Millenarianism is the belief in a salvational transformation commonly grounded in this world (and occasionally pertaining to an otherworldly realm), through which at least some of the faithful will experience well-being. This transformation is held to likely (substantially) solidify imminently, chiefly patterned by a transcendent blueprint that is either devised by a superhuman agent or naturally impregnated into the fabrics of time and space through an impersonal absolute. Scholars collaborating in this cluster address the subject from an interdisciplinary perspective and explore millenarian mindscapes in past and present. They focus on both catastrophic millenarian (apocalyptic) and progressive millenarian trajectories as well as its special cases (avertive, reductive, oscillatory). Particular focus is placed on the millenarian anatomy expressed by new religious movements and the Abrahamic traditions but also modes of apocalyptic thought in literature.

Individuals and institutions contributing to this cluster

• Spokesperson: Lukas K. Pokorny, Department of Religious Studies
• Hans Gerald Hödl, Department of Religious Studies
• Veronika Wieser, Institute for Medieval Research/ÖAW
• Christian Zolles, Institute for German Philology

Research projects and publications in this cluster

• Pokorny, Lukas. 2023. "Les millénarismes en Asie de l'Est." In: Ludivine Bantigny, Quentin Deluermoz, Boris Gobille, Laurent Jeanpierre und Eugenia Palieraki, Hg. Histoire globale des révolutions (18e-21e siècles), Paris: Editions La Découverte (5pp./in press).
• Pokorny, Lukas and Dominic S. Zoehrer. 2023. "'All evil spirits must be brushed off': Possession and Liberation in the Unification Movement." In: Nicole Bauer and Andrew Doole, eds. Ideas of Possession: Interdisciplinary and Transcultural Perspectives. New York: Oxford University Press, (20pp./in press).
• Pokorny, Lukas and Patricia Sophie Mayer. 2023. "Possession and Exorcism in Kōfuku no Kagaku." In: Nicole Bauer and Andrew Doole, eds. Ideas of Possession: Interdisciplinary and Transcultural Perspectives. New York: Oxford University Press, (20pp./in press).
• Pokorny, Lukas and Dominic S. Zoehrer. 2022. "The Universal Peace Federation (UPF): Origins, Development, and Challenges of the Unificationist 'Abel United Nations'." Vienna Journal of East Asian Studies, 14: 205–247.
• Pokorny, Lukas and Dominic S. Zoehrer. 2022. "'Kingdom-building' through Global Diplomatic and Interfaith Agency: The Universal Peace Federation (UPF) and Unificationist Millenarianism." Religions, 13 (5): 1–14.
• Pokorny, Lukas and Patricia Sophie Mayer. 2022. "'Like Armageddon': Kōfuku no Kagaku and the COVID-19 Pandemic." Religions, 13 (5), 1–13.
• Pokorny, Lukas. 2021. "Maitreya, Crop Circles, and the Age of Light: Benjamin Creme's UFO Thought." In: Benjamin Zeller, ed. Handbook of UFO Religions, Leiden and Boston: Brill, 295–311.
• Pokorny, Lukas. 2021. "East Asian UFO Religiosity." In: Benjamin Zeller, Hg. Handbook of UFO Religions, Leiden and Boston: Brill, 513–528.
• Pokorny, Lukas. 2021. "The Theosophical Maitreya: On Benjamin Creme's Millenarianism." In: Lukas Pokorny und Franz Winter, Hg. The Occult Nineteenth Century: Roots, Developments, and Impact on the Modern World. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 195–220.
• Pokorny, Lukas. 2020. "The Millenarian Myth Ethnocentrized: The Case of East Asian New Religious Movements." In: Nickolas P. Roubekas und Thomas Ryba, Hg. Explaining, Interpreting, and Theorizing Religion and Myth: Contributions in Honor of Robert A. Segal, Leiden and Boston: Brill, 299–316.
