August 21: Dilks' 1832 Parousia

John Dilks, a preacher living in the American wilderness as far west as the Ohio River, projected in the early 1800s that the Parousia (Christ's return to Earth) would occur during 1832.

August 20: Pyramid Power

In 1924, the British "Israelites" David Davidson and Dr. H. Aldersmith published "The Great Pyramid, Its Divine Message", claiming that the secrets locked into the pyramid at Giza include clues about the future history of Earth. One of these secrets was that the world will end sometime in this month of August, in the year 1953.

Note: in this context, "Israelite" refers to the curious, though once popular, belief that the ten lost tribes of Israel went on to become the people of Britain.

August 19: The Mark of the Beast first appears... in Louisiana Grade Schools

Apparently, the new cafeteria payment system in some Louisiana elementary schools is the rollout of the Mark of the Beast as prophesied by John of Patmos in Revelation 13.

Parents Worry that School's Palm-Scanner is the Mark of the Beast

August 18: Vissarion and The Amazing Criswell

Today in 1991, a Russian mystic named Vissarion (born Sergey Anatolyevitch Torop) founded the Church of the Last Testament in Siberia, revealing himself to be Jesus Christ and preaching the imminent end of the world to some 10,000 current followers.

***

Charles "The Amazing Criswell" King was a psychic showman who portrayed himself in the classic Ed Wood film “Plan 9 From Outer Space”. In his 1968 book “Criswell Predicts”, he made a number of strange announcements about the future, like that homosexual ghetto cities will form; New York City will fall into the sea; and a space ray will strike Denver, turning basic construction materials like concrete, metal and lumber into an enveloping goo.

Following the appearance worldwide of black, oxygen-sucking rainbows, Criswell said the world would end on this date in 1999.

August 17: The Harmonic Convergence

August 16-17, 1987, was the date of the "Harmonic Convergence" as popularized by the artist Jose Arguelles, a spearheading force behind the earlier Whole Earth Festival and Earth Day celebrations. Arguelles' idea was that during this period people around Earth should meditate together in a vague consciousness-raising experiment. If gatherings of 144,000 could be achieved at certain world "power centers" like Mount Shasta, CA, he claimed, then a new era would dawn. It's unclear why Arguelles picked the number 144,000, but this does happen to be the number of saved Israelites according to the Book of Revelation. (A dozen thousand for each of the dozen tribes of Israel).

The prompt for the Harmonic Convergence was an alignment of six planets, also coinciding with the closing of multiple "hell" cycles (Arguelles' term) in the Mayan calendar. In that sense, the Harmonic Convergence bears a resemblance to the current obsession with the 12/21/12 close of the Mayan long-count calendar.

Much-ballyhooed at the time, the Harmonic Convergence was soon forgotten after nothing noteworthy happened during it.

August 16: Pacific Gas and Electric

On this day in 1970, the band Pacific Gas and Electric's eschatological single "Are You Ready?" peaked on the Billboard pop charts at #14.

August 15: HRE Otto III

On this day in the year 1000, the Holy Roman Emperor Otto III isolated himself in a hermit's cell outside Rome for two weeks, preparing for the new millennium. An eclipse in 968 had led Otto to grow up convinced that the world was entering the end times. A devout young ruler, he sought to restore the original Roman Empire in accordance with the medieval concept of a Last World Emperor (see July 9).

The Holy Roman Empire was centered in Germany, but four years earlier Otto III had marched down to Italy, and near-bloodlessly saved the papacy from a threat by the strongmen of the Crescentii family in Rome. He was named king of Italy, and ruled from there before dying in 1002 at the age of 21.

August 13: Hippolytus of Rome

August 13 is the feast date of Hippolytus of Rome, martyred in 235 CE while exiled by the Empire to Sardinia. Even as persecutions of Christians went on under Emperors Septimus Severus and Maximinus Thrax, Hippolytus didn't keep a low profile with his coreligionists. He accused the standing pope of embracing the heresy of modalism, and even challenged papal authority by briefly accepting a rivaling bishopric over Rome.

