History Main / PathOfInspiration

* Creator/MarvelComics - The Universal Church of Truth in the 20th century is a galaxy-spanning empire that preaches the message "Convert or Die". It was founded by a time-traveling super-villain for his own evil ends. But in the 30th century on many worlds, it has become a somewhat more benevolent and spiritual organization.
* According to Jack Chick's [[Comicbook/ChickTracts famous works]], Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, and above all Roman Catholicism (in addition to numerous other Christian congregations that do not focus on the "True Message Of God") are examples of this. [[NightmareFuel Chick is completely serious about this idea]]. He's not trying to be funny, or [[CrossesTheLineTwice Cross the Line Twice]].

* ''ComicBook/TheNewTeenTitans'' had The Church of Brother Blood. Despite its name and being in control of nation known as a haven for the worst criminals, it had great worldwide publicity. This was due to having brainwashed a number of big media and political figures.

* The Oracle Machines in ''WebOriginal/OrionsArm'' ran one of these. As godlike AI, they were able to convincingly fake the power to see the future, which they used to establish a cult around themselves. While seemingly benign, the cult was actually nothing more than a mechanism meant to keep humans and their descendants in a stagnant, easily controlled state. Eventually, the Oracle Machines dropped the pretense completely and resorted to open imperial conquest.

* ''VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles3'': Downplayed. The soldiers fighting the ForeverWar wouldn't really understand the concept of religion if someone tried to explain it to them, but the core of the war ends up looking like a religion, albeit a rather simple one. Both nations have a Queen who, in a TeenageWasteland, serve as both god and mother; the Queens are said to be the source of all life, and all life returns to them in the end. The only duty of the soldiers is to kill the enemy to honor their Queen, and their highest honor is surviving their full ten-year lifespan, [[DisappearsIntoLight dissipating into ether motes]] in a ceremony witnessed by the Queen. Of course, the heroes discover early on that the war is utterly meaningless and perpetuated by the Moebius consuls for their own purposes, and soon after that they discover that the Queens [[spoiler:are nothing but robots spouting Moebius propaganda]]. However, there ''is'' some truth in the religion. [[spoiler:The true Queens who the fakes were modeled after, Queen Nia of Agnus and Queen Melia of Keves, were the leaders of two seaparate worlds on a collision course. They worked together to create Origin, a massive supercomputer that would save both worlds. Origin was hijacked by Moebius, locking the world into a perpetual stalemate, and Melia was captured while Nia went into hiding. Because of all this, when the true Queens reveal themselves, it takes minimal effort for them to rally both nations to fight Moebius]].

* The "Ethos" from ''VideoGame/{{Xenogears}}''. They're a church that purports to offer aid and salvation to the unfortunate, and that exterminates the mutant "Reapers" or "Wels" that appear in the world and threaten humanity. However, [[spoiler:it is in fact a front for the nation of Solaris, to keep the humans living on the surface docile and under control, and to furnish Solaris with excavated resources and slave labor. Oh, and they also are involved in deploying and keeping track of the Wels as well as exterminating them]].

* Religions created by the player in ''VideoGame/DominionOfDarkness'' can be considered this.

* The Holy Mauser faith in ''LightNovel/ScrappedPrincess'' [[spoiler:was actually designed by the aliens who conquered Earth and exiled brainwashed human survivors to a small portion of its surface. Its function was to a) prevent humanity from ever discovering their true history, b) allow semi-sentient weapons named Peacemakers to act without interference as "Lord Mauser's angels", c) rally the entire world population against the person carrying the genetic anomaly enabling her to "cancel" Peacemakers' presence and challenge the status quo, who just happens to be the protagonist of the show. It may be also notable that all this was apparently organized for humanity's own good, at least, from the alien point of view.]]

** Liberal humanism: Humans are unique and special, and the greatest good is to protect the freedom and individuality of individual humans. Based on the Christian doctrine that all humans have free and unique souls.
** Socialist humanism: Humans are unique and special, and the greatest good is to reduce inequality between individual humans. Based on the Christian doctrine that all human souls are equal before God.
** Evolutionary humanism: Humans are unique and special, and the greatest good is to allow them to evolve to a higher state, by promoting the Right Sorts and culling the Wrong Sorts. Has been under something of a cloud since the defeat of the Nazis.

