Beliefs in the end of the world: «Millenarianism brings hope».»

Director of the Religioscope Institute in Fribourg, Jean-François Mayer is a specialist in new religious movements. Among his subjects of study: beliefs in the end of the world, which belong to the spiritual realm, but not only... Interview.

Announcements of the end of the world, inner circles, unshakeable convictions, rituals: certain contemporary political movements, notably those of radical ecology, sometimes present a face that could be considered «sectarian» - this was the word used in the press by the resigned Genevan MP Christian Bavarel concerning the amendment of the Genevan Greens, of which he was then a member, prohibiting elected representatives from eating meat at official meals. What does sect enthusiast Jean-François Mayer, who is currently working on a book about millenarian beliefs - a form of apocalypticism - in the West, think about this?