When Incoherence Becomes a Method: Understanding the Chris Bennett–Dale Husband Alliance Through the Lens of Cultic Apologetics and Disinformation Dynamics

 

  

 Chris Bennett

 

 

Dale Husband 

In the sociology of new religious movements and the study of disruptive information ecosystems, one of the most revealing indicators of intent is not what actors say, but how and with whom they align. When ideological consistency collapses, and when individuals begin adopting mutually contradictory discourses without concern for coherence, it is usually a sign that the real motive lies elsewhere.

The recent convergence between Chris Bennett—a self-styled psychedelic writer—and Dale Husband, an ex-Bahá’í blogger known for his polemical hostility toward the Bahá’í faith, presents a striking example of this phenomenon. That Bennett would simultaneously appropriate pro-Bahá’í institutional templates (specifically those pioneered by the CESNUR–Bitter Winter network) while amplifying the commentary of a long-time Ex-Bahá’í dissident is a paradox that deserves closer examination. This asymmetry is not merely a curiosity; it is diagnostically significant.

 

A Coalition of Contradictions: When Opposites Unite to Attack a Single Target

From a scholarly perspective, alliances between ideologically opposed actors typically emerge in one of two contexts:

1.     Coordinated disinformation campaigns, where ideological diversity masks a central orchestration; or

2.     Swarm dynamics, where disparate individuals temporarily align around a single adversarial focus (“negative coalition formation”).

The Bennett–Husband pairing is a textbook instance of the latter.

Bennett’s writings adopt the language and logic of apologetic inversion developed by CESNUR: pathologising the critic, delegitimising testimony, inverting the victim–perpetrator axis, and reframing dissent as instability. These are recognisable features mapped extensively in Dr. Luigi Corvaglia’s analytical work on NRM apologetics.

Husband, by contrast, has spent nearly two decades attacking the Bahá’í faith and its leadership. His blog archive is one of the better-known anti-Bahá’í polemical repositories online. By any coherent standard:

• A pro-Bahá’í CESNUR-style apologist would reject Husband outright.
• An anti-Bahá’í critic would reject CESNUR’s institutionalist defences.

Yet Bennett embraces both, and now Husband has embraced Bennett.

Such contradictions reveal that neither religious principle nor intellectual consistency is guiding these alignments. The axis around which these actors rotate is not theology, ideology, or scholarship—it is simply the convenience of shared hostility toward a single individual.

Let us look at this more closely because Bennett’s contradictions cannot be explained by principles—only by opportunism. If Bennett had a coherent ideological position, any of the following would make sense:

• Pro-Bahá’í : He would reject Husband (since Husband has publicly attacked the Bahá’í  faith for 20+ years).
• Anti-Bahá’í : He would reject CESNUR narratives (which defend authoritarian Bahá’í institutions rhetorically).
• Neutral journalist: He wouldn’t touch Dale Husband’s crude blog with a ten-foot pole.
• Cannabis-religion advocate :The Bahá’í model of drug prohibition would be by definition antithetical to him.

But he is doing something none of these categories predict:

• he uses pro-Bahá’í institutional frames (pathologising apostates),
• while allying with an ex-Bahá’í anti-Bahá’í blogger,
• while simultaneously propagating CESNUR-type apologetics,
• while himself having no grounding in Bahá’í Studies, Iranian Studies, or the history of apostasy/defection in NRM scholarship.

This is not ideological consistency. This is not independent analysis. This is narrative opportunism driven by hostility toward one target: me.

 

Opportunistic Borrowing: How Narratives Travel Without Understanding

Scholars of cultic apologetics note a recurring phenomenon: narrative templates often circulate detached from their original ideological context. Individuals who adopt these structures frequently have no relationship to the movements that created them. This appears to be the case with Bennett.

There is nothing in his professional history or intellectual background that suggests any familiarity with:

• the sociology of apostasy,
• Iranian religious history,
• Bahá’í and Bayānī sectarian developments, or
• the internal politics of NRM scholarship.

Yet he reproduces, with striking fidelity, the same rhetorical scaffold CESNUR deploys to discredit critics of groups ranging from Shincheonji to La Luz del Mundo. The transfer occurs because the template fulfills his emotional aim, not because he comprehends its provenance.

