Why “parousiamania” is a great word
PAROUSIAMANIA — [Noun] An obsessive fixation on the imminent Second Coming of Christ. From the Ancient Greek παρουσία (parousía, "presence, arrival"), specifically used in Christian theology for the Second Coming, combined with the English combining form -mania (from Greek μανία, manía, "madness, frenzy"), indicating an excessive enthusiasm or obsession. Unlike "eschatology," a formal study of last things, or "millenarianism," a collective belief in a coming utopia, parousiamania is a solitary, psychological fever. It is the trembling finger tracing dates in a crumbling concordance, the frantic scanning of headlines for divine portents, and the patient, straining gaze at the clouds for a rupture in the ordinary light—a waiting so profound it becomes a life lived in parentheses.