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In 1954…a Michigan cult…believed that there would be a great flood on 21 December, leading to the destruction of everyone except the true believers, who would be whisked to safety in a flying saucer… Instead of abandoning their beliefs when the flood and the flying saucer failed to materialise, most cult members actually consolidated their beliefs and increased their attachment to the group…

There have been other occasions when failed predictions have consolidated members’ attachment to their group. When the Church of the True Word prophesied nuclear disaster in the early 60s, 100 followers hid in underground shelters for several weeks, only to emerge with their beliefs strengthened, not weakened, by the experience.

Intuitively, you’d expect to find that messianic leaders who get their predictions wrong are likely to become discredited and to be abandoned by their followers. But that’s not necessarily what happens. Instead, it’s been suggested that because followers need to reduce their feelings of dissonance, they may actually consolidate their initial beliefs and redouble their efforts to persuade other people of their validity.

In the wake of a failed prophecy, a leader can always deny that he ever made that prediction or insist that he said something else… Believers may even insist that the prophecy has happened, not in our world, but in some spiritual sphere.

Alternatively, failed prophecies may conveniently be postponed to a later date. For example, the Millerites, a north American religious group, predicted that the Second Coming would take place in 1833, but when nothing happened they rescheduled the event for 1844. This deferred solution is similar to the one used by Camping, who initially predicted that the Rapture would occur during September 1994. When nothing happened he explained it away as an error in his calculations.

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