When Prophecy Fails: A Social and Psychological Study of a Modern Group that Predicted the Destruction of the World

by Leon Festinger

The study reported in this volume grew out of some theoretical work, one phase of which bore specifically on the behavior of individuals in social movements that made specific (and unfulfilled) prophecies. We had been forced to depend chiefly on historical records to judge the adequacy of our theoretical ideas until we by chance discovered the social movement that we report in this book. At the time we learned of it, the movement was in mid-career but the prophecy about which it was centered had not yet been disconfirmed. We were understandably eager to undertake a study that could test our theoretical ideas under natural conditions. That we were able to do this study was in great measure due to the support obtained through the Laboratory for Research in Social Relations of the University of Minnesota. This study is a project of the Laboratory and was carried out while we were all members of its staff. We should also like to acknowledge the help we received through a grant-in-aid from the Ford Foundation to one of the authors, a grant that made preliminary exploration of the field situation possible.

Genres: Psychology, Nonfiction, Religion, Sociology, Science, History, Philosophy

181 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1956

About the author

Leon Festinger was interested in science at a young age, and decided to pursue a career in psychology. He received his bachelor's degree from City College of New York and went on to Iowa State University for his master's degree and his Ph.D. (which he received in 1942). For the next several years he made his living teaching at different universities until he went to Stanford in 1955.

At Stanford, Festinger began to fully develop the idea he called cognitive dissonance. The original idea stemmed from his observation that people generally liked consistency in their daily lives. For example, some individuals always sit in the same seat on the train or bus when they commute to work, or always eat lunch in the same restaurant. Cognitive dissonance is a part of this need for consistence.

Essentially, Festinger explained, all people hold certain beliefs, and when they are asked to do something that runs counter to their beliefs, conflict arises. Cognitive dissonance comes into play when people try to reconcile the conflicting behaviors or ideas.

Cognitive dissonance soon became an important and much-discussed theory. Over the years it has generated considerable research, in part because it is one of a number of theories based on the idea that consistency of thought is a strong motivating factor in people.

Festinger continued his work at Stanford until 1968 when he returned to New York City to assume the Else and Hans Staudinger professorship at the New School for Social Research. He continued his research on cognitive dissonance as well as other behavioral issues. He was also active in professional organizations including the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He continued to work until his death on February 11, 1989, from liver cancer. He was survived by his wife Trudy and four children.

Taken from the the Encyclopedia of Psychology

Reviews

[BlackOxford · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Deadliness of Faith

When Prophecy Fails was written almost three quarters of a century ago. It has been criticised as incomplete in terms of theory and inadequate in terms of method since. But whatever its academic flaws, its central findings remain important. The authors pointedly avoid precise dates in their exposition. This is fortunate since it allows the reader to consider their findings in terms of recent events. And the relevance to these events is apparent - growing Christian evangelicalism, conspiracy theories, voter fraud rumours, the spread of white supremacism are all related to the phenomenon documented and analysed in the book. So I think it’s appropriate to generalise from the work described and draw some implications for current conditions.

The link among the apparently disparate groups is not any particular goal or state of affairs in the world. They don’t aim to achieve specific kinds of behaviour toward themselves or others. Rather, their motive is the acceptance of various ideas by others. They want others to share what they already ‘possess,’ namely, Faith in those ideas.

Faith, the unwavering commitment to an idea, is the morbid social disease of the age, and grows apace with the technology that promotes it. Faith extends trust and confidence from a disposition of conditional acceptance to one of obsession. Faith does not open a new reality but severely limits the reality that can be expressed, and therefore that can be experienced. Faith is literally unreasonable, not in the sense that it contradicts any particular definition of reason but because it abjures any reason except itself. And faith kills.

The authors pinpoint the factors which make Faith attractive. First it claims to be able to satisfy some social, psychological or spiritual need. Frequently Faith defines that need - fulfilment, social success, or salvation, for example - or it may simply adopt the inadequacies of the individual involved as the target of Faith’s remedial powers.

Second, Faith is always social. It only exists within a group. Such a group provides acceptance to an individual conditional upon their acceptance of a set of beliefs that are progressively established within the group. Faith is demonstrated by members of the group through the use of authorised vocabulary which may be expressed in credal statements as the group matures.

The interaction of obsessive commitment and enforcement of that commitment in a community is a well-known source of violent, often lethal, behaviour. Faith provokes the need to confirm itself by increasing the size of its community - voluntarily (through ‘missionary’ work), and coercively (through crusades). Resistance to both kinds of effort increases the strength of internal community bonds, and thus the intensity of commitment.

The object of Faith varies widely but is irrelevant to the sorts of behaviour Faith promotes. From the persecution of Jews and other non-Christians, to the literally unreasonable adventisms of the 19th century, to the space-alien cults of the 20th century, to Trumpism and QAnon of the 21st, Faith typically anticipates some event which promises to justify itself and its apparent irrationality - the Second Coming, the Apocalypse, the Thousand Year Reich, the arrival of extraterrestrials, or the outing and destruction of some global conspiracy (or election fraud).

The failure of such an event to occur is not considered as a failure of Faith but a failure of the commitment of the faithful. Failure is rationalised as a demand for increased Faith. The repeated ‘disappointments’ among the mid-19th century Millerite Adventists, for example, were explained ultimately as a sort of punishment for the celebration of the weekly Lord’s Day on a Sunday rather than the biblically correct Saturday. This was sufficient to convince a rather large cohort of the faithful to shift observances in the hope of a quick annihilation.

Faith has no antonym. The opposite of Faith is not opposition to Faith but its mere absence. Faith in nothing, nihilism, for example, has a long history and is one of its strongest forms. Nihilists seek the destruction of whatever social structures exist outside their own community. Nihilists take various forms - devotees to the idea of the independent ‘pioneer spirit,’ believers in the ‘Objectivist’ philosophy of Ayn Rand, economic liberalists like Rand Paul, or the disenchanted ‘Deplorables’ who make up a portion of the followers of Trump, to name but several. In the heart of every nihilist is an idea he or she seeks to impose on the rest of the world.

Faith is the antithesis of democratic politics. By restricting the range of legitimate interests, Faith undermines the inclusiveness that is necessary for democracy. By insisting on the absolute correctness of its ideas, Faith refuses to participate in compromise. And by perceiving that the rejection of its ideas by others as an offence and a betrayal, Faith becomes hostile, frequently violent, to the institutions of democracy. The effects of Faith - in a variety of disparate ideas - were demonstrated recently in the American riot in the Capitol. The QAnon motto of “Trust the Plan,” could hardly be a more explicit declaration of nihilist Faith since no one has any idea what the plan is.

Faith is impervious to argument. As the authors point out, “when people are committed to a belief and a course of action, clear disconfirming evidence may simply result in deepened conviction and increased proselyting.” Faith provides a way to reduce “cognitive dissonance,” explaining the otherwise unexplainable even when that explanation makes outrageous and unverified claims about the state of the world. In other words, Faith, is therefore a fundamentally selfish activity through which an individual’s confusion, neediness, incompetence, or other inadequacies are assuaged at the expense of consideration of the wider community who do not share the ideology of the faithful.

The space-alien cult described in When Prophecy Fails can be dismissed as an amusing anomaly when considered in isolation. But as a phenomenon of Faith it is frighteningly typical - not just of fringe groups but also of large-scale movements. Faith is a dangerous thing. It destroys communities, inevitably creates hostility, often leads to violence, sometimes involving suicide and homicide. Isn’t it time to stop calling Faith a virtue and recognise it for what it really is: a way to exert power over others to make ourselves feel better?

