Conspirituality20 Nov 2025

284: When Prophecy-Science Fails (w/Thomas Kelly)

In 1954 a doomsday alien cult headed up by Chicagoland housewife Dorothy Martin was waiting for the cataclysmic flood that would herald the arrival of spaceships to transport her and her followers to safety. When the hour came and went and nothing happened, she and her followers made up a Bible’s worth of excuses, saying that the group's penitence and piety had saved them, and so the failure of the prophecy was actually a validation of their new religion. And even though its central claim had been refuted, they accelerated their efforts to proselytize and convert new followers. This is the story of the 1956 classic study, When Prophecy Fails, by Leon Festinger, Henry Riecken, and Stanley Schachter. Problem is—this didn't really happen. At least not that way. As our guest this week Thomas Kelly points out from his investigation of newly unsealed archival materials, the psychologists not only embedded themselves in Martin's cult in a way that provoked their most irrational statements, they fudged the outcome of Martin story to suit their virally popular new theory of cognitive dissonance. Show Notes Debunking “When Prophecy Fails” - Kelly - 2026 - Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences Failed Prophecies Are Fatal | International Journal for the Study of New Religions Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Denne episoden er hentet fra en åpen RSS-feed og er ikke publisert av Podme. Den kan derfor inneholde annonser.

Episoder(841)

Bonus Sample: Piker, the Zhongshan Suit, and Left Melancholy

Listen to the full episode There’s a lot going on when Hasan Piker wears a Zhongshan suit and praises Maoism. Matthew uses Wendy Brown's 1999 essay "Resisting Left Melancholy", which cites Walter Ben...

31 Aug 5min

Book Club: Plastic Shaman

During James Arthur Ray’s 2009 Spiritual Warrior retreat in Sedona, the self-proclaimed spiritual teacher exhorted participants to “play full-on” in order to overcome their limiting beliefs and fear o...

29 Aug 36min

323: Joe Rogan Defects?

Support the podcast and listen ad-free Someday in the future, Joe Rogan may ask Jamie to be his mirror, and facilitate the next and most important psychedelic experience of his life: a walkthrough o...

27 Aug 1h 10min

Bonus Sample: Has RFK Jr Kept His Promises?

Listen to the full episode Presidential hopeful Robert F Kennedy Jr held a “health policy roundtable” on Rumble on June 27, 2023, just as he was shoring up support from a band of contrarian doctors, ...

24 Aug 5min

Brief: Wetiko: Original, New Age & Marxist Views

Matthew traces the concept of wetiko — a Cree figure for a cannibal spirit whose hunger grows with what it consumes — from its original anticolonial and anti-imperialist meaning in Jack Forbes's 1992 ...

22 Aug 27min

322: The Cult of Spiralism

Support the podcast Spiralism is a quasi-spiritual online movement that emerged from long, intense conversations between humans and AI chatbots. Across users, platforms, and models, chatbots have eng...

20 Aug 1h 11min

Bonus Sample: 1970’s Violent Revolutionary Chic

Listen to the full episode The “Summer of Love” ushered in a decade of revolutionary terrorism in the West. “Bring the war home” went the slogan of the Weather Underground, a small and highly-educate...

17 Aug 8min

Book Club: How the Internet Disrupted Science

How the Internet Disrupted Science is an enlightening gaze into the shady world of for-profit and open access scientific publishing. Authors Kent Anderson and Joy Moore join Derek to discuss their exc...

15 Aug 38min