WELLINGTON - Bets are off on the world ending at the new millennium - the prophets of doom are silent this time, a New Zealand cult expert says.
Cult devotees are expected to celebrate quietly the start of the new millennium, Cultwatch director Mark Vrankovich says.
"We have not come across weird and wonderful groups predicting the end of the world. As a tactic it loses them members, because it never happens. We predict that the world will not end, and that we will be right."
At the turn of the previous millennium, people sold their houses and gave away their possessions, he said.
Nothing happened in AD1000, but that had not put people off waiting for the end of the world since then.
He said that last year a group in New Zealand locked themselves in a house on Christmas Eve, gave away all their furniture, and waited for the world to end. Cultwatch called on them to make sure they were not going to do anything this time around. They weren't.
A recent increase in activity from smaller cult groups had been noticed, he said. Cultwatch had taken more calls than usual from people with family members in cults who were breaking contact.
Mr Vrankovich said it was too late to worry about the new millennium because it had already started, as 1997 was 2000 years after the birth of Christ.
"People will have a big party this New Year's and they will have another big party next year. It's just an excuse to have more fun."
Meanwhile, reports that cults would head to Gisborne for millennium suicides have been dispelled. Gisborne detective Peter Brown said rumours had been checked and proved to be false.
- NZPA
Doomsayers keeping quiet as we approach the turn
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