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Source: Bahá'í Library Online (bahai-library.com), curated by Jonah Winters. Used by permission of the curator. Original citation: Thomas Kelly, Failed Prophecies Are Fatal, bahai-library.com.
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International Journal for the Study of New Religions 14.1 (2023) 48–71
ISSN 2041-9511 (print) ISSN 2041-952X (online)
https://www.doi.org/10.1558/ijsnr.33085
Failed Prophecies Are Fatal
Thomas Kelly
Horizon Institute for Public Service, Washington, DC, USA
tmichaelkelly@gmail.com
Many scholars of new religious movements claim that religious belief
and religious groups generally survive failed apocalyptic or millennial
prophecies. This claim originates with the original cognitive dissonance
study, When Prophecy Fails, and has been reiterated by recent surveys of
the field. In this article, I argue that this is false. I argue that the litera-
ture on religious groups which experience failed prophesy suffers from
survivorship bias. I then demonstrate that even setting that aside, the
extant case studies of failed prophecies show that the most common out-
come for a religious group following a failed prophecy is group demise. I
also argue that groups that root their prophecies in a broadly accepted
source of authority, such as biblical interpretation, fare better after pro-
phetic failure than groups that base their prophecies on novel sources
of authority such as personal revelation or a leader who claims divinity
or psychic powers.
Introduction
Ever since scholars began studying how religious groups responded to
failed prophecies, they have emphasized how religious believers ignore
or rationalize the failure of their prophecies while maintaining their
commitment to their religious group. This claim goes back to Festinger
et al. (1956), who in their landmark book When Prophecy Fails claimed that
a UFO cult predicted an apocalyptic flood and expected that members
of the cult would be rescued by extraterrestrials. Festinger et al. (1956)
claimed that the group responded to the failure of the deluge or the
arrival of aliens by maintaining their faith and trying even harder to
Keywords: new religious movements, cognitive dissonance, prophecies, apocalypses,
When Prophecy Fails, Baha’is under the Provision of the Covenant, Millerites,
Unarians
Received: 26 February 2025 Accepted after revision: 27 May 2025
© Equinox Publishing Ltd. 2025, Office 415, The Workstation, 15 Paternoster Row, Sheffield, S1 2BX
Thomas Kelly 49
proselytize their beliefs. Festinger would go on to create the theory of
cognitive dissonance (1957) and use the case of the UFO cult to substanti-
ate his new theory.
Some of the specific claims of Festinger et al. (1956) have held up poorly.
First, the authors substantially misrepresented the behavior of the UFO
cult both before and after the prophecy failed (Kelly 2023), and while
Festinger et al. (1956) presented the group as an example of faith that
endured failed prophecy, the group itself disbanded immediately after
the failed prophecy (Dawson 2011; Barkun 2015; Kelly 2023). Second,
attempts to replicate similar studies failed to find examples of groups
which increased efforts to proselytize after their prophecies failed
(Hardyck and Braden 1962; Balch et al. 1983; Singelenberg 1989; Zygmunt
1970). Consequently, scholars have moved away from the specific claim
that proselytization generally follows failed prophecy (Stone 2000) but
they have continued to maintain that both religious belief and religious
groups generally ignore the unequivocal failure of their prophecies and
maintain their beliefs even as outside observers would argue that their
religious beliefs had been falsified. Stone (2011, 44) summarized this con-
ventional wisdom, “despite obvious and unequivocal disconfirmation,
believers tend to respond to failed prophecy in ways that reaffirm their
faith.”
While Festinger et al. (1956) contributed a singular case study to the
scholarship of new religions, they also examined various historical reli-
gious movements that they argued may have thrived despite experienc-
ing failure of religion. Some of the religious movements they discussed
in this context included the Sabbateans, the Millerites, and early Chris-
tians. Much of the scholarship that followed Festinger et al. (1956) focused
on new case studies of new religious movements or evaluations of new
religious movements as whole, rather than examining long-established
religions such as Christianity.
Many Christians view Christianity as a case of a successful prophecy,
viewing Jesus of Nazareth as fulfilling various passages from the Hebrew
Bible, which they take to be predictions of his ministry, crucifixion, and
redemptive sacrifice, with various other passages of the Hebrew Bible
referring to his eventual future return. Some critics of Christianity
and various religious scholars have viewed Jesus of Nazareth as a failed
religious prophet and the world’s largest religion, Christianity, as an
example of a religion successfully enduring a failed prophecy. If early
Christianity is understood as a movement enduring a failed prophecy,
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50 Failed Prophecies Are Fatal
and Festinger and others are correct about religious belief surviving
failure of prophecy, then the world’s largest religion is an exemplar of
this tendency. And many scholars claim that the study of new religious
movements shows that the failure of prophecy only reaffirms religious
belief and does not undermine religious movements.
Yet, when carefully examined, the scholarship on new religious move-
ments does not substantiate the claim that these movements tend to sur-
vive failed prophecy. Most of the religious groups that have been studied
die within ten years of the failed prophecy. The main contribution of this
article is to show that the conventional wisdom on the consequences of
prophetic failure is wrong: when a prophecy fails, the failure of the reli-
gious movement usually follows shortly thereafter. Assessing whether
this is causal is important, challenging, and outside the scope of the arti-
cle. What this article establishes is that new religious belief and religious
groups do not generally survive the failure of their religious prophecies,
and that claims that such religious movements tend to survive failed
prophecies are not true. Theories about group behavior and religious
belief or about cognitive dissonance that rely on the claim that religious
belief and groups survive failed prophecy should be re-evaluated in light
of this evidence. If Christianity is understood as a movement that expe-
rienced a failed prophecy at its very origins, then the world’s largest
religion is a historic anomaly by surviving failed prophecy, rather than
an exemplar.
I begin by explaining how the literature on failed prophecy suffers
from a survivorship bias problem. I then show how some scholars have
claimed to find examples of new religious movements experiencing
failed prophecies—even when no failed prophecy existed. Next, I show
that some scholars have exaggerated the survival rate of groups which
experience failed prophecy. For instance, Melton (1985) claimed to pro-
vide five examples of groups that survived failed prophecies, but two of
these groups disbanded following the failed prophecy, one lost most of its
members, one group’s true identity is unknown, and its survival cannot
be known, and the fifth may not have experienced a failed prophecy.
I then address two potential sources of resilience for groups experienc-
ing failed prophecy. The first is age. It seems plausible that old groups
might survive failed prophecies more easily. Older religious groups have
proven that they have staying power and such groups might have more
members whose careers, social networks, and worldviews are heavily
enmeshed in their religious group. Exit costs in older groups might be
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Thomas Kelly 51
higher, causing members to remain even after their group experiences
a failed prophecy. I find no evidence that old groups fare better when
facing failed prophecies due to the paucity of examples of older religious
groups predicting an imminent apocalypse.
The second protective factor considered is the source of the prophecy.
Failed prophecy might be especially hard to survive when the source
of the prophetic knowledge does not have default legitimacy or a his-
tory of being viewed as authentic by both the group members and by
the broader society from which the group can draw new recruits. For
instance, if a religious leader claims to have received a vision or novel
revelation or prophecy delivered by an angel or an extraterrestrial, if
that revelation or prophecy fails, that casts doubt on the abilities of
the prophet (or the trustworthiness of the supernatural messenger). If
the movement and its theology was based upon that prophet’s personal
authority, it calls the whole movement into question. In contrast, if a
new sect splits from an existing religion based off a new interpretation
of religious scripture or tradition, even if a prophecy based off that new
interpretation fails, the sect might continue to trust in their scripture
and treat the failed prophecy as a failure of interpretation rather than a
failure of their scripture itself.
For instance, within Anglo-Protestant societies, biblical interpretation
is not a novel source of information about the second coming of Christ
but is an accepted, authoritative source. Within Anglo-Protestant socie-
ties, prophecies based on personal communication with an angel would
be a novel source. A failed prophecy based on scriptural interpretation
would likely pose little threat to the enduring status of the Christian
Bible. Group members might be willing to continue to accept claims
based upon the Bible but acknowledge that the group simply made an
error in interpretation. Members still trusting the Bible might even be
willing to accept new prophecies issued based on the authority of the
Bible. However, a failed prophecy based on an angelic visitor might cast
into doubt the ability of the prophet to communicate with angels, the
existence of the alleged angel, or the trustworthiness of the angel, and
members might cease to regard claims of angelic communication as a
trustworthy guide to the future.
What is an accepted source versus a novel source of the prophecy is
contextual. Within the early Latter-Day Saints movement, the claim to
be a living prophet of Jesus Christ might be an accepted source of knowl-
edge whereas it would not be within most Protestant circles. I review
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52 Failed Prophecies Are Fatal
the cases of failed prophecy in the literature and find some evidence
that groups that based their prophecy on accepted sources of knowledge,
especially biblical interpretation, fare better.
Survivorship bias
Many studies of failed prophecies are retrospective. Since religious
groups that die after failed prophecies are less likely to make a mark on
history, to produce documentation of their beliefs and behavior, or to
be noticed by researchers when compared to groups that have survived
failed prophecies, retrospective studies of failed prophecy will exag-
gerate how many groups experience failed prophecy and survive. This
means that the literature on failed prophecy has overstated how com-
monly religious groups survive failed prophecy. The extent of this bias
is unknown; it may have caused the literature to significantly overstate
the survival rates of groups experiencing failed prophecy.
Contestable claims of failed prophecy
To study failed prophecies, scholars must find examples of failed prophe-
cies. The pool of case studies that scholars of new religious movements
and prophecies often reference is small, and many of the case studies
suffer from the problem that, in some of the cases, it is not clear that the
studied religious groups actually experienced a failure of prophecy. I
review four oft-cited case studies where the existence of a failed proph-
ecy can be contested for a variety of reasons. In the first case, a group
neither produced nor promoted a prophecy but some members came
to believe a prediction they heard on a paranormal radio show. In the
second case, the prophecy was carefully worded and qualified, making
it hard to conclusively say it failed. In the third case, the prophecy con-
cerning a medical miracle was partially fulfilled according to scientific
experts of the time. In the fourth case, the claim that a prophecy failed
depends on accepting a specific theological premise.
