In the case of Hubbard, preaching irrationality and being irrational is different. Hubbard went genuinely crazy in his later years, but when he knew what he was doing when he invented Scientology. He even said in an interview once “I’m tired of writing for a penny a page. If a man really wanted to make a million dollars, he would invent a religion.”
If you’re going to craft memetic weapons, you’d better make damn sure you’ve developed a resistance to your own products before you begin peddling them.
Hubbard ended up spending lots of his time around people who had been infected with his viral religious propaganda… and inevitably, he became infected himself.
People with high Int and Cha tend to believe their own propaganda. They’re also the ones who tend to have unrealistically positive beliefs about their own intellectual competence, and little concern about going through the tedious and uncomfortable process of examining their own beliefs and practices.
Except that even before all of that and formally inventing Scientology, he hobnobbed with the likes of Crowley and believed that there is a horrible conspiracy of psychologists that Must Be Stopped.
In the case of Hubbard, preaching irrationality and being irrational is different. Hubbard went genuinely crazy in his later years, but when he knew what he was doing when he invented Scientology. He even said in an interview once “I’m tired of writing for a penny a page. If a man really wanted to make a million dollars, he would invent a religion.”
If you’re going to craft memetic weapons, you’d better make damn sure you’ve developed a resistance to your own products before you begin peddling them.
Hubbard ended up spending lots of his time around people who had been infected with his viral religious propaganda… and inevitably, he became infected himself.
People with high Int and Cha tend to believe their own propaganda. They’re also the ones who tend to have unrealistically positive beliefs about their own intellectual competence, and little concern about going through the tedious and uncomfortable process of examining their own beliefs and practices.
Except that even before all of that and formally inventing Scientology, he hobnobbed with the likes of Crowley and believed that there is a horrible conspiracy of psychologists that Must Be Stopped.