The End of Time Faith and Fear in the Shadow of the Millenium

by Damian Thompson

THE Damian Thompson highly evocative, brilliant and comprehensive account of apocalyptic belief was a phenomenal critical success upon hardback publication. It brings together the massacre at Waco the solar temple suicdes, the Japanese subway attack, UFO's, angelic vistors and other apparently unrelated phenomenia and places them in the context of the dawning of new world at the time of the millennium.

Genres: History, Religion, Nonfiction, Philosophy

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

English journalist, editor and author.

He has written two books about apocalyptic belief and one about conspiracy theories or "counterknowledge", which he describes as "misinformation packaged to look like fact"

Reviews

[mark monday · Rating 3 out of 5]

page 10: "Nor is it clear why so many civilisations believed in a progressive decline. But having developed that concept it is not surprising that they should have placed themselves towards the end of the process. It might seem an obvious point to make, but it is easier to imagine the past than the future. A detailed scheme of future phases in world history can never hope to carry the weight of a retrospective analysis which explains the dire state of the world. And, in any case, a theory which envisages moral deterioration over a long period starting from now, as it were, devalues the images of current depravity on which religious belief inevitably feeds."

page 44: "Glaber records, for example, a magnificently creepy encounter with the devil, who appears when the bell rings for Matins. He stands at the foot of the monk's bed, a black figure with flattened nose, enormous mouth, goat's beard, dog's teeth and humped back, and plants subversive thoughts in the mind of the sleeper. 'Why do you monks bother with vigils, fasts and humiliations...when countless laymen, steeped in disgraceful deeds, will earn the same rest as you? One day, one hour of repentance could suffice to earn eternal bliss...So why do you trouble to rise at the sound of the bell when you might go on sleeping?' "

page 59: "And now the darker side of the millennial vision is also present: the peasants and vagabonds accomanying the Crusade were responsible for the massacre of between 4,000 and 8,000 Jews, the first such mass slaughter in European history. The link between genocide and the millenarian imagination was to prove an enduring feature of the next few centuries, up to and including the twentieth. Indeed, the systematic killing of millions of people is probably only explicable in terms of an apocalyptic ideology which casts the victims, however defenceless, in the role of demonic enemy: one whose removal is an essential precondition for the establishment of the millennial kingdom, be it New Jerusalem, Thousand-Year Reich, or Dictatorship of the Proletariat."

page 64: "Marjorie Reeves has summed up beautifully this way of looking at history, which appears so contrived to the modern observer: 'It is as if each happening had a vertical point of reference, a "thread" in the hand of God who combined threads into patterns on the inner side of history, whereas we look only for the horizontal connections and the pattern of visible cause and effect spun out along the time span.' "

__________

i heard that analogy above as a child, when posing a rather timeless question to a minister during bible-study class: "If God loves us, why does he let bad things happen to us?"... the minister responded with the story of the quilt: "We are only looking at the underside of the quilt that is life, and it looks like chaos. But if we were to see the side that God is threading, we would see the beauty of God's plan."... i remember being genuinely comforted and satisfied by this explanation. unfortunately, when i came home and excitedly told my atheist father what i had learned in church, his laughing response was "Well if this God truly loves us, then why does he only show us the ugly side of this quilt? What kind of God does that?"

...happiness was dashed, and i was heartbroken!

__________

okay, i gave up. defeated by this book, sigh. and this is a true defeat, because The End of Time is fair, extensively researched, and well-written in a manner that is both scholarly and disarmingly breezy. i respect it, but in the end it was too much for me. i found myself avoiding it, and the times in between readings grew longer and longer. finally, i realized that the reality it depicts was (and, i suppose, is) simply too depressing for me. i live in a big city; if i want to see examples of human stupidity, cupidity, and cruelty, all i have to do is take a long walk. i get paid to help support folks in their fight against such illnesses of the body and the soul; in the end, i decided that i will leave work for work and home for more pleasurable pursuits.

[Niklas · Rating 3 out of 5]

Epätasainen kirja maailmanlopun odottajista, aina antiikista 90-luvun loppuun. Aihe on kiinnostava, mutta välillä Thompson onnistuu kirjoittamaan siitä todella tylsästi, samoja asioita toistaen ja epämääräisesti argumentoiden. Toiset osiot ovat hyvin kirjoitettuja, etenkin Branch Davidiaanien ja Wacon joukkosurman merkitys äärioikeistolle ja toisaalta japanilaisen Aum Shinrikiyon kaasuiskuun johtaneiden toimien avaus. Hyvästä aiheesta huolimatta aika keskinkertainen kirja, jolta odotin aika paljon enemmän.

