90% of his advice is pretty much just boilerplate self help stuff you can find in thousands of books on Amazon. That stuff gets you in the door and is meant to develop a sense of trust because you might see initial improvement and feel good from the advice.
It’s when he does the rug pull and starts introducing trad nonsense into it that determines how willing a person is to keep following through on listening to him.
Like you mentioned, this is an extremely common tactic used by religious leaders as well as cults. Back in the mid 20th century when the whole self help craze started, many cults took to framing themselves as self help groups to attract outsiders. NXIVM is probably the most infamous example of this. The first few meetings should seem like a normal support group but would soon start ramping up into full on cult mode.
You mean the fact that the biggest initial source of support the Nazis got was from the emerging business class who were scared of the rising influence of labor unions? Can’t imagine why that gets pushed under the bed.
Not like we had that nearly happen here in the US or anything though. Just don’t look into the Business Plot or that many of the Jan 6thers turned out to be small business tyrants…
Just remember that the most dangerous Nazis aren’t the skinheads on the corner but the ones on Wall Street.