    13

    How Wrong Ideas Can Be Right

    In the 1950's, three Midwestern scientists--Leon Festinger, Henry

    Riecken and Stanley Schachter--heard of a small cult in Chicago

    dedicated to the proposition that the earth was about to end.  To learn

    all they could about how such a belief system works, they joined the

    group.  They were astonished by the resulting experience.

    The cult was led by a middle-aged couple.  Dr. Thomas

    Armstrong (a pseudonym the researchers used in their writings to

    spare the real leader embarrassment) was a well-educated doctor who

    worked for a college health service.  His co-leader, Mrs. Marian Keech

    (another pseudonym), claimed to be receiving messages from spiritual

    beings on other planets, beings she called "The Guardians."  These

    kindly souls did not bother to send space-suited messengers.  Instead,

    they delivered their truths through automatic writing.

    Mrs. Keech would sit at a desk, a pencil in her hand.  Suddenly,

    the pencil would move.  Jerking spasmodically across the page, it

    would fill the paper with words.  When the "possession" was over and

    her hand at last had come to a rest, Mrs. Keech would finally lift her

    pad and read.  The words her fingers had formed "unknowingly" were

    messages from a distant world.

    For a while, the creatures from another planet were content to

    issue Mrs. Keech a set of pronouncements remarkably similar to

    Christianity.  Then they changed their tone.  They predicted that a

    massive flood would soon erupt in the Western hemisphere and

    drown the entire world.

    But there was hope.  Just before the inundation, the Guardians

    would send flying saucers to rescue those believers who had been wise

    enough to follow the teachings conveyed through the intergalactic

    counselors' spokeswoman on earth, Mrs. Keech.  For several weeks, the

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