The UFO Center
Bader (1999) provided an account of failed prophecy entitled “When
Prophecy Passes Unnoticed.” One explanation for why this proph-
ecy was not noticed is that his account makes it clear that there was
no prophecy, at least not in the sense that corresponds to any normal
use of the term. Bader (1999) tells us of a monthly UFO discussion group
that hosted guest speakers, talked about UFOs and other occult and
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Thomas Kelly 53
paranormal topics. After hearing of predicted alien landings in 1996
from a paranormal radio show, some members of the discussion group
thought that the radio show was correct. Then aliens did not land. Bader
(1999, 125), who observed this group, notes that “the failure neither dis-
appointed members enough to prompt their desertion of the group, led
to increased excitement of any form, nor required any explanation or
apology from the group leader.” He then goes on to argue that members
of the UFO discussion group did not react strongly to the “failed proph-
ecy” because their level of commitment to this group was low, so failed
prophecies should have little effect on morale. Bader’s proposed connec-
tion between a group’s response to failed prophecy and commitment to
the group might be true. However, it is inappropriate to treat this as an
example of a religious group experiencing failed prophecy.
First, Bader’s own description of the UFO Center makes it sound like it
is not a religious group at all. Second, the failed prophecy or prediction
of UFO landings originated outside the group and was not core to the
group’s collective beliefs or purposes. Unlike other groups whose lead-
ers issued predictions and whose members prepared for the fulfillment
of prophecy only to see the prophecy fail, members of this group only
learned that some radio guests that they had found convincing were
wrong. The fate of the UFO discussion group does not provide relevant
data about actual religious groups’ responses to failed prophecies.
The Morrisites
Another problem with case studies on failed prophecies is that some
scholars will read a conditional, equivocal prophecy and claim that it
is a highly specific prophecy that can easily be labeled as failed once its
predictions fail to come true. Halford et al. (1981) provide a history of a
splinter sect of the Latter-Day Saints or “Mormon” movement known
as the Morrisites after their founder, Joseph Morris, who proclaimed
himself a living prophet. His followers formed their own community,
before a violent conflict with outsiders, “the Morrisite War,” resulted in
the death of their prophet and several others. Halford et al. (1981) treat
this group as providing a straightforward example of a group persist-
ing despite failed prophecy. While this overall interpretation is correct,
the authors demonstrate how easy it is for scholars to think that they
have discovered an example of a clearly failed prophecy when they did
no such thing. Compare the description of an 1861 prophecy given by
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54 Failed Prophecies Are Fatal
Table 1: Comparison of prophecy interpretation and original prophecy.
Halford, Anderson,
and Clark’s account Actual prophecy
On December 31, the BEHOLD, I say unto you, my son, I see the position in which
prophecy was spe- you are placed with my people. They cannot get ready to
cific and unqualified: meet me this day by the time that I wanted to come. I felt
“Let my people settle satisfied last evening that my people could not get every-
up their accounts thing ready to meet me this morning, and I shall not come
today and prepare to-day. Let all my people settle up their accounts to-day, and
themselves for a visit prepare themselves for a visit from me to-morrow morning;
from me tomorrow.” and if they will do this, I will surely come to-morrow morn-
(p. 6) ing. I am satisfied that my people have done all that they
possibly could to prepare themselves to meet me to-day ; but
they have not been able to make all things ready, and, on
that account, I cannot come this day. I want to come as soon
as my people will prepare themselves to meet me. They may
do this to-morrow, morning without hurrying themselves.
My servants must show unto my people the necessity of
fully preparing themselves to-day to meet me to-morrow
; for, as I live, I shall come to-morrow if my people are pre-
pared to meet me. Therefore, if my people wish to see me
on that day, they can, if they will prepare themselves to do
so. If they do not see me on that day, it will be entirely their
own fault. If they do not prepare themselves, they will have
to see me whether they are ready or not. I shall not wait for
them more than another day or two. My people now know
my mind ; therefore, if they wish to see me, let them prepare
themselves by to-morrow. I am the Lord of Hosts. Even so.
Amen and Amen. (Morris 1886, 341–342)
Halford et al. (1981) in their article to the full context of the Morrisite
prophecy in Table 1.
While the prophecy of 31 December 1861 definitely urged the Morrisites
to view the Second Coming as imminent, its immediate fulfillment of the
return of Jesus hinged on the preparations of the Morrisites. This was
not the first time their prophet had taught them that prophecies were
hard to understand and rarely unequivocal. In February of that year,
their prophet had delivered a message, which he said came from Jesus
Christ. In this message, whose ominous title begins with “THE INABILITY
OF MAN TO UNDERSTAND THE WAYS OF THE LORD,” Morris, speaking
as Jesus warned his followers that “I am not trifling either with them
or with this people. I am placed in a position where I have to work in a
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Thomas Kelly 55
manner that all do not understand; and, not understanding, they have
thought that I have not fulfilled my promises; but I have. When I speak
I do it in mine own way, and all cannot understand me; but to you it is
given to understand my ways, to others it is not” (Morris 1886, 60–61).
Morris, speaking as Jesus, would reiterate this message just months
later in August, that his followers “should know that I speak in half sen-
tences. I speak plain enough for those to understand who are enlight-
ened by my spirit. I can make all those understand me whom I wish to.
I do not want all people to understand” (Morris 1886, 125). Morris also
reprimanded his followers for misinterpreting other prophecies, such as
a directive to not plant crops, which he said they took too far. The gen-
eral framing that Morris provided of his own prophecies makes it hard
to say that any given prophecy is clearly falsified. The example provided
by Halford et al. (1981) for 31 December was clearly not an unqualified
prediction—yet they claimed it was. Some scholars in this area find clear
examples of failed prophecies even when their selected examples are far
from clear.
That said, Halford et al. (1981) still provide a useful history and inter-
pretation of the Morrisite movement. Even if some of their prophetic
interpretations were overstated, it is fair to treat the Morrisites as a sect
that experienced failed prophecy and survived. Morris (1886) makes it
clear that they should have prepared for the second coming of Christ to
arrive in 1861. Morris also prophesied that he would not be killed by his
enemies (Morris 1886). He would later be killed by his enemies. Despite
the non-arrival of the Second Coming and the unforeseen killing of their
leader, the Morrisites would persist for decades afterwards. While there
was substantial attrition among the group, those who held to their faith
claimed that Joseph Morris had fulfilled his role by putting on an elabo-
rate pageant that symbolically foreshadowed the Second Coming (Ander-
son 1981).
Halford et al. (1981) point to some features of the Morrisites that might
account for their survival as a group. Group members surrendered their
individual property, making it hard to leave the group. Apostates were
threatened with death. Many Morrisites were recent European immi-
grants with no social ties outside the group. Finally, almost all other
people living in the region were mainstream Mormons who the Mor-
risites believed would shun them even if they left the Morrisites, making
apostasy economically challenging and physically perilous.
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56 Failed Prophecies Are Fatal
Joanna Southcott
Joanna Southcott, a British woman who claimed to be a prophet of God
and the bride of Christ, started gathering what would eventually become
thousands of followers in 1801 (Balleine 1956). She and her followers are
used as an example of a group surviving and maintaining belief in a
failed prophecy by Melton (1985) in his influential article that argued
that religious groups easily survived failed prophecies.
The prophecy in Southcott’s case was that when she was 64 years old,
she would become pregnant with a boy named Shiloh, who when born
would prepare the world for the second coming of Christ. Southcott’s
case is interesting because the first part of the prophecy did come true—
at least according to the medical establishment of the time. At the age of
64, Southcott appeared to become pregnant and her apparent pregnancy
was confirmed by physicians, including some of the country’s most
prominent doctors (Balleine 1956). The pregnancy then ended with no
child appearing. This is generally interpreted by latter observers as evi-
dence that Southcott was experiencing a false or hysterical pregnancy,
but some of her followers became convinced that not only had Southcott
been pregnant but her child had been taken away by God till the time
was right to reveal him to the world.
Is it fair to treat Southcott’s followers as ignoring a clearly failed
prophecy? While no miraculous child has yet returned, it is true that
had Southcott’s followers observed her apparent pregnancy or trusted
the dozens of physicians that examined her, they could reasonably con-
clude that Southcott was pregnant, in accordance with her prophecy,
and given her age, it could be seen as miraculous. Another reason why
we might not think that Southcott’s followers simply ignored a failed
prophecy is an event that happened following her death. After South-
cott died, several competing leaders with their own factions claimed to
be her legitimate successor. As Melton (1985) admits, one of the leaders
vying for influence, John Wroe, claimed that Shiloh would return six
years after his “birth,” but when Shiloh did not return and the prophecy
clearly failed, Wroe lost influence over the movement. The movement
may not have rejected Southcott’s partially fulfilled prophecy, but when
Wroe’s simply failed, he lost influence (Melton 1985).
Lubavitch Hasidim
Another proposed case of belief persisting after a prophecy has failed is
the continued belief among some members of the Lubavitch movement
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Thomas Kelly 57
that Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson is the Jewish messiah even
after his death in 1994 (Dein 1997, 2011; Shaffir 2000).
Dein (2011, ix) writes that the “belief in the final resurrection of the
dead is normative in Judaism and is set down as Maimonides’s thirteenth
principle of faith, but there is little precedent for the view that Moshiach
could come from the dead.” In other words, the claim that Schneerson
was or would become the messiah must be false because the religious
doctrine that the messiah must not die is true. To treat the death of
Schneerson as a failed prophecy, we must affirm a contested religious
doctrine. This makes using the case of Schneerson’s death troublesome.
In contrast to the prophesied flood in When Prophecy Fails or claims of the
second coming of Christ or of mass landings by alien spacecraft, which
observers can agree did not happen in a physical sense, it is unclear how
social scientists could determine whether or not the Jewish messiah can
die or appear to die.
Even if most or all contemporary Jewish religious authorities agreed
that Schneerson’s death meant he could not be the messiah, it would
not follow that Schneerson’s followers who viewed him as a messiah
were suffering from cognitive dissonance following his death. It is quite
common for practitioners of any religion not to hold or acknowledge
the religious or moral doctrines formally taught by religious authori-
ties. No matter how incongruous the claim that a dead man could be the
messiah might be according to contemporary Judaism, to convincingly
count Schneerson’s death as a failed prophecy among his followers, it
would first be necessary to show that at least some subset of his followers
thought that Schneerson was the messiah and therefore could not die.
Then it would be possible to treat Schneerson’s death as a case of failed
prophecy for at least that subset of his believers. Assertions that correct
religious doctrine shows Schneerson is not the messiah do not prove that
his followers or others assent or assented to that teaching in practice.
