because there were so many revivalist preachers coming from that area.
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Speaker 1: And in this second grade Awakening, we see the origins
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Speaker 1: or the genesis if we want to have some starky
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Speaker 1: wordplay of other groups that a exist today like Seventh
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Speaker 1: Day adventis U, Latter Day Saints and so on, all
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Speaker 1: of whom came out of that revivalist temperament of this
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Speaker 1: time period. Yeah, it reminds me a lot of um,
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Speaker 1: the television series Carnival, if you've seen that, it's kind
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Speaker 1: of a dust bowl kind of like traveling Carnival thing
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Speaker 1: um with this this this big tent revival kind of vibes.
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Speaker 1: And of course in that show, uh, the leader of
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Speaker 1: the revival is possessed by some sort of demon, um spoiler,
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Speaker 1: you find out that, like I think episode one unfortunate
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Speaker 1: uh turn of events. That show didn't get renewed, and
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Speaker 1: it ends on a really like super intense cliffhanger, and
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Speaker 1: there was talking about turning into a graphic knowledge. But
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Speaker 1: I still thought it was quite an excellent show. And
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Speaker 1: I think this period in American history is rife for
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Speaker 1: this kind of exploration. Uh, you'll find it in a
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Speaker 1: lot of fiction, because the whole kind of doomsday prophecy
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Speaker 1: mentality really is fascinating. It's like we something, you know,
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Speaker 1: the royal we as in part of this particular niche
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Speaker 1: you know, sect of a religious order of faith, know
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Speaker 1: something that you don't know, the idea that we know
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Speaker 1: when the world is going to end, and only we
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Speaker 1: can protect ourselves and hopefully convert you so that you
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Speaker 1: also might not perish, you know, in the flames of
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Speaker 1: of the apocalypse. And that's fascinating to me. And I
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Speaker 1: think just the idea of secret knowledge interest both of us.
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Speaker 1: Yeah agreed, And I have a long standing personal fascinations
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Speaker 1: since childhood with cult like figures for religious leaders who
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Speaker 1: name the day and the time and they typically will
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Speaker 1: have uh some sort of revelation that's come directly to
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Speaker 1: them from a supernatural or divine force, or they will
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Speaker 1: feel they have made calculations based in in math or
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Speaker 1: in the passage of the stars that tell them not
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Speaker 1: only the world is going to end or change, but
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Speaker 1: exactly when this will end and change. And they have
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Speaker 1: some they have some commonalities here that will find often
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Speaker 1: it's gonna be a time that occurs within the lifetime
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Speaker 1: of that religious figure. And this is where we go
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Speaker 1: to our main character of the story, a guy named
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Speaker 1: William Miller. Let's learn a little bit about Willie. He's
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Speaker 1: born in seventeen eight two Pittsfield, Massachusetts. He's the son
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Speaker 1: of a veteran from the Revolutionary War and his mom
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Speaker 1: is the daughter of a Baptist preacher. He grows up
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Speaker 1: on a farm in Hampton, New York, just over the
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Speaker 1: border from Vermont. He's like a lot of kids on
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Speaker 1: a farm in this time. He doesn't really go to
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Speaker 1: school unless farm work allows him to. Otherwise he's in
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Speaker 1: the fields and he's trying to run the family business.
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Speaker 1: He is literate, his mom teaches him to read, and
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Speaker 1: he loves, loves, loves, reading, but his mom is a
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Speaker 1: little bit anxious about his choice of books, especially because
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Speaker 1: he likes reading things by Thomas Payne, and uh, these
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Speaker 1: these are works that cast doubt on the validity of
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Speaker 1: a lot of religious tenants and question the authority can
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Speaker 1: you believe it? Of the Bible? So picture Miller's mom
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Speaker 1: being someone who really likes classical music, and she taught
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Speaker 1: her kid to love classical music. And now she's walking
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Speaker 1: by his room and she's like, why are you playing
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Speaker 1: all these rock albums? Right? Because Thomas Paine is like
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Speaker 1: a rock album in in this household. That's absolutely a
8:41
Speaker 1: fantastic comparison because even when we see concepts that seem
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Speaker 1: really dated to us now, there was once a time
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Speaker 1: when it was absolutely revolutionary and or completely radical and
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Speaker 1: dangerous seeming, you know, and terrifying. It's like kids now
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Speaker 1: look at like Marilyn Manson and think that's that goofy guy.
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Speaker 1: Who's that goofy sex predator. But back when we were kids,
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Speaker 1: he was like the scourge of parents, you know, far
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Speaker 1: and wide. It was like, well, he's gonna turn my
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Speaker 1: kids into a Satan worshiping you know, headenist. Right, Yeah,
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Speaker 1: it's the slippery slope argument that happens every time a
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Speaker 1: new generation comes to the fore. You know, I picture
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Speaker 1: some very disgruntled uh, a very disgruntled bishop somewhere going.
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Speaker 1: I only approve of Gregorian chant. It's a common pattern.
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Speaker 1: So like a lot of people, a lot of young
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Speaker 1: people who are given to the love of language, Miller
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Speaker 1: also starts writing poetry, and he starts expanding his vocabulary.
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Speaker 1: He falls in love with turns of phrase and so on.