Occasionally, this is the form that an AncientConspiracy would take. Distinct from the CorruptChurch, in that instead of being a legitimate religion that went bad, the Path of Inspiration is by design rotten to the core; the ScamReligion, in that the Path's leaders are true believers, not con artists; and the ReligionOfEvil, in that the religion is '''not''' openly evil. The typical high-ranking member is a StrawHypocrite. Usually has a DarkMessiah as the figurehead, whose outright evil is part of TheReveal. May overlap with HollywoodSatanism, especially in UsefulNotes/ConspiracyTheories. May also include references to, or parallels with, the ChurchOfHappyology.

* The Immaculate Order in ''TabletopGame/{{Exalted}}'' qualifies as this. Instructing the masses never to attempt rising above their station impedes the development of exemplariness necessary for Celestial Exaltation. Furthermore, if any of them do reach those lofty heights, the faith has spent centuries spreading the false belief that they are Anathema, normal humans overwhelmingly and irrevocably possessed by demonic intelligences. Considering that when they were in charge the Solar Exalted went nuts and unknowingly threatened to bring the world to ruin, keeping more of them from showing up doesn't seem like an ''entirely'' bad idea...

* The Immaculate Order in ''TabletopGame/{{Exalted}}'' qualifies as this. Instructing the masses never to attempt rising above their station impedes the development of exemplariness necessary for Celestial Exaltation. Furthermore, if any of them do reach those lofty heights, the faith has spent centuries spreading the belief that they are Anathema, normal humans overwhelmingly and irrevocably possessed by demonic intelligences. Considering that the Solar Exalted went nuts and unknowingly threatened to bring the world to ruin, keeping more of them from showing up doesn't seem like an ''entirely'' bad idea...

* ''TabletopGame/HunterTheVigil'' features The Knights of Saint George, ostensibly a secret society within the Anglican Church devoted to battling sorcerers because they believe magic primes the world for invasion by "dragons." As the members climb the ranks in the order, however, they slowly learn that the "angel" they supposedly gain their power from is actually a fragment of [[CosmicHorrorStory the Abyss]], a rift in the basic concept of reality.
* In ''TabletopGame/MageTheAwakening'' the [[AncientConspiracy Seers of the Throne]] Ministry of Paternoster is devoted to making every religious faith as dogmatic and closed-minded (especially in regards to magic) as possible, in accordance with the commandments of the [[TheArchmage Exarchs]]. Notably, they don't want [[{{Muggles}} sleepers]] to directly ''worship'' the Exarchs, since they believe that for anyone other than a mage to do so profanes them.

** And if you belong to certain Orders, you can actually run your own benevolent version. The Guardians of the Veil maintain Labyrinths, fake conspiracies, and occult practices meant to groom worthy individuals into Awakening and shunt those not up to the responsibility into a tiny pocket of lesser occult knowledge. The Silver Ladder, meanwhile, runs Cryptopolies, mixtures between civic organizations and mystery cults (think Freemasonry) that are meant to teach Sleepers the lesser principles of Awakened wisdom before they come into the greater ones.

* This is the general state of religion in ''TabletopGame/{{Ravenloft}}'' setting when it isn't a straight ReligionOfEvil. Many Darklords will make up a religion to help control their subjects, such as Azalin Rex and the undead-worshipping Eternal Order, and some will just use a permutation of an existing faith for the purpose. The Nidalan church of Belenus is a real god but doesn't actually resemble the deity of Nidala (since the faith was founded by an ex-paladin of his, Elena Faith-hold). Although unconfirmed, religion of Yutow the Peacebringer also is very likely to have been made up by Valachan's Darklord, considering that it teaches extreme AntiIntellectualism, acceptance of one's station in life, and reverence of panthers, which is useful for keeping the population ignorant, unmotivated to rebel, and not suspicious of the werepanthers the Darklord uses as his secret police.

* The gods of Athas in ''TabletopGame/DarkSun'' are dead and gone, but that hasn't kept the sorcerer kings from spinning tales about their supposed "divinity" to keep their thralls docile and subservient.

** The Blood of Vol from the same setting is a lesser example. To the common man, it is a slightly creepy but otherwise okay religion that views blood as a gateway to immortality and venerates undeath as a great martyrdom for the sake of teaching others (as in Eberron, undead creatures are not AlwaysChaoticEvil). Considering that the afterlife of Eberron consists of a drab wasteland that slowly erases your memories until you're a mindless wandering shade, you can see where they're coming from. The truth is a little harsher: [[spoiler:The Blood of Vol is actually being manipulated by BigBad Erandis Vol in order to advance her agenda in Khorvaire, with the actual dogma being an altered form of House Vol's beliefs preserved by elves fleeing Aerenal. Even then, [[WordOfGod Keith Baker]] emphasizes that Vol didn't actually ''create'' the religion and is barely in control of it; it was a natural evolution of the Vol beliefs]].

