[FRIAM] millenarianism

[Prof David West]

I was asked some questions just as I was leaving vFRIAM today. The following is a continuation of the thoughts that i started to articulate then. I can pretty much predict that no one will agree with my observations, but hope that vituperation will be kept to a minimum.

My last year at St. Thomas, I team taught an honors course with a Professor of Catholic Theology. The topic was *"Millenarianism in1899 and 1999."* His contribution centered on religious movements, including some within Catholicism, and mine was ethnographic.

The groups we studied and taught about were about 2/3 preparing for the End Times, the other third focused more on what you might call a socio-cultural phase change, a transformation of society.

The role of an anthropologist is "to make the strange familiar and the familiar strange." A prime example of the latter is found in the various studies of the Nacerima.

*"The main belief of the Nacirema appears to be that the human body is ugly and that the only way to prevent it from growing weak and diseased is to practice powerful rituals devoted to this purpose. Every household has one or more shrines devoted to this goal. The more powerful people in the society have several ritual shrine rooms in their houses. ... While almost every family has at least one shrine in the home, the ritual ceremonies associated with it are not family ceremonies but are private and secret. The rites are normally discussed only with children, and then only during the period when they are being initiated into these mysteries."*

If I were to write an ethnography of FRIAM, one chapter would be devoted to Millenarianism, especially as practiced at the Mother Temple.

A calendrical event precipitated the overt expression of millenarian behavior and thought. instead of the turn of a century (1899, 19990 or the end of a calendar (2012), it was the election of 2016.

A Trump was sounded (pun intentional) in the heavens, opening the Doors of Hell and loosing the Dogs of Chaos. The end was clearly nigh. 'He' had his finger on the button of nuclear annihilation! 'He' is a Russian agent! 'He' is certifiably insane (narcissistic personality disorder at minimum)! More concerning, the conviction that once installed 'He' would never leave. American was at the verge of a precipitous drop into Fascism.

Basically, destruction was at hand The Learned Authorities confirmed every fear. The Forces of Good were marshalled, and salvationary doctrine was issued. The Good marched, multiple crusades were launched to retrieve the Holy Land from the Infidel(s).

The system of beliefs, the reading of omens, the predictions and the prognostication of the Millenarians of 1899,199,and 2012 survived but a few days or months. That of 2016 persists to date, and will persist, I am pretty sure, for another four years.

Millenarianism is a mind set, a perspective, that takes hold in a culture, or subculture, and predisposes the manner in which other events, other aspects of the world, are interpreted. It affects how, and by what process, people make decisions, individually and collectively.

COVID, and the response thereto, is an example. From the point that people began taking it seriously, it was interpreted as yet another apocalyptic disaster to be laid at 'His' door. Correct courses of action are given credence in direct proportion to their opposition to what 'He' might have said or opined.

Arcana, e.g. the Master Question List that Nick distributed and the "official pandemic models," are consulted. Convoluted combinations of interpretations of elements of that arcana, determine how questions like, "Is it safe to walk the streets of Wuhan on June 6, 2020? Simpler ways to answer that question are available but ignored. For example, some 10 million people, over half the population, in Wuhan have been tested. Only 300, all of them asymptomatic, have tested positive. What are the odds of meeting one of those positives on my stroll to the 'wet market'?

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I know the preceding is assertive, bombastic, and stated without nuance. But, it is not wrong, in the sense that if I were to write a book, i could document and argue point by point to the same conclusions.

davew


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