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thousand years after the crucifixion) were equally apocalyptic. Hillel Schwartz’s classic survey of fins de siécle from the 990s to the 1990s, Century’s End, turned up far less panic than the author anticipated. Admitting that he was “feeding on coincidence,” Schwartz concluded that any sense of doom at century’s ends is a figment of modern historians. Christopher Hitchens amusingly calls this PMS—Pre-Millennial Syndrome. Like its biological counterpart, PMS is cyclical and predictable, but the actual malaise is rarely as bad as what was anticipated. Carnegie-Mellon historian Peter Stearns goes so far as to declare that “the apocalyptic history of the year 1000 turns out to be one of the most successful, large-scale frauds in modern treatments of the past.” Well, which is it, fear, feign, or fraud? Is there evidence that demands a verdict?

The latest scholarship on the subject, generated primarily by Richard Landes and Stephen O’Leary from the Center for Millennial Studies at Boston University, is that the dates surrounding and marking the thousand-year anniversary of Christ’s nativity and crucifixion (1000 and 1033) “reflect not a variety of equally plausible dates in circulation, but a series of efforts either to speed up the millennium’s arrival, to postdate it, or to salvage a coming millennium after its passage.” In fact, an eclipse in 968 and the arrival of Halley’s comet in 989 were seen by many as signs of the apocalypse. The Europeanwide famine of 1005–1006 was interpreted as fulfilling one of Jesus’ admonitions to his disciples that this would be a sign of the end. In 1033 a mass pilgrimage was made to Jerusalem in preparation for the final judgment. And, especially, the “Peace of God” movements in the 990s and 1030s saw massive throngs of believers gather in open fields to venerate holy relics in the hopes of being healed before the end. So, while the year 1000 did not see mass hysteria, says Landes, “the end is not merely paralyzing terrors; it is also extravagant hope: hope to see an end to the injustice of suffering in this world, hope for a life of ease and delight, hope for the victory of truth and peace.” What do we see following the years 1000 and 1033? Landes quotes medieval chronicler Radulfus Glaber’s famous passage: “It was as if the whole world had shaken off the dust of the ages and covered itself in a white mantle of churches.” Destruction-redemption.

Not all is lost when the end does not come. Hope springs eternal, even for apocalyptic doomsayers. From the Millerites awaiting the end on October 22, 1843 (and again a year later), to the Jehovah’s Witnesses who proclaimed that the generation who saw the Great War (World War I) would not pass before the second coming, to the Heaven’s Gate followers trip to The Evolutionary Level Above Humans, millennial scenarios do not just mean The End. They also mean The Beginning.

WHEN PROPHECY FAILS—A.D. 2000

What will happen in the year 2000 and after no one knows, but we can make some predictions based on what people have done in the past when the predicted collapse does not come. It is an interesting study that teaches us a lot about human nature. It turns out we are a remarkably resilient species.

Psychologists who studied Leland Jensen and his Baha’i sect, for example, discovered that when the end of the world came and went, they did not quietly disband and go home. Psychologist Leon Festinger applied his theory of cognitive dissonance to failed prophecy, and argued that the stronger one’s commitment to a failing cause, the greater the rationalizations to reduce the dissonance produced by the disappointment. Thus, paradoxically, after the 1980 debacle in the bomb shelters, not only did Jensen and his followers not abandon the cause, they ratcheted up the intensity of future predictions, making no less than twenty between 1979 and 1995! Jensen and his flock employed one or all of the following rationalizations: (1) the prophecy was fulfilled—spiritually; (2) the prophecy was fulfilled physically, but not as expected; (3) the date was miscalculated;