They propose a radical solution to the corruption, suffering, venality, and wickedness of this world. They generally appear in a religious cloak, but that frequently serves to legitimize the claims and hopes the millennium expresses. And it often, but not always, seems that nothing less than divine intervention is capable of changing the entrenched order of this world. These ideas emerge into a society's consciousness at large when it begins to appear that old rules of making sense of life suddenly no longer apply. It appears that society has embarked on a new and unpredictable course which threatens the social, economic, and moral bases of life.
People turn to prophetic assurances when life's unpredictability seems intolerable.
Millenarian ideas are most likely to emerge in societies where similar beliefs are already part of tradition, but it appears that they can crop up anywhere. We have set out to follow the developments in this particular myth because the moment is prime for their appearance. The turn of the millennium provokes hopes and fears of colossal changes, a new order for the world, divine or secular, and numbers of people are drawn into its mesmerizing gravity. We aim to chart those feelings and the tales they evoke until the millennium comes, and after. Copyright 1997 by the Center for Millennial Studies.