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Endings Without End: When Prophecy Fails and the Rise of New Age Spirituality and Cognitive Dissonance

by Betty Bayer (Hobart and William Smith Colleges; Martin Marty Center Senior Fellow 2013-14)

Martin Marty Center Senior Fellow Betty M. Bayer explores the history of the renowned 1956 book When Prophecy Fails and its place in the longer and larger history of debate amongst religion, psychology, spirituality and science on the soul or psyche.  She writes, “To pursue this history into the modern subject is … to sound a dissonant tone, the kind intended to stir up new hearings of old compositions, to hear anew the constituent relation amongst science, psychology, religion and spirituality in that larger pursuit of asking what does it mean to be human, what’s it all about.”

Read Endings Without End: When Prophecy Fails and the Rise of New Age Spirituality and Cognitive Dissonance.

Read the invited response by:

Kathryn Lofton (Yale University).