[T-bone · Rating 1 out of 5]

I love cults. I have belonged to many and hope to join more in the future. Cults are a great way to meet new people. So imagine my disgust when I realized this book was not about a cult, but about a bunch of delusional psychologists who infiltrate a perfectly rational doomsday group so they can peddle their ludicrous "research" as a legitimate contribution to learning. I don't mind psychologists when they confine themselves to wondering why they themselves are crazy, but I do not abide them trying to make others feel discombobulated, which I think means confused.

Marian Keech, a Michigan housewife, received a message from the planet Clarion that the earth would be destroyed in a great flood on December 21, 1954. What a terrible thing to happen so close to Christmas. Luckily for Marian and her supporters an alien was going to pick them up the night before. In preparation, the group removed all metallic items from their persons, including zippers and bra straps. To my mind this sounds a little bit raunchy, but nevertheless essential before boarding a spaceship. I know from personal experience that metal infers with spaceship navigation equipment.

Come the appointed hour the alien does not turn up and the group is understandably discombobulated. Or at least confused. Then Marian receives another message informing her the god of earth has decided to call off the end of the world because the group did such a splendid job of spreading the light. I suspect this is a white lie Marian made up to raise morale. I also suspect that the real reason the alien didn't turn up is because it knew the group had been infiltrated by psychologists and aliens hate psychologists. If anyone is going to experiment on people it should be them, not psychologists. Furthermore, god probably decided against destroying humanity because it is a far greater punishment to leave a world with psychologists in it.

Five stars for Marian and her gang, minus four stars for psychology.

[فؤاد · Rating 4 out of 5]

نویسنده‌ها مفهومی ابداع کردن به نام «ناسازگاری شناختی». به این معنا که اگر کسی دو باور ناسازگار با هم رو داشته باشه، ناسازگاری باورها باعث ناآرامی می‌شه و شخص نیاز داره این ناسازگاری رو با روش‌های مختلف حل کنه. مثلاً کسی که باور داره سیگار مضرّه و در عین حال سیگار می‌کشه، نیاز داره به نحوی این ناسازگاری دستگاه فکریش رو حل کنه، یا با ترک سیگار یا با «توجیه».

از همین جا نویسنده‌ها پل می‌زنن به باورهای دینی و می‌گن هنگامی که یه باور دینی به وضوح ابطال می‌شه، باورمندها به چنین وضعیتی دچار می‌شن و باید به نوعی ناسازگاری باور دینی و فکت‌ها رو حل کنن. بعضی از باورمندها این ناسازگاری رو با نفی دین‌شون حل می‌کنن، اما به خصوص زمانی که نفی دین سخت یا ناممکن باشه (مثلاً شخص هزینهٔ زیادی برای باور دینی کرده باشه یا به واسطۀ باور دینی از شبکهٔ حمایتی قدرتمندی برخوردار شده که با نفی دین ازش محروم می‌شه) شروع می‌کنه به توجیه کردن فکت‌هایی که باور دینی رو ابطال کردن، و نه فقط این، بلکه شروع می‌کنه با جدیت باور ابطال‌شدهٔ خودش رو تبلیغ کردن، بلکه از طریق همفکر کردن دیگران، بتونه دوباره احساس حقانیت کنه.

نویسنده‌ها برای تست کردن این نظریه، علاوه بر استناد به جنبش‌های دینی تاریخی (از مسیحیت گرفته تا جنبش شبتای صوی، مدعی مسیحایی یهودی) به یه نهضت نوظهور دینی پیوستن. این نهضت مدعی بود که در تاریخی مشخص، رأس ساعت دوازده شب، بناست سیل جهان رو بگیره و بشقاب پرنده‌ها برای نجات تعدادی از برگزیده‌ها بیان. اعضای محدود این نهضت از شغل و ثروت خودشون دست کشیدن تا در یک جامعهٔ کوچیک، آماده بشن برای روز موعود. در شب موعود، همه نشستن به انتظار ساعت دوازده شب، و وقتی ساعت دوازده شد و جهان نابود نشد، اعضا با اضطراب و ناآرامی شدیدی مواجه شدن که ناشی از ناسازگاری شناختی بود. برای حل این ناسازگاری، دو واکنش مختلف نشون دادن:

۱. کسایی که هزینهٔ کمتری برای باور خودشون کرده بودن و تحت نفوذ شبکهٔ حمایتی گروه نبودن (مثلاً به دلایلی از گروه جدا افتاده بودن)، خیلی زود دست از باورشون کشیدن و باورهای گروه رو احمقانه نامیدن.

۲. کسایی که هزینهٔ زیادی برای باور خودشون کرده بودن یا تحت نفوذ شبکهٔ حمایتی گروه بودن، باور ابطال‌شده‌شون رو توجیه کردن و گفتن به خاطر ایمان قوی ما، خدا جهان رو از سیل و نابودی نجات داده. و نه فقط این، بلکه شروع کردن به تبلیغ این باور خودشون، که تا قبل از اون مخفیانه نگهش می‌داشتن.

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an account of a small and relatively benign mid-century millenarian cult in Chicago. They believed that the world would end in a great flood on December 21st, 1954, and that they would be rescued by a spaceship- but what happens after the leader’s prophecy fails to come true? It turns out that while disconfirmation of the prophecy causes some members of the group to abandon their convictions, the convictions of others are strengthened- as is their desire to spread the word.

One of the authors is Leon Festinger, who developed the theory of cognitive dissonance. It occurred to me as I read that the experience of dissonance, as far as I understand it, is not necessarily a bad thing; if you're aware of experiencing it (and I guess that's the tricky part), it can work as a sort of alarm bell that lets you know things aren't lining up, that something's not right. You believed that the world was going to end on a certain date- fair enough, we've all been wrong before- but now that the date has passed and the world hasn't ended, how are you going to choose to interpret that? Are you even going to be conscious of making a choice?

In addition, there are some complicating factors. First of all, remember, you told everyone at the office that you believed the world was ending. Going to be hard to look those people in the eye now. Not to mention that in the age of social media, you've probably already told everyone on Facebook and Goodreads, as well. Going to be a lot of comments with laughing emojis when you log in again, aren't there? Maybe you ended a relationship. Maybe you quit your job. Maybe you donated all your money to the group. And furthermore, it makes sense to assume that this belief satisfied some personal need or longing you had. That must have been a good feeling. Besides, look how much you've given up for that belief already- was that all for nothing, a fantasy?

Your unconscious mind isn't going to let you give up this kind of conviction without a fight.

And Festinger and his co-writers show us how easy it can be to rationalize: the aliens gave us a second chance, a few of the group members think; we got the date wrong, turns out the flood is next year, we need to prepare even harder now; something we did helped to avert the flood, which means this is actually a miracle.

It's not being aware of dissonance that gets us into trouble, but rather the unconscious desire for what the authors call consonance, however we can get it.

While this is a case study, it's pleasurable to read; a bit novelistic, empathetic while at the same time finding some humor in what really is an absurd situation. Some other reviewers have suggested that the integrity of this study is compromised because the authors infiltrated the cult...and heck, for all I know they're right. But I am not a scientist, sociologist, psychologist or any combination of those things, so I did not trouble myself with the integrity of the study; I was just kind of amused that it reached the point where the cult seemed to be composed of about an equal number of observers/cult members, without any apparent suspicion or violent reprisal on the part of the latter.

Mrs. Armstrong's response was immediate and almost frightening in its initial ambiguity. "You've been sent", she declared. "They sent you." Fortunately for our observer's poise, Mrs. Armstrong went on to explain that "they" referred to the Guardians or people from outer space who were watching over the chosen on earth and guiding their actions.

The reader might start to wonder what kind of cult these people are running here, anyway. They should be ashamed of themselves. This is not exactly the Manson family.