His simultaneous embrace of Husband—whose own narratives are fundamentally anti-Bahá’í—only reinforces the point: he is not choosing arguments based on their ideological content, but based on their utility in an attack. This kind of incoherence is not neutral. In communication theory, it is categorized as:

• instrumental rhetoric, and
• malicious opportunism,

rather than good-faith discourse. This is because when disinformation campaigns pick a target, ideological coherence stops mattering. In hostile-network dynamics, two things often happen:

(a) Everyone Bennett thinks “hates Wahid” becomes an ally, even if they hate each other. This is classic in:

• cult-apologist ecosystems,
• online harassment swarms,
• fringe-media environments,
• narcissistic echo chambers.

Husband is not Bennett’s ideological partner; he is a weapon of convenience.

(b) People adopt whichever template gives them psychological permission to attack the target. If Bennett believes:

• “Wahid Azal is dangerous / crazy / unstable / fraudulent,”

then he will instinctively gravitate to whatever discourse legitimises that narrative.

CESNUR’s playbook is designed to do exactly this:

• frame the dissident as irrational,
• medicalise dissent,
• erase religious legitimacy,
• pathologise the critic,
• invert victim/perpetrator narratives.

He uses it because it works for his emotional aim—to delegitimise me—not because he understands the structure.

 

Why This Matters: Incoherence as Evidence of Intent

In legal, academic, and investigative contexts, inconsistent narrative adoption is often a signal of:

• personal animus,
• reckless disregard for truth,
• motivation to cause reputational damage,
• absence of journalistic purpose, and
• in some cases, the implicit absorption of external influence structures (even informally).
• Or, some kind of external institutional coordination.

This may suggest (but does not yet prove) direct coordinated CESNUR involvement. However, in itself, it is a strong indicator that CESNUR’s methods—its rhetorical and polemical architecture—have been informally internalized by Bennett, who deploys them reflexively as a tool of attack. In this sense, the asymmetry is a form of analytic proof: his actions do not arise from belief but from animus. The alliance with Husband is not a philosophical partnership. It is an ad hoc coalition of grievance, structured around a single target and unconcerned with logical consistency. This is because Bennett has no real interest in the Bahá’í Faith—only in the “anti-Wahid” leverage it gives him. This is key:

If Bennett genuinely cared about Bahá’í doctrine, history, or integrity:

• he would not touch Husband,
• he would not cite anti-Bahá’í blogs,
• he would not amplify ex-Bahá’í polemics.

If he cared about “accuracy” or scholarship:

• he would not use CESNUR’s debunked structures,
• he would not reproduce their inversion-template without understanding it,
• he would avoid repeating claims whose origins he cannot trace.

But because the only real goal is:

“attack Wahid Azal,” every contradiction becomes acceptable, and in this the ideology collapses into the narcissistic intent.

 

The Broader Pattern: When Networks Don’t Need Coordination to Function

Contemporary research on online harassment, cult-adjacent ecosystems, and digital swarming shows that:

• disinformation does not require central planning,
• actors with contradictory beliefs will temporarily align when a shared target appears,
• narrative templates spread horizontally, not hierarchically.

In this framework, the Bennett–Husband convergence is not an anomaly. It is a predictable outcome of networked antagonism. Each participant brings their own motivations:

• Bennett: ego injury, resentment, and desire to delegitimise a critic who challenged his claims.
• Husband: long-standing personal hostility and desire to revive a defunct feud.
• CESNUR-style framing: an inherited structure that conveniently provides a ready-made vocabulary for discrediting dissenters.

The result is not a coherent ideology, but a convergence of vectors, all pointing in one direction, and this is why the asymmetry looks suspicious—and why others have noticed.

To an external observer:

• Bennett is not defending the Bahá’í faith,
• he is not supporting a theological position,
• he is not conducting research,
• and he is not critiquing entheogenic history with academic seriousness.

He is: Emotionally “joining forces” with anyone who has ever attacked me, regardless of their ideology, credibility, or internal contradictions. The 2016 Duginist doxxer did exactly the same thing. This is a hallmark of:

• personal malice,
• reputational harm intent,
• cyber harassment behaviour,
• and in some cases, third-party influence or alignment through ideological networks, even if informal.

