-Caveat Lector-
Coming Again
The orgasmic release of the Apocalypse myth
BY ROBERT ANTON WILSON
[ 11.15.99 ]
The sky is falling! The sky is falling! -- Chicken
Little
Back in the early 1980s, Vicki Weaver, a pious
Christian lady, persuaded her husband Randy
that the Bible proved that the final battle
between Christ and Antichrist would take place
in 1987, beginning with an attempted slaughter
of the Christians by ZOG -- the Zionist
Occupied Government in Washington, D.C. The
two of them (and their children) logically moved
to a high hill in Idaho -- Ruby Ridge -- where
they planned to stage their own last fight for
the Lord.
Alas, 1987 passed, Vicki had to recalculate, and
things were a bit fuzzy there for a while. But
then the '90s came 'round, Randy sold a
sawed-off shotgun to a government informer,
and the Feds arrived to arrest him. Randy and
Vicki thought they were facing the ZOG, the
Feds thought they were dealing with lunatics,
and the results were so bloody all around that
Ruby Ridge remains controversial to this day.
Sometimes, the Apocalypse can ruin your whole
week.
On the other hand, I have survived Doomsday
so many times that it has begun to bore me. In
the last three months alone, I have -- we all
have -- lived right on through three dates that
leading eschatologists have authoritatively
named as the Day of Reckoning (11 August, 11
September, and 7 November.).
I wonder why so many people have such a
lascivious longing for the Apocalypse? It seems
a far more popular fantasy game than Dungeons
& Dragons, and, of course, it has all the thrills
and chills of a slasher movie.
But there may be more here, just as there is to
horror and catastrophe movies if you think
about them. Neo-Freudians, and especially
Reichians, suggest that our form of civilization
stifles and constricts us so much that at times
we all long to experience some orgasmic but
catastrophic "explosion," like King Kong breaking
his chains and wrecking New York, or even
more like the masochist in bondage, according
to Dr. Reich. This sudden release from the
bondage-and-discipline of our jobs and our
taxes -- actually called the Rapture by
Fundamentalists -- seems ghoulishly attractive
to Christians, New Agers, and others who
believe in a "spirit" that will survive the general
wreckage. In that case, the end of the world
seems no worse than a visit to the dentist: You
know you'll feel better afterwards. This sort of
desire for Total Escape/Total Annihilation has
always had its bards and visionaries.
Christianity, for instance, started out as a
typical Doomsday cult:
Verily, I say unto you, there will be some of
them that stand here which shall not taste of
death until they have seen the Kingdom of God
come with power. -- Mark 9:1
And there shall be signs in the sun and in the
moon and in the stars... This generation shall
not pass until all be fulfilled. -- Luke 21: 25,32
And then shall appear the sign of the Son of
Man in heaven ... This generation shall not pass
until all these things be fulfilled. -- Matt 24:
30,34
Of course, when all the marks standing there
and their whole generation did pass without the
Apocalypse coming, these prophecies required
reinterpretation. The second most common
talent among Doomsayers -- after their
unparalleled ability to predict dates on which
the world perversely does not end -- is their
capacity to recalculate. But, then, theology is
logic with deuces and one-eyed jacks wild.
Among those not committed to the Rapture,
prophecies of doom usually have another
loophole: Only most of humanity will perish. In
these scenarios, those with the Right Ideas will
survive, although they will probably need to
stockpile food, water, and guns in advance.
Those with the Right Ideas are the ones who
believe in the Prophet, of course. Thus there
seems an element of sadism mixed in with the
masochism of the Millennialist mentality: We will
suffer only a little, these folks say, but the rest
of you motherfuckers are really going to get the
works. Well, Freud himself pronounced that
sadism and masochism always contain a bit of
one another.
Here's a brief list of some of the Doomsdays
that had to be postponed:
1141 CE -- Hildegard of Bingen predicted
the world would end that year. It didn't.
October 22, 1844 -- This was Doomsday,
as calculated from the Bible by William
Miller, who had previously goofed by
announcing that it would occur in 1843.
When the 1844 prophecy also failed, new
calculations from the same texts gave
birth to the Adventists, the Seventh-day
Adventists and, later, the Jehovah's
Witnesses.
The Jehovah's Witnesses originally picked
1914 as the jackpot year. Some of them
rejoiced in the bloody World War that
began that year, as the palpable, visible,
undeniable "beginning" of the end. But
others calculated exact years for the end
of the end: 1918, 1920, 1925, 1941,
1975, and 1994, for instance. I survived
all of them, and I guess you did, too, or
you wouldn't be reading this.
In 1957, a pastor named Mihran Ask
chose April 23, 1957 as the Last Day; I
remember that vividly because Paul
Krassner claimed in the next issue of The
Realist that the world had really ended
that day and we just weren't paying
attention.
In 1986, Moses David of the Children of
God predicted the battle of Armageddon
would happen that year and Christ would
return in 1993.
In 1983, Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh
predicted the catastrophes would begin in
1984 and climax in 1999.
The famous psychic Edgar Cayce
predicted that Christ would return in
1998. Why haven't we heard from him?
Maybe he's having trouble finding a place
to rent.
Another psychic, Criswell -- best
remembered for his oratorical
performances in Ed Wood's movies --
predicted August 18, 1999 as the end of
time.
This is only a very, very small selection of failed
end-times prophecy; if you are curious, you
can find longer lists of Doomsdays here and
here.
So far, the batting average of all Doomsayers
has stayed firm at 0.000. That, of course, will
not stop this ever-popular guessing game. We
survived the alleged three meteors of November
7, but we still have Y2K ahead of us; and if we
survive that, well, the Weekly World News
recently reported the Four Horsemen of the
Apocalypse to be in the vicinity of Santa Fe,
heading east.
As long as people enjoy scaring themselves and
scaring one another, horror movies will remain
popular, and so will Doomsday. Pick a date --
any date -- and you may become the leader of
a new cult. You may even get as rich as
Rajneesh or the Pope.
Robert Anton Wilson is the author of 32 books,
including Everything Is Under Control, an
encyclopedia of conspiracy theories, and
maintains the Web's strangest site @
www.rawilson.com. He also serves as CEO of
CSICON (the Committee for Surrealist
Investigation of Claims of the Normal).
Robert Anton Wilson's Night Music runs every
other Monday on GettingIt.
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