Not only do members of the Lubavitch movement who consider Sch-
neerson the messiah disagree that death preclude a messianic claim, but
literally billions of other humans also agree. Both Muslims and Chris-
tians consider Jesus of Nazareth to be the Jewish messiah (Alma’itah and
Ul Haq 2022), which means most of humanity belongs to religions that
assert that death (or the appearance of death in the case of Islam) is
consistent with an individual being the Jewish messiah.
Schneerson was an incredibly influential religious figure, and no
doubt it is worthwhile for scholars across the world to examine the
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58 Failed Prophecies Are Fatal
consequences of his death and legacy. But to treat his death as invali-
dating his potential messianic status requires affirming a specific theo-
logical premise.
Contestable and false claims of group survival
Beyond survivorship bias and the reliance of case studies on groups that,
at least arguably, did not experience failed prophecies, the literature on
failed prophecy (both case studies and surveys of the field) has over-
stated how well groups do following a failed prophecy. Some scholars
have claimed that groups survived that actually died shortly after the
failed prophecy.
What would it mean for a religious group to survive? Since many reli-
gious groups claim to possess unique, urgent, and divinely ordained
missions and knowledge, we might think a religious group must endure
forever to succeed according to its own merits. But that metric is imprac-
tical since we would not be able to label religions that are thousands of
years old or possess billions of followers as successes. For this article, a
group that experiences failed prophecy will count as having survived
failed prophecy if the group, or a direct successor of the group, clearly
continues to exist for ten years after the failed prophecy, without having
recanted their original beliefs, the original prophecy, or the prophet.
Demanding that a group continue to exist for decades after a failed
prophecy sets the standard too high. First, it would force us to ignore
more recent groups that may have appeared to thrive after experiencing
failed prophecy. Second, if a group lasts 40 years after a failed prophecy
and then collapses, the cause of the collapse is likely something other
than the failed prophecy. Of the groups discussed so far in this article,
the Morrisites survived their failed prophecies.
Evaluating the cases of Melton (1985)
Melton (1985, 19–21) argued that “[t]imes of testing tend to strengthen,
not destroy, religious groups” and that “within religious groups, proph-
ecy seldom fails” (p. 20). Melton further argued that religious groups
were able to move on from failed prophecies by successfully spiritual-
izing the prophecy in a process where the “prophesied event is rein-
terpreted in such a way that what was supposed to have been a visible,
verifiable occurrence is seen to have been in reality an invisible, spiritual
occurrence.” Melton reviewed five cases to support this claim of groups
that supposedly experienced failed prophecies and survived. However, I
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Thomas Kelly 59
find that of the five cases, two groups died, one group (Joanna’s South-
cott’s followers) arguably did not experience a failed prophecy, one
group immediately lost the majority of its followers, and the fifth group
cannot be identified, and its fate cannot be known.
Melton discussed the group led by Dorothy Martin, made famous by
When Prophecy Fails as an example of a group surviving failed prophecy.
This is inaccurate: the group dissolved within weeks and never reunified
(Dawson 2011; Barkun 2015; Kelly 2023). Melton also claimed the Univer-
sal Link group survived a failed 1967 prophecy of a universal revelation.
The movement died within five years (Living Record 2023a, 2023b).
Melton also cites the Millerites as surviving a famous failed prophecy
of the second coming of Christ. He is correct. Seventh Day Adventists are
descended from this movement; however, the movement experienced
extreme attrition after the failed prophecy. Adventist historian Knight
estimates that the majority of followers abandoned the movement fol-
lowing the failed prophecy (Knight 1999).
The final group cited by Melton is a pseudonymous Pentecostal group
studied by Hardyck and Braden (1962). It is impossible to know the long-
term fate of this group—the only account of the group was published
two years after the failed prophecy, and since the authors, for reasons of
privacy, used pseudonyms for the group and its location, it is impossible
to follow up on this group and ascertain whether it survived beyond the
initial follow-up conducted by Hardyck and Braden.
Melton tried to provide evidence that religious groups easily weather
failed prophecies. Discarding the example whose existence or long-term
fate cannot be known, he provided two examples of movements that died
entirely, one movement that lost most of its members, and one move-
ment that may not have experienced a failed prophecy at all. Of the three
groups that clearly experienced failed prophecy, two of them died. A
better interpretation of Melton’s cases might be that within religious
groups clear failures of prophecy are generally not weathered and that
most groups that experience failed prophecies die. Based on Melton’s
examples, failed prophecies appear fatal.
Evaluating the cases of Dawson (1999)
Dawson (1999) provided a table of thirteen different religious groups that
he claimed experienced false prophecy and listed whether the group
survived the failed prophecy. He claimed twelve of the groups survived
and labeled surviving groups as surviving “for a time” or “quite well”
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60 Failed Prophecies Are Fatal
or “barely” or “with difficulties” or “but weakened” but unfortunately
gives no guidance as to what these terms mean. For instance, Dawson
cites Palmer and Finn (1992) to justify labeling the Institute of Applied
Metaphysics as surviving “quite well” even though Palmer and Finn
stated that it had ceased to exist by the time they wrote their article.
In Table 2, I return to Dawson’s cases and record how long the groups
existed before and after the failed prophecy, what we know of changes to
group membership after the failed prophecy, and whether the prophecy
drew upon a novel or accepted source of knowledge.
Dawson claimed twelve of these groups present evidence of survival.
Having set the standard for survival at ten years, I find that three of the
twelve groups clearly survived: The Baha’is under the Provision of the
Covenant, the Millerites, the Jehovah’s Witnesses, and the Unarians. A
fifth, the Rouxists, may also have survived. Six groups perished after
the failure of prophecy. One group cannot be studied due to their iden-
tity having been hidden. One group, the Lubavitch Hasidim, cannot be
labeled as having experienced a failed prophecy without accepting a
specific theological stance. The death of groups is more common than
survival. The Unarians survived disappointment, but whether they sur-
vived failed prophecy is an open question, due to the conditionality of
language and because the prophet disavowed its fulfillment before the
date it was supposed to be fulfilled.
Of the three groups covered by Dawson that clearly survived failed
prophecy, two of the groups were studied retrospectively, therefore suf-
fering from survivorship bias. The study of Baha’is under the Provision
of the Covenant provides an example of a prospective study of prophecy
that shows a group surviving failed prophecy. But even here the group
recognized that the prophecy failed. While the leaders would make more
and more predictions of future disasters (Balch et al. 2000), the members
of the group responded by discontinuing efforts to convert others to
their sect, in some cases leaving the group, and the remaining members
ceased preparing for future disasters predicted by the leadership. The
remaining members’ religious beliefs also shifted away from apocalyptic
prophecies as a central focus and shifted towards a greater emphasis
on the general pre-existing teaching of the Baha’i faith rather than the
unique teachings of their particular sect (Balch et al. 1983).
It is plausible, but not obvious, that the Unarians should be counted
as a group that experienced failed prophecy. Tumminia (2005) describes
Ruth Norman, the group’s leader, as predicting a UFO landing in both
© Equinox Publishing Ltd. 2025
Thomas Kelly
Table 2: Cases from Dawson (1999).
Name of Dawson Length of pre- Length of post- Accepted or
prophet or (1999) failed prophecy failed prophecy Post-failure decline novel source of
Group alleged messiah sources existence existence or growth knowledge
Dorothy Dorothy Martin Festinger et al. Less than a year Weeks (Dawson Ceased to exist Novel (psychic
Martin’s (1956) (Festinger et al. 2011) within weeks extraterrestrials)
group, 1956) (Dawson 2011; Barkun
“Seekers” 2015; Kelly 2023)
Church of the Pseudonymous Hardyck and Five years Unknown Unknown Accepted
True Word Braden (1962) (Hardyck and (Pentecostal gift of
Braden 1962) prophecy)
Ichigen no Motoki Isamu Sanada (1979) 24 years At least one year Dramatic decline in Novel (personal
© Equinox Publishing Ltd. 2025
Miya (Sanada 1979) (Sanada 1979) but first year (Sanada revelation)
probably fewer than 1979)
ten* (Earhart 1983)
Baha’is under Chase and Balch et al. 11 years (Balch 43 years and still Moderate decline of Novel/Accepted
the Provision Jensen (1983) and et al. 1983) exists (BUPC) believers based in (angelic visitation
of the Balch et al. Montana, dramatic and biblical
Covenant (2000) decline elsewhere interpretation)
(Balch et al. 1983)
(Continued.)
Table 2 (Continued.)
Name of Dawson Length of pre- Length of post- Accepted or
prophet or (1999) failed prophecy failed prophecy Post-failure decline novel source of
Group alleged messiah sources existence existence or growth knowledge
Millerites William Miller Melton (1985) 13 years (Knight 179 years and still Most Millerites Accepted (biblical
1993) exists as Adventists abandoned Millerism interpretation)
(Knight 1999)
Universal Link Liebie Pugh Melton (1985) Six years The two groups No institutional Novel (supernatural
(Melton, 1985) promoting the existence after five visitor and
prophecy folded years miraculous angel
within five painting)
years although
publications
promoting the
prophecy were
released up to nine
years afterwards
(Living Record
© Equinox Publishing Ltd. 2025
2023a, 2023b)
Jehovah’s Charles Taze Zygmunt Eight years 145 years and still Departure of key Accepted (biblical
Witnesses Russell (1970), (Rogerson 1969) exists theologian, Nelson interpretation)
Wilson (1978), Barbour and some
Singelenberg demoralization
(1989) but no great effect
(Rogerson 1969;
Macmillan 1957;
Zygmunt 1970)
Failed Prophecies Are Fatal
Name of Dawson Length of pre- Length of post- Accepted or
prophet or (1999) failed prophecy failed prophecy Post-failure decline novel source of
Group alleged messiah sources existence existence or growth knowledge
Rouxists Georges Ernest Van Fossen Seven years 76 years and still Unclear Novel (founder
Thomas Kelly
Roux (2000) (Van Fossen exists claimed to be God)
(republished) 1982)
Mission de Emmanuel Palmer and 62 years One year (Palmer Group ceased to exist Novel (founder
l’Esprit Saint Robitaille Finn (1992) and Finn, 1992) claimed to be
incarnation of the
Holy Spirit)
Institute Winifred (Win) Palmer and 13 years Leader expelled Group ceased to exist Novel
of Applied Barton Finn (1992) after eight years, (extraterrestrial
Metaphysics movement defunct insect spirit guide
within nine years from Atlantis)
(Palmer and Finn
1992)
Lubavitch Rabbi Shaffir (1993, Hundreds of 19 years and still Unharmed Accepted
Hasidim Menachem 1994) years (Dein, exists (Rabbinical
© Equinox Publishing Ltd. 2025
Mendel Dein (1997) 1997) teaching)
Schneerson
(Continued.)