But of course that's a good thing. These are relatively innocent people, lost souls searching for meaning. When I first read this book, however, a couple of years ago, I think I drew some very self-satisfied and snobby conclusions from it. The UFO angle makes that easy to do, both because it sounds kooky, and because it foreshadows the far less benign Heaven's Gate cult of the 1990s. Those poor saps who get drawn into things like this, I remember thinking.

But what's lingered for me is the simple idea that it is just very, very difficult to change your mind, to accept that you were wrong and to learn something from it. When a narrative sweeps across a country or the world, it's sometimes difficult to even remember that you have the right to make a conscious choice about how you're going to understand what's happened. None of us are immune from groupthink, or from believing things that aren't true. This is a book that should provoke not contempt, but a bit of humility and self-reflection.

[Ross Blocher · Rating 4 out of 5]

When Prophecy Fails is the classic work on the psychology of end times groups, and I'm glad to have finally read it. Leon Festinger (along with co-authors Riecken and Schachter), just a year before publishing his seminal work on cognitive dissonance theory in 1957, examines the fallout after a group prophesies a specific date for a cataclysm... and then nothing happens. His counter-intuitive prediction was that the disconfirmation of the group's belief would only lead to more proselytization, not less. Five conditions had to be met for this hypothesis (simplified here):

1. The belief must be held with deep conviction.
2. The person holding the belief must have committed himself to it.
3. The belief must be sufficiently specific so that events may refute the belief.
4. Such undeniable disconfirmatory evidence must occur and be recognized by the believer.
5. The individual believer must have social support.

The researchers present historic examples, such as the 19th century Millerites (who predicted the end of the world in 1843 and then doubled down on 1844) and 17th century Sabbatai Zevi (a fascinating Messiah figure I'd never heard of before). While history is replete with end-times predictions - including the inciting incidents of Christian sects such as the Jehovah's Witnesses, Seventh Day Adventists and Latter-day Saints - the researchers noted that the literature was incomplete, usually one-sided, and insufficient to support their hypothesis. If only they could find a local end-times group in Michigan (a fiction for privacy; the groups and research were in Chicago)...

Just their luck! A local woman named Dorothy Martin (whom they refer to as "Marian Keech") had made such a prediction for December 21, 1954. After studying Dianetics and Theosophy, and practicing automatic writing, she began issuing dire predictions from Sananda (her name for Jesus, now in a higher-vibrational state) that the world would experience a great flood on December 21st, many would die, and a select few would be rescued by flying saucers. She had already recruited some followers, especially through a local teacher who promoted her writings at a college-level UFO/spiritual group and felt he had confirmed her veracity with the aid of a psychic.

The authors pounced upon this opportunity and recruited observers to join the two groups meeting regularly in Lake City and Collegetown. This required at least two participants for each group, plus sometimes the authors themselves (I was never sure from the oblique references, but I assume it was Festinger who attended many of the meetings). This quickly became awkward, as often times the group size would dwindle, and the observers would make up a significant percentage of the assembled group, or be asked to initiate a prayer or stay overnight at Martin's house. The epilogue cracked me up because the various quandaries and discomforts they suffered trying to remain objective and keep notes so closely mirrored what my friend Carrie and I experience during our own investigations of related groups.

I don't think it's spoiling anything to reveal that there was no great flood, nor the end of the world, on December 21st, 1954. The proselytization in question was difficult to observe or verify, as this particular group was passive in recruiting members and was initially very shy about press coverage. Add to that other wild elements, such as a woman in the group who for a time claimed to speak on behalf of God the Creator and contradicted Martin, or frequent drills to remove all the metal from everyone's clothing before boarding a space ship, or failed predictions being spun as tests of faith, or visitors and callers who were identified as aliens in disguise... and it's hard to fit this group's behaviors neatly into the researchers' hypotheses, even if we overlook some of the problems inherent in the presence of the observers. The observed behavior certainly doesn't disconfirm the hypotheses, and this study's exploration of "consonance and dissonance" sets the stage nicely for Festinger's cognitive dissonance theory.

It's not a study that one could approve or run today, so it's fun to hear about this fascinating slice of history, both in terms of end-times belief and psychological research. The writing may be a tad, ehm... clinical, but it's a pretty engaging story if this topic interests you as much as it does me.

[Ill D · Rating 2 out of 5]

In my very last year of college I decided to pursue a minor in religious studies. Not realizing how completely worthless it was, I took multiple classes concerning all sorts of religious phenomena. While some were interesting (Religions of India was great) others not so much (Jewish messianic movements was surprisingly boring.) In either case much like the seminal Mircia Eliade (who I found to be mind-mindbogglingly overrated) Leon Festinger's When Prophesy Fails was most usually muttered in the same breath or at least the same paragraph as the aforementioned by professors of all stripes.

Almost a decade later, with half the globe traveled, and multiple false starts under my belt, I finally read trudged through Festinger's prophesy about a doomed prophesy gone wrong.

Just like Eliade and his work I seriously have no idea why this piece of crap deserves the accolades it does. From a complete lack methodology, except a rubric set out at the beginning which conveniently matches the researchers future conclusions, to some highly questionable and irritatingly opaque actions made by the researchers/observers within, the only prophesy that failed here was that this book would live up to its high praise. Oh boy.

If that wasn't frustrating enough the vast majority of the book reduces to a boring record of the stupidity within. Since all names were changed to protect the not-so-innocent, basically the book embodies a mind numbing catalogue of... Peggy Sue got this dumb revelation, John Smith showed up and said this, and so on and so on and so forth. Without the real names, and places, and dates within we just get a series of highly generic records of dumb people believing in dumb shit. Which isn't much too different from the average day but for some reason this book has some super-duper status in the religious studies departments.

Perhaps most damning of all is the methodological contamination within. Since the researchers planted their grad-student-pretend-believers into the mix the experiment became unflinchingly distorted from the get go. This only gets worse as future plants and their appearances/actions basically confirm the dumb-dumb leaders belief. Ruining the experiment at best and partaking in academic fraud at worst, everything is pretty much wrong here.

Low on analysis and high on stupid details, this tale of a UFO cult gone wrong was damned from the beginning.

[Adam Dalva · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ethically dubious and too repetitive, but there are some very striking revelations.

[Chad Kettner · Rating 4 out of 5]

In 1954 Leon Festinger, an experimental social psychologist, invented and tested the theory of cognitive dissonance. "Cognitive Dissonance" is today a recognized term for having a state of mind which seeks to deny an inconvenient truth - perhaps someone with a smoking habit denies the health risks of smoking, or someone with a gambling habit denies their overall losses, or whatever else. In Festinger's original study, "When Prophecy Fails", he discusses a cult who denies the continued failures of their prophecies that Jesus would return to earth on a flying saucer.

The study is quite clinical in nature, and therefore a bit slow throughout - but when it comes to driving home the point of cognitive dissonance it does an excellent job. The daily meetings of the deluded group were infiltrated by research students assigned by Festinger. The book records the students' observations - the prophecies that were made and the responses to the failures. The refusal to acknowledge the disappointment at Jesus' non-arrival (even in the midst of specific dates being passed by) and the world's continued existence gave rise to the term 'cognitive dissonance'.

Festinger points out the parallels with the Millerites from the 1840s, a much larger group whose End Times prophecy failed - but instead of acknowledging they were wrong, the prophecies were simply explained away and gave rise to the Seventh-day Adventist church. Festinger's core argument is that when nearly everything is invested in the hopes of a prophecy - even a blatant failure gives rise to new hopes and new interpretations - and larger cases of cognitive dissonance. As one character from the cult described in the book said during the study: "I've had to go a long way. I've given up just about everything. I've cut every tie: I've burned every bridge. I've turned my back on the world. I can't afford to doubt. I have to believe. And there isn't any other truth" (pg. 170).

