>The way to make a million dollars is to start a religion. -L. Ron Hubbard

also

>You don't get rich writing science fiction. If you want to get rich, you start a religion.

Still very true. If you want to hit it big, create a religion. See Tesla or Scientology for examples.

"Religion is the opium of the people". Clearly, when one develops a product that rubs people the right way and inundates them with the right dopamine levels, one has achieved a product whose level of flexibility towards pricing, re-use and viralization is given.

If I was to unpack "Successful People create Religions" I would say it is composed of "successful people create objects of worship/adoration" and then "successful people create an ideology/aesthetic/brand/thought paradigm which links those objects of adoration."

But that actually doesn't match with the paradigms of some of the most prominent world religions, which despite being surrounded (in some sects more than others) by the trappings of object-worship, self-identify as explicitly about belief/faith. Scientology does essentially sell a very-specific type of counselling insofar as it is transactional. Many "prosperity" churches, and the Roman Catholic church in the middle ages (and some would argue to a lesser extent today), sell promises of security/eternity. But the majority of monotheistic faith and practice isn't about creating objects of worship/adoration and an ideology that binds them together. Fundamentalism is a symptom of transactional faith, just as entrepreneurship (great or mediocre) engenders faith in a product, and the transactional opportunity to acquire it. Religion that isn't fundamentalist attenuates the acquisition of the object of worship.

RMS real rich.