Table 2 (Continued.)
Name of Dawson Length of pre- Length of post- Accepted or
prophet or (1999) failed prophecy failed prophecy Post-failure decline novel source of
Group alleged messiah sources existence existence or growth knowledge
Unarians Ruth and Ernest Tumminia 20–21 years 47–48 years and still Prophecy failure Novel/Accepted
Norman (1998) before first exists. in 1975 led to no (Psychic
failed prophecy significant decline extraterrestrials
(Tumminia (Tumminia 2005) are a novel source
2005) for U.S. society
as a whole but
they promote
their beliefs to
a sympathetic
New Age and UFO
subculture)
Chen Tao Hon-Ming Chen Wright (1998) Five years Four years Leader lost all Novel (mysterious
(Wright and (Wright and Greil followers. teacher with divine
Greil 2011) 2011) (Wright and Greil wisdom and direct
© Equinox Publishing Ltd. 2025
2011) revelation)
*Earhart’s (1983) comprehensive bibliography on English-language sources on Japanese new religious movements shows no publications
by or on the group following Sanada (1979), consistent with the group becoming defunct, but not conclusively showing that the group
went defunct.
Failed Prophecies Are Fatal
Thomas Kelly 65
1974 and 1975—neither of which occurred. For the 1974 prediction, Tum-
minia cites the cult publication Tesla Speaks: Countdown!!! to Space Fleet
Landing, and notes that the copy she obtained had a paper slip pasted
over a failed prediction. I obtained a copy of the same volume, which had
been altered in the same manner. However, the language surrounding
this 1974 prophecy is highly conditional; Norman wrote that the fleet
would land only when humanity had overcome its fear of extraterres-
trials (Norman 1974). As Tumminia notes—but does not emphasize—the
1975 landing prophecy was rescinded days before the anticipated arrival,
when a Unarian psychic revealed that the vision of the UFO fleet was not
a glimpse of the future, but of ancient Egypt (Norman 1975). By the time
27 September 1975 arrived, the Unarians no longer expected a landing.
While they expressed shock and disappointment at having mistaken an
ancient vision for a modern one, their belief system was not directly
falsified by external events. Even the later prediction of a 2001 UFO land-
ing, as Tumminia notes, was viewed by some Unarians as symbolic or
conditional before the date arrived.
The case of the Rouxist movement provides an ambiguous example
of a group surviving a failed apocalyptic prophecy. Van Fossen (1982)
writes that the Rouxists of France, whose founder first claimed to have
supernatural healing abilities in 1947, originally predicted the arrival of
the millennium in 1954, and that despite its non-arrival, the movement
continued to grow and still survives.
The movement’s founder claimed to be various figures, eventually
landing on a claim to be God. If the group survived a failed prophecy in
1954, this would be an example of a group with a novel source of knowl-
edge that survived a failed prophecy when relatively young. This may
be the correct interpretation. The challenge is that the claimed 1954
prophecy is quite obscure. Van Fossen (1982) appears to be the only
English-language source for any 1954 prophecy and he never provides a
translation or the original text of any prophecy referring to 1954.
Another source of ambiguity about the 1954 prophecy comes from
Van Fossen’s interviews of the group members. He writes that when he
interviewed members of the group in 1974 about the failed 1954 prophe-
cies, they “adamantly denied that they indicated any failures, contradic-
tions, or inconsistencies” (1982, 124). Are the members rationalizing a
past failed prophecy or are they correct that there was not a failed 1954
prophecy?
© Equinox Publishing Ltd. 2025
66 Failed Prophecies Are Fatal
The group does have a history of conditional prophecies. When one
follower of the group claimed that the Virgin Mary told her that they
would convert the Pope to their movement, the leader claimed that her
prophecy had failed because the group had not worked hard enough to
win new disciples. In later decades, 1980 would be set as the deadline for
the arrival of the new age, but the prophecy would be rescinded by the
group’s leaders in 1979, claiming that the followers were not sufficiently
worthy. Other accounts of the history of the Rouxists contain no refer-
ence to a failed millennial prophecy in 1954 (Dericquebourg 2008).
Pro-survival factors?
I suggested that either the age of a group or its reliance on an accepted
source of prophetic knowledge such as holy scripture might protect
groups from the negative effects of failed prophecies. The case studies
on failed prophecies cited above provide no evidence of old groups sur-
viving failed prophecies, as most of the groups that issued these proph-
ecies were quite young and set dates of fulfillment for the imminent
future. New groups often die after a failed prophecy, yet even decades-
old groups such as Mission de l’Esprit Saint can collapse immediately
after prophetic failure.
The source of prophetic knowledge may play a role in shaping how well
a religious group survives failed prophecy. All the groups from Dawson
(1999) that are known to have failed relied on novel sources of knowl-
edge. Of the groups that are known to survive, the two that experienced
substantial growth following failed prophecy (the Jehovah’s Witnesses
and the Millerites) both based their prediction on interpretations of the
Christian Bible, which was accepted as a holy and authoritative scripture
in the societies where the movements began.
If the Unarians are viewed as having experienced failed prophecy, they
survived it, while relying on psychic contact with extraterrestrials as
the source for their prophecies. While this is a novel source of knowl-
edge within the United States as a whole, Tumminia (2005) shows us that
the Unarians recruit from New Age and UFO believers, who are prob-
ably more likely to view psychic contact with extraterrestrials as a more
accepted source of knowledge than the general public does.
The case of the Bahai’s under the Provision of the Covenant warrants
particular discussion, as following the failure of their prophecy, the
leaders explicitly argued that the failure should not cast doubt upon
their movement, as their prophecy was only a failure of scriptural
© Equinox Publishing Ltd. 2025
Thomas Kelly 67
interpretation, not of religious authority. As reported by Balch et al.
(2000), the Bahai’s under the Provision of the Covenant are a small schis-
matic sect of the mainstream Baha’i religion founded by a chiropractor
Leland Jensen, who left the mainstream Baha’i religion in the 1960s after
a succession dispute about the rightful leadership of the faith. Jensen
would move to Montana and be sentenced to prison for sexual offenses.
While in prison, Jensen claimed he received a spiritual revelation naming
him a prophet who was to teach the true Bahai’s faith. Jensen would later
gain a key follower, Neil Chase, who would claim that Jensen’s claims to
be a prophet were vindicated by earlier prophecies from George Wil-
liams, a follower of Joseph Morris, whose prophecies are discussed else-
where in this article. Together, Jensen and Chase would issue various
predictions of nuclear war, comet strikes upon the earth, and various
other catastrophes which did not occur.
Although Jensen taught that he had received his mission through
supernatural revelation, following several failed prophecies, Chase and
Jensen insisted that their prophecies were based upon biblical interpre-
tation, not supernatural revelation.
The admission of human error was rationalized by making a sharp dis-
tinction between a prediction and prophecy. Prophecies came directly
from God, whereas the BUPC’s predictions were based on research and
logic, which are subject to human fallibility. As Chase put it: “We can’t be
false prophets because we don’t claim to be prophets. We simply inter-
pret what is already there in the Bible.” Jensen had always made this dis-
tinction, but it became increasingly important in the 1990s. According to
this reasoning, Jensen and Chase were only human and they could make
mistakes like everyone else. (Balch et al. 2000, 274)
The leaders of the group seemed to recognize that inaccurate interpreta-
tions of the Bible do not cast into doubt the reliability of the Bible, but
inaccurate claims delivered from God or angels might cast into doubt the
spiritual authority of those who talk to supernatural beings.
Spiritualization but not survival
Melton’s (1985) claim that groups respond to failed prophecy by rein-
terpreting their prophecy to entail a spiritual and invisible fulfillment
rather than a concrete and visible fulfillment is supported by the behav-
ior of many of the groups in the literature. Individual believers often
did claim to receive visions that provided guidance for movements after
prophecy failed. These visions could allow for the spiritualization and
© Equinox Publishing Ltd. 2025
68 Failed Prophecies Are Fatal
reinterpretation of failed prophecies, to reveal that that the prophesied
event has been postponed or provide support for succession of leader-
ship in succession disputes. Most groups discussed in this article would
go on to claim further revelation after their prophecies failed. Many of
these groups still died.
Groups where some individuals claimed visions or other forms of rev-
elation and prophecies following failed prophecy include Dorothy Mar-
tin’s group (Festinger et al. 1956), the Morrisites (Anderson 1981), the
Rouxists (Van Fossen 1982), Chen Tao (Wright and Greil 2011), the Unar-
ians (Tumminia 1998), Universal Link (Melton 1985), Southcott’s follow-
ers (Melton 1985), the Millerites (Strayer 2022), Ichigen no Miya (Sanada
1979), and Baha’is under the Provision of the Covenant (Balch et al. 2000).
The Jehovah’s Witnesses would also go on to make many more apoc-
alyptic prophecies, but these were based on scriptural interpretation
rather than supernatural revelation. The groups in the literature did not
claim to experience shared group visions or to be witnesses of physical,
observable miracles. If cognitive dissonance explains the existence of
some of these visions, it shows limits to what kinds of spiritual experi-
ences disappointed believers have. Even a group that could have believed
that they witnessed a physical miracle, the followers of Joanna South-
cott, did not claim to experience an observable physical miracle after
Shiloh was not born. The absence of miracle claims, other than visions
following failed prophecies, also suggests that disappointed believers do
not generally turn to pious fraud to fabricate miracles.
Conclusion
Past scholars have claimed that religious believers ignored, rationalized,
or spiritualized past failed prophecies, allowing the groups that created
those prophecies to survive. But the case studies carefully assembled
by a variety of scholars since the publication of When Prophecy Fails do
not support that conclusion. In general, failed prophecies look fatal,
and groups that experience them usually fail. In some of the cases, this
looks causal. For instance, the group in When Prophecy Fails disbanded
almost immediately after the failure of prophecy. However, as we lack
data on all new religious movements, it cannot be conclusively shown
that failed prophecies consistently drive group demise or that groups
that experience failed prophecies dissolve sooner than groups that do
not. There is suggestive evidence from existing case studies that offering
© Equinox Publishing Ltd. 2025
Thomas Kelly 69
“predictions” based upon scriptural interpretation appears less harmful
than offering prophecies made through direct supernatural revelation.
