Various sects and cults have prophesied that on one or another particular date there would arrive a period of redemption and great happiness for those who believed in the group’s teachings. In each instance it has been predicted that the beginning of the time of salvation would be marked by an important and undeniable event, usually the cataclysmic end of the world. Of course, these predictions have invariably proved false. To the acute dismay of the members of such groups, the end has never appeared as scheduled. But immediately following the obvious failure of the prophecy, history records
...more
