New apocalyptic belief systems borrow freely from unrelated traditions

Evidence

The improvisational millenarian style is distinctive for its independence from any single ideological tradition. Its predecessors—the religious and secular styles—consisted of variations on or deviations from some welldefi ned set of ideas, whether grounded in sacred texts, political ideologies, or philosophical teachings. By contrast, the improvisational style is characterized by relentless and seemingly indiscriminate borrowing. For example, Shoko Asahara, the leader of Aum Shinrikyo, drew not only on esoteric Buddhism but also on the New Testament Book of Revelation, Nostradamus, and anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. Aum Shinrikyo was the Japanese religious organization whose members tried to set off an apocalyptic war by releasing sarin gas in the Tokyo subway in 1993. In his indiscriminate combination of beliefs, Asahara was typical of contemporary millenarian entrepreneurs—by which I mean individuals who create apocalyptic belief systems outside of customary religious or secular traditions. In a similar vein, Elizabeth Clare Prophet, until 1999 the head of the Church Universal and Triumphant, combined Christianity with Theosophy, channeling, and conspiracy theory. Her Montanabased church, near Yellowstone National Park, built elaborate underground bomb shelters after Prophet became convinced that a Soviet nuclear attack was imminent. In 1990, hundreds of her followers took to the shelters, only to emerge eventually into the same world they had left. — Michael Barkun, A Culture of Conspiracy, 138

Categorization

• DEFINE: Introduces ‘improvisational millenarian style’ and ‘millenarian entrepreneurs’ as the chapter’s key concepts.