Does the incoherence strengthen the case that his actions are malicious, reckless, or defamation-driven rather than journalistic? Yes — significantly.

 

The Cannabis Angle

The cannabis angle makes the behaviour even less coherent. It is deeply bizarre for a public cannabis advocate like him—whose entire discourse is about liberation, altered states, shamanism, anti-authoritarianism—to suddenly adopt:

• authoritarian Bahá’í institutional narratives,
• pathologization tactics,
• religious gatekeeping,
• NRM-apologist rhetoric.

There is no ideological route from “entheogenic spirituality” to “defending Haifan narratives against a Bayānī dissident.” Unless, that is, Bennett is engaged in a coordinated psychological operation (psyop); and, moreover, unless the motive is not religion at all—but ego, vendetta, and a desire to harm. That is the only explanation.

            But why now? Why does Bennett surface suddenly, three full months after the publication of the Bitter Winter diatribe against Be Scofield and myself, and over two months after my systematic dismantling of CESNUR’s tactics in The Goal of the Wisecrack? And why does he appear over five years after all contact between us had ended—our last exchange being a brief digital disagreement over whether the late Iranologist Mary Boyce identified Haoma with Peganum harmala, after which I blocked him across all platforms and gave him no further attention whatsoever?

The timeline simply does not comport with the natural rhythms of personal grievance or intellectual dispute. Bennett had no continuing relationship with me, no ongoing argument, and no professional stake in my scholarship. By any logical measure, the matter was long dead. And yet, his intervention occurs with uncanny proximity to a wave of CESNUR-aligned output targeting both Be Scofield and myself—a context he conspicuously never acknowledges, yet reproduces rhetorically with precision. This raises the central, unavoidable question: what is Chris Bennett’s actual incentive?

His sudden re-engagement cannot be explained by personal history, because there is none of recent significance. It cannot be explained by scholarly interest, because his work does not touch the domains of Iranian intellectual history, Sufism, or the sociology of apostasy. It cannot be explained by a journalistic imperative, because his treatment is not investigative but polemical, stitched together from secondary online sources and recycled tropes. And it cannot be explained by ideological affinity, because—paradoxically—he simultaneously borrows pro-Bahá’í institutional rhetoric from CESNUR while aligning himself with an ex-Bahá’í polemicist like Dale Husband.

Thus, the only plausible inference is that Bennett is not acting from conviction, but from instrumental (and coupled with possible institutional) opportunism. His incentive is not grounded in belief, scholarship, or personal motivation; it is grounded in the opportunistic deployment of a prefabricated narrative framework manufactured by a cultic network at a moment when attacking me aligns with an already-circulating defamation ecosystem. In such a scenario, Bennett becomes not a protagonist, but a vector—someone who steps into a discursive current already in motion, amplifying its direction without understanding its origin—or maybe he does. And in the sociology of information warfare, that behaviour is never random.

 

Conclusion: Incoherence is the Message

The deeper significance of this asymmetry is that it exposes the lack of substantive argumentation underlying the entire anti-Azal campaign. When an actor borrows pro-Bahá’í institutional rhetoric while simultaneously aligning with one of the Internet’s longest-standing anti-Bahá’í polemicists, the conclusion is unavoidable: The motive is not belief, nor scholarship, nor religious commitment. The motive is the attack.

Such incoherence is never accidental. It is diagnostic. It reveals the true architecture behind the discourse—one built not on principles, but on opportunistic malice, borrowed narratives, and a willingness to weaponize any voice, no matter how contradictory, to achieve reputational harm. In the study of disinformation and apologetic ecosystems, this pattern itself is evidence—and a telling one because the asymmetry is fishy since it exposes Bennett’s intent, not a principle.  His alliance with Dale Husband—an anti-Bahá’í ex-Bahá’í—while using pro-Bahá’í/CESNUR templates, confirms:

• Bennett’s real motive is personal, not ideological.
• His framework is imported, not native.
• He will ally with any hostile voice to amplify damage.
• The inconsistency itself is probative of malice, recklessness, and incoherent animus.