sd-7's 3rd Memorial of Freedom falls on Sunday, March 10th, 2013, at sundown. Check your local news for when sundown happens in your area, so that you may pass the emblems--chocolate milk and Pop Tarts--in observance of liberation from the Watchtower. For review, the Pop Tarts represent one's body, which will no longer sit in a Kingdom Hall. The milk represents...hmm. Blood you can now donate to the Red Cross if you want? I forget. Guess I better research it. Don't feel like it right now. Been under the weather lately. Picked up a cold from the pediatrician's office, I think. Or maybe my stepdaughter, I can't be sure which.
Anyway, that said, I wanted to recommend, as Steve Hassan recommended not too long ago during his video with our dear Dogpatch, Randy Watters, the book 'When Prophecy Fails' by Leon Festinger. I've been reading it and I'm about a third of the way through and it's really fascinating. Very technical as far as details, but still an interesting study.
I'm reading now about Stacy Keech, I believe the name is, and the UFO cult she led. What was interesting was her prediction, based on being told by 'Guardians' or 'Sananda' or whoever, that flying saucers would appear on a specific date in specific locations visible to everyone. However, when it didn't happen, rather than seeming to realize her prediction had failed and perhaps calling into question the legitimacy of her beliefs, she latched onto a totally different set of events that seemed to strengthen her belief that the alien communications were real--that of encountering a man she believed to be a sort of Jesus/Messiah/alien person?
The other thing was the mention in the book of another book written in 1949 that directly mentions JWs and (apparently unrelated, uh, ha ha) UFO cults, called 'These Also Believe' by Charles Braden. Anyone ever seen or read that one? I'm going to see if I can find it. Very interesting that a book about JWs, which Festinger described as being 'objective', was written that far back. Not surprising given the 1914 and 1925 and all the other dates put out around that era.
Rather than seeing the failure of the proclamations, the early Bible Students just turned their attention to a new message or a new preaching campaign or both. Looking forward to the next date, and the next, and the next, until...what, exactly? They recognize that they were wrong, though generally the literature can't seem to be clear about who exactly was wrong, just naming the entire entity as having wrong expectations, not so much the people who printed the expectations. But the point is that the lack of fulfillment of all these clearly-foretold-in-scripture dates doesn't make them question it all, they as a whole just turn their attention to either making more recruits or looking forward to the next date (or next generation or next iteration of the next generation, in this case).
Well, I just thought it was a good read, especially relaxing because it's not about JWs so I get to be a bit more objective about the issues.
So...winter storm passed over my area with nothing but a cold rain. Guess I shouldn't have stayed up so late tonight. Going to have to go to work...
Well, take care.
--sd-7