Abstract
This chapter considers the group expecting the imminent End of the World and the mediums who led it, looking in turn at the group’s ‘Metaphysical’ religion, at the interactions between three spirit mediums involved in leadership, at the details of the teaching given to the group, and at the kind of language employed by each.
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Notes
There is work to be done too to map out the aliases used in the book. Mrs Keech may be identified with Dorothy Martin, a medium in the Chicago area who, after the publicity in 1954, moved to Arizona as Sister Thedra, and died in 1992 (see Clark 2007; cf. Szimhart 2006). She may have been a more experienced medium than she told Festinger; he believed she only began to receive messages in 1953. An Internet article (Alec Hiddell) identifies the Armstrongs with Dr Charles and Lillian Laughead, he being an associate in the late 1940s and early 1950s of the UFO-expert and medium George Hunt Williamson and, through Williamson, part of a loose circle that included William Dudley Pelley, George Adamski and Ray and Rex Stanford, linking right-wing politics, the occult, telepathy, parapsychology, contact with alien intelligences and more. Laughead was employed at Michigan State University.
Pelley in particular is worth remarking on because his name introduces a political note into the description which is otherwise absent or, more likely, underplayed. At the first meeting of the Seekers attended by the social scientists, members were asked to sign a circular letter addressed to President Eisenhower ‘asking him to make public the “secret information” the air force had accumulated on flying saucers’ (Festinger 2008: 74); otherwise, nothing overtly political is mentioned. Yet Pelley’ s name recurs; he was part of the Protestant fringe in the 1930s, founder of the Silver Shirt Legion in 1933, and gaoled for sedition during the War. Paroled in 1950, he gathered a small group around him called’ soulcraft’ and acted as a medium, channelling written messages from extraterrestrials. Lobb (2001) sums up his career in this fashion: ‘Pelley was perhaps the first extremist in America to combine anti-Semitism, paramilitarism, survivalism and millennialism into one movement. While Pelley is oft en thought of as an obscure figure of the right with bizarre beliefs and hopeless dreams of fascist dominance in the United States, the millennial aspects of his movement’s ideology would inspire future extremists. It can be argued further that Pelley’ s political and economic aspirations were secondary issues to his obsession with the millennial idea of the Apocalypse and the important role his organization would play in ushering in the Second Coming’. The millennial aspect of flying saucer cults that Dr Armstrong introduced therefore hints at a continuing strand in American right-wing politics—see Hofstadter (1965), Werly (1977) and Barkun (1997), cited by Lobb (2001); cf. Barkun (2003). Concerning Adamski, see below, ‘The milieu, institutions’
See also the discussion below in ‘The press (ii) presuppositions’
Although the book offers little evidence, it is legitimate to wonder about Mrs Keech’s early formation. She claimed, following convention, to have discovered her gift s in a solitary phase; however, from comparable accounts, it is more likely that she had been instructed in practices such as automatic writing. Mediums are formed, not found; they learn the codes. Who taught her, and at what stage of her life? We have no information on this; Clark (2007) simply repeats Festinger, and Festinger echoes Mrs Keech’s ‘orthodox’ account. Nevertheless, Mrs Lowell’s subsequent acknowledgement of Mrs Keech’s seniority (see below) must raise questions about her reputation and connections, which would have to do with her apprenticeship.
This power of improvisation would bear comparison with cargo cults, which were a focus of interest in post-War anthropology, drawing on the work of F.E. Williams’ 1923 report ‘The Vailala Madness’; see the classic works by Worsley (1970 [1957]), Burridge (1960 and 1969) and Lawrence (1964); see also the discussion by Schwartz (1976), who considers Festinger. Th is body of work has themes in common with later studies of millennial movements, in Africa in particular.
The motif of giving birth to Christ is of course a recurrent feature of prophetic ministry; the most famous example is that of Joanna Southcott—see Harrison (1979) and Hopkins (2010).
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© 2013 Jenkins Timothy
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Jenkins, T. (2013). The Group and the Mediums. In: Of Flying Saucers and Social Scientists: A Re-Reading of When Prophecy Fails and of Cognitive Dissonance. Palgrave Pivot, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137357601_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137357601_3
Publisher Name: Palgrave Pivot, New York
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-47328-1
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