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Middle of the show welcome to the you are not so smart podcast, episode 324. It's September of 1954 and the psychologist Leon Festinger is pondering the mysteries of the human mind at the University of Minnesota. Researching, writing, teaching, you know, professor stuff when some rumors and some local newspaper stories reach him by way of students, colleagues and Minneapolis word of mouth that a doomsday culture is preparing for the end of the world. A mere six hour drive to the east in Chicago, Illinois. This was of particular interest to Leon Festinger because he had previously studied how rumors spread and why some rumors were more popular than others throughout history, and he had since become fascinated with what happens when rumors about future events turn out to be false. He noted that sometimes when people's identities or partisanship or religious beliefs or reputations or sense of self worth would be confirmed or emboldened if certain predictions or assumptions turned out to be true. When such notions turned out not to be true, people tended to come up with reasons why that new information didn't necessarily disconfirm those beliefs or assumptions. Also, Festinger was deeply fascinated with what historically happens when an entire subculture built around an idea experiences an event, or learns about some incontrovertible evidence that proves that idea to be false. For instance, a doomsday cult, one that predicts the exact date and circumstances of the end of the world when that date passes and the circumstances do not occur. Cults like those don't typically say, oh, I guess we were wrong about that, and then disband. Instead, they tend to find a way to keep believing that they were right and then they regroup in some way and often become even stronger. They grow even more fervent. Festinger had pored over the historical record and discovered there were actually a lot of these sorts of doomsday cults all throughout history. Groups who had become more passionate after their all important day of doom turned out to be nonsense. Which brings us back to that news coming out of Chicago. According to The Tribune, a 54 year old woman named Dorothy Martin, often referred to by the paper as a suburban housewife whose address they would just share, they just told people that she lived in the 700 block of Oak Park, Illinois. This person, Dorothy Martin, told reporters that she was receiving messages from aliens and she was receiving those messages via automatic writing. And those messages were urging her fellow earthlings to prepare because the world was about to end. Foreign I'm David McCraney. This is the youe're not so Smart podcast and this episode is about cognitive dissonance. This is part one of a two part series on this topic. We're going to talk about it from several different angles, but this story in particular is about how the term entered our lexicon, where it came from. So let's get back to it. All right. Automatic writing, what is that? Automatic writing is closing your eyes, going into a fugue state and letting your hand write things you supposedly have no control over. You have to wait like everybody else and look down and see what your hand has just written. And Dorothy Martin, who lives in Oak Park, Illinois, who newspapers are interviewing because she thinks the world's about to end, she said that what she wrote came from beings she called the Guardians, and they lived on a planet called Klarion. Through her writing, she learned those beings have been visiting the Earth in what we call flying saucers. And their survey equipment indicated that there would be an earthquake which would lead to a great apocalyptic flood on Earth which would not only destroy Chicago, but all of north and South America, most of the planet. And all of that was going to happen in just a few months on December 21st of 1954. And as she put it in one of those news stories about her quote, there will be much loss of life, practically all of it. It's an actual fact that the world is in a mess. But the Supreme Being is going to clean house by sinking all the land masses as we know them now and raising the land masses from under the sea. End quote. And Festinger, when he read all this, he could barely contain his excitement over the news of Earth's impending doom. Why? Well, for one, he was pretty sure automatic writing was bullshit. And even if it wasn't, he was pretty sure that aliens from the planet Clarion were not in contact with Dorothy Martin of Color Avenue in Oak Park, Illinois. But most of all, he was excited because it seemed like Martin might not be the only person who believed in this prophecy. And this offered a rare and unique opportunity to add to Festinger's latest psychological research. He had just begun work on a new theory, something he was calling cognitive dissonance. And the basic idea here is that human beings are driven by a sort of survival instinct to remain consistent. You notice you've done something you believe is wrong, and then you stop doing that thing or you stop believing it's wrong to do that thing. Or if you believe something is true and you come across some information that disconfirms that belief, you'll either change your belief or challenge the validity of the challenging information. And this doomsday thing that was in the newspaper, this Chicago end of the world prophecy, it offered a great opportunity because it had this exact date to it around the corner, December 21st of that year, which meant that if the world did not end on that date, if the earthquake and the flood did not happen, then Festinger could observe how Dorothy Martin would react. And maybe, if he was lucky, he could observe all the reactions of all the other people who also believed the world was going to end on that day. So Festinger shares the news with his fellow psychologists Henry Rykin and Stanley schachter, and the three hatched a plan. It's early October 1954, and Festinger visits Dorothy Martin, pretending to be a potential acolyte. He asks her if there are other people in her orbit who also believe that the world's going to end, if they believe in her predictions and if they've made any plans in connection with them. And he learns that, yeah, there are, and, yes, they have, and they have a name, the Seekers, and Dorothy Martin is their leader. So Festinger returns to Minneapolis, he regroups, and he puts together a team of scientists and students whose mission will be to infiltrate the cult. They're going to pretend to be true believers who want to join before the Day of Doom. And once inside, they're going to take notes, they're going to record conversations, and most importantly, they're going to observe how everyone reacts when the world does not end. And that's exactly what they did. With ease, they carefully staggered their approaches, meeting with Dorothy Martin and the other Seekers on separate days. And once they were welcomed into the cult, they just began hanging out. They attended meetings, they got to know the followers, and they learned some things. One of the things they learned was that 15 years earlier, while living in New York, Dorothy Martin had attended a lecture on theosophy. That's a mystical