Things That Make You Go Hmmmm...

 

 

 

One of the striking features of contemporary information ecosystems is the way discursive templates migrate far beyond their original institutional boundaries. In recent weeks, this has become particularly evident in the convergence between a public psychedelic writer, Chris Bennett, and the well-known CESNUR/Bitter Winter apologetic apparatus.

But perhaps the most revealing moment in Bennett’s recent writing career is his attempt to deny any CESNUR alignment—only to immediately confess the opposite. To wit,

 

Wahid Azal opens his response to my article Questions about the 2014 Iranian ‘Psychedelic Fatwā and Wahid Azal? Part 1 of this 3 part series, with the bogus claim “Chris Bennett… appears to have aligned himself with CESNUR (Centro Studi sulle Nuove Religioni)”. Prior to gigging into Wahid’s sordid past, I had no knowledge or contact with this group, although since sending my articles on Wahid there way, we have corresponded. Massimo Introvigne the Italian academic and sociologist of religion, who co-founded CESNUR, who sociologist Roberto Cipriani “one of… the world’s leading scholars of new religious movements”, called the series a “tour de force’. Massimo, who has written in the defence of Ayahuasca, was very kind and supportive, and was interested in looking at some of my books on the role of cannabis and religion. So thanks for that new academic connection Wahid!

https://substack.com/home/post/p-179978814

 

He insists that he had “no knowledge or contact” with CESNUR, but then boasts that, after sending his articles to them, Massimo Introvigne personally responded, praised the series as a “tour de force,” and requested Bennett’s books. In one sentence, Bennett inadvertently confirms the very linkage he claims to deny. From an analytic perspective, this is not merely a contradiction; it is an admission that he has now entered into direct reciprocal correspondence with the same apologetic network whose rhetorical model he reproduces. In research on information-ecosystems, such unintentionally self-incriminating disclosures are often more probative than any external evidence.

What makes this convergence significant is not any allegation of formal coordination—there is no evidence of that yet—but the unmistakable reproduction of CESNUR’s rhetorical structure in Bennett’s attacks while he is interacting with him (per his own confession). These structures include:

 

• pathologising the critic,
• reframing dissent as instability,
• inverting the victim–perpetrator axis,
• delegitimising testimony while amplifying institutional claims.

 

Again, these templates have been extensively mapped by Dr. Luigi Corvaglia and others in the sociology of new religious movements. They form a recognizable pattern used to defend groups facing internal criticism or external scrutiny. What is unusual here is that Bennett is not a CESNUR scholar, nor does he work in the sociology of religion, Iranian studies, or apostasy studies. His professional focus lies in entheogens, cannabis culture, and psychedelic history. Yet the rhetorical system he deploys mirrors CESNUR’s model with surprising fidelity. This raises the broader academic question: how do such templates travel?

In digital ecosystems, discursive frameworks often spread horizontally. Individuals adopt them not because they understand the underlying epistemology, but because the template offers a ready-made mechanism of attack. In this context, narrative coherence becomes secondary to narrative utility. The frame serves the goal, regardless of ideological alignment or conceptual understanding. The result is a form of instrumental appropriation. Words, arguments, and rhetorical devices originally designed for a specific institutional purpose become tools deployed in unrelated disputes. The individual adopting them may not grasp their origins, but they intuitively appreciate their strategic effectiveness.

This phenomenon is magnified when multiple actors—often holding incompatible ideological positions—temporarily align around a shared target. Such “negative coalitions” are well documented in digital anthropology and social movement theory. They do not require coordination. They do not require shared principles. They require only a shared adversary. In this light, Bennett’s adoption of CESNUR-style narratives—and his simultaneous alliance with bloggers who oppose CESNUR’s own religious beneficiaries—should not be seen as ideological contradiction but as symptomatic of the broader dynamics of online antagonism. When a target becomes sufficiently salient, narrative coherence dissolves. What remains is instrumentality.

This convergence therefore provides a useful case study in the portability of apologetic frameworks, the diffusion of institutional rhetoric into informal digital spaces, and the way digital hostility networks form temporary alliances that would otherwise be unthinkable. In this sense, the phenomenon is not merely polemical; it is structurally revealing. Whether this convergence represents a momentary collision of rhetorical currents or the early formation of a more structured alignment remains an open question. What is clear, however, is that such interactions illuminate the mechanics of digital influence far more clearly than the participants themselves realize.