It was a plot point in Asimov's Foundation series. http://www.asimovonline.com/oldsite/EG_Terminus.html http://www.asimovonline.com/oldsite/EG_Terminus.html "

It was a plot point in Asimov's Foundation series. http://www.asimovonline.com/oldsite/EG_Terminus.html http://www.asimovonline.com/oldsite/EG_Terminus.html "Every nuclear power station refurbished by the Foundation became a Temple of Scientism with a hierarchy of priests dispensing technical and medical assistance disguised as benedictions from the Galactic Spirit. The brightest natives of the Four Kingdoms were brought to Terminus to receive indoctrination into Scientism at the Temple School, then sent back out to the Four Kingdoms to serve as the Church's Lower Hierarchy (the Upper Hierarchy being reserved for native Foundationers who understood the theoretical underpinnings of the Church's miraculous technology). Any priestly novitiates who were intelligent enough to see through the elaborate, meaningless rituals promulgated by the Church remained on Terminus to become research students (and naturalized citizens of Terminus)."