It's important to point out that Festinger doesn't mock or make fun of the study group in any way - even though their beliefs are beyond laughable (Jesus was going to come on a space ship!). Instead, Festinger uses it as a touching account of what can happen to ordinary people under extraordinary circumstances, and clearly empathizes with the struggles the group endured for their failed beliefs.

[Isidore · Rating 2 out of 5]

As a glimpse into the largely unknown world of Eisenhower era mysticism, the book is fascinating. As an exemplification of cognitive dissonance, it is pretty much a failure. Festinger & Co.'s methodology was so flawed as to hopelessly compromise any conclusions they wished to draw.

Festinger heavily infiltrated and manipulated the cult. At one key moment, of the fourteen participants, no less than five were his secret "observers". Naturally, as even Festinger admits, the advent of so many "converts" into such a tiny group would have the distorting effect of greatly increasingly the commitment of the true believers. The observers were instructed to badger "Mrs. Keach", the leader of the cult, into firming up her very vague prophecies into an unequivocal prediction, so that Festinger could study the consequences of prophetic failure (at one point he alludes to the "awful possibility" that she might never make a sufficiently clear prophecy as to permit "disconfirmation"). In other words, he manipulated the cult leader into taking a position she would likely never have otherwise assumed. The fact that careers were ruined, that people were threatened with legal action and institutionalization, or forced to leave their homes to get away from the resultant public scandal does not appear to have raised any ethical qualms in Festinger and his associates.

Festinger went into this project with a preconceived theory about what would happen. When he reports what *did* happen, he downplays developments which are of no help to him, and plays up those which are, oversimplifying a complex situation. A vital part of his theory demands that the disillusioned cultists enter into active proselytizing as a means of averting the stress of cognitive dissonance. In this case they never did, and usually went out of their way NOT to proselytize. For the most part Festinger ignores this little problem. Toward the end, he concedes the expected proselytizing never occurred, but argues that the cult's decision to inform the media about their "message" following the failure of "Mrs. Keach"'s prophecy would fulfill his theory's requirements. The trouble is, the cult's recruitment of the media was atypical, measured, and brief in duration––scarcely the all-important emotional buttress his theory demands.

On the whole, "Mrs. Keach" and her friends come across as likable, well-meaning oddballs, Festinger and his agents as cold-blooded and unscrupulous, treating human beings as if they were lab rats, and not terribly scientific into the bargain. As for cognitive dissonance, it's an interesting and useful theory, but this book does not make a convincing case for it. It does show that people will rationalize their way out of challenges to cherished beliefs: ironically, this is as much true of Festinger & Co as it is of the cultists.

[Jonathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

On oft repeated chestnut in the perpetual debate between Christianity and its non-believers goes something like this: There are three possibilities about Jesus and/or the Apostles or Early Christians. They were either madmen, liars or telling the truth. Each of the former possibilities is then addressed with what might not be terrible arguments and, thus discounted, the third branch of the argument is arrived at as being true. I have never heard the previous two possibilities adequately dismissed, but the real issue with the argument, its real flaccidness, is that it is a false trichotomy. Humans are not either mad, liars or truth tellers - they slide effortlessly between the three states often within the span of single sentence, act or feeling. But most importantly, the argument fails to address the most complicating of factors: madness, lies and truth may manifest in a social group without any single person being obviously responsible for any of them. It is this phenomenon which makes "When Prophecy Fails" most interesting, since it describes the rise and counter-intuitive climax (after a prophesied global flood fails to occur) of a real UFO Cult in the Great Lakes area around the 1950s. The purpose of the work was originally scholarly - the authors wished to study whether disconfirmation - a shocking, undeniable reality which invalidates the beliefs of a group of people, can actually increase the fervor with which the believers prosylatize others into their belief system, as seems to be the case from several historical examples sited in the introduction (most notably the Millerites). Whether the observations of the authors, who infiltrated the cult by posing as believers, bear out this conclusion is of secondary importance (although the argument is good that they do, so far as these things can be born out). The real meat of this book is the fascinating insight it gives into group madness. We see the cult develop from a band of mystics and Scientologist housewives into a coherent, self deluding movement. For those into this kind of thing, the book also provides insight into the connections between Theosophy, Dianetics/Scientology, the 1950's UFO phenomenon, and the New Age Movement which are also fascinating. I recommend the hell out of this book.

[Hadrian · Rating 3 out of 5]

A 1956 study on a rather benign group centered around aliens and unidentified flying objects (UFOs). They believed - sincerely, fervently - that a UFO would take them away from Earth on a certain day, it didn't happen. What did they think and do after?

Festinger, one of the pioneers of the field of social psychology, uses the idea of "cognitive dissonance" to explain what he finds. In short, cognitive dissonance is what happens when a person's beliefs and actions contradict each other. The more committed a person is to their beliefs, the more discomfort they feel when there is a mismatch between their belief and their action.

To sum up - when the prophecy was proven false, some members of the group left, but others continued to believe, even more passionately, and refused to consider the new events - or made up some internally consistent reason for why they happened the way they did.

The methodology of the book is suspect today - Festinger's graduate students infiltrate the group and at times prod them with questions. The book's writing is more clinical and is at times just a rote listing of events. Yet even with these caveats, the book's ideas are intriguing and they have some explanatory power.

[Esteban del Mal · Rating 5 out of 5]

“God is dead, but given the way of men, there may still be caves for thousands of years in which his shadow will be shown.” -- Nietzsche

I love stories about weirdos because they allow me to feel like much less of a weirdo than I am.

Some people like to get high. Whether or not that high comes about through peyote or transcendental meditation or wanting to be whisked away on a UFO to some utopia because you think you’re special enough to merit the time and energy for such a trip (that last one kinda seems narcissistic, doesn't it?), who am I to judge? In fact, I can sympathize. I like to think that I realized I wanted off this rock at the age of 6. Back then, my mother would watch TBN all the time. She watched it because she was poor and in a shitty marriage and she took comfort in the idea of a loving, omnipotent God. Me being an only child and close to my mother, I was attuned to her psyche, so I started saying things like, “I can’t wait to die so I can go to heaven.”

I told you I was weird.

But isn’t that a logical conclusion for a naif like my pre-prepubescent self to make? Have you read The Bible? Have you been around a frenzied preacher? The way to get to heaven is to die. Anyway, my proclamation rightly freaked my parents out, my mom connected the dots and stopped watching TBN, and she and dad told me to shut up about dying already. (Also, we were closeted Jews, but I won’t get into that here.) But these people? Geesh! They don’t even think they have to die to get the fuck out! What hubris! At least Gnostics despise all matter, but these pop sci-fi/polytheistic Jesus-ish quasi-cultists only thought you needed to cut the metal out of your clothes to be transported onto a flying saucer.

Sure, this can be criticized as a valid study because the group itself was infused with social scientists posing as members who, whether they like it or not, contributed to the group’s actions and directed it at least passively, so it’s not so much a valid study as a piece of investigative journalism, but who cares? They were weird long before the social scientists showed up. And if I was forced to hear about some peyote smoking weirdos from antiquity talking about burning bushes and whatnot secondhand, I sure as hell deserve to read about some housewife and her pals claiming to be in touch with aliens firsthand. Their weirdness is the soothing balm my weirdness needs.

