
On the night of December 20, the group huddled in a living room, waiting. Midnight struck. Nothing happened. 12:05 a.m. Silence. By 4:00 a.m., the group sat in stunned, weeping despair. The "logic" of their world had collapsed.
Suddenly, the despair vanished. Instead of feeling foolish, the cult members became more fervent than ever. They didn't just stay in the group; they began calling newspapers and proselytizing on street corners, more desperate to convince others than they had been before the failed prophecy. The Theory is Born A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance
Then came the pivot. At 4:45 a.m., Martin claimed to receive a new message: the group had spread so much light that God had decided to save the world from the flood. On the night of December 20, the group
In 1954, Leon Festinger , a social psychologist, found himself fascinated by a bizarre newspaper headline about a cult called the Seekers. Led by a woman named Dorothy Martin, they believed that on December 21, the world would be destroyed by a great flood, and they alone would be rescued by a flying saucer from the planet Clarion. 12:05 a