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──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
International Journal for the Study of New Religions 14.1 (2023) 48–71
ISSN 2041-9511 (print) ISSN 2041-952X (online)
https://www.doi.org/10.1558/ijsnr.33085
Failed Prophecies Are Fatal
Thomas Kelly
Horizon Institute for Public Service, Washington, DC, USA
tmichaelkelly@gmail.com
Many scholars of new religious movements claim that religious belief
and religious groups generally survive failed apocalyptic or millennial
prophecies. This claim originates with the original cognitive dissonance
study, When Prophecy Fails, and has been reiterated by recent surveys of
the field. In this article, I argue that this is false. I argue that the litera-
ture on religious groups which experience failed prophesy suffers from
survivorship bias. I then demonstrate that even setting that aside, the
extant case studies of failed prophecies show that the most common out-
come for a religious group following a failed prophecy is group demise. I
also argue that groups that root their prophecies in a broadly accepted
source of authority, such as biblical interpretation, fare better after pro-
phetic failure than groups that base their prophecies on novel sources
of authority such as personal revelation or a leader who claims divinity
or psychic powers.
Introduction
Ever since scholars began studying how religious groups responded to
failed prophecies, they have emphasized how religious believers ignore
or rationalize the failure of their prophecies while maintaining their
commitment to their religious group. This claim goes back to Festinger
et al. (1956), who in their landmark book When Prophecy Fails claimed that
a UFO cult predicted an apocalyptic flood and expected that members
of the cult would be rescued by extraterrestrials. Festinger et al. (1956)
claimed that the group responded to the failure of the deluge or the
arrival of aliens by maintaining their faith and trying even harder to
Keywords: new religious movements, cognitive dissonance, prophecies, apocalypses,
When Prophecy Fails, Baha’is under the Provision of the Covenant, Millerites,
Unarians
Received: 26 February 2025 Accepted after revision: 27 May 2025
© Equinox Publishing Ltd. 2025, Office 415, The Workstation, 15 Paternoster Row, Sheffield, S1 2BX
Thomas Kelly 49
proselytize their beliefs. Festinger would go on to create the theory of
cognitive dissonance (1957) and use the case of the UFO cult to substanti-
ate his new theory.
Some of the specific claims of Festinger et al. (1956) have held up poorly.
First, the authors substantially misrepresented the behavior of the UFO
cult both before and after the prophecy failed (Kelly 2023), and while
Festinger et al. (1956) presented the group as an example of faith that
endured failed prophecy, the group itself disbanded immediately after
the failed prophecy (Dawson 2011; Barkun 2015; Kelly 2023). Second,
attempts to replicate similar studies failed to find examples of groups
which increased efforts to proselytize after their prophecies failed
(Hardyck and Braden 1962; Balch et al. 1983; Singelenberg 1989; Zygmunt
1970). Consequently, scholars have moved away from the specific claim
that proselytization generally follows failed prophecy (Stone 2000) but
they have continued to maintain that both religious belief and religious
groups generally ignore the unequivocal failure of their prophecies and
maintain their beliefs even as outside observers would argue that their
religious beliefs had been falsified. Stone (2011, 44) summarized this con-
ventional wisdom, “despite obvious and unequivocal disconfirmation,
believers tend to respond to failed prophecy in ways that reaffirm their
faith.”
While Festinger et al. (1956) contributed a singular case study to the
scholarship of new religions, they also examined various historical reli-
gious movements that they argued may have thrived despite experienc-
ing failure of religion. Some of the religious movements they discussed
in this context included the Sabbateans, the Millerites, and early Chris-
tians. Much of the scholarship that followed Festinger et al. (1956) focused
on new case studies of new religious movements or evaluations of new
religious movements as whole, rather than examining long-established
religions such as Christianity.
Many Christians view Christianity as a case of a successful prophecy,
viewing Jesus of Nazareth as fulfilling various passages from the Hebrew
Bible, which they take to be predictions of his ministry, crucifixion, and
redemptive sacrifice, with various other passages of the Hebrew Bible
referring to his eventual future return. Some critics of Christianity
and various religious scholars have viewed Jesus of Nazareth as a failed
religious prophet and the world’s largest religion, Christianity, as an
example of a religion successfully enduring a failed prophecy. If early
Christianity is understood as a movement enduring a failed prophecy,
© Equinox Publishing Ltd. 2025
50 Failed Prophecies Are Fatal
and Festinger and others are correct about religious belief surviving
failure of prophecy, then the world’s largest religion is an exemplar of
this tendency. And many scholars claim that the study of new religious
movements shows that the failure of prophecy only reaffirms religious
belief and does not undermine religious movements.
Yet, when carefully examined, the scholarship on new religious move-
ments does not substantiate the claim that these movements tend to sur-
vive failed prophecy. Most of the religious groups that have been studied
die within ten years of the failed prophecy. The main contribution of this
article is to show that the conventional wisdom on the consequences of
prophetic failure is wrong: when a prophecy fails, the failure of the reli-
gious movement usually follows shortly thereafter. Assessing whether
this is causal is important, challenging, and outside the scope of the arti-
cle. What this article establishes is that new religious belief and religious
groups do not generally survive the failure of their religious prophecies,
and that claims that such religious movements tend to survive failed
prophecies are not true. Theories about group behavior and religious
belief or about cognitive dissonance that rely on the claim that religious
belief and groups survive failed prophecy should be re-evaluated in light
of this evidence. If Christianity is understood as a movement that expe-
rienced a failed prophecy at its very origins, then the world’s largest
religion is a historic anomaly by surviving failed prophecy, rather than
an exemplar.
I begin by explaining how the literature on failed prophecy suffers
from a survivorship bias problem. I then show how some scholars have
claimed to find examples of new religious movements experiencing
failed prophecies—even when no failed prophecy existed. Next, I show
that some scholars have exaggerated the survival rate of groups which
experience failed prophecy. For instance, Melton (1985) claimed to pro-
vide five examples of groups that survived failed prophecies, but two of
these groups disbanded following the failed prophecy, one lost most of its
members, one group’s true identity is unknown, and its survival cannot
be known, and the fifth may not have experienced a failed prophecy.
I then address two potential sources of resilience for groups experienc-
ing failed prophecy. The first is age. It seems plausible that old groups
might survive failed prophecies more easily. Older religious groups have
proven that they have staying power and such groups might have more
members whose careers, social networks, and worldviews are heavily
enmeshed in their religious group. Exit costs in older groups might be
© Equinox Publishing Ltd. 2025
Thomas Kelly 51
higher, causing members to remain even after their group experiences
a failed prophecy. I find no evidence that old groups fare better when
facing failed prophecies due to the paucity of examples of older religious
groups predicting an imminent apocalypse.
The second protective factor considered is the source of the prophecy.
Failed prophecy might be especially hard to survive when the source
of the prophetic knowledge does not have default legitimacy or a his-
tory of being viewed as authentic by both the group members and by
the broader society from which the group can draw new recruits. For
instance, if a religious leader claims to have received a vision or novel
revelation or prophecy delivered by an angel or an extraterrestrial, if
that revelation or prophecy fails, that casts doubt on the abilities of
the prophet (or the trustworthiness of the supernatural messenger). If
the movement and its theology was based upon that prophet’s personal
authority, it calls the whole movement into question. In contrast, if a
new sect splits from an existing religion based off a new interpretation
of religious scripture or tradition, even if a prophecy based off that new
interpretation fails, the sect might continue to trust in their scripture
and treat the failed prophecy as a failure of interpretation rather than a
failure of their scripture itself.
For instance, within Anglo-Protestant societies, biblical interpretation
is not a novel source of information about the second coming of Christ
but is an accepted, authoritative source. Within Anglo-Protestant socie-
ties, prophecies based on personal communication with an angel would
be a novel source. A failed prophecy based on scriptural interpretation
would likely pose little threat to the enduring status of the Christian
Bible. Group members might be willing to continue to accept claims
based upon the Bible but acknowledge that the group simply made an
error in interpretation. Members still trusting the Bible might even be
willing to accept new prophecies issued based on the authority of the
Bible. However, a failed prophecy based on an angelic visitor might cast
into doubt the ability of the prophet to communicate with angels, the
existence of the alleged angel, or the trustworthiness of the angel, and
members might cease to regard claims of angelic communication as a
trustworthy guide to the future.
What is an accepted source versus a novel source of the prophecy is
contextual. Within the early Latter-Day Saints movement, the claim to
be a living prophet of Jesus Christ might be an accepted source of knowl-
edge whereas it would not be within most Protestant circles. I review
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52 Failed Prophecies Are Fatal
the cases of failed prophecy in the literature and find some evidence
that groups that based their prophecy on accepted sources of knowledge,
especially biblical interpretation, fare better.
Survivorship bias
Many studies of failed prophecies are retrospective. Since religious
groups that die after failed prophecies are less likely to make a mark on
history, to produce documentation of their beliefs and behavior, or to
be noticed by researchers when compared to groups that have survived
failed prophecies, retrospective studies of failed prophecy will exag-
gerate how many groups experience failed prophecy and survive. This
means that the literature on failed prophecy has overstated how com-
monly religious groups survive failed prophecy. The extent of this bias
is unknown; it may have caused the literature to significantly overstate
the survival rates of groups experiencing failed prophecy.
Contestable claims of failed prophecy
To study failed prophecies, scholars must find examples of failed prophe-
cies. The pool of case studies that scholars of new religious movements
and prophecies often reference is small, and many of the case studies
suffer from the problem that, in some of the cases, it is not clear that the
studied religious groups actually experienced a failure of prophecy. I
review four oft-cited case studies where the existence of a failed proph-
ecy can be contested for a variety of reasons. In the first case, a group
neither produced nor promoted a prophecy but some members came
to believe a prediction they heard on a paranormal radio show. In the
second case, the prophecy was carefully worded and qualified, making
it hard to conclusively say it failed. In the third case, the prophecy con-
cerning a medical miracle was partially fulfilled according to scientific
experts of the time. In the fourth case, the claim that a prophecy failed
depends on accepting a specific theological premise.
