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A sci-fi author who considered himself somewhat of a renaissance man created what he thought was a novel approach to psychology which was not accepted by the scientific community. He then made it into a religion to get it going and get tax breaks. As head of the religion he eventually was surrounded by sycomphant yes men zealots and over time he convinced himself it was real as a religion and was like its prophet holy man and expanded on it with sci fi elements that were only revealed to the cult memebers as it was run like multi level marketing where you buy the secrets of yourself and the universe. He died and like in any corpo cult the top ones are the most psychotic.
I don't believe in the slightest he though he created a novel approach to psychology.
He has other books he's written where, plain as day, he points out the absurdity of religion and people following it. He put out a sci-fi book as a self help book because he thought it was funny and would make more money. He then made it a religion because he knew people were easily manipulated.
I am basing this on other things i've read from him, such as the Mission Earth series. I don't believe in the slightest that he believed in any of it, from the junk science on up.
Well he thought it was a novel approach but the concepts are not completely new. He was trying to get it accepted into the psychological community before the religion and I whole heartily think he believed the initial thing and by the end I would not be surprised he bought into his own divinity. I think he sorta went howard hughes like at the end but maybe more with drugs.
Eh, maybe early on. Scientology was founded in the 50s, the Mission Earth series that made fun of religion and the people who followed it blindly was in the 80s just before he died, so I don't think he bought into his own bs. I think that was him saying "You schmucks will still follow this crap after I die".