Hippolytus' books included a commentary on Daniel; and his On Christ and Antichrist propounded a 6000-year Earth, detailing events that would lead to the world's demise around 500 CE. (Lactantius later subscribed to the same "hexameron" chronology.)

In his martyrdom, Hippolytus was believed to have been dragged to death by horses, which led, through a bit of reverse logic, to his being named their patron saint.

August 12: Diogennet

In 1792, a rural priest near Saint-Etienne in France predicted that the Messiah would soon arrive in the area. It took 50 years for a peasant named Jean-Baptists Digonnet to appear in the 1840s and claim he was that Messiah. Though he drew a following which would stubbornly persist up until the Second World War, the main result of Diogennet's ministry was that he was arrested three times and eventually died in hospice.

(Reference: "Apocalypses: Prophecies, Cults, and Millennial Beliefs through the Ages", Eugen Weber, 1999)

August 11: Nicholas of Cusa; Nostradamus' King of Terror

Nicholas of Cusa, a German Cardinal who wrote on a vast range of subjects including philosophy and mathematics, died on August 11, 1464. Using calculations derived from the book of Daniel, Nicholas projected the end of the world for either 1533 or 1741.

***

A solar eclipse on August 11, 1999 was awkwardly linked by some to a prediction from Nostradamus, Century 10, Quatrain 72: "In the year 1999 seven months / From the sky will come the great king of terror." Of course not only is the dating off, but also this eclipse proved as harmless as any.

The same quotation of Nostradamus' - "From the sky will come the great king of terror" - may sound familiar because it was often applied to the 9-11 attacks (sometimes with the specific reference to the year 1999 left out). But more importantly, in the Orson Welles-narrated documentary "The Man Who Saw Tomorrow", this quotation was taken to mean that an unknown Muslim leader in a blue turban would launch a nuclear strike on the United States in June 1999.

August 10: Coping with Cognitive Dissonance in a Baha'i Sect

In 1969, Dr. Leland Jensen, leader of a small Baha'i splinter group in Montana, entered prison for sexually molesting a 15-year-old girl. That night, in the early hours of August 10, he had a revelation that he was the "promised Joshua". In the years after his eventual release from prison, between 1979 and 1995, he issued 20 separate predictions of global disaster. These included several nuclear strikes on New York City, the smashing of Halley's Comet into Earth, and many others. On the eve of Jensen's largest prediction - April 29, 1980 - his hundreds of followers across multiple northwestern states entered fallout shelters to ride out what they believed would be 20 years of Tribulation before Christ's return to Earth in 2000.

After each failed prediction, Jensen and his right-hand man Neal Chase issued press releases explaining how they had been correct. For instance, when New York was not destroyed in a nuclear attack on March 23, 1994 (after previously not being destroyed in a nuclear attack on November 29, 1992), Chase pointed to a gas pipeline explosion in New Jersey the following day, which one witness compared to a nuclear blast.

Source: Balch, Domitrovich, Mahnke, Morrison - "Fifteen Years of Failed Prophecy: Coping with Cognitive Dissonance in a Baha'i Sect"

August 9: d'Ailly Says 1789; and 45 Years Ahead of "Behind"

Cardinal Pierre d'Ailly died on this date in 1420. He was an extensive writer on cosmology and astrology, church powers, and the 14th-century Papal Schism in which competing popes claimed authority from Rome and Avignon. His cartographical views influenced Columbus, and a crater of the moon is named for him.

In a view accepted by a number of others (the Dijon Academy Rector Pierre Turrl, a certain Canon Rouessart, and Peter Pearson of London) d'Ailly claimed the world would end during 1789. As the French Revolution began, this may have appeared to have been a true prediction for awhile. (See February 6)

***

Ernest Angley was born on August 9, 1921. At age 91, Angley still operates an international evangelical ministry from Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, boasting its own weekly television program, online Bible college, and Boeing 747.

