The Usefulness of Our Delusions
The story of Donald Lowry and the “Church of Love” is weird and captivating: a balding, middle-aged writer in a small Midwestern town had assumed the personas of dozens of fictitious women. He had written love letters in their voices to tens of thousands of men.
Each woman had her own unique writing style, vocabulary and backstory. The letters were printed en masse, but they featured numerous personal touches. Lowry used fonts that imitated actual handwriting, and the letters were often printed on paper tinted in delicate pastels. The notes featured girlish expostulations and whimsical digressions. Lots of men who received the love letters wrote back. In the course of weeks, months, and sometimes years, they poured out their hearts to their fictitious correspondents. Many fell in love, and believed they had found their soulmates. They sent in hundreds of thousands of dollars to Lowry and his organization in order to keep the love letters coming. Some wrote wills bequeathing their estates to their imagined soulmates.
More here – Behavioural Scientist
