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Libra Esoterica

When prophecy fails

a social and psychological study of a modern group that predicted the destruction of the world

by Leon Festinger, Henry W. Riecken & Stanley Schachter

  • First published:
  • 20th century
  • Languages: English, French
  • Content type: Fiction

Description

Description from OpenAlex (opens in a new tab)

In 1954 Leon Festinger, a brilliant young experimental social psychologist in the process of inventing a new theory of human behavior - the theory of cognitive dissonance - and two of his colleagues, Henry Riecken and Stanley Schachter, infiltrated a cult who believed the end of the world was only months away. How would these people feel when their prophecy remained unfulfilled? Would they admit the error of their prediction, or would they, as Festinger predicted, readjust their reality to make sense of the new circumstances? Not only is When Prophecy Fails of great historical importance as the first test of a powerful theory, but it is also a surprisingly touching account of what happens to ordinary people under extraordinary circumstances.

Provenance

Why this book is in the catalog

Included because retained bibliographic metadata links this work to Prophecy, oracles, and revelation.

  • Prophecy, oracles, and revelation

    Controlled discovery queries from libris, openalex, and openlibrary matched “Prophecies”, “prophecy”, and “Prophecy”. Retained metadata contains “Prophecy” in the title, “Prophecy” in the description, “Prophecies” in the subject metadata, and 1 additional metadata match(es).

    • “prophecy”· via Libris, National Library of Sweden
    • “prophecy”· via OpenAlex
    • “Prophecies”· via Open Library
    • “Prophecy”· via Open Library
    • “Prophecy”· in title
    • “Prophecy”· in description

Membership records how this book met the catalog’s discovery criteria — relevance to a tradition, not a judgment of the book’s claims.

Read & download

Where a scan or ebook exists, it is listed here.

No public full text is known for this record.

None of our sources reported a scan or ebook. It may exist elsewhere — these searches are a good next step.

Buy or borrow

Links to ISBN 0061311324; other editions may be cheaper. WorldCat shows libraries near you that hold a copy.

Editions

Open Library reports 33 editions; 3 cataloged here.

Libris bibliographic record

1956—English—Catalog record

OpenAlex scholarly book record

1956-01-01University of Minnesota Press; University of Minnesota Press eBooksEnglish—Unknown

a social and psychological study of a modern group that predicted the destruction of the world

Open Library record

1964Harper & RowEnglish—Borrowable

Subjects

26 subject headings

Identifiers & provenance

How this record was assembled, and the authority identifiers it carries.

Identifiers

ISBN-13
ISBN-10
LCCN
OCLC
DOI
Open Library work
Internet Archive
Libris
OpenAlex

Cataloged from

Cataloging notes

  • Open Library reports 33 editions; this snapshot catalogs one representative edition and preserves work-level ISBN, date, and publisher aggregates.
Catalog id
openlibrary-work:OL4788695W
Edition coverage
Multi source partial
Retrieved