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Speaker 1: It's during the War of eighteen twelve that he joins
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Speaker 1: up with military forces. At first he's a recruiter throughout
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Speaker 1: western Vermont, and then he's a captain of a company
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Speaker 1: at the Battle of Plattsburgh. His company is mostly known
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Speaker 1: for not having very good discipline. A little bit after
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Speaker 1: the battle, he writes to his wife, and he has
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Speaker 1: a description of the fighting that later goes hand in
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Speaker 1: glove with the way he writes about the end of
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Speaker 1: the world. He says, how grand, how noble, and yet
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Speaker 1: how awful. The roaring of cat and the bursting of bombs,
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Speaker 1: the wheezing of balls, the popping of small arms, the
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Speaker 1: cracking of timbers, the shrieks of the dye, and the
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Speaker 1: groans of the wounded, the swearing of soldiers, the smoke,
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Speaker 1: the fire, everything conspires to make the scene of battle
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Speaker 1: awful and grant other than using the word awful repetitively,
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Speaker 1: that's pretty good. Also the whizzing of balls. I'm sorry,
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Speaker 1: I thought sorry, I'm a child, because whizzing also means
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Speaker 1: never mind. Um so yeah, no, it's it's it's it's
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Speaker 1: good doomsday prose right there. I would argue a little
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Speaker 1: little on the repetitive side with awfulness, but sounds pretty awful. Uh.
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Speaker 1: You know, it's funny though. I always found it interesting
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Speaker 1: the differentiation between the word awesome and awful that basically
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Speaker 1: they're like the same thing, but they mean completely different things.
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Speaker 1: But I think awesome, you know, the awesome power of
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Speaker 1: God or the awful you know, annihilation of of of Satan. Yeah, yeah,
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Speaker 1: because it's it's weird because um, awful etymologically comes for
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Speaker 1: a word called augural h A G H G f
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Speaker 1: U L, which just means worthy of respect or fear,
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Speaker 1: striking with awe causing dread, and awesome is inspiring awe
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Speaker 1: or dread. It's like, it's it's interesting, I I really,
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Speaker 1: awesome just means something containing awe, like something with awe
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Speaker 1: and awful to me means something that's full of awe. Yeah, yeah,
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Speaker 1: And it's fascinating to when we look at this exert
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Speaker 1: from his letter to his wife, this may have set
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Speaker 1: him to reconsidering his deistic or deistical inclinations from his childhood.
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Speaker 1: Deistical is sort of this religious belief that says, yes,
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Speaker 1: there's a God who created the universe and created moral
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Speaker 1: and natural laws, but this God doesn't interfere in human affairs.
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Speaker 1: That's a bit beneath this god's pay grade. And so now,
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Speaker 1: maybe at least this is the supposition of Gary E. Waite,
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Speaker 1: writing for the Dartmouth College Library Bulletin, maybe this close
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Speaker 1: brush with death because he was seeing people die, maybe
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Speaker 1: that turned Miller's mind around a little bit. Maybe death
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Speaker 1: wasn't just the end of consciousness. Maybe there was some
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Speaker 1: kind of system of reward and punishment in a world
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Speaker 1: after the physical world of mud and pain and struggle.
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Speaker 1: But still he's he's wrestling with these problems, and in
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Speaker 1: September of eighteen sixteen, Captain Miller it still kind of thinks,
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Speaker 1: all right, dogmatic religion, that's not my vibe. The Bible
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Speaker 1: has a lot of contradictions and inconsistencies Christian Bible, and
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Speaker 1: uh he yeah. He goes to fair Have in Vermont
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Speaker 1: to have a reunion with veterans from the Battle of Plattsburgh,
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Speaker 1: and at this time, these reunions almost always open with
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Speaker 1: a religious service and something that includes a sermon. And
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Speaker 1: out of all the sermons the William Miller has heard
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Speaker 1: up to this point in his life, this one's different.
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Speaker 1: Something the preacher says, hits him harder than a bullet.
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Speaker 1: It hits him as hard as all the bullets that
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Speaker 1: missed him, and he converts. He comes away and he's like, okay, no,
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Speaker 1: he raised some points. I'm very lucky. I might need
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Speaker 1: to change my two well. And that was also a
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Speaker 1: real characteristic of this period of these religious kind of
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Speaker 1: like awakenings or whatever. It was, this like instantaneous conversion,
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Speaker 1: you know what I mean, like laying hands upon some
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Speaker 1: of them all of a sudden, the Word of God
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Speaker 1: just filling their their mind, body and soul. You know,
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Speaker 1: it's certainly something that happens today as well, But this
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Speaker 1: it really did, wouldn't you say, Ben. There was this
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Speaker 1: kind of almost like explosive sense of of of conversion,
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Speaker 1: usually at the hands of some really expert orator, you know,
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Speaker 1: who was able to just kind of like imbue people
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Speaker 1: with the power of the word. M hmmm. And there's
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Speaker 1: a lot to be said about the psychology of social
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Speaker 1: dynamics at revivals, which or something we should look at
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Speaker 1: in the future for this show. But I think your
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Speaker 1: point holds. Let's fast forward, but not too far so
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Speaker 1: the Sunday after this reunion where this preacher really gets
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Speaker 1: to him. William Miller is reading from the scriptures at
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Speaker 1: this Baptist chapel near his house, and he becomes so
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Speaker 1: emotionally fraught that his voice breaks and he physically can't
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Speaker 1: go on. Now he's still not a diet in the
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Speaker 1: world convert, but he is struggling. He's vacillating. He's going
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Speaker 1: back and forth with this argument in his head between
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Speaker 1: faith and between reason. And he says, look, I am
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Speaker 1: a believer. Now I get it, I understand, but caveat
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Speaker 1: I'm unable to reconcile this my understanding, my emotional experiential belief,
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Speaker 1: with my intellectual objection to the conflicts between scripture and
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Speaker 1: between history. So I need to study the Bible with
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Speaker 1: historical secular notes and I I'm gonna make sense of
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Speaker 1: it all. We're gonna get to the bottom of this.
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Speaker 1: And he does just that. He literally loses interest in
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Speaker 1: reading anything else but the Bible. Um. He goes through
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Speaker 1: a chapter and verse just methodically. There's a quote from
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Speaker 1: him kind of describing how he tackled the project. I
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Speaker 1: commenced with Genesis and read verse by verse. Whenever I
16:17
Speaker 1: found anything obscure. My practice was to compare it with
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Speaker 1: all collateral passages. Then, by letting every word have its
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Speaker 1: proper bearing on the subject, I pursued the study of
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Speaker 1: the Bible. And here's the kicker, and was fully satisfied
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Speaker 1: that it is its own interpreter. Can we unpack that?