Back in 1950, Angley penned the novel "Raptured", a fictional treatment of the modern American Evangelical synthesis of end-time beliefs, which foreran the "Left Behind" book series by some 45 years.

August 8: Supervolcanoes, Revisited

We took a look at supervolcanoes on May 18, focusing on the possibility of an eventual eruption in the Pacific Northwest, which could cause global famine by blocking the sun with floating ash. According to a Smithsonian article this week, the danger of such an eruption may be greater right now in Italy.

An eruption 39,000 years ago at this site - Campi Felgrei, outside Naples - was once thought to have been a possible reason for the extinction of the Neanderthals (this hypothesis has been discarded, but that it was considered possible in the first place shows how severe the eruption was).

On another note, many contemporary religion scholars, like Elaine Pagels in her most recent book Revelations, think the CE 79 Vesuvius eruption (connected with this same site near Naples) also played into the writing of the Book of Revelation. Particularly, Rev. 8:8 - "The second angel sounded his trumpet, and something like a huge mountain, all ablaze, was thrown into the sea. A third of the sea turned into blood...."

Smithsonian Magazine: Italian Supervolcano Could End Eurozone Crisis the Easy Way

August 7: Marvin Hamlisch

Musical theater and film-score composer Marvin Hamlisch has died in Los Angeles. During 1999, the Reverend Jerry Falwell said he couldn't be sure whether or not Hamlisch is the Antichrist.

Falwell spoke in response to a question from then-comedian and now-Senator Al Franken. According to Falwell, the Antichrist could be any living male Jew, which prompted Franken's question.


Here's the excerpt from Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right, where Franken talks about asking Falwell about Hamlisch.

August 6: Branch-Davidian Survivors

Surviving members of the 1993 Branch Davidian disaster in Waco, Texas, claimed that the Biblical Tribulation would begin on this date in 1999.

August 5: How And Why To Eat Rat Meat

At least realize that I do feel bad sharing this.

Recipes for the Post-Apocalpse: How and Why to Eat Rat Meat (io9)

August 3: Wulfstan

Wulfstan was variously Bishop of London, Worcester, and/or York during the span 996-1023. He wrote in depth as a homilist about the imminent coming of the Antichrist and return of Jesus. He produced his central work, Sermon of the Wolf to the English, in 1014.

Wulfstan died on May 28, 1023.

August 2: The Gulf War, and Contemporary Muslim Apocalypticism

The Gulf War began on August 2, 1990 with Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. Though Saddam Hussein would famously call the American-led counterassault “the mother of all battles”, in America itself, Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan was even more pointed. To him the launch of Desert Storm was “the War of Armageddon… the final war.”

A fundamentalist strain in the larger Islamic world was also given strength because of the war. Several Muslim writers, many based in Cairo, grew popular during the 90s for their prophetic and apocalyptic work. The most famous of them, Sa’id Ayyub, built a career on a series of books beginning with “The Antichrist” in 1987.

Ayyub has helped spread belief in al-Dajjal: the Jewish Messiah now reconceived as a world-deceiver and Islam’s Antichrist. The Dajjal is expected to rule Earth from Jerusalem before being defeated by the second coming of Jesus. Of course, Jesus will be returning as a Muslim in this case, and according to popular belief will personally behead the Dajjal (although Ayyub himself is hesitant to encourage Christians by endorsing a too-literal return of Jesus). The final defeat of the Dajjal will clear the way for the appearance of the true messiah, the Madhi. The Madhi is the Twelfth Shi’a Imam, disappearing in 941 CE and expected to return ever since. The returned Madhi will defeat the Satanic hoards of Gog and Magog, and establish the Meccan shrine of the Ka’aba in Jerusalem where he will rule in glory.

