ABSTRACT
Messianism is a necessary social illusion for generating the "superhuman efforts" revolutions require. Eric J. Hobsbawm makes the minimum case for linking messianism to revolution and to revolutionary terror. The Crusades had an essential messianic component which produced some grotesque forms of violence, especially among the poor who launched what some historians have called Peoples' Crusades. The histories of religions with messianic components seem to confirm both propositions. In some messianic visions it is imagined that there will be no sickness and no tears, that people will all be wholly liberated from government, a condition of perfect freedom. The hope which a messianic vision supplies is obviously important for the orthodox revealed religions, because without it the rest of the religious tradition may seem onerous or meaningless, and it is quite conceivable that a messianic vision is necessary for the survival of some revealed religions.