[Tom · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fascinating and ambitious study but I can't really accept its conclusions because the method of study was so invasive. I mean let's work this out, we've got a cult of maybe a dozen people, six or seven of which are true believers (which is actually on the high side if you get right down to it). These people are horrible at recruiting new converts and aren't really interested in doing so. So you infiltrate this group with FOUR observers and sit back and watch. SUDDENLY the group adepts an attitude of assuming that people who are "chosen" to join them will come on their own accord. At least one of the observers relates a fictitious dream that echoes some of the groups fundamental beliefs in order to gain entry, and SURPRISE the group begins to gain confidence in some of its more outlandish beliefs due to outside confirmations... Are we seeing a trend here? The involvement of the authors tipped the scales in these people's kooky belief system, and very well could've been the catalyst for the sensational prophecies that soon followed. Obviously the only moral way to do a study of this kind is to have direct involvement, but I believe that the zeal of the researchers ultimately corrupted any kind of organic development this "cult" could of been capable of. This is especially true of the fifth mole who tried to join after the prophecy failed in order to gauge the resiliency of these people's beliefs. They treated this late stage addition attempter as if he possessed the answers to why their prediction failed. If that doesn't prove that outside involvement heavily influenced these people than what could? How about including a story about a prank caller telling the cult to come to his house because there is a cataclysmic "flood" starting in his bathroom, and then relating how the cult fell for this story and actually tried to visit the fake address this person left because they were so gullible and confused. Oh wait, that actually happened in this book. So clearly the researchers responsible for this book are at least partly to blame for some of the members of the cult selling of all their earthly possessions, being made a mockery of in the press, and ultimately being mind screwed, because no matter how you slice it they influenced this group of people. Again, I liked the idea behind this book and thought it was an interesting effort, but ultimately I kept reading because the whole thing turned into a bit of a train wreck. Also the middle aged lady who spoke with the voice of the "creator" and who was completely believed by the group made me crack up.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

You're a good person, right? Of course you are, I never doubted it for a moment. We all like to think were good people - fair, honest, generous, all that. Very few people, if asked, would say, "Well, I'm a right bastard and I don't care who knows it!"

So imagine that you - a good person - do something bad. Genuinely bad. You cheat on your spouse. You lie to a friend. You steal from your boss. You commit an act which, if someone else did it, you would roundly condemn them, forcing them into public shame and ignominy. What kind of heel, what kind of cad, what kind of a bastard would do such a thing?

Well, you, as it turns out.

Now you have a problem. The vision of you that you carry in your head - the good, honest, kind, humble (let's not forget humble) person - directly conflicts with the nasty, dishonest thing that you have just done. They're grossly dissonant views, and there is no room for both of them in your head. So what do you do?

Your first option is to reduce your opinion of yourself. Maybe you're not that good a person. Maybe you are a bit of a dick. Maybe, when it comes right down to it, you're just a jerk who knows how to hide it. That right there is some painful truth, and very few people are willing to face up to it.

So you turn to your other option: justify what you did. The spouse you cheated on? Well, maybe if they paid a little more attention to you,you wouldn't have to do it. The friend you lied to? Well, was he honest about that "business trip" that made him miss your annual Memorial Day Meatapalooza Barbecue? Hell, no. He was "in the hospital," visiting "his sick mother." As for work, well if your boss actually paid you what you were worth, you wouldn't need to steal from the register.

You rationalize what just happened, which allows you to not only move on with your life, but paves the way for similar actions in the future, making it that much easier to cheat, lie, and steal the next time.

Welcome to cognitive dissonance.

The classical view of humankind was that we were, ultimately, rational animals. That if you show a person sufficient evidence, that person will alter his opinion accordingly. So, under that model, our Imaginary You (tm) would admit to your inherent badness when confronted with the evidence if your misdeeds.

In the 20th century, however, psychologists were noticing that this wasn't true at all. In fact, in a lot of cases the direct disconfirmation of a belief merely made that belief stronger. Show a smoker data on how dangerous cigarettes are, and she'll tell you that they help her relax, or they only take off the bad years at the end. Show a climate change denier data on the warming of the planet, and you know who you'll hear from only minutes after the first snowfall of the season.

Humans, as it turned out, were a lot less rational than we had suspected. By being able to hold two thoughts in our minds that are mutually incompatible, we set ourselves up for mental disaster, and the only way out is to fool ourselves.

In the mid 1950s, the authors of this book were looking into this phenomenon, especially as it applied to groups and millennialism – the belief that the world is rapidly in danger of ending. They looked at various historical examples, such as the early Christian church, who believed that Jesus' return was right around the corner, the Anabaptists of the 16th century, the followers of Sabbatai Zevi in the 17th century and the Millerites of the nineteenth. They all believed that the end of the world was at hand, they all collected groups of followers who believed wholeheartedly that they were right, and they were all, without exception, wrong. Despite that, not only were they not swayed from their beliefs, they actually became more convinced that they were, ultimately, right.

What could account for such patently irrational behavior? Festinger and his partners believed they knew what it was, and set out five simple conditions under which the phenomenon could arise. In brief:

1. The believer must believe implicitly and that belief must have an effect on how he or she behaves.
2. The believer must have committed him or herself to the belief, performing actions that are difficult or impossible to undo. For example, giving away all their money, quitting their job, etc.
3. The belief must be specific, related to the real world, and able to be proven unequivocally wrong.
4. Evidence disconfirming the belief must occur, must be undeniable, and must be recognized by the believer
5. (and most important) The believer must have social support for his or her belief system.

Under these conditions, Festinger hypothesized, not only would a person persist in their belief, but they would become more convinced, and likely try to convert more followers. After all, if more people believe that you're right, then maybe you are.

But how to test it out? Their best cases, after all, were at least a hundred years gone, and time travel hadn't been invented yet. Fortunately, they got wind of a group of UFO believers who held that the earth was going to be ravaged by floods and that aliens would rescue the faithful to make them the new enlightened rulers of the species. Led by a woman out of Chicago who was receiving messages through automatic writing, this group held that the event would take place before dawn on December 21, 1954.

Knowing a good chance when they saw one, Festinger and his colleagues managed to infiltrate the group and observe their progress, attitudes and beliefs up to, during, and after the event that never happened. In the book, they go through the timeline and touch on all the major players – names changed to protect the innocent, of course – and watched to see if their hypothesis would hold. Would the media-shy Mrs. Keech do an about-face once the disaster didn't show? What would happen to people like Dr. Armstrong, who sacrificed his job and his good name in order to assure that he would be picked up by the aliens? How would the group handle predictions that never came true, follow orders that never worked out, and rationalize this fundamentally irrational behavior?

The study does have some fairly glaring flaws, which the authors themselves point out in the epilogue. For one, they had barely enough time to get involved with the group, and gaining entry was a matter of brute force more than finesse. For another, it was almost impossible not to influence the group. Observers were taken as believers, and expected to act as such. Acting undercover, they couldn't record meetings or, in many cases, take notes until after the fact. Any meeting with the academics had to be carefully arranged so as not to blow their cover, and the long hours, erratic schedule and generally high tension of the group made being an academic double agent very difficult indeed.

Despite that, Festinger and his group present a textbook case of group cognitive dissonance that follows the pattern they expected it to. Believers who met all five criteria were much more likely to seek out new believers than the ones who, for example, were not with the group when the world didn't end.

Of course, the reason I picked up the book was because of the May 21, 2011 Rapture prediction by Harold Camping. He had the Rapture scheduled down to the minute, and had attracted followers who met the initial criteria set out by Festinger more than fifty years ago. Sure enough, when the Big Day came and went, Camping and his followers kept to the script. They saw that the Rapture hadn't come, then revised their predictions and went out looking for people to convince.

More interestingly, though, is how this can apply to other group dynamics. It can be applied to political parties, regional differences, racial differences, bigotry of every flavor and color. It can be connected to celebrity worship and religious fervor, to economic theories, institutional groupthink and scientific biases. Almost any common belief that can gather a crowd is an open invitation to Festinger's five criteria. Lovers of organic food. Adherents to market capitalism, homeopathy, religions of every size and shape. The antivaxxers, conspiracy theorists, Democrats, Republicans, Tea Partiers, Klansmen, environmentalists, educators.... The list is endless.

