An Apocalyptic Profit Primer
There’s a ton of money in doomsaying, predicting an apocalypse, naming the date for Armageddon, warning of the end of the world, identifying the Antichrist, describing the nature of The Rapture.
Just ask Tim Lahaye or Jerry Jenkins, authors of the Left Behind series of 16 best-selling novels and beneficiaries from the receipts of 3 movies, videogames, and recordings all dealing with such subjects.
Many Americans are currently all abuzz because the ancient, semi-extinct Mayans calculated that December 21st, 2012–not the 20th or 22nd, and not November 6th, 2012 but precisely 12-21-12–would be the last day of mankind’s existence on the Earth as we presently know it.
The primitive Mayan calendar, based on very subjective and disputable data, may have been one of the earlier recorded prognostications of worldwide cataclysm but it was hardly the last.
Michel de Nostredame, the 16th century French apothecary, (a pharmacist, druggist), better known as Nostradamus, is the world’s best-known and most prolific prophet of doom. Among his 6,000 mostly apocalyptic prophecies, he allegedly predicted everything from Napoleon’s defeat to world wars to JFK’s assassination.
For all we know, he may have foretold the invention of Bisquick and Rubik’s Cube since no one knows for certain exactly what he was foretelling due to the mysterious complexity of his cryptic quatrains. They all could have been inspired by his interest in the occult, by sniffing too many of the potions he concocted, or a combination of both.
Chances are he was as insane as Timothy Leary and Charlie and Marilyn Manson.
Although the Mayans didn’t profit monetarily from their calendar and Nostradamus didn’t earn any francs from his doom and gloom, Messrs. LaHaye and Jenkins have grown wealthy as a result of their revivification of a worldwide angst that has scared people for millennia and hundreds if not thousands of others have handsomely capitalized on the Mayan and Nostradamus folderol.
The History Channel could barely exist without them.
Most recently, out of a sense of civic-planetary duty, an 80 year old, retired New York MTA train engineer, Robert Fitzpatrick, called on expertise culled from many decades of operating trains and blew virtually his entire life savings to place a thousand ads on NYC subways and bus shelters to alert the city of the impending Apocalypse on May 21st, 2011.
It’s not known whether Mrs. Fitzpatrick agreed with her hubby’s decision to put their future in the hands of the Social Security Administration either before or after May 21st came and went without incident.
In any event, it was back to the drawing board for the venerable Mr. Fitz and another disappointed negatavist, Harold Camping, who was also sure as shootin’ that the Rapture would occur on 5/21/2001. He hastily changed the date to 10/21/2011, and is presently recalculating. . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=23326.)
There’s a ton of money in doomsaying, predicting an apocalypse, naming the date for Armageddon, warning of the end of the world, identifying the Antichrist, describing the nature of The Rapture.
Just ask Tim Lahaye or Jerry Jenkins, authors of the Left Behind series of 16 best-selling novels and beneficiaries from the receipts of 3 movies, videogames, and recordings all dealing with such subjects.
Many Americans are currently all abuzz because the ancient, semi-extinct Mayans calculated that December 21st, 2012–not the 20th or 22nd, and not November 6th, 2012 but precisely 12-21-12–would be the last day of mankind’s existence on the Earth as we presently know it.
The primitive Mayan calendar, based on very subjective and disputable data, may have been one of the earlier recorded prognostications of worldwide cataclysm but it was hardly the last.
Michel de Nostredame, the 16th century French apothecary, (a pharmacist, druggist), better known as Nostradamus, is the world’s best-known and most prolific prophet of doom. Among his 6,000 mostly apocalyptic prophecies, he allegedly predicted everything from Napoleon’s defeat to world wars to JFK’s assassination.
For all we know, he may have foretold the invention of Bisquick and Rubik’s Cube since no one knows for certain exactly what he was foretelling due to the mysterious complexity of his cryptic quatrains. They all could have been inspired by his interest in the occult, by sniffing too many of the potions he concocted, or a combination of both.
Chances are he was as insane as Timothy Leary and Charlie and Marilyn Manson.
Although the Mayans didn’t profit monetarily from their calendar and Nostradamus didn’t earn any francs from his doom and gloom, Messrs. LaHaye and Jenkins have grown wealthy as a result of their revivification of a worldwide angst that has scared people for millennia and hundreds if not thousands of others have handsomely capitalized on the Mayan and Nostradamus folderol.
The History Channel could barely exist without them.
Most recently, out of a sense of civic-planetary duty, an 80 year old, retired New York MTA train engineer, Robert Fitzpatrick, called on expertise culled from many decades of operating trains and blew virtually his entire life savings to place a thousand ads on NYC subways and bus shelters to alert the city of the impending Apocalypse on May 21st, 2011.
It’s not known whether Mrs. Fitzpatrick agreed with her hubby’s decision to put their future in the hands of the Social Security Administration either before or after May 21st came and went without incident.
In any event, it was back to the drawing board for the venerable Mr. Fitz and another disappointed negatavist, Harold Camping, who was also sure as shootin’ that the Rapture would occur on 5/21/2001. He hastily changed the date to 10/21/2011, and is presently recalculating. . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=23326.)
