The media blitz covering the predicted judgement day really surprised me. It was all the talk in my office and I presume most offices everywhere (in the U.S. at least). Jay Leno had jokes about it. Radio talk show hosts blabbed on and on. The Family Radio PR campaign with the billboards and caravans was very successful. The concept of Judgement Day seems to be a Jungian archetypal symbol deep in our culture. Archetype - “an inherited pattern of thought or symbolic imagery derived from the past collective experience and present in the individual unconscious”. Is this true in non-Christian cultures?
Some media whiz at huffingtonpost.com was quite quick to transcribe what happened at the Open Forum today.
Most of the reporters’ questions today dealt with trying to get Harold to admit he made a mistake and to take responsibility for it. As if he were a politician at a news conference or a witness being cross-examined in court. And lots of questions about money. He is quite skillful and practiced at dodging/avoiding these type of questions.
I really do admire his verbal and debating skills. He’s very dominant in that way. At the same time he is a rather gentle and humble fellow. I hope that I can be as sharp and alert as he is if I reach the age of 89. I do wonder if this whole business is his “last hurrah”; and whether he is “in his dotage”. The format of the Open Forum gives him total control over the flow of the conversation and the ability to cut people off. There is no real dialogue.
I wish someone would have asked him HOW SURE he was of the October 21st date. It was a natural fall-back date. I wonder if this was the plan all along? At the very end some reporter started to ask him why he continues to make predictions - but the time was up. I am keen to listen again tomorrow to see what his devoted followers have to say.
I still like my own quotes:
The Open Forum program broadcast all over the world has been the main way that Harold gathered all his followers and taught his lessons. The people calling in are largely true believers who had questions about this or that verse in the Bible. Harold is a very patient (and verbose!) teacher and treats almost everyone with respect. The questions and answers are often very repetitive - and the whole of it can get rather boring. There were mp3 of every open forum program going all the way back to 2009!
I have listened to many of the recent shows and had a kind of morbid curiosity about how Harold’s rhetoric would change as May 21st approached. I have collected some question/answers that I found pertinent or interesting and pieced them together into an hour and a half mp3 file. If you are curious, you can listen to it here. I chose the excerpts in a kind of random way - the ones that struck me for one reason or another. The most humorous (and perhaps the most bold) question occurs at 25:35. Harold answers with a detached calm. The most contentious exchange was at 50:05.
I noticed that the home page of the Family Radio web site has gotten a “facelift”. Clearly, the webmasters planned ahead so they could launch it on May 22 when the much-ballyhooed prediction did not take place!
Right Between Your Ears A documentary about the May 21 prediction.
The bottom line for me is that this whole May 21 phenomenon shows the danger of having anything that one treats as DOGMA. We should be skeptical and open-minded about everything. We should always be prepared to change our mind. And that humor always helps.