Cognitive Dissonance And The Harmonialist Gospel: How Psychology Made The 'New Age'
Famous study was flawed, unethical, more revealing than intended
Leon Festinger, Henry Riecken, and Stanley Schachter were Chicago psychologists who learned about a flying saucer cult in Oak Park, Michigan and set out to study what happened when their doomsday prophecy failed. They presented their findings in a 1956 book, When Prophecy Fails, that stood for decades as a landmark study.
My reading of that text is at the core of three chapters in my drafted book, A Spiritual Biography of the Flying Saucer: Revealing An Old Time Religion In America. However, the text has always been problematic, and the story of the book suspect.
Thomas Kelly, an independent researcher, published a debunking of the book by Festinger, Riecken, and Schachter in Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences during 2025. Kelly reveals that Festinger et al participated in the whole affair far more than they revealed.
Dorothy Martin, the spirit-medium at the center of the group, regarded Riecken as “the favorite son of the Most God”. In response to her entreaties for a message from beyond, “Riecken claimed to belong to both the Brotherhood of Sara and the Brotherhood of the Light — an admission that deeply impressed her.”
Kelly notes that Bertha Blatsky, a pseudonymous member of the group, told Riecken that “you will have a very important role, you will be a guide to many people”. Kelly does not note that this was during Bertha’s challenge to Dorothy Martin’s spiritual authority as the group channeler. He may not consider this relevant, but the two women were fighting for the favor of one of the study authors, and that is notable.
Then, after the disconfirmation, Riecken pressed the group to explain the failure of the prophecy. Charles Laughead, a leader of the small Harmonialist community, responded with a speech about keeping the faith. Riecken thanked Laughead: “Thank you, Chuck, you’ve given me just what I was looking for.” He then urged the group to release their ‘Christmas message’ explaining the failed prophecy.
Rather than simply observing the rationalization of cognitive dissonance, the researchers had participated in it, shaping the outcome. Kelly further undermines the core thesis of the book by showing that the Seekers cult in Oak Park proselytized far more before their doomsday prophecy failed than after. As he notes, most of the group dissolved, while a few — the Laugheads and Martin — carried on with their Harmonialist revelations
This is consistent with my research into postwar Harmonialism. Psychology very much regarded itself as a “science of the soul”, while Harmonialism always attempts to harmonize the occult with the scientific. The same reinforcing biases play out in “recovered memories” of alien abduction.
Put another way, the entire UFO phenomenon was inflated by Carl Jung, hypnotherapists, and pseudoscience of the mind. L. Ron Hubbard was a competitor in this spiritual market. He understood that Harmonialists wanted a “spiritual technology”. I should have guessed there was more to the story of the research team. It makes perfect sense that they were creating as much as they were studying.
“According to the archival material, Riecken fabricated psychic messages from extraterrestrials to shape group behavior including the pivotal events that unfolded on the night of the failed prophecy”, Kelly reveals.
One of the team observers, Elizabeth ‘Liz’ Williams, further participated in the group’s belief formation by performing automatic writing — a form of spirit-communication — for one of the members that she found gullible. Martin formed a similar attachment to Liz as a result.
The Seekers are a fascinating example of the bricolage effect. As my own book draft explains, humans form pastiches of belief out of the cultural materials around them, which appeal to them. I think this explains just what Festinger, Reichen, and Schacter actually “observed”.
Like the Satanic Verses, the prophecy went down a memory hole while Dorothy Martin used automatic writing to write her way through the disconfirmation. She was a bricoleur, remaking the Harmonialist gospel rather than reciting.
Harmonialists always do this. They have to, because the popular science and pseudoscience they use to buttress their beliefs is continually challenged by new scientific findings. In this sense, the tragedy of Harmonialism is that its scientific prophecies always fail, requiring them to refresh the bricolage-pastiche of belief once again, usually with new literature.