religious movement that was popular in the late 1800s that was sort of a blend of all the world's religions. Into one mystical philosophical system. The central idea in theosophy is that all religions come from a single source, A secret brotherhood, wizard like, guru thing known as the masters. And these masters are found all around the world, but primarily they're centered in Tibet. And if you're wondering how all this works, think Dr. Strange in the Illuminati, and you're more than halfway there. So, yeah, Martin was enthralled with all these things. She attended several more lectures, and she began gathering up transcripts of those she had not attended and some of the ones she had. And after all of this, she spent years reading books on the occult and pursuing cosmic knowledge and esoteric manuscripts until she found Scientology. And once she got into Scientology, she underwent a formal dianetics clearing ceremony. And through Scientology, she said, she became convinced she was an ancient alien being who had forgotten her previous incarnations. And. And by the time she made her way to the Chicago area, she had taken that knowledge and used it to make sense of a lot of UFO lectures, a lot of lectures on the idea that there was a government cover up of alien activity. And remember, this is the 1950s. There's a whole lot of interest in flying saucers, a lot of new and exciting ideas around the concept of flying saucers visiting the planet. So throughout all of this, Martin had become more and more active in the spiritual communities around her. Occult, new age, esoteric. And she was developing connections and holding gatherings of her own. Eventually, she starts having regular gatherings at her house for those people in that area who shared her interests. And after a whole lot of this, she begins communicating with the spirit realm all herself. This is how it happens. A year before Festinger entered the cult with his undercover scientists, she woke up in early winter and felt a tingling in her arm that developed into a numbness up to her shoulder. Now she's telling them, this is how it happened. This is her account of it, and she says that without knowing why, she picked up a pencil and a pad near her bed and began writing in an unfamiliar penmanship. Realizing it was not her own, she asked out loud, will you identify yourself? And to her surprise, the writing revealed that it was coming from the spirit of her deceased father. After weeks of communicating with the spirit realm through her deceased father, she began to feel the presence of other entities who wanted to borrow her automatic writing powers. And one of them, the elder brother, communicated from the astral plane. And he and the others from the other realms began to offer both messages of her importance and messages that contained foreboding prophecies. One of her automatic writings. Read. We will teach them that seek and are ready to follow in the light. I will take care of the details. Trust in us. Another read. Be patient and learn, for we are there preparing the work for you as a conitor. That is an earthly liaison duty before I come. That will be soon. And another read. You were directed to tell your experiences of my coming to you, for it prepares the way in their hearts. I will come again to teach each of you. They that have told you that they do not believe shall see us when the time is right. And so on. All of this communication with the spirit realm became a very popular way in that area to spend an afternoon. More and more people began to attend her group gatherings just to watch her go into a trance and write down messages from the beyond. These were informal, they were intimate, they were deeply engaging. And so a community of followers formed around her, and they began to actively recruit new members. And so the seekers were born. Soon she made contact with the Guardians, that's the aliens who live on Clarion. And one of their messages went like, what can you do for us? Well, you can go tell the world that we have at last contacted the earth planet with the waves of ether that have become tactable by the bombs your scientists have been exploding. This works like an accordion. When the condensation leaves the carceus level of the ethereum, or atmosphere levels that support a large light layer of marine life, it causes a barrier to be set up. Now that the bombs have broken that barrier, we can break through. That is what your scientists call a sonic barrier. We have been trying to get through for many of your years with Alcitopes and the Erling Timer, end quote and so on. These alien messages were very popular. And at some point, that brought in a physician who was obsessed with UFOs named Charles Laffed. And when he came in, he brought in his network of other UFO enthusiasts. And thanks to his proselytizing and the resulting media attention, thanks to the fact that his involvement got him fired from Michigan State, where he had been a staff doctor, the seekers grew large enough to consider themselves a non denominational religion, and they started meeting at a local church. Then came the big message, the one prophesying the end of the world, the doomsday that would arrive at about two months. At this point, Dorothy Martin was convinced this group was being watched by government agents of the deep State. So she urged everyone to be careful who they spoke to. And hearing that the world was about to end, many of the followers quit their jobs they sold all their belongings, even their homes. And then they waited for further instructions from the Guardians. Through Dorothy Martin, members began to distance themselves. At this point, they stayed away from skeptics and non believers. They didn't speak to friends and family who had urged them to consider that all this was pretty weird. They formed an echo chamber, choosing only to communicate and associate with fellow true believers, the fellow chosen. And they considered any ideas that challenged Dorothy Martin or her prophecies to be fake news and any organization that printed criticism as being part of a conspiracy to hide the truth from the rest of the world. Festinger's team infiltrated the Seekers right around this time, the time when they were starting to gather themselves together and enter that echo chamber. And this made it possible for them to not only learn about their plans to survive the apocalypse, but also help in their preparations to meet with the flying saucers. Martin's automatic writing said that those flying saucers would arrive at midnight Central standard time on December 21, land in her backyard, pick up all the believers, and fly them all back to the planet Klarion. And so the scientists waited. They joined the cult at their regular meetings, where Dorothy continued to hold court as their leader, guide and prophet. Together, they all awaited the end of the world. What happens when a whole lot of people whose expectations about what's going to happen learn that what's going to happen ain't gonna happen? And how does cognitive dissonance actually work when you get down to it? Like, what's happening in your brain? And why would this happen? Like what? What is the adaptive purpose of all these things? All of that after this break.