Millennialism
Millennialism (from Latin mille 'thousand', annus 'year', and -ism) or chiliasm (from the Greek equivalent) is a belief which is held by some religious denominations. According to this belief, a Messianic Age will be established on Earth prior to the Last Judgment and the future permanent state of the "eternity".[1]
Not to be confused with Millenarianism.
Christianity and Judaism have both produced messianic movements which featured millennialist teachings—such as the notion that an earthly kingdom of God was at hand. These millenarian movements often led to considerable social unrest.[2]
Similarities to millennialism also exist in Zoroastrianism, which identified successive thousand-year periods, each of which will end in a cataclysm of heresy and destruction, until the final destruction of evil and the final destruction of the spirit of evil by a triumphant king of peace at the end of the final millennial age. "Then Saoshyant makes the creatures again pure, and the resurrection and future existence occur" (Zand-i Vohuman Yasht 3:62).
Scholars have also linked various other social and political movements, both religious and secular, to millennialist metaphors.
Theosophy[edit]
The Theosophist Alice Bailey taught that The Christ or The World Teacher would return "sometime after AD 2025", and that this would be the New Age equivalent of the Christian concept of the Second Coming of Christ. Note that the being she speaks of The World Teacher is the same as that spiritual being best known to other Theosophists as Maitreya.[38][39]