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Speaker 1: Ben does that basically me. And he's saying it's infallible
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Speaker 1: because no one, no other tone could possibly dissect the
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Speaker 1: Bible except except itself. Or is he saying that everything
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Speaker 1: you need to properly interpret the Bible is already in there.
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Speaker 1: It's kind of the latter. So he's he's doing He's
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Speaker 1: got big dan round vibes at this point, because to him,
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Speaker 1: the Bible is almost a puzzle, right. He's saying that
17:03
Speaker 1: if I can decode certain parts of it, particularly the
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Speaker 1: references to dates, then I will understand. So perhaps all
17:12
Speaker 1: the stuff that I thought was contradictory or didn't make
17:15
Speaker 1: sense was just on me because I didn't know how
17:19
Speaker 1: to interpret it. And all the answers are there for
17:23
Speaker 1: those who know the correct way to encounter this text.
17:28
Speaker 1: So he moves in eighteen fourteen across the border. He
17:33
Speaker 1: goes to Lowahampton, New Jersey, and he sets up a
17:36
Speaker 1: farm with his wife and people in town. You know,
17:40
Speaker 1: this is every every town is kind of a small
17:44
Speaker 1: town outside of like New York, Boston, a couple other places.
17:47
Speaker 1: So everybody talks about everyone. You're familiar with it if
17:50
Speaker 1: you've ever spent time in a small town, and people
17:53
Speaker 1: are kind of you know, joking, not in a necessarily
17:56
Speaker 1: supermean way, but it's it's like a little meme people
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Speaker 1: have about his, uh, his religious change of heart. And
18:05
Speaker 1: so he says, you know what, I'm going to make
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Speaker 1: this serious. I am going to master the Bible. He
18:12
Speaker 1: spends pretty much all the time that he can reading
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Speaker 1: and researching, Like you said, this one book. He becomes obsessed,
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Speaker 1: in particular with decoding how and when Jesus Christ will
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Speaker 1: return in the Second Coming, and he says, the Bible
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Speaker 1: has the answers, it's just on me to figure out
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Speaker 1: what what specifically is going on with these dates, and
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Speaker 1: it's not. And he spends time on this, He spends
18:44
Speaker 1: almost a decade. It's not until eight years later that
18:47
Speaker 1: he thinks he has his answer. Yeah, he's in the meantime,
18:50
Speaker 1: he's he's essentially being you know, visited by visions of sorts,
18:55
Speaker 1: you know, in his dreams, and he's also interpreting those
18:57
Speaker 1: and you know and using those as as trees into
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Speaker 1: his research as well. Uh. In eighteen thirty two, he
19:04
Speaker 1: became a preacher actually, you know, in a small town
19:07
Speaker 1: kind of situation. I don't know that he actually even
19:09
Speaker 1: went to seminary. I think he was just sort of
19:11
Speaker 1: like a you know, manic street preacher. I guess, uh exactly,
19:16
Speaker 1: because he was writing all of these articles and these
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Speaker 1: letters to the editor to the Vermont Telegraph, which was
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Speaker 1: a Baptist paper that like outlined all of the research
19:24
Speaker 1: and all these views that he's kind of been developing
19:26
Speaker 1: over the last handful of years. And he starts getting
19:29
Speaker 1: a lot of traction, a lot of followers, you know,
19:33
Speaker 1: I mean, essentially, he's going viral letters start coming in,
19:36
Speaker 1: too many to read, asking for more detail, more specificity
19:40
Speaker 1: on his views, and from that kind of you know,
19:44
Speaker 1: humble beginning, Millerism itself was born. Yeah, and there's I
19:49
Speaker 1: want to spend a second on this, because it wasn't
19:51
Speaker 1: until he wrote to the Telegraph that he really started
19:56
Speaker 1: to have traction. If you go back through some of
19:59
Speaker 1: his ear Leader letters, he said that once he went
20:03
Speaker 1: once he figured out his calculations, he would talk with
20:07
Speaker 1: people about it in private and then later in a
20:09
Speaker 1: more public space. But he felt like folks weren't taking
20:12
Speaker 1: him seriously. And this all changed when he got the
20:15
Speaker 1: power of the press behind him. He had us mathematics
20:21
Speaker 1: of a sort that he used to calculate the end times.
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Speaker 1: Oh and his conclusion, of course, was at the end
20:28
Speaker 1: is near. It's not a particularly surprising conclusion for people
20:31
Speaker 1: who study apocalyptic belief systems, but here's what he did.
20:36
Speaker 1: He had a set of what he thought of as
20:40
Speaker 1: common sense rules for deciding which passages should be taken
20:45
Speaker 1: literally and which should be taken figuratively. And he said,
20:50
Speaker 1: if it makes good sense as it stands and does
20:53
Speaker 1: no violence to the simple laws of nature. Then it
20:56
Speaker 1: should be understood literally. If it doesn't do those two things,
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Speaker 1: it should be figurative. And this is all like on
21:02
Speaker 1: his vibe of it. If if he reads it and
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Speaker 1: he goes, okay, yeah that makes sense, so right, yeah, yeah,
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Speaker 1: that's good. And then if it doesn't make sense to him,
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Speaker 1: or if it seems um impossible from what he knows
21:13
Speaker 1: of the world, then he's like, oh, it's a metaphor
21:16
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, it's not literal. Even this
21:18
Speaker 1: approach didn't solve everything. Soon he began to believe that
21:22
Speaker 1: some words must have more than one symbolic meaning. So
21:26
Speaker 1: day is a great example of this. Day, for example,
21:29
Speaker 1: might mean not just a twenty four hour unit of time.