[Carol · Rating 2 out of 5]

More of a history of past cult and/or religious leaders. Epilogue finishes with Heaven's Gate mass suicide in 1997. No insights or dissection of reasons/thoughts as to these occurrences.

[Carlos · Rating 3 out of 5]

En entregas anteriores me he referido en algunas ocasiones a la tensión que se vive por el fin del milenio, además muy pedantescamente, que quieren así soy yo, he usado la expresión fin de siécle. Sin embargo he hecho esto porque la atmósfera está muy cargada y veo que en la prensa, las películas, en la televisión y aun en mi vida diaria la gente se siente perdida y esperando lo peor. ¿Recuerdan el chisme de que en Agosto íbamos a tener 3 días consecutivos en los que el sol no aparecería y unos ángeles, no los de Charlie, iban a descender?, a eso me refiero. Pero ¿por qué sucede esto? Buscando respuesta me puse a buscar y me encontré un libro que me sirvió mucho para responder mis interrogantes. El Fin del Tiempo. Fe y Temor a la Sombra del Milenio (Taurus, 1998, 427pp, $269.00) es un libro que, muy oportunamente, se da a la tarea de revisar la relación entre el hombre y el supuesto fin del mundo que cada cierto numero de años alguien predice que ocurrirá. Desde la primera civilización que tomó esto como fin último para que los fieles siempre estuvieran con el pendiente, que fue el Zoroastrismo de Babilonia, desde donde brincó a la Biblia, a través del relato de Ciencia-Ficción llamado Apocalipsis escrito en la Isla de Patmos. El hombre siempre ha tenido conocimiento de la banalidad de su paso por la tierra y de la enormidad del tiempo en la que uno simple y sencillamente no es, no existe. Escrito de una manera muy inteligente y documentada por Damian Thompson quien ha sido desde hace muchos años el corresponsal de asuntos religiosos del Daily Telegraph de Londres, experiencia que le sirve para poder conocer todos y cada uno de los movimientos religiosos que actualmente pueblan el mundo. La Iglesia católica es una de las más prudentes que existen, saben de las profecías de Fátima, por lo menos el Papa, y saben que la Parusía, la segunda venida de Jesucristo, está a la vuelta de la esquina, pero no se animan a poner fecha, para ellos el año 2000 es un Jubileo no un motivo de pesar. Pero ¿que pasa con otras denominaciones religiosas?, ¿porqué la gente se atrinchera para esperar el fin del mundo? Aun los muy correctos Testigos de Jehová se equivocaron al predecir el Armageddon al iniciar la I Guerra Mundial. ¿Qué hay detrás de movimientos como los Davidianos de Waco,TX?. O los suicidios en Suiza y Canadá de gente de la Orden del Templo Solar y ¿que pasa con la secta de Aum Shinrikyo que desató una ola de terror en Tokio y entre sus seguidores tenía gente con maestría y doctorado, que tomaban agua del baño de su gurú porque era santa? Las respuestas le aguardan dentro de las páginas de esta pequeña obra que nos sirve para conocer mas de cerca de ese pequeño ente llamado el hombre que se siente el ombligo del universo. Deberían ser mas cool, como los miembros de la secta Heaven´s Gate quienes vivían castrados esperando la venida del fin del mundo, editaron su propia página Web para informar sus creencias y el día que se iban a suicidar salieron a ver La Guerra de las Galaxias y regresaron a envenenarse con pudín porque según ellos había un Ovni esperándolos detrás del cometa Hale-Bopp. Muy correctos, muy nice.

[Carrie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think I bought this in 1999 and then never got around to reading it before the millennium, and then procrastinated reading it, since there obviously hasn't been an apocalypse since.

But I found it startlingly relevant now, from its history of apocalyptic thought and millenarians to a unique take on the culture wars between conservatives and liberals (the United States is the only country peopled early on by a heavily apocalyptic religious group, and perhaps this permeates our culture more than we realize).

The way humans like to imagine we are in unique, and possibly end times, as well, came across as startlingly relevant in our current recession/possible empire in decline era. All in all it was remarkably prescient and still very relevant, although a bit of a dense read.