Cognitive Dissonance and Doomsday Cults

What a doomsday cult can teach us about our ability to admit we’re wrong

Photo by Albert Antony on Unsplash

One of my favourite stories is the birth of cognitive dissonance. The science of human beings’ inability to admit they are wrong. It’s a story of a 1950s cult called the Seekers led by a lady called Dorothy Martin who had the ability to channel communications from an alien race known as the Guardians. The Guardians had told…