What slowly dawned on me the day after I originally wrote this review was the implications of the Internet on Point Five (the need for social support). Let's say it's 1956, and you have a favorite political candidate. For our purposes, let's call her, I dunno, Kara Whelan. You really believe she is a good candidate, and you've spent a good deal of time and energy supporting her. Maybe you've tried to convince friends and family – perhaps encountering resistance, maybe had a few arguments - donated money, or even worked on her campaign in the belief that she is smart and capable, thus fulfilling the first three of Festinger's requirements.

Then she says or does something that is breathtakingly stupid, thereby disconfirming your opinion of her. Point four. In the 1950s, it might have been harder to find people to commiserate with. In the book's case study, people who were away from the group when the flood didn't happen almost invariably gave up on their belief and went back to their lives. Being cut off, or only having access by phone just wasn't enough to keep their belief supported. So, our 1956 person might read the paper, think, "Holy cow, Kara Whelan is dumber than a box of dead ducklings," and have no one around to help fight against that realization.

But here in the 21st century, that kind of support is just a click away. You can go to the Kara Whelan website or supporters' forum and talk to dozens of people who are all busy rationalizing the boneheaded thing she just said and finding reasons why it actually makes her a stronger candidate. The Internet makes it easier to find support for whatever you believe, no matter how untethered to reality it may be, and it allows these beliefs to survive and propagate in a way that would have been unthinkable fifty years ago. Working together, your fellow supporters can elevate your belief and trash those who disagree, generating an internal logic that confirms your belief despite evidence to the contrary. If Mrs. Keech had had a website, this would have been a very different story.

So what does this do for us, other than make us skeptical of anything that more than five people believe at a time? Just that: it keeps us skeptical. When you know what to look for, you can figure out who is likely to be persuaded by reason and who is not. You know who is a valid source of information and who is not. You know who you want to trust, and who you do not.

Most importantly, it allows you to check yourself, to see if you're being as skeptical as you should be. None of us are exempt from this little psychological phenomenon, but we are all equipped with the ability to deal with it properly. Let Mrs. Keech and her UFO cult serve as an object lesson.

------------------------------------------------------

"When you stop and think of it, it seems rather cruel to drown all these people just to teach them a lesson, doesn't it? The way to teach people a lesson, or the way to educate people is to educate them slowly; you can't educate them with one big jolt. And it seems rather silly to drown people and hope to educate them in the astral life. It doesn't seem very logical, does it?"
"Fred Purden", in When Prophecy Fails

[Peter · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is a lot of drama hidden in this research paper by the Minnesota University Psychology Department that originated the term “cognitive dissonance.”

One day in early spring 1955 a housewife from Lake City who dabbled in Scientology (see this excellent book Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief ), Mrs. Keech, starts hearing messages from outer space, which she writes down. Or maybe it is the spacemen from the planet Clarion who take control of her arm and write them for her. In any event, over the course of several months she shares this stream of constant messages from outer space with a select few friends and acquaintances. The story of these messages eventually reaches some wayward Christians in a nearby city who have always wondered about flying saucers, a Mr. and Mrs. Armstrong, who, in turn, introduce these messages and their “meaning” to a Bible study group at their church. (The early 1950s was a boom time for flying saucers in the U.S.)

The researchers at Minnesota University finally get wind of this group in September when Mr. Armstrong contacts the local paper concerning a massive flood that the “spacemen” say will first engulf Lake City, then all of North America and eventually the entire earth, starting at dawn on December 21st of that year. By the time of this announcement to the press, a core group of believers have gathered around Mrs. Keech and the Armstrongs. The Minnesota University researchers surprisingly get entrée into this group in November by feigning interest (and not disclosing their true identity), and are able to observe the group’s activities for the remainder of the time until the predicted flood fails to materialize as promised, and during the few weeks following that non-event.

The activities of this group of true believers leading up to the predicted date of the missing cataclysm, and their individual reactions to its failure are both hilarious and jaw-dropping. (They what?!) I was so astonished that I ended up reading aloud large excerpts from the story to my children, in the hopes that they will never grow up to be so astoundingly lost and naïve.

This timeless study does help us understand the psychology of the cult of Trump believers, and shows that no matter how much rational people demonstrate the actual facts, a core of true believers, if given ANY other explanation, will never let go.

So, in that sense, this book is also terrifying.

[Mesoscope · Rating 3 out of 5]

When Prophesy Fails belongs on the shelf with Stanley Milgrim's experiments on authoritarianism and Philip Zimbardo's notorious "Stanford Prison Experiment." Like those equally-famous works, Festinger's study was profoundly influential, but is wide open to sharp criticism on both procedural and ethical grounds.

When this book was written, Festinger was developing his nascent concept of cognitive dissonance, now a fundamental construct in psychology, which holds that it is uncomfortable for people to hold contradictory beliefs, and when they are faced with contradiction, they will generally take the shortest and "least expensive" path to resolve the contradiction.

For example, if I am convinced that my grandfather is a great man, and he is charged with the commission of financial crimes, then I have a quandary. Depending on the nature and strength of my belief, I might resolve the contradiction by concluding I was mistaken in my impression. But if my belief in that impression is strong - if, for example, I have publicly staked my own reputation on his good conduct - then I will seek other ways to resolve the dissonance. That could mean dismissing the accusations out-of-hand, or minimizing their importance, or even managing to suppress the whole thing and simply not to think about it.

To explore this idea, Festinger wanted to see what would happen if a group had publicly committed to a prediction or prophesy, and then the prophesy failed to come true. His prayers were answered when he caught wind of a small UFO cult based in Chicago that was predicting a great flood would destroy much of America on December 21 of the same year.

Festginer and his group sent several observers to infiltrate the cult to see what would happen, and it was partly on the basis of this case study that he would go on to later publish a work outlining this theory of cognitive dissonance. In this case, his theory predicted that people who were heavily committed to the prophesy would only become more committed to it after the prediction failed to materialize.

So that's the theoretical background, but the vast majority of this book consists of a kind of field report of what went on within the group over four or five months. The group revolved around a woman pseudonymously referred to as Marian Keech in a lame, half-hearted attempt to conceal her true identity - the great publicity the group eventually attracted made it easy to unmask all of the principle characters.

Mrs. Keech had a broad interest in what we might now call New Age - theosophy, flying saucers, the theory of Atlantis, Dianetics, et cetera. One fine day she suddenly and to her own surprise began channeling messages from a being from the planet Clarion named Sananda, who turns out to also be Jesus Christ. It was Sananda who regularly sent her often-garbled messages predicting a great flood.

Mrs. Keech gathers a small group of six to ten followers around her to learn what they can from "the boys upstairs" and to prepare for the immanent flood. The group is open about their beliefs, which causes a great deal of friction with friends, families, and employers, and eventually law enforcement. However, they do not proselytize or even willingly accept new members, and it posed a bit of a challenge for the researchers to get their two operatives in the inner circle.

Most of the book is a fairly depressing chronicle of the group and its members, cataloging their incoherent and archaic beliefs, which are a pastiche of spiritualist mumbo-jumbo and the regurgitated contents of their unconscious minds conveyed through what amounts to automatic writing. It is distressing to read of the toll that it takes on many of them; one member loses his prestigious job, becomes an object of ridicule, and his sister attempts to have him declared mentally unfit and to seize custody of his children and his estate. Others, anticipating elevation to a higher plane, give up their jobs and cut ties with friends and families. On the whole, it's the story of a group of people who appear incapable of critically evaluating information and assessing its reliability, and it will no doubt remind many readers of people they may know in the circles of the Jehovah's Witnesses, the Church of Scientology, QAnon, and other cults.

To make a long story short, the group comes together the night before the prophesied flood and awaits the midnight arrival of a UFO which is to take them to safety. When midnight comes and goes, it lands with the force of a physical blow, and several of the members begin to unravel. By the time the flood fails to arrive, the group turns to Sananda in desperation and confusion, and then they receive a critical message - the flood was averted by the "love and light" generated by the group of true believers:

“Not since the beginning of time upon this Earth has there been such a force of Good and light as now floods this room and that which has been loosed within this room now floods the entire Earth.”