The UFO Center
Bader (1999) provided an account of failed prophecy entitled “When
Prophecy Passes Unnoticed.” One explanation for why this proph-
ecy was not noticed is that his account makes it clear that there was
no prophecy, at least not in the sense that corresponds to any normal
use of the term. Bader (1999) tells us of a monthly UFO discussion group
that hosted guest speakers, talked about UFOs and other occult and
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Thomas Kelly 53
paranormal topics. After hearing of predicted alien landings in 1996
from a paranormal radio show, some members of the discussion group
thought that the radio show was correct. Then aliens did not land. Bader
(1999, 125), who observed this group, notes that “the failure neither dis-
appointed members enough to prompt their desertion of the group, led
to increased excitement of any form, nor required any explanation or
apology from the group leader.” He then goes on to argue that members
of the UFO discussion group did not react strongly to the “failed proph-
ecy” because their level of commitment to this group was low, so failed
prophecies should have little effect on morale. Bader’s proposed connec-
tion between a group’s response to failed prophecy and commitment to
the group might be true. However, it is inappropriate to treat this as an
example of a religious group experiencing failed prophecy.
First, Bader’s own description of the UFO Center makes it sound like it
is not a religious group at all. Second, the failed prophecy or prediction
of UFO landings originated outside the group and was not core to the
group’s collective beliefs or purposes. Unlike other groups whose lead-
ers issued predictions and whose members prepared for the fulfillment
of prophecy only to see the prophecy fail, members of this group only
learned that some radio guests that they had found convincing were
wrong. The fate of the UFO discussion group does not provide relevant
data about actual religious groups’ responses to failed prophecies.
The Morrisites
Another problem with case studies on failed prophecies is that some
scholars will read a conditional, equivocal prophecy and claim that it
is a highly specific prophecy that can easily be labeled as failed once its
predictions fail to come true. Halford et al. (1981) provide a history of a
splinter sect of the Latter-Day Saints or “Mormon” movement known
as the Morrisites after their founder, Joseph Morris, who proclaimed
himself a living prophet. His followers formed their own community,
before a violent conflict with outsiders, “the Morrisite War,” resulted in
the death of their prophet and several others. Halford et al. (1981) treat
this group as providing a straightforward example of a group persist-
ing despite failed prophecy. While this overall interpretation is correct,
the authors demonstrate how easy it is for scholars to think that they
have discovered an example of a clearly failed prophecy when they did
no such thing. Compare the description of an 1861 prophecy given by
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54 Failed Prophecies Are Fatal
Table 1: Comparison of prophecy interpretation and original prophecy.
Halford, Anderson,
and Clark’s account Actual prophecy
On December 31, the BEHOLD, I say unto you, my son, I see the position in which
prophecy was spe- you are placed with my people. They cannot get ready to
cific and unqualified: meet me this day by the time that I wanted to come. I felt
“Let my people settle satisfied last evening that my people could not get every-
up their accounts thing ready to meet me this morning, and I shall not come
today and prepare to-day. Let all my people settle up their accounts to-day, and
themselves for a visit prepare themselves for a visit from me to-morrow morning;
from me tomorrow.” and if they will do this, I will surely come to-morrow morn-
(p. 6) ing. I am satisfied that my people have done all that they
possibly could to prepare themselves to meet me to-day ; but
they have not been able to make all things ready, and, on
that account, I cannot come this day. I want to come as soon
as my people will prepare themselves to meet me. They may
do this to-morrow, morning without hurrying themselves.
My servants must show unto my people the necessity of
fully preparing themselves to-day to meet me to-morrow
; for, as I live, I shall come to-morrow if my people are pre-
pared to meet me. Therefore, if my people wish to see me
on that day, they can, if they will prepare themselves to do
so. If they do not see me on that day, it will be entirely their
own fault. If they do not prepare themselves, they will have
to see me whether they are ready or not. I shall not wait for
them more than another day or two. My people now know
my mind ; therefore, if they wish to see me, let them prepare
themselves by to-morrow. I am the Lord of Hosts. Even so.
Amen and Amen. (Morris 1886, 341–342)
Halford et al. (1981) in their article to the full context of the Morrisite
prophecy in Table 1.
While the prophecy of 31 December 1861 definitely urged the Morrisites
to view the Second Coming as imminent, its immediate fulfillment of the
return of Jesus hinged on the preparations of the Morrisites. This was
not the first time their prophet had taught them that prophecies were
hard to understand and rarely unequivocal. In February of that year,
their prophet had delivered a message, which he said came from Jesus
Christ. In this message, whose ominous title begins with “THE INABILITY
OF MAN TO UNDERSTAND THE WAYS OF THE LORD,” Morris, speaking
as Jesus warned his followers that “I am not trifling either with them
or with this people. I am placed in a position where I have to work in a
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Thomas Kelly 55
manner that all do not understand; and, not understanding, they have
thought that I have not fulfilled my promises; but I have. When I speak
I do it in mine own way, and all cannot understand me; but to you it is
given to understand my ways, to others it is not” (Morris 1886, 60–61).
Morris, speaking as Jesus, would reiterate this message just months
later in August, that his followers “should know that I speak in half sen-
tences. I speak plain enough for those to understand who are enlight-
ened by my spirit. I can make all those understand me whom I wish to.
I do not want all people to understand” (Morris 1886, 125). Morris also
reprimanded his followers for misinterpreting other prophecies, such as
a directive to not plant crops, which he said they took too far. The gen-
eral framing that Morris provided of his own prophecies makes it hard
to say that any given prophecy is clearly falsified. The example provided
by Halford et al. (1981) for 31 December was clearly not an unqualified
prediction—yet they claimed it was. Some scholars in this area find clear
examples of failed prophecies even when their selected examples are far
from clear.
That said, Halford et al. (1981) still provide a useful history and inter-
pretation of the Morrisite movement. Even if some of their prophetic
interpretations were overstated, it is fair to treat the Morrisites as a sect
that experienced failed prophecy and survived. Morris (1886) makes it
clear that they should have prepared for the second coming of Christ to
arrive in 1861. Morris also prophesied that he would not be killed by his
enemies (Morris 1886). He would later be killed by his enemies. Despite
the non-arrival of the Second Coming and the unforeseen killing of their
leader, the Morrisites would persist for decades afterwards. While there
was substantial attrition among the group, those who held to their faith
claimed that Joseph Morris had fulfilled his role by putting on an elabo-
rate pageant that symbolically foreshadowed the Second Coming (Ander-
son 1981).
Halford et al. (1981) point to some features of the Morrisites that might
account for their survival as a group. Group members surrendered their
individual property, making it hard to leave the group. Apostates were
threatened with death. Many Morrisites were recent European immi-
grants with no social ties outside the group. Finally, almost all other
people living in the region were mainstream Mormons who the Mor-
risites believed would shun them even if they left the Morrisites, making
apostasy economically challenging and physically perilous.
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56 Failed Prophecies Are Fatal
Joanna Southcott
Joanna Southcott, a British woman who claimed to be a prophet of God
and the bride of Christ, started gathering what would eventually become
thousands of followers in 1801 (Balleine 1956). She and her followers are
used as an example of a group surviving and maintaining belief in a
failed prophecy by Melton (1985) in his influential article that argued
that religious groups easily survived failed prophecies.
The prophecy in Southcott’s case was that when she was 64 years old,
she would become pregnant with a boy named Shiloh, who when born
would prepare the world for the second coming of Christ. Southcott’s
case is interesting because the first part of the prophecy did come true—
at least according to the medical establishment of the time. At the age of
64, Southcott appeared to become pregnant and her apparent pregnancy
was confirmed by physicians, including some of the country’s most
prominent doctors (Balleine 1956). The pregnancy then ended with no
child appearing. This is generally interpreted by latter observers as evi-
dence that Southcott was experiencing a false or hysterical pregnancy,
but some of her followers became convinced that not only had Southcott
been pregnant but her child had been taken away by God till the time
was right to reveal him to the world.
Is it fair to treat Southcott’s followers as ignoring a clearly failed
prophecy? While no miraculous child has yet returned, it is true that
had Southcott’s followers observed her apparent pregnancy or trusted
the dozens of physicians that examined her, they could reasonably con-
clude that Southcott was pregnant, in accordance with her prophecy,
and given her age, it could be seen as miraculous. Another reason why
we might not think that Southcott’s followers simply ignored a failed
prophecy is an event that happened following her death. After South-
cott died, several competing leaders with their own factions claimed to
be her legitimate successor. As Melton (1985) admits, one of the leaders
vying for influence, John Wroe, claimed that Shiloh would return six
years after his “birth,” but when Shiloh did not return and the prophecy
clearly failed, Wroe lost influence over the movement. The movement
may not have rejected Southcott’s partially fulfilled prophecy, but when
Wroe’s simply failed, he lost influence (Melton 1985).
Lubavitch Hasidim
Another proposed case of belief persisting after a prophecy has failed is
the continued belief among some members of the Lubavitch movement
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Thomas Kelly 57
that Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson is the Jewish messiah even
after his death in 1994 (Dein 1997, 2011; Shaffir 2000).
Dein (2011, ix) writes that the “belief in the final resurrection of the
dead is normative in Judaism and is set down as Maimonides’s thirteenth
principle of faith, but there is little precedent for the view that Moshiach
could come from the dead.” In other words, the claim that Schneerson
was or would become the messiah must be false because the religious
doctrine that the messiah must not die is true. To treat the death of
Schneerson as a failed prophecy, we must affirm a contested religious
doctrine. This makes using the case of Schneerson’s death troublesome.
In contrast to the prophesied flood in When Prophecy Fails or claims of the
second coming of Christ or of mass landings by alien spacecraft, which
observers can agree did not happen in a physical sense, it is unclear how
social scientists could determine whether or not the Jewish messiah can
die or appear to die.
Even if most or all contemporary Jewish religious authorities agreed
that Schneerson’s death meant he could not be the messiah, it would
not follow that Schneerson’s followers who viewed him as a messiah
were suffering from cognitive dissonance following his death. It is quite
common for practitioners of any religion not to hold or acknowledge
the religious or moral doctrines formally taught by religious authori-
ties. No matter how incongruous the claim that a dead man could be the
messiah might be according to contemporary Judaism, to convincingly
count Schneerson’s death as a failed prophecy among his followers, it
would first be necessary to show that at least some subset of his followers
thought that Schneerson was the messiah and therefore could not die.
Then it would be possible to treat Schneerson’s death as a case of failed
prophecy for at least that subset of his believers. Assertions that correct
religious doctrine shows Schneerson is not the messiah do not prove that
his followers or others assent or assented to that teaching in practice.
