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Michael GrossoNew YorkSources: Grosso's book Millennium Myth: Love and Death at the End of Time. Wheaton, IL; Madras, India; London, England: Quest Books, 1995. Summary An anti-prophet perhaps, but neither skeptic nor cynic, Grosso gently but thoroughly deconstructs the Millennium to reveal its human heart and soul. He makes the case, in fact, that millennarianism is "the main myth of the Western world," and follows the current of that myth, as "In the undulations of history, the millennial imagination flares up, bodying forth new forms, searching out new niches where it can incubate and reinvent its forms." (pp. 88f) He posits the Millennium myth as "the reigning national religion" of American culture. And — telling it like it is — he shows us our latter-day prophets and priests: Charlie Manson, Jim Jones, David Koresh, those perverse characters who one by one have ignited, moths too close to the Millennial flame, in "a bizarre spectacle of national self-destruction — a kind of spasm of trying to rid ourselves of our own mythical past." (pp. 4f) But Millennium has a hopeful, creative side, too, he emphasizes. It's about "phantasy": I spell it phantasy, not fantasy (both variants are from the Greek phantazein). By phantasy I mean to stress the power of the psyche; the word goes back to a Sanskrit verb that means "to make visible, "to appear or shine." Thus the phantasy of the Millennium makes images of alternate worlds visible to the mind's eye. Nothing derogatory is meant, therefore, when I speak of Saint John's apocalyptic phantasy, to cite one example. A phantasy may mirror a possible world or help create a new world; I want to underscore this double sense through my spelling. [p. 2]And even if Apocalypse recedes perpetually before the advance of history, the creative power of the Millennium Myth satisfies a deep need for a vision of transformation. No outer disappointment can kill this need. Enthusiasm repeatedly flares up and dies out; in waves that never cease, come strirrings of expectation and fizzings of failure, disappointments and revivals, postponements and reschedulings. So, when prophecy fails, new prophets invariably arise. [p. 6] He finds evidence
of the Millennial impulse as far back as Babylon — in the mythic
struggle between Marduk and Tiamat (p. 37) — and details its
evolution right through to the present, with fascinating stopovers
in the Roman/early Christian era, the Middle Ages (Joachim of Fiore
— there was a New Age prophet!), the Italian Renaissance, the
Enlightenment, the American and Russian Revolutions, the Third Reich,
and ... the future present (including New Age America). |