* A most terrifying example is the Holy See in ''Manga/{{Berserk}}'', who do not even know that the four "angels" they worship and their MessianicArchetype are actually the five members of the demonic Godhand, {{Eldritch Abomination}}s who each crossed the MoralEventHorizon by sacrificing a whole load of people each (and who knows what else) and are subservient to a GodOfEvil. Oh, and they torture people. They are CRAZY obsessed with torturing people, often for no reason at all. It is implied that the four angels were originally inspired, not by the God Hand, but by the Four Elemental Kings revered by the pagan religion that the See supplanted, making it a combination between this trope and CorruptChurch.

* ''Anime/CowboyBebop'''s episode "Brain Scratch" had a cult that brainwashed people into giving up their physical forms for a supposed digital existence by recording their brain waves onto the internet.

* The Fifthist Church in ''Wiki/SCPFoundation'' materials is a textbook example. On the outside, it's a harmless celebrity cult with a ''Secret-''esque self-help book as its centerpiece. When given free rein, they very nearly destroyed the world.

** In ''Literature/TheApocalypseCodex'', Bob Schiller's Golden Promise Ministry appears to be another American fundamentalist Christian sect, with maybe a few odd doctrines. This being a Laundry book, Schiller and his inner circle actually serve a powerful EldritchAbomination, not entirely willingly. Once Schiller completes a human sacrifice of nearly unprecedented scale the entity will escape its prison under alien stars, and humanity will end. It's clear that Schiller actively believes that what he's doing is in Christ's name, even if the whole thing is clearly a front for Nyarlathotep and comes with all the attendant crimes against humanity you'd imagine it would. That makes it ''even more frightening''.
** ''Literature/TheFullerMemorandum'' also features a mention of the Free Church of the Universal Kingdom, another Nyarlathotep cult disguising itself as a premillennialist dispensationalism branch of evangelical Christianity.

* The "Ethos" from ''VideoGame/{{Xenogears}}''.

A religion that appears benign but was carefully designed from the ground up long ago for a nefarious purpose, usually either to force the subjects of a state to behave as its founders would wish, frequently specifically to never attempt to rise in station or do anything but what they're told (popular with constructed state religions), or to [[GodsNeedPrayerBadly empower]] an [[GodOfEvil evil god]] or [[UltimateEvil force]] without anyone realizing that said god or force is in fact evil. The end result is a VillainWithGoodPublicity. This is a type of MysteryCult, hidden not through total secrecy but through its misleading image for the laity, who might be clearly {{brainwashed}} from an outside perspective, and are sometimes outright {{Mind Control}}led. This church is widespread in a large country or even the world, and accepted without question, and may conduct {{Witch Hunt}}s against unbelievers and heretics who have any doubts about its righteousness.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Arcanum}}'', [[spoiler: the Panarii were created as part of an extremely long game by K'an Hua and the Dark Elves. It's actually a SaintlyChurch, but its true purpose is to obscure historical events by turning them into religious mythology and recasting Arronax as an UltimateEvil so that people in the modern age wouldn't know that he was actually a powerful mage and anti-tech zealot whose wards needed to be maintained. That would cause the wards to weaken over time and eventually allow them to free Arronax]].

* In the ''Film/ConanTheBarbarian1982'' movie, Thulsa Doom's rather [[UsefulNotes/CharlesManson Manson cult]]-esque snake-worship religion is "for the lulz".

* ''Franchise/DoctorWhoExpandedUniverse'': The Lazarus Intent in the ''Literature/DoctorWhoMissingAdventures'' novel ''The Crystal Bucephalus'' was set up by a criminal who ripped off Christianity wholesale to create a religion which, rather than teaching the Messiah was resurrected and would return, taught that it was up to believers to invent time travel, and rescue their saviour from the moment of his death. The Doctor notes that while the church may be a fraud set up by an egomaniac (Lazarus isn't even a DarkMessiah, just a conman who thinks big), devout Lazarites tend to be good people.

** There's actually a ''third'' level of Path Of Inspiration among said second sect of cannibals, whose leader presents herself as (and is considered to be by her followers) a living goddess when in fact [[GodGuise she's nothing of the sort]]. When Carter exposes ''her'' it brings the whole system crashing down, and while [[WouldntHitAGirl he won't take her life himself]], her cheated worshippers [[CruelAndUnusualDeath aren't so merciful]].