21:34
Speaker 1: It could also mean an indefinite period. It could mean
21:38
Speaker 1: a year, or it could mean a thousand years. Well sure,
21:41
Speaker 1: it's like you know, even today we use expressions like
21:43
Speaker 1: back in the day, or it's been a minute, you know,
21:47
Speaker 1: things like that. I mean, they're there the other day,
21:50
Speaker 1: which confusing. Max is gonna want to punch me, but
21:55
Speaker 1: you can't because we're on zoom when I bring this up.
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Speaker 1: But the way he's interpreting the Bible here like a puzzle.
22:02
Speaker 1: It kind of reminds me of the way people pick
22:04
Speaker 1: up on the lore of like the frum soft games
22:08
Speaker 1: like elden Ring and h and Dark Souls and all those,
22:10
Speaker 1: because the plots are very obscure and kind of obtuse,
22:15
Speaker 1: and you have to like pick up objects and read
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Speaker 1: like the text on you know, the sword that you
22:20
Speaker 1: find in a chest or whatever, or like a piece
22:23
Speaker 1: of arm or something, and then through those little bits
22:25
Speaker 1: and pieces and these breadcrumbs, you kind of develop a
22:28
Speaker 1: bigger picture of the lore and like of you know,
22:31
Speaker 1: the pantheon of like the gods and all that stuff.
22:33
Speaker 1: I think the Bible is like a slightly less obscured
22:36
Speaker 1: version of that. But also I think there's a lot
22:38
Speaker 1: of opportunity to have debatable conclusions about the lore of
22:44
Speaker 1: elden Ring, as there also is to have debatable conclusions
22:48
Speaker 1: about the lore and the meaning of the Bible, which
22:51
Speaker 1: is why the idea of like the end times that
22:53
Speaker 1: was his conclusion, not necessarily you know what everybody thinks
22:57
Speaker 1: when they read the Bible. This is sort of like
22:58
Speaker 1: a novel in repretation at the time, right, Yeah, it's
23:02
Speaker 1: kind of like I mean, like it's it's a known
23:04
Speaker 1: fact among religious scholars that the Bible is based on
23:07
Speaker 1: the Lord of Skyrim. Clearly, uh, and this it happens
23:12
Speaker 1: to Skyrim as well. But yeah, it goes it goes
23:14
Speaker 1: down to interpretation and the idea of what like. At
23:21
Speaker 1: this point, he's not even quite questioning exactly what the
23:25
Speaker 1: end of the world means, but he's trying in a
23:30
Speaker 1: pseudo scientific way to break down this text. Right, and
23:34
Speaker 1: we should say he's acting in good faith. He's not
23:37
Speaker 1: trying to con people. He's trying to satisfy a um
23:42
Speaker 1: a philosophical battle within himself, and he becomes obsessed with
23:47
Speaker 1: finding a truth that he feels as solid and understandable. So,
23:54
Speaker 1: if we go back to this day thing, he is
23:57
Speaker 1: choosing the interpretation of word it's like day based on
24:02
Speaker 1: what seems to best agree with his knowledge of history
24:05
Speaker 1: and what seems most consistent with the overall passage of
24:10
Speaker 1: the scripture under consideration. This is when he gets to
24:15
Speaker 1: Daniel eight. Daniel eighth is a pivotal text for Miller. Uh.
24:20
Speaker 1: He is especially taken with Daniel A fourteen, a relatively
24:26
Speaker 1: short little verse. It just says, and he said unto me,
24:30
Speaker 1: unto two thousand and three hundred days, then shall the
24:34
Speaker 1: sanctuary be cleansed? It's about the cleansing of sin from earth,
24:39
Speaker 1: and so he thinks. He muddles this over. You know,
24:42
Speaker 1: picture the montage or you know that meme with the
24:46
Speaker 1: guy from Narco's who's just standing around in his empty house.
24:51
Speaker 1: You guys know thee. Yeah, he's doing he's doing that,
24:54
Speaker 1: and through his head Daniel A fourteen think also of
24:57
Speaker 1: the beautiful mind meme with all the equation superimposed or
25:00
Speaker 1: the galaxy brand meaning which would require can maybe comparing
25:03
Speaker 1: different things, but still I like the like the ultimate
25:06
Speaker 1: mind explosion when at the end um. But yeah, he
25:09
Speaker 1: he thinks about this and starts to wrap his head around, uh,
25:14
Speaker 1: something that he felt may have been missed. He believes
25:17
Speaker 1: that Christ would return at that time, at the hundred
25:22
Speaker 1: year period that was that was a referenced in Daniel
25:25
Speaker 1: eight four team. He was really just starting to understand
25:28
Speaker 1: the message and actually initially kind of misunderstood what its
25:32
Speaker 1: connection might be. Prophecy. Yeah, yeah, he thinks, Okay, Cleansey
25:37
Speaker 1: and the sanctuary. Really and you've seen this in many
25:42
Speaker 1: religious services, right where the the religious leader quotes a
25:49
Speaker 1: passage from a holy text and then says, but what
25:51
Speaker 1: does that mean exactly? You know, let's break it down.
25:54
Speaker 1: What is a date? I said, what is a date?
25:57
Speaker 1: And you know it goes on. He's doing the for
26:00
Speaker 1: himself often and he says, Okay, cleansing the sanctuary. What
26:05
Speaker 1: does this mean? Well, this means cleansing the earthly sanctuary.
