How We Believe_ Science and the Search for God - Michael Shermer [118]
Just as Wovoka mixed Native American and Christian motifs into a single Ghost Dance myth, the Heaven’s Gate belief system was a peculiar mixture of evolution, creationism, reincarnation, and UFO-logy (recall the “spaceship” accompanying comet Hale-Bopp). Before they could attain a spiritual state, members had to enter a gender-free stage—no sexual identity and no sex. In preparation they cropped their hair, abstained from sex, and wore androgynous clothing. According to Applewhite (from his Web page): “They are perfectly beautiful bodies—neither male nor female. They don’t have hair that needs to be cut, they don’t need to have curlers. They don’t need to use makeup. It’s a body that exists for the most part, in a nondestructive environment, except when it has to go to a place like planet Earth. So it’s potentially an eternal body—an everlasting body.” Oppression on Earth, redemption in TELAH
WHY THE MESSIAH MYTH RETURNS
Why, it seems reasonable to ask, would these similar myths recycle through dissimilar cultures and distinct ages? Cultural diffusion may explain some thematic similarities, but a broader hypothesis is that there are a limited number of responses to perceived oppression and the general hardships of the human condition, and the belief in a returning Messiah who will deliver redemption is one of the most common. The specifics vary with varying cultures, but the general theme returns again and again. Why?
History is an exquisite blend of the specific and the general, the unique and the universal. The past is neither one damn thing after another (Heraclitus’ river), nor is it the same damn thing over and over (Spengler’s life cycles). Rather, it is a series of generally repeating patterns, each one of which retains a unique structure and set of circumstances. History is uniquely cyclical. Wars and battles, witch crazes and social movements, holocausts and genocides, all recycle through history with remarkable periodicity. The reason is that while there are an infinite number of combinations of specific details, there are a limited number of general rules that channel those details into similar grooves. Every historical event is unique, but not randomly so. They are all restricted by the parameters of the system. Such events recycle because the conditions of these parameters periodically come together in parallel fashion.
When social conditions include oppression of a people, there is a good chance that the response will be the belief in a rescuing messiah delivering redemption. The messiah myth, like all myths, may be a fictitious narrative, but it represents something deeply nonfictional about human nature and human history. To this extent it is an important component in answer to the question of how we believe.
Chapter 9
THE FIRE THAT WILL CLEANSE
Millennial Meanings and the End of the World
We, while the stars from heaven shall fall,
And mountains are on mountains hurled,
Shall stand unmoved amidst them all,
And smile to see a burning world.
—Millerite hymn, 1843
On Monday, October 27, 1997, the Dow Jones Industrial Average crashed a record 554.24 points, the biggest one-day drop in history. By the time Ted Koppel’s expert guests on Nightline reflected on the day’s disaster, eastern hemisphere markets were opening to record losses: Korea down 7 percent, Hong Kong down 16 percent, Australia down 10 percent. As Americans scrambled to place their sell orders the next day, the news from Europe was grim: Germany down 5 percent, Belgium down 8 percent, Great Britain down 8 percent. The collapse quickly spread westward: Mexico down 13 percent, Brazil down 15 percent, Venezuela down 12 percent. It looked like the end of the world.
Like all apocalyptic doomsday predictions in history, however, it was not the end. By the close of the next trading day the Dow was up 337 points and investors