Faith and Ads Follow

Structure of the book

The book has six parts and 36 chapters. First we ask why humans are able to believe. Then we look at how belief was turned into a social technology, how that technology helped build modernity and capitalism, which tools religion and advertising share, how advertising took over part of the place of religion, and what happens when the production of meaning, desire and belief passes to the algorithm.

Dates are given only for chapters that are already being written. A published chapter links to its full text.

Prologue

  1. 0

    Two Circulatory Systems

    Why religion can be seen as the circulatory system of society and advertising as the circulatory system of the economy. Where the similarity of mechanisms comes from, and how far the analogy can legitimately be pushed.

    PublishedNovember 5, 2026

Part I. The Believing Human

The anthropological and psychological foundations of faith.

  1. 1

    The Limits of Man

    Four systems for describing human behavior — economics, culture, religion, and psychology — and how they relate to one another.

    PublishedNovember 5, 2026
  2. 2

    Volition: How the Invisible Becomes Action

    Desire, intention, and a person's capacity to act for the sake of an imagined result.

    WritingNovember 15, 2026
  3. 3

    Faith as the Foundation of Advertising

    Why an advertising promise works: it relies on the human capacity to believe in the future.

    Planned
  4. 4

    The Principle of Myth-Making

    How people create explanatory stories and turn them into a collective picture of the world.

    Planned
  5. 5

    Imagery in Religion and Advertising

    The symbol as a tool for conveying abstract ideas and organizing human experience.

    Planned
  6. 6

    Cognitive Biases in Religion and Advertising

    How the quirks of human thinking shape the formation of beliefs.

    Planned
  7. 7

    Religion and the Mass Unconscious

    Collective representations, symbols, and the mechanisms of mass behavior.

    Planned
  8. 8

    The Sociology of Religion and the Sociology of Advertising

    How individual belief becomes a social norm and a collective practice.

    Planned

Part II. Faith as a Social Technology

How religious ideas come to be used to organize society and regulate behavior.

  1. 9

    The Role of Revelation

    A source of truth beyond the human, and the mechanism by which unquestionable authority is formed.

    Planned
  2. 10

    Religion and the Book: The Gospel, the Quran, Scientology

    How a text fixes a doctrine and helps to reproduce and spread it.

    Planned
  3. 11

    Community, Sect, Church

    From a charismatic leader and a small group of followers to a lasting religious institution.

    Planned
  4. 12

    The Cargo Cult

    Imitating the outward forms of success and believing that its results can be reproduced.

    Planned
  5. 13

    Fear in Religion and Advertising

    Threat (aggression) as a tool for shaping behavior and mobilizing people.

    Planned
  6. 14

    The Use of Passions in Religion and Advertising

    Human drives as an object of religious regulation and a resource of the consumer economy.

    Planned
  7. 15

    Sin: How Desire Becomes a Violation of the Norm

    The origin of sin, original sin, guilt, confession, repentance, and atonement, and how advertising uses these ideas.

    Planned
  8. 16

    Evil, Hell, and the Devil in Advertising

    The image of the adversary, the dramaturgy of threat, and the promise of salvation.

    Planned
  9. 17

    Ethics

    How the limits of acceptable influence on human beliefs and behavior are formed.

    Planned

Part III. Print, Progress, and Capitalism

The historical changes in religion, philosophy, and economics that made modern advertising possible.

  1. 18

    Gutenberg, the Bible, and the Birth of the Mass Message

    How the mass reproduction of text changed religious communication and prepared the ground for mass media.

    Planned
  2. 19

    The World as Picture: Descartes and the Idea of Progress

    The rationalization of the world, the idea of transforming reality, and the emergence of the new as a value in its own right.

    Planned
  3. 20

    The Role of Protestantism

    Work, individual responsibility, success, and Weber's hypothesis about the Protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism.

    Planned
  4. 21

    Objectivism and Capitalism

    The rational individual, self-interest, property, and the philosophical justification of market behavior.

    Planned
  5. 22

    Commodity Fetishism

    How a thing acquires symbolic value and becomes a carrier of social relations.

    Planned
  6. 23

    Kant, Nietzsche, Propaganda, and Fascism

    The autonomy of the subject, morality, will, and the philosophical debates about the mechanisms of mass political persuasion.

    Planned

Part IV. The Common Language of Religion and Advertising

A comparison of symbolic and communicative toolkits.

  1. 24

    Biblical Motifs in Advertising

    The Fall, temptation, sacrifice, resurrection, salvation, and apocalypse in commercial communication.

    Planned
  2. 25

    The Hero's Journey and Archetypes

    Mythological narrative structures and their use in advertising storytelling.

    Planned
  3. 26

    The Aesthetic: Music and Craft in Advertising

    How beauty, artistic form, and emotional experience take part in forming beliefs.

    Planned
  4. 27

    Sexualization of the Message and Objectification

    The use of sexual desire and the human body in producing attention and consumer value.

    Planned
  5. 28

    Humor and Carnival Culture

    Bakhtin, the temporary suspension of social norms, memes, and the virality matrix.

    Planned
  6. 29

    Synthesis and Deconstruction in Advertising

    Creating durable symbolic constructions and using their destruction as a communication device.

    Planned
  7. 30

    Advertising Across Cultures

    How religious traditions and cultural norms shape the way advertising messages are perceived.

    Planned
  8. 31

    McLuhan's Media Theory in Religion

    How the means of transmitting information change the structure of religious experience and the ways faith spreads.

    Planned

Part V. Advertising as Quasi-Religion

How modern advertising reproduces certain organizational and symbolic functions of religion.

  1. 32

    Church and Corporation: Advertising and Preaching

    A comparison of organizations, ways of spreading a doctrine, rituals, and the building of communities and loyalty.

    Planned
  2. 33

    A Cult as an Advertising Campaign

    Comparing the formation of a religious movement with the development of an advertising campaign: problem, insight, idea, execution, result, and reproduction.

    Planned
  3. 34

    Advertising Is the Blood of the Economy

    How advertising communication keeps attention in circulation, creates demand, and helps reproduce the capitalist system.

    Planned

Part VI. The Last Religion of Humankind

The future of the technologies of belief in the age of algorithms.

  1. 35

    Algorithms and AI in Religion and Advertising

    Personalized persuasion, the management of attention, digital authorities, and new forms of religious experience.

    Planned
  2. 36

    The Last Religion of Humankind

    What happens when personal systems for forming beliefs begin to compete with the traditional institutions of religion and mass communication.

    Planned

1 of 36 chapters ready, next: Volition: How the Invisible Becomes Action, November 15, 2026