26:09
Speaker 1: This means cleansing of the church at the return of Christ,
26:13
Speaker 1: because what is the church but the earthly sanctuary? And however,
26:18
Speaker 1: he says and stops himself, the sanctuary referred to here
26:22
Speaker 1: is instead the heavenly sanctuary. And then he dives into
26:27
Speaker 1: something called the day year principle. You guys know about
26:32
Speaker 1: this one. I didn't until researching this, you know. And
26:36
Speaker 1: big shout of super duper research associated Zach Williams for
26:39
Speaker 1: digging deep into this stuff. For us, it's hipping us
26:41
Speaker 1: to some of these concepts that you know, both of
26:43
Speaker 1: us being equally fascinated with end of days prophecies and
26:48
Speaker 1: doomsday theology and all of that. There's a lot of
26:50
Speaker 1: new stuff in here for me as well. So, Ben,
26:53
Speaker 1: could you explain to us the day year principle. Yeah,
26:56
Speaker 1: so it's also called the year day principle or the
26:59
Speaker 1: year or a day principle, which is I think a
27:01
Speaker 1: more accurate way to describe it. It's a way of
27:05
Speaker 1: interpreting biblical prophecy in which the word day in any
27:12
Speaker 1: prophetic statement is considered to be symbolic of a year
27:16
Speaker 1: of actual time. So from Miller's interpretation, that twenty three
27:23
Speaker 1: hundred day prophecy is really twenty three hundred years. And
27:28
Speaker 1: so this leads into initially calculate the yes, Jesus Christ
27:33
Speaker 1: is returning, because remember Miller's a Christian, he believes all
27:36
Speaker 1: this stuff. He says, Jesus Christ is returning, and Christ
27:40
Speaker 1: is coming back in eighteen forty three, and then you know, eureka.
27:44
Speaker 1: He clapped his hands. He's like, of course, it makes
27:46
Speaker 1: sense here for a day. That's solid math, and the
27:51
Speaker 1: church will be cleansed during that time because it is
27:54
Speaker 1: a sanctuary. So one day in prophetic scripture equals one
27:59
Speaker 1: year of act full time. So that's twenty three years
28:03
Speaker 1: of history. That's what the prophecy of Daniel eight is.
28:06
Speaker 1: And uh, the details of the system that he makes
28:09
Speaker 1: Miller not Daniel, are complicated, I like dug into it,
28:13
Speaker 1: and it's still it's Yeah, it's a little more of
28:19
Speaker 1: an esoteric kind of like obscured version of like dog
28:22
Speaker 1: years to human years conversions, you know. Um, but yeah,
28:26
Speaker 1: it gets a little funky if you look too deeply
28:29
Speaker 1: into it. But so, you know, again, super complicated, super
28:35
Speaker 1: kind of you know, to obscured any other five dollar
28:39
Speaker 1: word for complicated and mysterious really because it was kind
28:43
Speaker 1: of this like you know, mystery theology kind of thing
28:46
Speaker 1: at least had the vibe of that. So they're a
28:48
Speaker 1: little hard to follow. Much like the story of elden Ring,
28:52
Speaker 1: he drew upon passages in the Book of Daniel, as
28:55
Speaker 1: we mentioned that referred to one thousand, two hundred and
28:57
Speaker 1: sixty days. Uh. He translated the days in two years,
29:01
Speaker 1: and then he used that as the start point to
29:05
Speaker 1: the notion of rebuilding the Jewish Temple after the captivity
29:10
Speaker 1: of the Babylonians and moving forward from that point. And
29:14
Speaker 1: that is often like a very important point in history, right,
29:17
Speaker 1: ben like that, the rebuilding of the Jewish Temple, especially
29:22
Speaker 1: like you know, in uh traditional um, Jewish history and faith,
29:26
Speaker 1: that's a very important, uh historical event that often time
29:31
Speaker 1: is marked by yeah, absolutely, and for people who consider
29:37
Speaker 1: themselves skeptics overall, or for people at the time who
29:42
Speaker 1: are skeptical of Miller's findings. This is the moment where
29:46
Speaker 1: you say, Okay, I feel like you are just moving
29:49
Speaker 1: things around to fit a conclusion, which is the idea
29:53
Speaker 1: that this is all possibly going to happen while you
29:56
Speaker 1: are alive. That's again, that's the thing that's pretty common
30:00
Speaker 1: with a lot of cult leaders, and it's maybe unfair
30:09
Speaker 1: to call him a cult leader. At this point. He's
30:11
Speaker 1: not trying to get over on people or run their lives.
30:14
Speaker 1: He is getting a lot of pr though, and there
30:16
Speaker 1: are a lot of folks in his time who totally
30:20
Speaker 1: buy into this system. He lectures around Vermont in New York,
30:25
Speaker 1: he gets invited to increasingly far away places Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine,
30:30
Speaker 1: in Connecticut, he's getting momentum. And by eighteen forty, just
30:35
Speaker 1: three years before the Second Coming of Christ Peris calculations,
30:40
Speaker 1: a Boston publisher named Joshua Vaughan Himes starts a newspaper
30:45
Speaker 1: dedicated entirely to William Miller's teachings as he is traveling
30:51
Speaker 1: around lecturing. So now you've got the power of the
30:53
Speaker 1: press again, just like when he was writing into the
30:56
Speaker 1: Vermont Telegraph at this point. Now we can properly call
31:00
Speaker 1: all his belief system a movement, the Miller Wite movement,
31:05
Speaker 1: and Himes is a convert as well. Himes first encounters
31:10
Speaker 1: Miller in New Hampshire and then says, Okay, I get
31:14
Speaker 1: what you're saying. Miller. You've got to come with me
31:17
Speaker 1: to Chardon Street Chapel in Boston. You've got to preach
31:20
Speaker 1: to those folks. Miller is ted toes down on this.
31:23
Speaker 1: He goes and preaches multiple times to packed audiences throughout
31:27
Speaker 1: December of eighteen thirty nine, and then Himes and him
31:32
Speaker 1: they become friends over this time, and so Himes says, father, Miller,
31:36
Speaker 1: you've got to you've got to come to my house,
31:38
Speaker 1: come to my personal house, and look, I'm gonna make
31:42
Speaker 1: sure that you can talk to people in every single
31:45
Speaker 1: city in the Union. And Miller is okay with this.
31:50
Speaker 1: But again, he's not a p T. Bartum, he's not
31:52
Speaker 1: a flim flam artist. He really believes in what he's saying.