To borrow a joke about communism, the real Harmonialism has not been tried yet.
Some number of believers, usually most, always step back from a disconfirmation. Many of these former seekers continue to seek out Harmonialist ideas and groups. “Many of Martin’s followers had already explored or embraced these teachings before joining her, and some would remain in this New Age and UFO‐believing milieu after leaving her group”, Kelly notes.
One group member “remained interested in Martin’s teaching, but it does not prove enduring, sincere belief.” This person evidently continued to believe in Martin, though.
Then there are always a few who refresh the bricolage, so that the belief behind the failed prophecy carries on. This pattern of pastiche-making makes it very hard for Harmonialism to adhere as a church, but there always some who try.
This does suggest some very interesting historical patterns of what we might call ‘the spiritual mind’. But as Thomas Kelly has revealed in his paper, the alleged scientists behind a core text of modern psychology were actually performing as shamans, and only ‘proved’ a theory they played out themselves, through the group.
That is not an exception to the rhyming patterns of the history in my book. It is the rule. This is very exciting new information, to me.
Three professional psychologists “misrepresented how the group responded to disconfirmation and that the group did not maintain their beliefs after disconfirmation nor dramatically increase efforts at proselytization.”
The group had “planned a book, published articles in multiple magazines, sent letters to editors and spiritual seekers, and welcomed curious visitors with open arms”, Thomas writes.
“Whatever else When Prophecy Fails may have captured about the psychology of belief, it mischaracterizes the group’s efforts to spread its message before the prophecy failed.”
Kelly somewhat confuses the prophecy, a text, for the underlying belief, which expresses as text. William Miller, whose prediction of Judgment Day failed in 1844, disavowed his prophecy without losing his faith in Jesus or heaven. Disconfirmation is indeed a driver of religious creativity, especially with esoteric religion. Festinger et al were not wrong about this.
While the 1954 group never reunited, they had not shared a formalized scripture in the first place. Their beliefs were malleable. Kelly admits “these general beliefs were endemic in those circles and did not depend upon Martin herself.” Indeed, this is why Martin had a second act as Sister Thedra, revealing messages from heavenly beings, until her death. Harmonialist seekers were everywhere.
After her death, her followers compiled some of her teachings in the sixteen volume Great Awakening series and the eight volume Transfiguration series. None of these twenty‐four books defend or describe the prediction that is the center of When Prophecy Fails nor do they defend or promote the “Christmas message.” Even though Martin would gain new followers who believed in her psychic powers and alien contact, and who probably would have accepted her teachings on the failed prediction and Christmas message, she did nothing to spread these teachings or reassemble the followers who had experienced its failure.
Nor did Sister Thedra have much to say about Bertha Blatsky, her challenger for the affections of research Harry Reicken, who seemed to spiritual to her. Indeed, Martin never allowed a competing medium in the same room again. She had learned her lesson about monopolizing spiritual authority.
Harmonialism does this a lot. Seventh Day Adventists are still embarrassed that their sect, which began after the Great Disappointment of 1844, was essentially a cult led by the automatic writing of Ellen G. White. After her writing was revealed as plagiarism, one group of schismatics from her church set out to create a Harmonialist gospel, The Urantia Book.
Thomas Kelly has contributed to a theme that emerges in my drafted book, A Spiritual Biography of the Flying Saucer. From past lives to alien abductions to other recovered memory ‘syndromes’, psychotherapeutic professions always participated in the postwar construction of Harmonialist beliefs.
They conceived themselves as scientists of the soul. In fact their experiments were often unethical and frequently harmful. This is still the case. Up to one in five psychotherapies has iatrogenic effects, almost always through improper therapeutic relationships or methods. Kelly is damning: Festinger et al committed research misconduct.
Carl Jung popularized the term ‘New Age’, but in fact psychology was dabbling in a much older religious current. This is the story I tell in my book. I have a small chapter addition to add, now.
You can read the paper at this link.