Comment by whatgoodisaroad

there's a really interesting book called "When Prophecy Fails" that documents a doomesday cult. the cult had predicted a huge flood sometime in the 1950s and some sociologists infiltrated the group posing as believers to document their psychological response to the calamity not occuring

one of the core theses of the book is that adherents to a prophecy paradoxically believe in it much more strongly AFTER it's been disproven