31:56
Speaker 1: And Himes is like the power, Himes is power. Read
32:00
Speaker 1: this thought. You know it's funny. Man. We talked about
32:02
Speaker 1: this pretty recently. I can't remember what episode, just the
32:05
Speaker 1: idea of how some flim flam men don't know they're
32:08
Speaker 1: flim flam men. And again, this is all based in
32:13
Speaker 1: the power of belief, and there may well still be
32:15
Speaker 1: some people to believe in what Miller put out there.
32:18
Speaker 1: But it's an interesting line because you're out there converting
32:21
Speaker 1: people with the best of intentions, maybe, but also putting
32:25
Speaker 1: them in a situation that is a form of kind
32:28
Speaker 1: of almost psychosis, you know, or uh, the kind of
32:31
Speaker 1: belief system that is so extreme and so kind of
32:36
Speaker 1: nihilistic that it could put their families, their relationship with
32:40
Speaker 1: their families in jeopardy. It's almost like a Q and
32:43
Speaker 1: on kind of situation, you know. And again, not trying
32:45
Speaker 1: to disparage people who believe in the rapture of things
32:48
Speaker 1: like that. I personally think it's it's not on, but
32:53
Speaker 1: you know, people are gonna believe, they're gonna believe, and
32:55
Speaker 1: I fully believe in your power and right to do so.
32:59
Speaker 1: But it is an interesting line when you say he's
33:02
Speaker 1: not a flam flam man. But from the outset, a
33:05
Speaker 1: lot of these revival tent preachers could be seen that way.
33:10
Speaker 1: It's all about what's in their heart? Do they believe
33:12
Speaker 1: or are they after something more specific? Yeah, and I
33:16
Speaker 1: love a I love a good tent revival and just
33:19
Speaker 1: like the uh, the energy of it. Um. But I
33:21
Speaker 1: see exactly what your what your point is there. Himes
33:25
Speaker 1: is not the originator of these ideas, but he is
33:27
Speaker 1: a huge force in the popularization of it. Let's talk
33:30
Speaker 1: a little bit about how we get to that newspapers.
33:33
Speaker 1: So Himes decides, I'm gonna be your publicist. I'm gonna
33:38
Speaker 1: be like your marketing guy. I'm gonna be your brand
33:40
Speaker 1: manager for your message. So he gets Millar to preach
33:44
Speaker 1: in New York, in Philly, in Washington. Uh. Miller is
33:48
Speaker 1: not used to this. This is the big leagues for him.
33:50
Speaker 1: This is deep water and U. Now he has gone
33:55
Speaker 1: from talking to like groups in small towns in New
33:58
Speaker 1: England two thousands of Americans in the biggest cities in
34:02
Speaker 1: the country. And Miller says, Okay, look, that's great. We
34:06
Speaker 1: can have you walking around pressing the flesh all the
34:09
Speaker 1: live long day up till the end of the world.
34:11
Speaker 1: In however, we need to take advantage of mass media.
34:16
Speaker 1: And that's why Himes publishes that newspaper we're talking about
34:20
Speaker 1: the signs of the Times. Himes had knew the odds
34:24
Speaker 1: were against him. He didn't have the money to make
34:26
Speaker 1: this himself in a sustainable way, and he didn't have
34:29
Speaker 1: a built in sturdy subscription base. But he was able
34:34
Speaker 1: to convince This is how we know Himes himself must
34:37
Speaker 1: have been charismatic. He was able to convince a group
34:40
Speaker 1: called down Jackson Anti Slavery publishers to print the paper.
34:46
Speaker 1: And these guys, these publishers, said, well, the interest in
34:50
Speaker 1: the second Advent, that where it's going to be important later, folks,
34:53
Speaker 1: This second coming has grown so much that we could
34:57
Speaker 1: definitely sell papers off this. We sell it out this.
35:02
Speaker 1: You know what, they said, Himes, Miller, we will assume
35:05
Speaker 1: the financial responsibility for keeping the paper going and publishing
35:09
Speaker 1: it semi monthly if you, Himes can make content for
35:14
Speaker 1: it and then start building a subscription list. And Himes said,
35:18
Speaker 1: you know what, I'll do it as a volunteer. Yeah.
35:21
Speaker 1: And they're like, Himes, your signs at the Times must
35:24
Speaker 1: rhyme because that's gonna sell more papers to right right, Yes,
35:30
Speaker 1: but I think it's a missed opportunity. You should have
35:31
Speaker 1: been Himes Signs of the Times. Um, but this is
35:34
Speaker 1: a big deal. This is a platform, a real platform,
35:38
Speaker 1: and it turns out it was it was a big deal.
35:41
Speaker 1: At the end of the first year publication, the Signs
35:43
Speaker 1: of the Times by Himes had a subscription base of
35:46
Speaker 1: fIF people, which might not seem massive. Um, but these
35:51
Speaker 1: are all like hardline, devout believers. So from these relatively
35:56
Speaker 1: meager beginnings, Himes able to persuade down Jack and to
36:00
Speaker 1: sell him the paper. And by two the paper had
36:04
Speaker 1: gained so much attention that Himes began to publish it weekly,
36:08
Speaker 1: and nine months after that a man named Josiah Litch
36:12
Speaker 1: was hired as the associate editor. Um, you can't have
36:17
Speaker 1: a name like Josiah Lytch and not be a hardline
36:20
Speaker 1: religious nut. Not spelled like lich king though, it's l
36:24
Speaker 1: I T C H. So shut out all my fellow
36:26
Speaker 1: D and D D and defense. Yeah, it's Josiah Litch,
36:30
Speaker 1: not the litch King. They're the first of the first
36:34
Speaker 1: of the post with a Millerite focused publication, but they're
36:39
Speaker 1: not the only ones. Other Millierite themed periodicals start getting
36:44
Speaker 1: published over the next few years. It's a very compelling strategy.