Not only do members of the Lubavitch movement who consider Sch-
neerson the messiah disagree that death preclude a messianic claim, but
literally billions of other humans also agree. Both Muslims and Chris-
tians consider Jesus of Nazareth to be the Jewish messiah (Alma’itah and
Ul Haq 2022), which means most of humanity belongs to religions that
assert that death (or the appearance of death in the case of Islam) is
consistent with an individual being the Jewish messiah.
Schneerson was an incredibly influential religious figure, and no
doubt it is worthwhile for scholars across the world to examine the
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58 Failed Prophecies Are Fatal
consequences of his death and legacy. But to treat his death as invali-
dating his potential messianic status requires affirming a specific theo-
logical premise.
Contestable and false claims of group survival
Beyond survivorship bias and the reliance of case studies on groups that,
at least arguably, did not experience failed prophecies, the literature on
failed prophecy (both case studies and surveys of the field) has over-
stated how well groups do following a failed prophecy. Some scholars
have claimed that groups survived that actually died shortly after the
failed prophecy.
What would it mean for a religious group to survive? Since many reli-
gious groups claim to possess unique, urgent, and divinely ordained
missions and knowledge, we might think a religious group must endure
forever to succeed according to its own merits. But that metric is imprac-
tical since we would not be able to label religions that are thousands of
years old or possess billions of followers as successes. For this article, a
group that experiences failed prophecy will count as having survived
failed prophecy if the group, or a direct successor of the group, clearly
continues to exist for ten years after the failed prophecy, without having
recanted their original beliefs, the original prophecy, or the prophet.
Demanding that a group continue to exist for decades after a failed
prophecy sets the standard too high. First, it would force us to ignore
more recent groups that may have appeared to thrive after experiencing
failed prophecy. Second, if a group lasts 40 years after a failed prophecy
and then collapses, the cause of the collapse is likely something other
than the failed prophecy. Of the groups discussed so far in this article,
the Morrisites survived their failed prophecies.
Evaluating the cases of Melton (1985)
Melton (1985, 19–21) argued that “[t]imes of testing tend to strengthen,
not destroy, religious groups” and that “within religious groups, proph-
ecy seldom fails” (p. 20). Melton further argued that religious groups
were able to move on from failed prophecies by successfully spiritual-
izing the prophecy in a process where the “prophesied event is rein-
terpreted in such a way that what was supposed to have been a visible,
verifiable occurrence is seen to have been in reality an invisible, spiritual
occurrence.” Melton reviewed five cases to support this claim of groups
that supposedly experienced failed prophecies and survived. However, I
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Thomas Kelly 59
find that of the five cases, two groups died, one group (Joanna’s South-
cott’s followers) arguably did not experience a failed prophecy, one
group immediately lost the majority of its followers, and the fifth group
cannot be identified, and its fate cannot be known.
Melton discussed the group led by Dorothy Martin, made famous by
When Prophecy Fails as an example of a group surviving failed prophecy.
This is inaccurate: the group dissolved within weeks and never reunified
(Dawson 2011; Barkun 2015; Kelly 2023). Melton also claimed the Univer-
sal Link group survived a failed 1967 prophecy of a universal revelation.
The movement died within five years (Living Record 2023a, 2023b).
Melton also cites the Millerites as surviving a famous failed prophecy
of the second coming of Christ. He is correct. Seventh Day Adventists are
descended from this movement; however, the movement experienced
extreme attrition after the failed prophecy. Adventist historian Knight
estimates that the majority of followers abandoned the movement fol-
lowing the failed prophecy (Knight 1999).
The final group cited by Melton is a pseudonymous Pentecostal group
studied by Hardyck and Braden (1962). It is impossible to know the long-
term fate of this group—the only account of the group was published
two years after the failed prophecy, and since the authors, for reasons of
privacy, used pseudonyms for the group and its location, it is impossible
to follow up on this group and ascertain whether it survived beyond the
initial follow-up conducted by Hardyck and Braden.
Melton tried to provide evidence that religious groups easily weather
failed prophecies. Discarding the example whose existence or long-term
fate cannot be known, he provided two examples of movements that died
entirely, one movement that lost most of its members, and one move-
ment that may not have experienced a failed prophecy at all. Of the three
groups that clearly experienced failed prophecy, two of them died. A
better interpretation of Melton’s cases might be that within religious
groups clear failures of prophecy are generally not weathered and that
most groups that experience failed prophecies die. Based on Melton’s
examples, failed prophecies appear fatal.
Evaluating the cases of Dawson (1999)
Dawson (1999) provided a table of thirteen different religious groups that
he claimed experienced false prophecy and listed whether the group
survived the failed prophecy. He claimed twelve of the groups survived
and labeled surviving groups as surviving “for a time” or “quite well”
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60 Failed Prophecies Are Fatal
or “barely” or “with difficulties” or “but weakened” but unfortunately
gives no guidance as to what these terms mean. For instance, Dawson
cites Palmer and Finn (1992) to justify labeling the Institute of Applied
Metaphysics as surviving “quite well” even though Palmer and Finn
stated that it had ceased to exist by the time they wrote their article.
In Table 2, I return to Dawson’s cases and record how long the groups
existed before and after the failed prophecy, what we know of changes to
group membership after the failed prophecy, and whether the prophecy
drew upon a novel or accepted source of knowledge.
Dawson claimed twelve of these groups present evidence of survival.
Having set the standard for survival at ten years, I find that three of the
twelve groups clearly survived: The Baha’is under the Provision of the
Covenant, the Millerites, the Jehovah’s Witnesses, and the Unarians. A
fifth, the Rouxists, may also have survived. Six groups perished after
the failure of prophecy. One group cannot be studied due to their iden-
tity having been hidden. One group, the Lubavitch Hasidim, cannot be
labeled as having experienced a failed prophecy without accepting a
specific theological stance. The death of groups is more common than
survival. The Unarians survived disappointment, but whether they sur-
vived failed prophecy is an open question, due to the conditionality of
language and because the prophet disavowed its fulfillment before the
date it was supposed to be fulfilled.
Of the three groups covered by Dawson that clearly survived failed
prophecy, two of the groups were studied retrospectively, therefore suf-
fering from survivorship bias. The study of Baha’is under the Provision
of the Covenant provides an example of a prospective study of prophecy
that shows a group surviving failed prophecy. But even here the group
recognized that the prophecy failed. While the leaders would make more
and more predictions of future disasters (Balch et al. 2000), the members
of the group responded by discontinuing efforts to convert others to
their sect, in some cases leaving the group, and the remaining members
ceased preparing for future disasters predicted by the leadership. The
remaining members’ religious beliefs also shifted away from apocalyptic
prophecies as a central focus and shifted towards a greater emphasis
on the general pre-existing teaching of the Baha’i faith rather than the
unique teachings of their particular sect (Balch et al. 1983).
It is plausible, but not obvious, that the Unarians should be counted
as a group that experienced failed prophecy. Tumminia (2005) describes
Ruth Norman, the group’s leader, as predicting a UFO landing in both
© Equinox Publishing Ltd. 2025
Thomas Kelly
Table 2: Cases from Dawson (1999).
Name of Dawson Length of pre- Length of post- Accepted or
prophet or (1999) failed prophecy failed prophecy Post-failure decline novel source of
Group alleged messiah sources existence existence or growth knowledge
Dorothy Dorothy Martin Festinger et al. Less than a year Weeks (Dawson Ceased to exist Novel (psychic
Martin’s (1956) (Festinger et al. 2011) within weeks extraterrestrials)
group, 1956) (Dawson 2011; Barkun
“Seekers” 2015; Kelly 2023)
Church of the Pseudonymous Hardyck and Five years Unknown Unknown Accepted
True Word Braden (1962) (Hardyck and (Pentecostal gift of
Braden 1962) prophecy)
Ichigen no Motoki Isamu Sanada (1979) 24 years At least one year Dramatic decline in Novel (personal
© Equinox Publishing Ltd. 2025
Miya (Sanada 1979) (Sanada 1979) but first year (Sanada revelation)
probably fewer than 1979)
ten* (Earhart 1983)
Baha’is under Chase and Balch et al. 11 years (Balch 43 years and still Moderate decline of Novel/Accepted
the Provision Jensen (1983) and et al. 1983) exists (BUPC) believers based in (angelic visitation
of the Balch et al. Montana, dramatic and biblical
Covenant (2000) decline elsewhere interpretation)
(Balch et al. 1983)
(Continued.)
Table 2 (Continued.)
Name of Dawson Length of pre- Length of post- Accepted or
prophet or (1999) failed prophecy failed prophecy Post-failure decline novel source of
Group alleged messiah sources existence existence or growth knowledge
Millerites William Miller Melton (1985) 13 years (Knight 179 years and still Most Millerites Accepted (biblical
1993) exists as Adventists abandoned Millerism interpretation)
(Knight 1999)
Universal Link Liebie Pugh Melton (1985) Six years The two groups No institutional Novel (supernatural
(Melton, 1985) promoting the existence after five visitor and
prophecy folded years miraculous angel
within five painting)
years although
publications
promoting the
prophecy were
released up to nine
years afterwards
(Living Record
© Equinox Publishing Ltd. 2025
2023a, 2023b)
Jehovah’s Charles Taze Zygmunt Eight years 145 years and still Departure of key Accepted (biblical
Witnesses Russell (1970), (Rogerson 1969) exists theologian, Nelson interpretation)
Wilson (1978), Barbour and some
Singelenberg demoralization
(1989) but no great effect
(Rogerson 1969;
Macmillan 1957;
Zygmunt 1970)
Failed Prophecies Are Fatal
Name of Dawson Length of pre- Length of post- Accepted or
prophet or (1999) failed prophecy failed prophecy Post-failure decline novel source of
Group alleged messiah sources existence existence or growth knowledge
Rouxists Georges Ernest Van Fossen Seven years 76 years and still Unclear Novel (founder
Thomas Kelly
Roux (2000) (Van Fossen exists claimed to be God)
(republished) 1982)
Mission de Emmanuel Palmer and 62 years One year (Palmer Group ceased to exist Novel (founder
l’Esprit Saint Robitaille Finn (1992) and Finn, 1992) claimed to be
incarnation of the
Holy Spirit)
Institute Winifred (Win) Palmer and 13 years Leader expelled Group ceased to exist Novel
of Applied Barton Finn (1992) after eight years, (extraterrestrial
Metaphysics movement defunct insect spirit guide
within nine years from Atlantis)
(Palmer and Finn
1992)
Lubavitch Rabbi Shaffir (1993, Hundreds of 19 years and still Unharmed Accepted
Hasidim Menachem 1994) years (Dein, exists (Rabbinical
© Equinox Publishing Ltd. 2025
Mendel Dein (1997) 1997) teaching)
Schneerson
(Continued.)
