Taking your imagination too seriously

Cult leader Pyotr Kuznetsov tries suicide after realising he was wrong about doomsday

Tony Halpin in Moscow

The leader of a Russian doomsday sect has attempted to kill himself as his followers continue to emerge from a cave where they have been waiting for the end of the world.

Pyotr Kuznetsov was in hospital yesterday after he was discovered hitting himself over the head with a log. Members of his religious group have been hiding in a cave since November, believing that the world would end in May.

Officials said that he may have attempted suicide after realising his prediction had been wrong. Mr Kuznetsov has been declared to be suffering from schizophrenia and held in a psychiatric hospital for treatment. He was brought back to the remote village of Nikolskoye, 435 miles southeast of Moscow, to help the authorities to persuade his followers to leave the cave amid fears that it was collapsing. Mr Kuznetsov was found with a head wound in a barn at his home after going out for firewood.

“It was an attempted suicide. Pyotr put his head on a tree stump and started hitting his head with a log. He is in hospital with a head wound,” said Oleg Melnichenko, deputy goveror of the Penza region. Doctors described his condition as stable after an emergency operation. The local prosecutor Grigori Zhitenev said that Mr Kuznetsov’s motives included “that the end of the world has not come”.

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My comment:

If he believed the world was going to end in MAY, isn't it a little premature to be beating himself over the head about it in APRIL? Hell, he could be right!