Responding to Cecil’s article, How do doomsayers cope when the world doesn’t end, he touched on but didn’t describe a fascinating piece of research by Leon Festinger in the 1950s which bears repeating here. Apparently - and this is all quite well documented in the book he describes and elsewhere - a lady named Martin claimed she was receiving telepathic messages from aliens on the planet Clarion, saying that the earth was doomed and would be destroyed on December 21st, 1954. Said aliens promised to appear to a spot, conveniently not far from Martin’s home, and rescue anyone who wanted rescuing.
Not the most plausible plan to save several billion people, but perhaps they had way cool transporter technology. Anyhoo, she persuaded several hundred followers to collect with her outside of town where they anxiously awaited the coming of the giant black flying saucers.
When the saucers didn’t appear, after a certain amount of rationalization (“oh, they probably didn’t realize we’re on daylight savings time”), the followers switched their beliefs around. Rather than concluding they were a bunch of credulous nitwits, they decided that this had been - you knew this was coming - a test of faith. Why the aliens would care whether we have faith or not is anybody’s guess. But their conclusion was that by the very act of assembling, they had demonstrated their faith and actually saved the earth from destruction.
Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive … ourselves. The really fascinating part of this, it seems to me, is how it compares to another, even better known historical event. Consider this conversation between Jesus’ followers:
“Yea, wahoo, Jesus, you da man, go for it [etc].”
“Wait, they’re taking you away, why don’t you smite them, knock 'em dead, lord, bust them up!”
“Wait, they’re crucifying him. In fact, they’re taking his body back down. He’s … dead!”
“Hoo boy. Either we’ve all been taken for gullible saps, or … perhaps this was part of the master plan! Yeah, that was it! This was his plan all along. In fact he, uh, he had to die! Yeah, he had to die, to, uh, save us from our sins! We’re not gullible fools after all! Wahoo!”
And thence is born a religion. And by posting this I am guaranteeing I can never be elected to public office in the United States.