Obsessively anti-Semitic, Ayyub tends to elevate the concept of Dajjal above one man, and into a principle underlying all of western civilization. Among Ayyub’s more bizarre claims is that Christianity itself is a Jewish conspiracy to delude and control Europeans and Americans. All Popes, and even the notably anti-Semitic Martin Luther, were secretly Jews, according to Ayyub.

(References: David Cook, “Contemporary Muslim Apocalyptic Literature”, 2008, and “Muslim Fears of the Year 2000” in Middle East Quarterly, June 1998)

August 1: The Red Heifer

Numbers 19:2 describes the most profound ritual of purification within Hebraic law. It entails slaughtering and burning a purely-red heifer, age three; mixing the ashes with water, scarlet, cedar, and hyssop; and sprinkling it on the person in need of purification. Since such heifers are a genetic anomaly, no more than nine were sacrificed in the history of the Temple in Jerusalem.

A small number of Jews today - like the Temple Mount Faithful (see Sunday, 7/29), and members of the Temple Institute - believe a red-heifer purification is required for any Jew to access the full Temple Mount without incurring God's wrath. So in order to rebuild Solomon's Temple there, and reinstate daily sacrifices within it, there has first been a search on for a pure red heifer. (Of course, in addition to sacrificing this cow, the Al-Aqsa mosque and Dome of the Rock will first need to be demolished.)

In 1990, an evangelical cattleman in Mississippi named Clyde Lott, hoping to do his part to help trigger Armageddon, began directed breeding experiments in an attempt to produce a red heifer. This was done in cooperation with the Temple Institute and its director Chaim Richman - but the two eventually had a falling-out, apparently over religious differences.

Unrelatedly, a cow named Missy was born in Israel in 1996 and appeared to fit the bill... but then unfortunately grew non-red hairs before reaching age three. In 2002, another cow briefly looked like it would qualify. But to date, the search for a red heifer continues.

July 31: George W. Bush Is Asked Whether The Iraq War Is The Start Of The Apocalypse

As I keep reading up on things apocalyptic, I'll use "empty" dates in this second half of the year for items I "missed" earlier. So today's entry is about March 20, 2006, when George W. Bush gave a press conference on the fourth anniversary of the start of the Iraq War. (per CNN transcript:)

QUESTION: Thank you for coming to Cleveland, Mr. President, and to the City Club.

My question is that author and former Nixon administration official Kevin Phillips in his latest book, "American Theocracy," discusses what has been called radical Christianity and its growing involvement into government and politics. He makes the point that members of your administration have reached out to prophetic Christians who see the war in Iraq and the rise of terrorism as signs of the Apocalypse.

QUESTION: Do you believe this, that the war in Iraq and the rise of terrorism are signs of the Apocalypse?

And if not, why not?

BUSH: Hmmm.

(LAUGHTER)

The answer is I haven't really thought of it that way.

(LAUGHTER)

Here's how I think of it.

First, I've heard of that, by the way.

I guess I'm more of a practical fellow. I vowed, after September the 11th, that I would do everything I could to protect the American people. And my attitude, of course, was affected by the attacks....

[Bush goes on to emphasize the seriousness of terrorism in its effect on small-business owners, and the need to bring terrorism to heel where it begins - in Afghanistan, for instance, or elsewhere preemptively - rather than fighting terrorists at home. He intimates that for this reason action could be needed against Iran.]

...I'm, kind of, getting off subject here, but not because I don't want to answer your question. But I guess that's what happens in Washington, we get a little long-winded.

(LAUGHTER)

But now that I'm on Iran, the threat from Iran, of course...

(LAUGHTER)

(APPLAUSE)

The threat from Iran is, of course, their stated objective to destroy our strong ally Israel.

That's a threat. A serious threat. It's a threat to world peace. It's a threat in essence to a strong alliance.

I made it clear, and I'll make it clear again, that we will use military might to protect our ally Israel....

(APPLAUSE)

[Bush concludes his answer to the question by repeating some of his prior points about terrorism and the importance of protecting the American people.]