Table 2 (Continued.)
Name of Dawson Length of pre- Length of post- Accepted or
prophet or (1999) failed prophecy failed prophecy Post-failure decline novel source of
Group alleged messiah sources existence existence or growth knowledge
Unarians Ruth and Ernest Tumminia 20–21 years 47–48 years and still Prophecy failure Novel/Accepted
Norman (1998) before first exists. in 1975 led to no (Psychic
failed prophecy significant decline extraterrestrials
(Tumminia (Tumminia 2005) are a novel source
2005) for U.S. society
as a whole but
they promote
their beliefs to
a sympathetic
New Age and UFO
subculture)
Chen Tao Hon-Ming Chen Wright (1998) Five years Four years Leader lost all Novel (mysterious
(Wright and (Wright and Greil followers. teacher with divine
Greil 2011) 2011) (Wright and Greil wisdom and direct
© Equinox Publishing Ltd. 2025
2011) revelation)
*Earhart’s (1983) comprehensive bibliography on English-language sources on Japanese new religious movements shows no publications
by or on the group following Sanada (1979), consistent with the group becoming defunct, but not conclusively showing that the group
went defunct.
Failed Prophecies Are Fatal
Thomas Kelly 65
1974 and 1975—neither of which occurred. For the 1974 prediction, Tum-
minia cites the cult publication Tesla Speaks: Countdown!!! to Space Fleet
Landing, and notes that the copy she obtained had a paper slip pasted
over a failed prediction. I obtained a copy of the same volume, which had
been altered in the same manner. However, the language surrounding
this 1974 prophecy is highly conditional; Norman wrote that the fleet
would land only when humanity had overcome its fear of extraterres-
trials (Norman 1974). As Tumminia notes—but does not emphasize—the
1975 landing prophecy was rescinded days before the anticipated arrival,
when a Unarian psychic revealed that the vision of the UFO fleet was not
a glimpse of the future, but of ancient Egypt (Norman 1975). By the time
27 September 1975 arrived, the Unarians no longer expected a landing.
While they expressed shock and disappointment at having mistaken an
ancient vision for a modern one, their belief system was not directly
falsified by external events. Even the later prediction of a 2001 UFO land-
ing, as Tumminia notes, was viewed by some Unarians as symbolic or
conditional before the date arrived.
The case of the Rouxist movement provides an ambiguous example
of a group surviving a failed apocalyptic prophecy. Van Fossen (1982)
writes that the Rouxists of France, whose founder first claimed to have
supernatural healing abilities in 1947, originally predicted the arrival of
the millennium in 1954, and that despite its non-arrival, the movement
continued to grow and still survives.
The movement’s founder claimed to be various figures, eventually
landing on a claim to be God. If the group survived a failed prophecy in
1954, this would be an example of a group with a novel source of knowl-
edge that survived a failed prophecy when relatively young. This may
be the correct interpretation. The challenge is that the claimed 1954
prophecy is quite obscure. Van Fossen (1982) appears to be the only
English-language source for any 1954 prophecy and he never provides a
translation or the original text of any prophecy referring to 1954.
Another source of ambiguity about the 1954 prophecy comes from
Van Fossen’s interviews of the group members. He writes that when he
interviewed members of the group in 1974 about the failed 1954 prophe-
cies, they “adamantly denied that they indicated any failures, contradic-
tions, or inconsistencies” (1982, 124). Are the members rationalizing a
past failed prophecy or are they correct that there was not a failed 1954
prophecy?
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66 Failed Prophecies Are Fatal
The group does have a history of conditional prophecies. When one
follower of the group claimed that the Virgin Mary told her that they
would convert the Pope to their movement, the leader claimed that her
prophecy had failed because the group had not worked hard enough to
win new disciples. In later decades, 1980 would be set as the deadline for
the arrival of the new age, but the prophecy would be rescinded by the
group’s leaders in 1979, claiming that the followers were not sufficiently
worthy. Other accounts of the history of the Rouxists contain no refer-
ence to a failed millennial prophecy in 1954 (Dericquebourg 2008).
Pro-survival factors?
I suggested that either the age of a group or its reliance on an accepted
source of prophetic knowledge such as holy scripture might protect
groups from the negative effects of failed prophecies. The case studies
on failed prophecies cited above provide no evidence of old groups sur-
viving failed prophecies, as most of the groups that issued these proph-
ecies were quite young and set dates of fulfillment for the imminent
future. New groups often die after a failed prophecy, yet even decades-
old groups such as Mission de l’Esprit Saint can collapse immediately
after prophetic failure.
The source of prophetic knowledge may play a role in shaping how well
a religious group survives failed prophecy. All the groups from Dawson
(1999) that are known to have failed relied on novel sources of knowl-
edge. Of the groups that are known to survive, the two that experienced
substantial growth following failed prophecy (the Jehovah’s Witnesses
and the Millerites) both based their prediction on interpretations of the
Christian Bible, which was accepted as a holy and authoritative scripture
in the societies where the movements began.
If the Unarians are viewed as having experienced failed prophecy, they
survived it, while relying on psychic contact with extraterrestrials as
the source for their prophecies. While this is a novel source of knowl-
edge within the United States as a whole, Tumminia (2005) shows us that
the Unarians recruit from New Age and UFO believers, who are prob-
ably more likely to view psychic contact with extraterrestrials as a more
accepted source of knowledge than the general public does.
The case of the Bahai’s under the Provision of the Covenant warrants
particular discussion, as following the failure of their prophecy, the
leaders explicitly argued that the failure should not cast doubt upon
their movement, as their prophecy was only a failure of scriptural
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Thomas Kelly 67
interpretation, not of religious authority. As reported by Balch et al.
(2000), the Bahai’s under the Provision of the Covenant are a small schis-
matic sect of the mainstream Baha’i religion founded by a chiropractor
Leland Jensen, who left the mainstream Baha’i religion in the 1960s after
a succession dispute about the rightful leadership of the faith. Jensen
would move to Montana and be sentenced to prison for sexual offenses.
While in prison, Jensen claimed he received a spiritual revelation naming
him a prophet who was to teach the true Bahai’s faith. Jensen would later
gain a key follower, Neil Chase, who would claim that Jensen’s claims to
be a prophet were vindicated by earlier prophecies from George Wil-
liams, a follower of Joseph Morris, whose prophecies are discussed else-
where in this article. Together, Jensen and Chase would issue various
predictions of nuclear war, comet strikes upon the earth, and various
other catastrophes which did not occur.
Although Jensen taught that he had received his mission through
supernatural revelation, following several failed prophecies, Chase and
Jensen insisted that their prophecies were based upon biblical interpre-
tation, not supernatural revelation.
The admission of human error was rationalized by making a sharp dis-
tinction between a prediction and prophecy. Prophecies came directly
from God, whereas the BUPC’s predictions were based on research and
logic, which are subject to human fallibility. As Chase put it: “We can’t be
false prophets because we don’t claim to be prophets. We simply inter-
pret what is already there in the Bible.” Jensen had always made this dis-
tinction, but it became increasingly important in the 1990s. According to
this reasoning, Jensen and Chase were only human and they could make
mistakes like everyone else. (Balch et al. 2000, 274)
The leaders of the group seemed to recognize that inaccurate interpreta-
tions of the Bible do not cast into doubt the reliability of the Bible, but
inaccurate claims delivered from God or angels might cast into doubt the
spiritual authority of those who talk to supernatural beings.
Spiritualization but not survival
Melton’s (1985) claim that groups respond to failed prophecy by rein-
terpreting their prophecy to entail a spiritual and invisible fulfillment
rather than a concrete and visible fulfillment is supported by the behav-
ior of many of the groups in the literature. Individual believers often
did claim to receive visions that provided guidance for movements after
prophecy failed. These visions could allow for the spiritualization and
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68 Failed Prophecies Are Fatal
reinterpretation of failed prophecies, to reveal that that the prophesied
event has been postponed or provide support for succession of leader-
ship in succession disputes. Most groups discussed in this article would
go on to claim further revelation after their prophecies failed. Many of
these groups still died.
Groups where some individuals claimed visions or other forms of rev-
elation and prophecies following failed prophecy include Dorothy Mar-
tin’s group (Festinger et al. 1956), the Morrisites (Anderson 1981), the
Rouxists (Van Fossen 1982), Chen Tao (Wright and Greil 2011), the Unar-
ians (Tumminia 1998), Universal Link (Melton 1985), Southcott’s follow-
ers (Melton 1985), the Millerites (Strayer 2022), Ichigen no Miya (Sanada
1979), and Baha’is under the Provision of the Covenant (Balch et al. 2000).
The Jehovah’s Witnesses would also go on to make many more apoc-
alyptic prophecies, but these were based on scriptural interpretation
rather than supernatural revelation. The groups in the literature did not
claim to experience shared group visions or to be witnesses of physical,
observable miracles. If cognitive dissonance explains the existence of
some of these visions, it shows limits to what kinds of spiritual experi-
ences disappointed believers have. Even a group that could have believed
that they witnessed a physical miracle, the followers of Joanna South-
cott, did not claim to experience an observable physical miracle after
Shiloh was not born. The absence of miracle claims, other than visions
following failed prophecies, also suggests that disappointed believers do
not generally turn to pious fraud to fabricate miracles.
Conclusion
Past scholars have claimed that religious believers ignored, rationalized,
or spiritualized past failed prophecies, allowing the groups that created
those prophecies to survive. But the case studies carefully assembled
by a variety of scholars since the publication of When Prophecy Fails do
not support that conclusion. In general, failed prophecies look fatal,
and groups that experience them usually fail. In some of the cases, this
looks causal. For instance, the group in When Prophecy Fails disbanded
almost immediately after the failure of prophecy. However, as we lack
data on all new religious movements, it cannot be conclusively shown
that failed prophecies consistently drive group demise or that groups
that experience failed prophecies dissolve sooner than groups that do
not. There is suggestive evidence from existing case studies that offering
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Thomas Kelly 69
“predictions” based upon scriptural interpretation appears less harmful
than offering prophecies made through direct supernatural revelation.
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