In my view, the critical detail here, which passes completely unnoticed by the authors, is that the anticipated flood of destruction turns out to be a spiritual flood of love and liberating energy. This is completely consistent with the structure of numerous religious initiatory systems, including the Eleusis rites of Demeter that were held for a thousand years, and in which the initiates would also huddle together in the dark for a long evening until the morning-time epiphany, by which they died to the flesh and were born to the spirit.

This is worth mentioning because the psychologists here, I think, are unfamiliar with the character of religious psychology, which is highly relevant for understanding what happened here.

Once the group members receive the Good News, they overflow with happiness and enthusiasm and, for the first time, become actively evangelical. This, for Festinger, is key evidence for his hypothesis, but as I have indicated, I believe an alternative explanation is equally plausible. The group members did not experience the non-occurrence of the flood as a "failure of prophesy," but that they had mistaken the character of the prediction for an actual flood, which was transformed by their spiritual energy. As a consequence, they emerged re-energized from an experience that William James had already amply characterized as "conversion" in his classic Varieties of Religious Experience.

Festinger, on the other hand, reads this as support for his theory of cognitive dissonance, and sees the participants as doubling down on their convictions to minimize the discrepancy between their beliefs and their expectations.

This brings us to one of the most severe deficits of the design of this study. Festinger wants to account for the surprising response of these cult members to the disconfirmation of their prediction by appealing to a cognitive feature that we all possess. However, the group he selected is obviously highly atypical in their ability to critically evaluate new information. I am not even sure what it would mean to say, as Festinger does, that their view was "unequivocally disconfirmed," when we are talking about a group of people persuaded that Jesus is communicating with them from outer space.

Generally speaking, this "study" is completely uncontrolled, and the possibility for confounds is enormous. At best, only the most tentative suggestions for underlying psychological mechanisms can be extrapolated, and those that are must be treated as provisional and anecdotal.

There is a deeper problem with this study, which is its incredibly unethical character. I am well aware that ethical standards for psychological research on human subjects has changed dramatically since this research was conducted, but it is obvious that sending participants into this group can only offer support to them in their self-destructive worldview. In fact, this is precisely what Festinger's theory predicts - that the resilience of disconfirmed beliefs is in part a function of the social support offered by a group of co-believers in maintaining it.

When the dust settles, Mrs. Keech has to flee the state in disguise, fearing psychiatric confinement and hounded by a warrant for her arrest. Several members of the group are financially ruined, and their lives and the lives of their families are thrown into chaos. Group members are threatened with divorce and psychiatric confinement. And in all of this, it apparently never occurred to Festinger that there might be anything unethical in supporting the group members in their beliefs for his own ends - not to mention that several of the people involved are now world-famous because of this landmark book. Festinger spends more than a dozen pages considering whether or not the researchers may have somehow biased the data by virtue of their participation, but doesn't say a single word about the ethics of the situation.

[Sandra The Old Woman in a Van · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a crazy nonfiction book that reads like a modern podcast tell-all about a UFO-centered cult awaiting the end of the world. It’s a seminal piece of social science research, although it’s methodology is seriously flawed. The research is reported anecdotally through stories collected by a large number of cult infiltrators. As such, it might have some utility as a pilot study that needs well designed followup studies to confirm the underlying hypotheses. Still, it’s remarkably engrossing as I read it over two days. Given current happenings in the US and abroad we can see cognitive dissonance at work real time. This book gives us a glimpse at how it can occur using a situation that modern readers are removed from so it feels more neutral - if that makes sense? If you read this book make sure to include the methodology section at the back as it helps explain the issues with interpretation. Despite the flaws, it’s a fascinating read and has me thinking about and observing behaviors relating to cognitive dissonance.

[Regan · Rating 5 out of 5]

James Randi once remarked, if you would like a sobering moment of humility, go and look up the list of cognitive biases. Our minds might have evolved to maximize our chance of survival and to propagate our genes, but they certainly didn't evolve to produce rational conclusions based on skeptical analysis of claims and evidence. I think history has shown that perspective has taken greater time and energy to form. So enter the UFO cult of Charles Laughead and Dorothy Martin, renamed here Marian Keech and Dr Thomas Armstrong. Prediction of a worldwide flood from a space Jesus named Sananda has been delivered to Mrs. Keech via the medium of automatic writing. Leon Festinger and company violated some of the objective rules of social science to observe the groups activities pre and post prophecy. What's observed applies to all prophecy of coming events and faith based beliefs. Faith still amounts to telling yourself what ain't so, is so. Well worth reading, well worth reflecting on, and well worth considering in the context of our own lives.

[Michael Perkins · Rating 4 out of 5]

“A man with a conviction is a hard man to change. Tell him you disagree and he turns away. Show him facts or figures and he questions your sources. Appeal to logic and he fails to see your point.”


― Leon Festinger, A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...

[JK · Rating 5 out of 5]

Required reading in the age of QAnon, Jordan Peterson and the catastrophic failures of neoliberal centrism.

[Cool_guy · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's 1954. A group of social scientists from the University of Minnesota infiltrate a UFO doomsday cult started by a housewife in suburban Chicago in order to study how the members will react to the failure of the world to end. At one point, one of the authors is invited to lead a cult meeting by sharing his personal experiences with the "spacemen" who will rescue the group from earth. Not wanting to influence the cult, he instead proposes that they all mediate. The group stands in silence for 30 minutes. At another, one of the women claims that she has direct access to the "Creator", who she claims has overridden the cult's ban on meat. She brought pot roast to celebrate. This also frees one of the cult members from an all nut diet that was imposed on him by a prophecy. When the cult finally falls apart after the failure of the aforementioned prophecy, the self-declared prophet goes to Arizona to join the scientologists. There's too much to list.

This is a Coen Brothers movie.

[Kyle · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was both fascinating and in desperate need of an editor. At the time it was written, the primary audience was academia. I think current events, however, would justify an abbreviated version for a general audience.

I discovered Prophecy Fails while reading commentary on QAnon believers reaction to President Biden's inauguration. The comparison could not be more relevant. Not because of UFOs, but because when faced with certain disconfirmation, committed believers often commit themselves even further.

Beyond this, it was fascinating to explore the depth of this group's belief system overtime and how their interactions evolved.

[Dominic · Rating 2 out of 5]

THE GOOD: "So what happens when the people in the book find out that the world hasn't ended?" The strong believers with social support rationalize it ("It was just a test of our faith!") and ultimately become stronger in their faith ("When the end of the world happens for real, we will surely be picked up by the benevolent extra-terrestrial beings who tested us since we passed with flying colors!"). Others, who lacked strong social support or remained isolated from other group members and had weaker beliefs to begin with, will simply come to see their faith dwindle until the give up completely.

Both these people (the strong believers and the weaker believers) experienced cognitive dissonance when their belief that the world was going to end on December 21, 1955 coincided with the cold hard fact that the world did not indeed end on that day. However, because of various factors, both groups resolved their dissonance in different ways.

THE BAD: Ultimately, this book goes to show you that when cognitive dissonance is present (that is, when people hold two or more conflicting beliefs which cause us to be psychologically uncomfortable), we are invariably driven to resolve these inconsistencies in ingenious ways.

Although the book uses a group of UFO-driven, God-fearing, Scientology-induced group to prove their theory, the lessons learned may well be applied to our every day lives as well. (For example, you are very environmentally-friendly. You buy a car and it turns out that cars spends a lot of gas. How do you feel? What do you do? Cognitive dissonance...)