36:48
Speaker 1: The second coming of Christ is in eighteen forty three,
36:52
Speaker 1: it's next year, you want to read a paper about it.
36:54
Speaker 1: Of course, the money flies out of people's hands, and
36:59
Speaker 1: not all of these periodicals are as successful as the
37:02
Speaker 1: Signs of the Times. But Himes doesn't stop there. There
37:07
Speaker 1: are a plethora of publications, and whenever I say the
37:10
Speaker 1: word plethora, I want to point out that plethora means
37:13
Speaker 1: too much of something, not just a lot, means so
37:16
Speaker 1: much that it's not good. So they're the markets flooded. Uh.
37:21
Speaker 1: Himes is moving on to other things, and he's publishing
37:25
Speaker 1: books and tracks like pamphlets that are written by Miller
37:29
Speaker 1: and other preachers who agree with him, other Advent preachers.
37:33
Speaker 1: He calls this the Second Advent Library. If you are millerite,
37:38
Speaker 1: if you are down with his teachings and his calculations,
37:42
Speaker 1: you are encouraged not just to buy these books, but
37:45
Speaker 1: to buy a copy for yourself, and buy a copy
37:48
Speaker 1: to lend out to your friends and neighbors, so they
37:50
Speaker 1: get the good word. Uh and uh then they develop
37:54
Speaker 1: even like now they're getting into merchandising. Right. Himes doing
37:59
Speaker 1: right works with Charles fitch Letch and a guy with
38:02
Speaker 1: a really cool name, Apollos Hail to create a prophetic chart,
38:14
Speaker 1: and they developed this for use in eighty two. Yeah,
38:17
Speaker 1: what wouldn't it be funny if, like, you know, the
38:19
Speaker 1: Advent calendar, like it was like a piece of chocolate
38:22
Speaker 1: for every day leading up to the apocalypse. Small small
38:26
Speaker 1: consolation there, I did. I didn't really realize until the
38:29
Speaker 1: research for this episode that Advent does refer to like
38:32
Speaker 1: the second coming of Christ um, which I guess is
38:36
Speaker 1: what happens when well, I don't understand why is an
38:38
Speaker 1: advent calendar then, because this isn't the Advent calendar. It
38:41
Speaker 1: leads up to Christmas, which is when it's the birth
38:45
Speaker 1: of That's not that's the birth, but not the rebirth
38:47
Speaker 1: that would be Easter, right, The rebirth is the resurrection
38:52
Speaker 1: of Christ. The second Advent is the second Coming, so
38:56
Speaker 1: the Advent calendar celebrates the first coming. That's alright, I suppose. So,
39:01
Speaker 1: I just it seems to me like the word advent
39:03
Speaker 1: specifically refers to a second coming, so they should just
39:06
Speaker 1: call it like a baby Jesus birthday calendar or something.
39:08
Speaker 1: It's a little confusing as all, yeah, but it's just
39:11
Speaker 1: the It comes from the Latin Adventist just means coming.
39:14
Speaker 1: So in the church calendar, it's the advent calendar is
39:18
Speaker 1: the period of preparation for the celebration of the Birth
39:22
Speaker 1: of Christ at Christmas. But then the second Advent is
39:25
Speaker 1: the preparation for the second coming of Christ. Ben he
39:29
Speaker 1: got me, thank you for that. Um. So here's the thing.
39:32
Speaker 1: We start seeing these, uh, this literature being spread outside
39:37
Speaker 1: of the United States. Around fifty thousand copies of Signs
39:41
Speaker 1: of the time As were distributed in the US and
39:43
Speaker 1: in Europe. And it wasn't long before the little Rags
39:47
Speaker 1: started to get some some real attention, and not all
39:51
Speaker 1: good attention, um, from the secular press, because this is
39:55
Speaker 1: some hardline doom and gloom stuff that could be I
40:00
Speaker 1: can see how it could be met with some you know, resentment.
40:03
Speaker 1: It's like, what why are you spreading all this, like
40:06
Speaker 1: this misinformation about the end of the world getting people
40:08
Speaker 1: all worked up into a tizzy. Yeah. And also I
40:12
Speaker 1: want to pause here just for a second, because we're
40:14
Speaker 1: getting really close to his original eighteen forty three prediction, right,
40:20
Speaker 1: but he has begun to modify this prediction and his
40:29
Speaker 1: he never sets an exact date, He sets a window
40:31
Speaker 1: of time. So at the urging of his followers, he
40:37
Speaker 1: narrows his time frame down to this, and want to
40:40
Speaker 1: give this quotation from him. He says, My principles of
40:43
Speaker 1: brief are that Jesus Christ will come again to this earth, cleanse, purify,
40:47
Speaker 1: and take possession of the same with all the saints
40:51
Speaker 1: sometime between here it is March one, eighteen forty three
40:55
Speaker 1: and March one, eighteen forty four. So when you hear
41:00
Speaker 1: hear him talking about when you when you hear us
41:03
Speaker 1: talking about these secular responses, know that we're getting close
41:07
Speaker 1: to that window. But we haven't crossed the window yet,
41:10
Speaker 1: and we haven't gotten to eighteen forty five, or indeed
41:13
Speaker 1: April eighteen forty four. But you are, you are on
41:17
Speaker 1: the money. People started calling him out and saying that
41:21
Speaker 1: maybe maybe he was a con artist. When the second
41:26
Speaker 1: Millerie Journal came out, it was called The Midnight Cry,
41:30
Speaker 1: which is a great name for a publication, right. It
41:34
Speaker 1: launches in November eighteen forty two, just a few months
41:37
Speaker 1: before Miller's Apocalyptic Window, and when it launches a paper
41:44
Speaker 1: out of New Hampshire, the Congregational Journal says, Huh, looks
41:49
Speaker 1: like these folks have made a profitable business out of
41:51
Speaker 1: scaring people. And then they said quote, though the world's
41:55
Speaker 1: doom is announced to be the thirteenth of next month,
41:59
Speaker 1: his prospective covers thirteen weeks, for which period he does
42:03
Speaker 1: not hesitate to take payments in advance. So they're saying
42:07
Speaker 1: like you're you're taking money after the apocalypse. In our opinion,
42:12
Speaker 1: it's weird because the critics aren't just secular people. The
42:17
Speaker 1: critics are also other established religious denominations, and they get
42:23
Speaker 1: more and more intolerant of this. Like if you were
42:26
Speaker 1: a preacher and you're known to have h an association
42:29
Speaker 1: with Millerism, then when you're on a tour, when you're
42:32
Speaker 1: traveling and you want to talk to other people about
42:34
Speaker 1: the message of God, they're more and more likely to say, oh, no,
42:38
Speaker 1: I've heard about you. Guys. There is no there's no
42:41
Speaker 1: pulpit for you here, no platform. It's okay. I brought
42:44
Speaker 1: my own Apple box, my own box, and my own megaphone,
42:51
Speaker 1: which was also invented by Himes. Kidding, it's just a
42:55
Speaker 1: coiled up piece of cardboard. You know that. I shout
42:58
Speaker 1: him to one end, but it definitely amplifies does the job.
