As days pass, days during which that slight but ceaseless physical discomfort allows our moribund hero no
momentary lapse into his old ways, he is visited ever more frequently by memories, memories of astonishing
clarity and vividness—mostly from his childhood, and he nds himself at the same time slipping ever more easily
into speculations, equally vivid, on the world to come and the future of this world. The limits of time begin to melt
and fuse until everything seems present but the present. In a word, his thinking has become eschatological.
“What has happened to our solid citizen?” his friends ask, perplexed. He has chosen to keep his disease a secret; it
would be even more morbid, he decides, to parade his condition. But he cannot conceal his change of heart. As far
as his old associates can see, the poor man has left the world of reality. Parties and golf no longer amuse him. TV
and movies disgust him. He takes to reading books, of all things—even the Bible! When they engage him in
conversation, he makes very disturbing remarks, sometimes sounding quite cynical, as if he didn’t really care, for
example, whether peppermint was selling better than wintergreen or whether the big sales campaign went over
the top by October. He even becomes careless of his appearance, as if he didn’t know that the key to success is to
make a good impression on people. As time passes, these alarming symptoms become ever more pronounced. His
sales record drops off sharply. Those who know what is good for their future begin to avoid being seen with him.
Like Lehi of old, he is hurting business, and dark hints of subversion are not far in the ofng. What is wrong with
the man?
As we said, his thinking has become eschatological. He lives in a timeless, spaceless world in which Jack Benny and
the World Series simply do not exist. His values are all those of eternity, looking to the “latter end” not only of his
own existence but of everything and everybody around him. As he hears the news or walks the streets, he sees, in
the words of Joseph Smith, “destruction writ large on everything we behold.” He is no longer interested in “the
things of the world.” The ready-smiling, easily adjustable, anxious-to-get-ahead, eager-to-be-accepted, hard-
working conformist, who for so many years was such a tangible asset to Nulb, Incorporated, has ceased to exist.
Now the question arises, has this man been jerked out of reality or into it? Has he cut himself off from the real
world or has cruel necessity forced him to look in the face what he was running away from before? Is he in a dream
now or has he just awakened from one? Has he become an irresponsible child or has he taken the measure of
Vanity Fair? Some will answer one way, some another. But if you want to arouse him to wrathful sermons, just try
telling the man that it makes no difference which of these worlds one lives in—that they are equally real to the
people who live in them. . . .
It will be noted that this eschatological state of mind does not bear the mark of just one school of thought. Once it
gets in the blood, all the aspects and concepts of eschatological thinking enter with it. Our businessman, for
example, begins to wonder about certain possibilities: What about the hereafter? Will he ever really see the face of
the Lord? Is there going to be a judgment? He almost panics at the thought, which has never bothered him before
because he has been successful. He becomes preoccupied with history and prophecy, aware for the rst time that
his whole life is linked not only with D Division of Nulb, Incorporated, but, for better or for worse, with all that
happens in the universe; he belongs to history and it to him—”the solemn temples, the great globe itself” are as
much his concern as any man’s. These ideas that come to him are all essential parts of the same picture in which
one can descry inextricably joined and intermingled apocalyptic, prophecy, millennialism, Messianism, history, and
theology—all belong to the same eschatology. . . .
To anyone who does not experience it, the eschatological view of things is pure myth—an invention of an
overwrought mind desperately determined to support its own premises. Only what they fail to consider is that
those who have had both views of the world interpret things just the other way around: it is, after all, eschatology