Many indigenous movements, often anti-imperialist in nature, take on the full range of millennialist characteristics. In the Western Hemisphere, for example, native populations produced a wide variety of millennial movements, from the Gai’wiio of the prophet Handsome Lake about 1800 to the Ghost Dance of the prophet Wovoka in the 1890s. Among some Pacific Islanders the arrival of cargo-laden airplanes during World War II led to the emergence of cargo cults and the belief that proper rituals would bring precious “cargo” from the great bird in the sky. Modern UFO cults, many of which have strong millennial elements, represent a kind of postmodern cargo cult.
By far the most powerful non-Christian millennial tradition is found in Buddhism, with the Pure Land traditions and the expectation of the Maitreya Buddha, a messianic final incarnation of the Buddha. Especially strong in China but evident in Korea, Japan, Vietnam, and Myanmar (Burma), millennial strains of Buddhism have given birth to secret societies (including White Lotus). Powerful popular movements also arose in response to millennialist thought: one toppled the Mongol dynasty in the 14th century; another, the Taiping, almost ended the Qing dynasty in the mid-19th century. By the time this last movement, a mixture of Buddhist and Christian millennialism, had been suppressed, some 20–35 million people were dead. The Boxer Rebellion of the late 19th century again demonstrated the power of millennial beliefs, especially the characteristic magical belief—shared by the Ghost Dancers of North America and the Kartelite cults of Africa—that certain incantations could render the believer invulnerable to bullets.
Great bronze Amida (Daibutsu), the Buddha of the Pure Land, 1252; at Kamakura, Japan.Asuka-en, Japan
The academic field of millennial studies was launched by anthropologists who studied cargo cults in the post-World War II period. The field was developed further by medievalists such as Norman Cohn and Marjorie Reeves and theoretically refined by sociologists such as Leon Festinger. Because of the unusual dynamics of millennial manifestations—their brief intensity, seemingly irrational passions, and range of responses to apocalyptic disappointment—the study of millennialism often demands counterintuitive thinking and a multidisciplinary approach.
The significance of millennialism as a historical factor is a matter of some debate. It unquestionably plays an important role in various forms of antimodern and anti-Western protests, but it also has contributed significantly to the spread of modernity. With its images of perfected mankind, its emphasis on social and political egalitarianism, and its undermining of established authority, millennialism has left, even in failure, a legacy of social transformation. Indeed, millennialism may have played an important role in the diffusion of new technology (e.g., Protestants and the printing press, new religious movements and the Internet).
For all of its socially creative force, however, millennialism also has powerfully destructive tendencies. In some primarily antimodern forms, millennial movements can become highly authoritarian, suffused with conspiratorial thinking, implacably opposed to imagined enemies (e.g., Jews, independent women, denominational opponents), and capable of staggering acts of violence and self-destruction. The tausandjahriger Reich (thousand-year empire) of Nazi ideology represents the ultimate expression of this tendency. With its power to fire the imagination and elicit passionate emotions as well as to move many to extraordinary deeds of self-sacrifice, social creativity, and destructiveness, millennialism may be one of the most protean social and religious forces in the history of civilization. Richard Landes
Citation Information
Article Title: Millennialism
Website Name: Encyclopaedia Britannica
Publisher: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.
Date Published: 05 January 2018
URL: https://www.britannica.com/topic/millennialism
Access Date: August 14, 2019
Additional Reading General works
Valuable general studies of millennialism include Michael Barkun, Disaster and the Millennium (1974, reprinted 1986); Frederic J. Baumgartner, Longing for the End: A History of Millennialism in Western Civilization (1999); Kenelm Burridge, New Heaven, New Earth: A Study of Millenarian Activities (1969, reissued 1986); Mal Couch (ed.), Dictionary of Premillenial Theology (1996); Ted Daniels, Millennialism: An International Bibliography (1992); Leon Festinger, Henry W. Riecken, and Stanley Schachter, When Prophecy Fails (1956, reissued 1964); Stephen Jay Gould, Questioning the Millennium: A Rationalist’s Guide to a Precisely Arbitrary Countdown, rev. ed. (1999); Arthur P. Mendel, Vision and Violence (1992); Stephen D. O’Leary, Arguing the Apocalypse: A Theory of Millennial Rhetoric (1994, reissued 1998); Lee Quinby, Anti-Apocalypse: Exercises in Genealogical Criticism (1994); Michael J. St. Clair, Millenarian Movements in Historical Context (1992); Damian Thompson, The End of Time: Faith and Fear in the Shadow of the Millennium, rev. and updated ed. (1999); and Eugen Weber, Apocalypses: Prophecies, Cults, and Millennial Beliefs Through the Ages (1999). Jewish and early Christian millennialism
Jewish and early Christian millenarian thought are discussed in Albert I. Baumgarten, The Flourishing of Jewish Sects in the Maccabean Era: An Interpretation (1997); Norman Cohn, Cosmos, Chaos, and the World to Come: The Ancient Roots of Apocalyptic Faith (1993, reissued 1995); John J. Collins, The Apocalyptic Imagination: An Introduction to Jewish Apocalyptic Literature, 2nd ed. (1998); Stephen L. Cook, Prophecy & Apocalypticism: The Postexilic Social Setting (1995); Paula Fredriksen, “Apocalypse and Redemption in Early Christianity: From John of Patmos to Augustine of Hippo,” Vigiliae Christianae, 45:151–183 (June 1991); and John G. Gager, Kingdom and Community: The Social World of Early Christianity (1975). Millennialism in the Middle Ages
The role of the Antichrist, the book of Revelation to John, and millennial thought have received much attention by scholars of the Middle Ages. Among the more important treatments of these and related topics are Norman Cohn, The Pursuit of the Millennium: Revolutionary Millenarians and Mystical Anarchists of the Middle Ages, 3rd ed. (1970, reissued 1993); Richard K. Emmerson and Bernard McGinn (eds.), The Apocalypse in the Middle Ages (1992); Andrew Colin Gow, The Red Jews: Antisemitism in an Apocalyptic Age, 1200–1600 (1995); Richard Landes, “Lest the Millennium be Fulfilled: Apocalyptic Expectations and the Pattern of Western Chronography, 100–800 C.E.,” in Werner Verbeke, Daniel Verhelst, and Andries Welkenhuysen (eds.), The Use and Abuse of Eschatology in the Middle Ages (1988), pp. 137–211; Richard Landes, Andrew Gow, and David C. Van Meter (eds.), The Apocalyptic Year 1000: Religious Expectation and Social Change, 950–1050 (2003); Michael Frassetto (ed.), The Year 1000: Religious and Social Response to the Turning of the First Millennium (2003); Robert E. Lerner, “Refreshment of the Saints: The Time After Antichrist as a Station for Earthly Progress in Medieval Thought,” Traditio, 32:99–144 (1967); Bernard McGinn, Visions of the End: Apocalyptic Traditions in the Middle Ages (1979, reissued 1998), and Antichrist: Two Thousand Years of the Human Fascination with Evil (1994, reissued 1996); Marjorie Reeves, Joachim of Fiore & the Prophetic Future, new rev. ed. (1999); and Ann Williams (ed.), Prophecy and Millenarianism: Essays in Honour of Marjorie Reeves (1980). Millennialism in the early modern and modern world