• Pokorny, Lukas and Zoehrer, Dominic. 2018. "Austrian Unificationist Perspectives vis-à-vis the Cheon Il Guk Constitution, with an Annotated Bilingual Translation of the Text." In: Hans Gerald Hödl and Lukas Pokorny, Hg. Religion in Austria, Volume 4, Vienna: Praesens, 205–288.
• Pokorny, Lukas. 2014. "Millenarian Retrospects and Prospects: The Post-Mun Unification Movement in Austria." In: Hans Gerald Hödl und Lukas Pokorny, Hg. Religion in Austria, Volume 2, Vienna: Praesens, 127–179.
• Pokorny, Lukas. 2013. "'The Millenarian Dream Continued': Foundation Day, Vision 2020 and the Post-Mun Unification Movement." In: Vienna Journal of East Asian Studies, 4: 123–157.
• Pokorny, Lukas. 2013. "The Millenarian Dimension of Unification Thought." In: Rüdiger Frank, James E. Hoare, Patrick Köllner, and Susan Pares, Hg. Korea 2013: Politics, Economy and Society, Boston and Leiden: Brill, 161–189.
• Wieser, Veronika, Eltschinger, Vincent and Heiss, Johann. Hg. 2020. Cultures of Eschatology, vol. 1: Authority and Empire in Medieval Christian, Islamic and Buddhist Communities, and Cultures of Eschatology, vol. 2: Time, Death and Afterlife in Medieval Christian, Islamic and Buddhist Communities, Berlin: de Gruyter (Cultural History of Apocalyptic Thought 3/1-2).
• Wieser, Veronika and Eltschinger, Vincent. 2020 “Introduction. Approaches to Medieval Cultures of Eschatology.” In: Cultures of Eschatology, vol. 1, 1–22.
• Wieser, Veronika. 2018. “The Chronicle of Hydatius: a historical guidebook to the last days of the Western Roman Empire.” In: Matthew Gabriele, James Palmer, Hg.: Apocalypse and Reform from Late Antiquity to the Middle Ages, Routledge, 11–30.
• Zolles, Christian. 2022. “The Enemy within: A Structural Approach to the Transmission of the Motif of Gog and Magog into the Modern Dialectics of Internationalisation and Nationalisation.” In: Lutz Greisiger, Andrew Mein, Georges Tamer, Julia Wannenmacher, Hg.: Politics – History – Eschatology. Functional, Inter(con)textual, Structural and Comparative Approaches to Gog and Magog, Berlin: de Gruyter (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam – Tension, Transmission, Transformation), im Erscheinen.
• Zolles, Christian. 2022. "From Heaven Above and Hell Below: On the Social Scientific Task of Translating ‘Gnosis’." In: Herbert Kopp Oberstebrink, Hartmut von Sass, Hg.: Depeche Mode. Jacob Taubes between Politics, Philosophy, and Religion. Leiden: Brill (special issue of The Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy 32).
• Zolles, Christian. 2021. "Von poetischen Katastrophen." In: Narthex – Heft für radikales Denken 7 (2021).
• Zolles, Christian. 2020. "Elias Canettis 'Die Befristeten' im messianischen Kontext." In: Japanische Gesellschaft für Germanistik, Hg.: Religiöse Erfahrung – Literarischer Habitus. Akten des JGG-Kulturseminars 2018/2019. München: iudicium , 131–158.
• Zolles, Christian. 2020. “History beyond the Ken. Towards a Critical Historiography of Apocalyptic Politics with Jacob Taubes and Michel Foucault.” In: Veronika Wieser, Vincent Eltschinger, Johann Heiss, Hg.: Cultures of Eschatology, vol. 2, Berlin: de Gruyter (Cultural History of Apocalyptic Thought 3/2), 783–816.
• Zolles, Christian. 2016. Die symbolische Macht der Apokalypse. Eine kritisch-materialistische Kulturgeschichte politischer Endzeit. Berlin: de Gruyter (Cultural History of Apocalyptic Thought 2).
• Die symbolische Macht der Apokalypse. Eine kritisch-materialistische Kulturgeschichte politischer Endzeit. Berlin: de Gruyter (Cultural History of Apocalyptic Thought 2).