Apocalyptic Anxiety traces the sources of American culture’s obsession with predicting and preparing for the apocalypse. Author Anthony Aveni explores why Americans take millennial claims seriously, where and how end-of-the-world predictions emerge, how they develop within a broader historical framework, and what we can learn from doomsday predictions of the past.
The book begins with the Millerites, the nineteenth-century religious sect of Pastor William Miller, who used biblical calculations to predict October 22, 1844 as the date for the Second Advent of Christ. Aveni also examines several other religious and philosophical movements that have centered on apocalyptic themes—Christian millennialism, the New Age movement and the Age of Aquarius, and various other nineteenth- and early twentieth-century religious sects, concluding with a focus on the Maya mystery of 2012 and the contemporary prophets who connected the end of the world as we know it with the overturning of the Maya calendar.
Apocalyptic Anxiety places these seemingly never-ending stories of the world’s end in the context of American history. This fascinating exploration of the deep historical and cultural roots of America’s voracious appetite for apocalypse will appeal to students of American history and the histories of religion and science, as well as lay readers interested in American culture and doomsday prophecies.
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About the Author
Anthony Aveni is the Russell Colgate Distinguished University Professor of Astronomy, Anthropology, and Native American Studies at Colgate University. He has researched and written about Maya astronomy for more than four decades. He was named a US National Professor of the year and has been awarded the H. B. Nicholson Medal for Excellence in Research in Mesoamerican Studies by Harvard's Peabody Museum.

motw/Apocalyptic Anxiety_ Religion, - Anthony Aveni.pdf

Aveni, Anthony;

Erscheinungsort nicht ermittelbar, 2016

United States, United States of America

1, 2016-05-02

1, US, 2016

producers:
Adobe PDF Library 10.0.1

Memory of the World Librarian: Slowrotation

Contents 8
List of Figures 10
Preface 12
Acknowledgments 16
Introduction: December 21, 2012—It Didn’t Happen 20
Part I: Episode 1, October 22, 1844 30
1. Millerites and the Biblical End of the World 32
2. A Brief History of Apocalyptic Thinking in the West 54
Part II: American Apocalypse 80
3. From Columbus to the Great Awakenings 82
4. Fin de Siècle Secular Perfectionism 98
5. Spiritualism and the Veiled Synthesis of Science and Religion 112
Part III: New Age Religion and Science 128
6. The Age of Aquarius 130
7. Techno-Angels of the Alien Advent 144
8. Resurgent Christian Dispensationalism and the End of Time
in Popular Media 158
9. Astronomical World Age Theories Resurrected 168
Part IV: Episode 2, December 21, 2012 180
10. The Fathers of Y12 Prophecy 182
11. 2012 and the Perennial Philosophy 194
12. Ancient Galactic Wisdom and 2012 Mayanism 204
Conclusion: Contrasting the Signs of the Times 224
Notes 234
About the Author 256
Index 258

"Aveni traces the sources of American culture's obsession with predicting the apocalypse. He explores why Americans take millennial claims seriously, where and how end-of-the-world predictions emerge, how they develop with reference to a broader historical trajectory, and what we can learn from doomsday predictions of the past"-- Provided by publisher

2025-10-27