Dr Simon Dein: A Messiah from the Dead: What Really Happens When Prophecy Fails

Anomalistic Psychology Research Unit Invited Speaker Series, 2010/11

Abstract
What really happens when a prophecy fails? In this talk I examine the response to disconfirmation of prophecy among the ultra Orthodox Lubavitch Hasidim. In 1994 the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Menachem Schneerson, died leaving no successor. For many years his followers had maintained that he was Moshiach – the Jewish Messiah – and would usher in the Redemption. After his death Lubavitch divided into two opposing groups. While some messianists hold that the Rebbe died but is to be resurrected as the messiah, others hold that he is still alive, but concealed. The anti-messianists maintain that the Rebbe could have been Moshiach if God had willed it, but they disagree vehemently that as such he could come back from the dead.

I will present a social-psychological account of Lubavitcher messianism using ethnographic data obtained through twenty years of fieldwork in the UK and in the USA. I move beyond the typical emphasis on cognitive dissonance (Festinger) to examine the role of rhetoric, religious experience and ritual in maintaining counterintuitive convictions.

Biography
Simon Dein is a Senior Lecturer in Anthropology and Medicine at University College London, UK. He is an honorary Consultant Psychiatrist in Essex. He is author of Religion and Healing Among the Lubavitch Community in Stamford Hill, North London and has spent over twenty years conducting fieldwork among Lubavitch Hasidim, both in London and New York. He has published widely on the sociology of religion and religion and health.

APRU Invited Speaker Programme

Dates & times

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16 Nov 2010	6:00pm - 7:30pm	apple google outlook

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