When Prophecy Fails

When Prophecy Fails

Book cover, 1964 edition.
Author	Leon Festinger, Henry Riecken, Stanley Schachter
Country	United States
Language	English
Subject	Psychology
Genre	Non-fiction
Publisher	Harper-Torchbooks
Publication date	January 1, 1956
Media type	Hardcover
Pages	253
ISBN	0-06-131132-4
OCLC	217969

When Prophecy Fails: A Social and Psychological Study of a Modern Group That Predicted the Destruction of the World is a classic work of social psychology by Leon Festinger, Henry Riecken, and Stanley Schachter, published in 1956, detailing a study of a small UFO religion in Chicago called the Seekers that believed in an imminent apocalypse. The authors took a particular interest in the members' coping mechanisms after the event did not occur, focusing on the cognitive dissonance between the members' beliefs and actual events, and the psychological consequences of these disconfirmed expectations. One of the first published cases of dissonance was reported in this book.

Overview

Festinger, Riecken and Schachter were already studying the effects of prophecy disconfirmation on groups of believers, when they read a story in a local newspaper headlined "Prophecy from Planet. Clarion Call to City: Flee That Flood. It'll Swamp us on Dec. 21" The prophecy came from Dorothy Martin (1900–1992), a Chicago housewife who practised automatic writing, and it outlined a catastrophe predicted for a specific date in their near future. Seeing an opportunity to test their theories with a contemporary case study, the research team infiltrated the group of Martin's followers in order to collect data before, during and after the time the prophecy would be disconfirmed.

Martin claimed to be receiving messages from superior beings from a planet she referred to as Clarion. These messages included a prophecy that Lake City and large portions of the United States, Canada, Central America and Europe would be destroyed by a flood before dawn on December 21st 1954. Through the restrained recruitment activities of Charles Laughead (a college doctor in Michigan) and other acquaintances, Marian was supported in her mediumship by a small group of believers. Some of the believers took significant actions that indicated a high degree of commitment to the prophecy. Some left or lost their jobs, neglected or ended their studies, ended relationships and friendships with non-believers, gave away money and / or disposed of possessions to prepare for their departure on a flying saucer, which they believed would rescue them and others in advance of the flood.

As anticipated by the research team, the prophesied date passed with no sign of the predicted flood, causing a dissonance between the group's commitment to the prophesy and the unfolding reality. Different members of the group reacted in different ways. Many of those with the highest levels of belief, commitment and social support became more committed to their beliefs, began to court publicity in a way they had not before, and developed various rationalisations for the absence of the flood. Some others, with less prior conviction and commitment, and / or less access to ongoing group support, were less able to sustain or increase their previous levels of belief and involvement, and several left the group. The findings of the research team were broadly in line with their initial hypothesis regarding how believers might react to a prophecy disconfirmation if certain conditions were or were not in place.

Premise and methodology of study

Festinger, Riecken and Schachter used the study to test their theories on how people might be expected to behave when faced with a specific type of dissonance, arising from a failed prophecy. From historical examples, such as the Montanists, Anabaptists, Sabbateans, Millerites and the beginnings of Christianity, the team had seen that in some cases the failure of a prophecy, rather than causing a rejection of the original belief system, could lead believers to increase their personal commitment, and also increase their efforts to recruit others into the belief. They identified five conditions that they proposed could lead to this type of reaction:

Conditions for increased fervour after disconfirmation

Condition	Effect
"1. A belief must be held with deep conviction and it must have some relevance to action, that is, to what the believer does or how he or she behaves."	Makes the belief resistant to change.
"2. The person holding the belief must have committed himself to it; that is, for the sake of his belief, he must have taken some important action that is difficult to undo. In general, the more important such actions are, and the more difficult they are to undo, the greater is the individual's commitment to the belief."	Makes the belief resistant to change.
"3. The belief must be sufficiently specific and sufficiently concerned with the real world so that events may unequivocally refute the belief."	Exposes believers to the possibility of their belief being disproved.
"4. Such undeniable disconfirmatory evidence must occur and must be recognized by the individual holding the belief."	Exerts pressure on believers to abandon their belief.
"5. The individual believer must have social support."	While an individual might be unable to resist the pressure to abandon their belief in the face of disconfirming facts, a group might be able to support each other to maintain the belief.

In the case of all conditions being in place, their hypothesis was that believers would find it difficult to abandon their beliefs in the face of disconfirmation, would use their available social support to maintain their beliefs, and try to increase consonance by recruitment through proselyting, on the grounds that "If more and more people can be persuaded that the system of belief is correct, then clearly it must after all be correct."

The research team considered that all of the conditions were likely to be fulfilled in the case study involving Martin and her followers. In this case, if the group's leader could add consonant elements by converting others to the basic premise, then the magnitude of her dissonance following disconfirmation would be reduced. The research team predicted that the inevitable disconfirmation would be followed by an enthusiastic effort at proselyting to seek social support and lessen the pain of disconfirmation.

Methodology

Festinger and his colleagues contacted Martin and infiltrated her group. In order to protect her privacy, the study gave Martin the alias of "Marian Keech" and fictively relocated her group to Michigan.

Belief system of the research subjects

Martin had previously been involved with L. Ron Hubbard's Dianetics movement, and she incorporated ideas from what later became Scientology.

