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As we enter the 21st century, and the third millennium era, humankind is experiencing a rise in the number of natural disasters and epidemic diseases that it must combat, together with an increased proliferation of mass destruction weapons and a growing threat of nuclear war. The considerable commercial success of the 2004 film, “The Day after Tomorrow,” which portrayed the chaos that the onset of a new Ice Age would bring with it, may be an indication of peoples' anxieties over the fragility of life on earth and the fear that we are indeed approaching the end of a phase in history. Such thoughts bring with them a host of questions. Are these apocalyptic phenomena temporary or not? Are we really living in the last days? Will a paradise replace this world after a cataclysm of destruction? If so, when and how? Furthermore, do these thoughts differ depending on our cultural background? Do Eastern peoples regard this change in the same way as those in the West? These are questions that cannot fail to fuel debate. The subject of the millenarian dream is almost a universal concern for humanity. Although they are guided by their own beliefs, many are striving to see the fulfillment of some form of the millenarian dream, and history gives us many examples of how people have set about trying to turn such dreams into reality.
Although it has come to take on environmental, and even political aspects, the millenarian idea began mainly as a religious and philosophical belief. It has since become an integral part of many cultures, taking on a host of different forms. The religious thought of Judaism has influenced Semitic people; Christianity has influenced Western culture; Islam, the people from the Nile to the Oxus1 and other Islamic nations; and the I-jing (Book of Changes)2, Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism have influenced Asians. Today science, which can be seen as a new millenarian religion, greatly influences the way that our global society thinks about itself and the world around it. In all of its forms, then, it may be argued that one can hardly understand human history without understanding the concept of millenarianism and the human desire to see it enacted or encouraged. A key difference between East and West, however, is the perceived means by which the millenarian dream is to be brought to fruition.