43:00
Speaker 1: So as as we decided Noll, this is going to
43:04
Speaker 1: be a two parter. We're all very much into this idea,
43:08
Speaker 1: and we've gone for like an hour and we haven't
43:10
Speaker 1: even gotten to the turn right. A credit to the
43:14
Speaker 1: bonkers nature of this story and to our super research
43:17
Speaker 1: associate Zachary Williams for digging this one up for us
43:21
Speaker 1: and doing such a fine job, very thorough, very thorough,
43:25
Speaker 1: that man um. But yeah, one of our rare preemptive
43:28
Speaker 1: two parts. I think you're gonna be seeing maybe a
43:30
Speaker 1: few more of these coming down the pike where we're
43:32
Speaker 1: gonna let you know ahead time. We do hate that
43:34
Speaker 1: we have to make this one a Thursday Tuesday situation,
43:37
Speaker 1: but it couldn't be helped. Couldn't be helped. Yeah, and
43:41
Speaker 1: we think it is going to be BEHINDS fifty seven
43:44
Speaker 1: style worth the way good things come to those wait,
43:47
Speaker 1: I think is the tagline. But tune in this Tuesday
43:51
Speaker 1: to hear about what went wrong with Millerism, to learn
43:55
Speaker 1: a little bit more about the dark side of the equation,
43:59
Speaker 1: and uh, particularly to learn about something called the Great Disappointment.
44:04
Speaker 1: I just don't see how anything could possibly go wrong
44:06
Speaker 1: with this story band. It feels like it's just being
44:08
Speaker 1: set up for a a real climactic victory here for
44:12
Speaker 1: forrel Miller and his uh his, his followers. But yeah,
44:17
Speaker 1: maybe we did kind of spoil I guess history really
44:22
Speaker 1: spoiled it more than anything that you know. We we
44:24
Speaker 1: haven't been raptured yet that we know of, um, But
44:27
Speaker 1: it's funny, you know, And we'll talk about this a
44:29
Speaker 1: little bit in the second episode, but this is almost
44:31
Speaker 1: kind of a pre rapture kind of situation, at least
44:33
Speaker 1: in the rapture, like the good people get to be
44:36
Speaker 1: lifted up and taken too Jesus, and the baddies, you know,
44:39
Speaker 1: get assumed presumably you know, cast down into the the
44:43
Speaker 1: pit or just incinerated or something. No, it depends on
44:47
Speaker 1: the version. There's also the whole left behind model where
44:49
Speaker 1: just all the good people disappear and then the bad
44:52
Speaker 1: people to stay on earth, which is I guess a
44:55
Speaker 1: punishment worse than than hell. Yeah, and we can't wait
45:00
Speaker 1: for you to be part of this story, for you
45:02
Speaker 1: to join the conversation with us, So tune in next
45:05
Speaker 1: Tuesday for part two of Millerism and learn why we're
45:10
Speaker 1: still around after eighteen forty something. Making a podcast in
45:14
Speaker 1: two thanks as always to our own personal profit, the
45:18
Speaker 1: one and only super producer, Mr Max Williams. Thanks to Yes,
45:23
Speaker 1: thanks to first of his name, the quister a K.
45:26
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland, Thanks to Alex Williams, who else, No, of course,
45:30
Speaker 1: Chris frostiotas here in Spearity's Jeff coats the same. Uh.
45:34
Speaker 1: You know what, Max gets another thanks for me, and
45:37
Speaker 1: I'm gonna give no c Max. That's he screwed it up. Man.
45:40
Speaker 1: You can't double woo. You can't triple woo yourself. I
45:43
Speaker 1: was gonna woo you so that you're a personal woo
45:46
Speaker 1: would have seemed a little less self congratulatory, but never mind.
45:50
Speaker 1: Oh my god, you guys have been wooing each other
45:52
Speaker 1: since that hot tub incident. I know it's son. There
45:55
Speaker 1: was also that balcony the balcony incident where I was
46:00
Speaker 1: wooed as well, and then we died on each other's
46:02
Speaker 1: arms in a crypto sorts, only to be resurrected to
46:05
Speaker 1: podcasts another day. I am so glad you guys are here.
46:10
Speaker 1: This show is one of my favorite things to do,
46:12
Speaker 1: and we hope you enjoy the wild story ahead. That's
46:17
Speaker 1: it for us this week, folks. Uh don't join Occult
46:21
Speaker 1: Definitely not unless you're into it. We'll see you next Seploix.
46:31
Speaker 1: For more podcasts for My Heart Radio, visit the I
46:33
Speaker 1: heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
46:36
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.