Sequence of events

Festinger, Riecken and Schachter reported the following sequence of events:

• December 17. Ms. Keech received a phone call from person identifying themselves as "Captain Video" from outer space, telling her that a saucer is to land in her backyard to pick her up at 4 o'clock in the afternoon. (Festinger considers this call to have been made by a practical joker reacting to press coverage of Keech's group.) Some of the group initially questioned the call, before accepting it and preparing themselves to be collected by the saucer, removing all metal objects from their persons. By 5:30pm the group appeared to have given up, and were reluctant to discuss the issue of why the saucer had not arrived. When the matter was discussed, they agreed that the event had been a practice session. Ms. Keech received another message later that day that the saucer would pick them up at 1:30 am. The group waited for the saucer until 3:30 am then gave up.
• Before December 20. The group shuns publicity. Interviews are given only grudgingly. Access to Keech's house is only provided to those who can convince the group that they are true believers. The group evolves a belief system—provided by the automatic writing from the planet Clarion—to explain the details of the cataclysm, the reason for its occurrence, and the manner in which the group would be saved from the disaster.
• December 20. The group expects a visitor from outer space to call upon them at midnight and to escort them to a waiting spacecraft. As instructed, the group goes to great lengths to remove all metallic items from their persons. As midnight approaches, zippers, bra straps, and other objects are discarded. The group waits.
• 12:05 am. December 21. No visitor. Someone in the group notices that another clock in the room shows 11:55. The group agrees that it is not yet midnight.
• 12:10 am. The second clock strikes midnight. Still no visitor. The group sits in stunned silence. The cataclysm itself is no more than seven hours away.
• 4:00 am. The group has been sitting in stunned silence. A few attempts at finding explanations have failed. Keech begins to cry.
• 4:45 am. Another message by automatic writing is sent to Keech. It states, in effect, that the God of Earth has decided to spare the planet from destruction. The cataclysm has been called off: "The little group, sitting all night long, had spread so much light that God had saved the world from destruction."
• Afternoon, December 21. Newspapers are called; interviews are sought. In a reversal of its previous distaste for publicity, the group begins an urgent campaign to spread its message to as broad an audience as possible.
• December 24. The Christmas Eve caroling from the group started a riot of about 200 unruly spectators. The police had to be called to control the mob. The community was not happy with Mrs. Keech.
• December 26. A warrant was issued for Mrs. Keech and Dr. Armstrong for several charges.

Criticism

Festinger, Riecken and Schachter's study has been strongly criticized on methodological grounds. Bermejo-Rubio summarizes them;

To start with, When Prophecy Fails has been faulted on methodological grounds. The original observed phenomenon was not an uncontaminated series of events generated by a group in isolation. It was in fact mediated and studied by observers (social scientists and the press) and therefore subjected to interferences and distortions resulting from their presence. It has been remarked that often almost one-third of the membership of the group consisted of participant observers. More significantly, the social scientists themselves contributed to the events described. Furthermore, the media continually badgered the group to account for its commitment; thus, the increased proselytizing and affirmations of faith may have been influenced by media pressure. These conditions make it difficult to determine what might have happened if the group had been left on its own. A second problem is that the working hypothesis of the sociologists seems to have shaped, to a high degree, their perception of the events and the account given of the group, leading to an inaccurate report. That hypothesis involved identifying two phases, a period of secrecy in which the elect did not actively seek to gain followers or influence and, as a reaction to the disconfirmation of a prediction, a period of proselytizing. The portrayal of the group as merely based on a prediction, however, made Festinger and his colleagues overlook other dimensions (spiritual, moral, cultural) which might be crucial for the movement (Van Fossen 1988: 195).

Post-study events

After the failure of the prediction, Martin was threatened with arrest and involuntary commitment, and left Chicago. She later founded the Association of Sananda and Sanat Kumara. Under the name Sister Thedra, she continued to practice channeling and participating in contactee groups until her death in 1992. The Association is active to this day.

See also

• Unfulfilled Christian religious predictions

Further reading

• Festinger, Leon; Henry W. Riecken; Stanley Schachter (1956). When Prophecy Fails: A Social and Psychological Study of a Modern Group that Predicted the Destruction of the World. University of Minnesota Press. ISBN 1-59147-727-1. Reissued 2008 by Pinter & Martin with a foreword by Elliot Aronson, ISBN 978-1-905177-19-6
• Pargament, Kenneth I. (1997). The Psychology of Religion and Coping: Theory, Research, Practice. Guilford Press. pp. 150–153, 340, section: "Compelling Coping in a Doomsday Cult". ISBN 1-57230-664-5.
• Petty, Richard E.; John T. Cacioppo (1996). Attitudes and Persuasion: Classic and Contemporary Approaches. Westview Press. pp. 139: "Effect of Disconfirming an Important Belief". ISBN 0-8133-3005-X.
• Prilleltensky, Isaac (1997). Critical Psychology: An Introduction. Sage Publications Inc. pp. 35, 37–38. ISBN 0-7619-5211-X.
• Newman, Dr. David M. (2006). Sociology: Exploring the Architecture of Everyday Life. Pine Forge Press. p. 86. ISBN 1-4129-2814-1.
• Stangor, Charles (2004). Social Groups in Action and Interaction. Psychology Press. pp. 42–43: "When Prophecy Fails". ISBN 1-84169-407-X.

External links

• Pinter & Martin Publishers, publishers of the 2008 edition