ABSTRACT
It is no exaggeration to state that the end of the world goes back to the beginning of time, or the dawn of civilisation at least. As the copious histories of the End make clear, humankind is, and always has been, addicted to the apocalypse (e.g. Rubinsky and Wiseman 1982; Friedrich 1982; Reiche 1985; Kamper and Wulf 1989; Bull 1995a). Whether it be the second coming of Christ, the ancient Norse myth of Ragnarök, the Hindu doctrine of Kali Yuga, the final blast of Israfil’s trumpet anticipated by Islam, the well-publicised predictions of the Mayan and Aztec calenders (which disconcertingly converge on the year 2012 A.D.), or the multiplicity of secular apocalypses expounded by contemporary Jeremiahs, the idea of impending doom looms large in the human psyche. We are, so it seems, transfixed by terminal visions, mesmerised by the millennium, entranced by eschatological expectations, consumed by chiliastic conjecture and, thanks to the protection afforded by the welllubricated prophylactic of prophesy, ever eager to embrace and fructify the end of time (McGinn 1979; Wagar 1982; Ward 1993; Campion 1994; O’Leary 1994). According to Kermode (1967:12), indeed, the second coming was confidently expected in A.D. 195, 948, 1000, 1033, 1236, 1260, 1367, 1420, 1588 and 1666, to name but a few. The Jehovah’s Witnesses alone have rescheduled the end of the world on nine separate occasions (1874, 1878, 1881, 1910, 1914, 1918, 1925, 1975, 1984). And Mann’s (1992) recent compilation of projected terminations stretch from 1998 to 6300 A.D., though his inventory is by no means exhaustive.
