The Book of Rational Zealoutry SCP-7524

A single physical copy of each suspected instance of SCP-7524 is to be contained in the secure library annex of Storage Site 40. Digital copies, including apparent duplicates, are to be archived on an EMP shielded SSD with all metadata and retrieval information noted in accordance with Digital Anomaly Citation Standards 9040.3. Testing upon confirmed instances of SCP-7524 is currently suspended due to the difficulty in finding D Class Personnel who meet the criteria of susceptibility. Suspected instances will only be tested with Site Director approval, and if the automated textual analysis shows a variance greater than 10% from a confirmed instance; until then they are to be presumed info hazards. Under no circumstances are any SCP Personnel to read the documents to completion. Doing so may result in dismissal, detention, Class C amnestic therapy, or even termination. Note that partial reading of the document is believed to be harmless, and is permissible by assigned staff.

A single C Class personnel is to maintain the automated web crawler, and review the results, as well as manually searching forums and blog networks for undiscovered instances. The use of non-Foundation search engines is strictly forbidden. Field agents working with the Library & Archival division, the Silicon Valley Liaison division, and the Cults and Conferences division are to familiarize themselves with this SCP. If any suspected instances are discovered they’re to contact lead investigator Dr. ████ ██████ for further orders.

Suspected cases of SCP-7524-1 are to be detained, interrogated, and anesthetized, and any copies of SCP-7524 to be seized, following which they are to be reported to domestic Intelligence Authorities, if they instance a relevant subcultural niche, after which they are to be released.

Description: SCP-7524 is a treatise of approximately 50,000 words titled “The Figments of the Mind” by Mark Desoreau which goes by various titles and authors, all sharing a common theme, which has variously been described as a text arguing against superstition and promoting reason, though it doesn’t appear to contain any unique or profound arguments. SCP-7524’s anomalous effect occurs when the text is read by an individual who A) possesses the necessary sixth-grade reading level in the language needed to understand it, and B) scores in the top 40% of the modified CRS scale scores in the top 30% of religiosity on at least two of the following dimensions: Intellectual, Ideological, and Religious Experience (Public Practice and Private practice have been proven to be irrelevant). Following completion of SCP-7524, the individual who reads it becomes a case of SCP-7524-1. What follows is a two-stage shift within the individual over a period of several months. Their prior religiosity will appear to dissipate; they will stop attending religious services, they will lose interest in religious and philosophical documents, and the use of religious terms in daily language will decline. Their base line morality and attitude remain unaffected however, making Stage 1 easy to miss. A small number of SCP-7524-1s experiencing this shift have casually described themselves as atheist, but the vast majority still consider themselves religious, despite having effectively abandoned their faith.

Stage 2 occurs when their latent religiosity reasserts itself. The SCP-7524-1 will gradually become obsessed with a subcultural niche which is sufficiently complex to allow religious devotion, but is not part of an extant faith. Examples of such niches include:

• Science Fiction and Fantasy Universes
• Organic Food, Veganism, or Fitness
• UFO and Cryptids
• Far-left and Far-right Ideologies
• Role Playing Games
• Multiplayer Video Games
• Antiques/Collectibles/BBQ

SCP-7524-1s will devote considerable energy to their new hobby, to the detriment of pre-existing relationships, their work life, and in some cases their health. Psychological testing indicates no changes to personality, however the subject will now interpret all events through the lens of their new subculture, often becoming obnoxious or even belligerent. Note that amnestic deep therapy can remove the memory SCP-7524, but will not affect their new obsession. This causes them to withdraw from their previous life, abandoning friends and family for the sake of their new belief system, and in 70% of suspected field cases this has resulted in arrest for an indictable offence within five years of exposure. Non-political examples include:

• ███████ was arrested in █████, ██ for making death threats over a disagreement on in-universe lore in the tabletop strategy game ██████.
• ███████ pepper sprayed a clerk at ████████ over a dispute involving a children’s book about UFOs on whose cover the ‘grey’ aliens were colored green.
• ███████ chained himself to the doors of City Hall in ████ in protest of the pesticides used in city beautification.
• ███████ was arrested for committing arson of a military antique shop in ███████, ██, apparently over a dispute regarding the authenticity of a WW2 Japanese katana.
• ███████ assaulted staff at ███████ Hospital in ███████, ██, following demands for antibiotics to treat an apparently fictitious illness.

SCP-7524-1s are not themselves a memetic hazard, but are sometimes prone to sharing SCP-7524 on blogs, forums, or other discussion groups – however this doesn’t appear to be a compulsion. Nonetheless, the propensity for social collapse which exposure entails demands swift action against any copies which are discovered in the wild. Potential weaponization of SCP-7524 has been considered and dismissed (see Addendum 7524-A).

SCP-7524 was discovered during the investigation of SCP-1425, during which a book titled “Star Signals: Finding the Power Within” was investigated, and determined to be non-anomalous. The author, however, a man named ██████████ is suspected to be a case of SCP-7524-1; he disappeared during the early investigation, likely at the hands of Fifthists. Researches believe that Fifthism was the cultural niche which his obsession drove him to, though he wasn’t actually a member of any Fifthist church, and it appears he never got his hands on an actual copy of SCP-1425.

SCP-7524 was discovered as a pdf file hosted on his website, www.█████████.net, where he blogged extensively about Fifthism (most of it inaccurate) by junior researcher ███████. This eventually led to the incident ████████ at Site ██. Posthumous investigation led to the discovery of the junior researcher’s journal, allowing Dr. ███████ to ascertain the source of the memetic hazard.

Since then several other documents with similar titles, authors, and word-lengths have been discovered which have the same memetic effect. The oldest extant text yet discovered was held in the Vatican’s Librorum Prohibitorum and is titled Figments d’Idiot by Marquis de Sade, though there are no records, official or unofficial, of him publishing such a work. Archival research has uncovered records of older texts which may be examples of SCP-7524, however the actual texts are lost. Evidence seems to point to an original Ur Text which was composed at some point during the fifteenth century, and variations upon this original have been proliferating at a linear rate ever since.

Note: there is one prior example of a possible SCP-7524. Tacitus mentions a treatise titled Opinione Stultorum by Marcus Saladinus, which, according to his Histories, was supposedly a favourite of Emperor Nero.

The origin and author of SCP-7524 continues to elude researchers. ISBNs, if included at all, are incorrect, and tracing on any physical copies leads back to a vanity publishers, dead email accounts, and payments made in bearer bonds or digital currency. Until better avenues of investigation open up, the focus is on containment.

Addendum 7524-A: The O5 Council has considered several proposals as to how we might weaponize SCP-7524. Quite frankly, gentlemen, unless if one of you has some deep strategy that we haven’t thought of, it’s just not practical and it’s more likely to blow up in our faces. To go into specifics:

• The Sarkic Cults don’t read.
• Are We Cool Yet would just become even more destructive with their anomalies.
• Established organizations like The Serpents Hand, The GOC, and ███████ would detect it before it did significant damage to their operations; in effect, we’d just be handing them a tool to use against the general populace.

Please consider the possibility of a broken masquerade before submitting any more suggestions as to how we can weaponize SCP-7524. Sufficiently stupid proposals may result in demotion, and even restricted cafeteria access to the salad bar only.

O5-3