THE UGLY: Overall a fairly lengthy book and somewhat dull, however. I wouldn't read an entire book about cognitive dissonance. I'd much rather a small article that summarize the findings, etc.

[Samuel · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an odd, fascinating book this is! It comes from a time when the social sciences could get away with a lot of things that nowadays would be considered highly unethical -- many of the critiques of the book center on Festinger & co.'s covert infiltration of the Seekers, as well as the ways in which their doing so changed the dynamic of the group. As a proof of its scientific theories, it's interesting, though much flawed. But as a portrait of an intriguing group of people at that strange moment in American history that was the 1950s, it's remarkable. As other reviewers have noted, "Mrs. Keech" (aka Dorothy Martin) and her group actually come across very sympathetically -- there's none of the dangerous lunacy of Heaven's Gate or the sneering sociopathy of Jim Jones to be found here. And, for all his faults, Festinger writes clearly and is easy to follow, which isn't always the case with social sciences authors.

A perfect study? No, not at all. But a truly engrossing and interesting snapshot? Absolutely.

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nobody could write this book today. The researchers and their graduate students document their undercover penetration of a Apocalypse cult in pitch-perfect, meticulous detail; the only problem is that they violate just about every principle of scientific inquiry and social psychological ethics in the process. Despite its scientific shortcomings, the book is a fascinating and occasionally touching portrait of people who are desperately looking for self-validation in an impersonal world. The dry humor of the writers is evident throughout, particularly in the climactic chapter entitled "Four Days of Very Imminent Salvation" -- a chronicle of the time leading up to midnight on the prophesied last day. How does the cult deal with life when the world does not, in fact, end as expected? Read to find out, but keep in mind that their conclusions have been largely discounted by subsequent researchers.

[Francis Bezooyen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some reviewers have criticized this study for the fact that by infiltrating the cult in question the researchers influenced the events that took place within it. However, the authors do a good job of outlining just what kinds of influence their actions had, and I feel assured that it was as minimal as possible if any kind of deep observation of this group were to be conducted at all, and also that there remains an enormous amount of "clean" data from which one may pluck out very useful insights. If nothing else - it is a fascinating account.

[Colin Loberg]

p. 137-38: “Only the chosen were eligible for instruction, and mere curiosity seekers or those who came to jeer were to be turned away. How to discriminate between chosen and heathen was a matter for one’s inner knowing. . . . There was no plan, no systematic indoctrination, but simply huge, indifferent chaos.”

Picked this up after seeing it described as a possible guide for understanding adherents of the loosely defined Qanon cult.

This cult is much more benign, concerning a small group of Chicago-area residents in the 1950s who were convinced that some of the group had contact with a higher, extraterrestrial power and were warned of a coming great flood. Over the course of the group’s time with one another, these predictions mutated to include averted earthquakes, visitors from other worlds and finally—peaceful abduction by flying saucer. Importantly, a prediction being proven false was not the end of the cult but just led to more outreach.

The researchers summarized their findings with five necessary conditions for increased faith after a predicted outcome fails: 1) there must be conviction; 2) there must be commitment to this conviction; 3) the conviction must be amenable to unequivocal disconfirmation; 4) such unequivocal disconfirmation must occur; 5) social support must be available subsequent to the disconfirmation.

The followers who were isolated from the other believers after aliens failed to show up in Illinois ended up leaving the group, rejecting their beliefs and returning to a quiet life.

So, what does this mean for 2020 when any potential cult adherent has internet access? I’m not a social scientist but I’m gonna say it can’t be good.

[Stephen Lamb · Rating 4 out of 5]

Do you, perhaps, remember being 10 years old, surrounded by thousands of white Independent Baptist preachers shouting their amens and glories as the preacher for the evening declared that in the soon-coming millennial reign of the messiah from a temple in Jerusalem, they were claiming the mayorship of Chattanooga? And that Brother Bob could be the mayor of Cleveland, and Brother Scott could be the mayor of Atlanta? Because I do. Vividly.

I've just finished reading When Prophecy Fails, first published in 1956 (this is a second edition I found, from ��63) which I bought after a lunchtime conversation last year where a friend, in the midst of discussing formative religious experiences, mentioned the phrase “disconfirmed expectancy,” coined by these authors, he said, and encouraged me to read it. (His grandfather ghostwrote 19 of the first 25 Hardy Boys books, which gets a different reaction from people hearing that my great grandfather wrote Bobbed Hair, Bossy Wives, and Woman Preachers, but that’s a different subject.)

I was reminded of that preacher claiming mayorship of his desired city when I read here that “Mrs. Keech” (aliases are used throughout) was told by The Guardians that “those who are most ethereal will be taken to planets of the highest density and there trained to be the future rulers of a cleansed earth; those who are of a lower density will be left behind to suffer discomfort and bodily death, but their spirits will eventually be taken to planets of a (spiritual) density appropriate to their own development.”

It has been nothing short of surreal to read this study by Festinger et al. this month, while watching so many of the people I grew up around, holding tightly to their cherished fantasies of voter fraud and other grand conspiracies, post incessant streams of alternative facts on social media, completely divorced from reality but cheered on by the community they’ve collected on Facebook (meeting the fifth condition Festinger sets out in his study, that the individual believer must have social support.)

Every piece of disconfirming evidence–showing that massive voter fraud did not happen, that we truly are in the midst of a pandemic, that Q is not the oracle they want him to be–serve only to persuade them to double down on their beliefs. Festinger: "It is reasonable to believe that dissonances created by unequivocal disconfirmation cannot be appreciably reduced unless one is in the constant presence of supporting members who can provide for one another the kind of social reality that will make the rationalization of disconfirmation acceptable."

Summary: for a head-spinning read, pair this book with a tour through the Facebook feeds of people you used to know.

[Jaedon · Rating 3 out of 5]

The subject material is fairly interesting, and the primary group of interest really a perfect fit for the authors to test their hypotheses regarding the impact of the provable disconfirmation of prophecy on prophetic groups. Their introduction to several such groups throughout history is interesting if dry, but my primary complaint about this book and the reason for dropping two stars off the rating is this: when it comes to discussing the main group, there seems to have been little to no editing of their first-hand accounts of the actions of the group. At it's core, their story is fascinating, if unsettling. However, after reading page after page of "A went to B's house and they called a meeting, then C went to his job and talked to a coworker, then 5 hours later..." I kept catching myself skipping entire paragraphs out of sheer boredom, looking ahead to see if anything interesting was coming up. Additionally, when you get to the end of the book you realize that something is missing; they seem to have forgotten that part of a 'Study' involves developing actual results. It can be inferred that they were satisfied that this group matched all of their initial conditions, but there is essentially no summary of or even formal statement of their conclusions. A better title might be "A (Possibly Unedited) Account of a Modern Group that Predicted the Destruction of the World".

The authors are upfront about their concern that their active participation in the group for the purpose of gathering data could have contaminated the observation, and perhaps that is the reason they withheld any firm conclusions. I would still say this book is worth a read, but only if you go in prepared to work through what is essentially raw data.

[Marc Sims · Rating 3 out of 5]

A team of psychologist infiltrated a doomsday cult back in the 50’s to observe what happens to true believers when the prophesied end of the world comes to naught. The adherents on the farthest fringe fall away, but the most devout believers double down on their faith, reinterpreting events to make sense of the failure: “The aliens decided to abandon the plans to destroy the world because we were so faithful in our belief.” Most surprisingly, the disconfirmation took people who were medium in their belief and actually deepened their faith.

It’s an interesting study in confirmation bias and the natural desire for all people to simply *want* something to be true. I’m sure many atheists read this with glee. But, of course, they are just as susceptible to confirmation bias as anyone else, just as prone to reinterpret facts in any way so long as it justifies their priors.

If we want any hope of breaking out of the circle of subjectivity, we need an objective Outside who can break through.