Fraud

In Poul Anderson's Technic History, Tabitha Falkayn is a direct descendant of David Falkayn and, later, Max Abrams is from the planet Dayan whereas, in Anderson's Starfarers, Hanny Dayan is a direct descendant of Moshe Dayan. The Psychotechnic History has a Cosmic religion, the Technic History has Cosmenosists and Starfarers has Cosmosophists. (And Arthur C. Clarke's Rendezvous With Rama has the Church of Christ, Cosmonaut.)

In Starfarers, on a future colonized Mars:

Philo Pryor claimed to have found a device in a cave on Ascraeus Mons;

the Galactics had left the device to be found by a genius able to use it;

in Pryor's brain, quantum resonances pulsed, bringing forth manifestations from the Ones;

he received doctrines which the Synod of Interpreters of the Order of Received Cosmosophy translated into practical commandments;

Pryor was translated to a higher existence;

no other genius has yet come forward;

the device was placed in his tomb;

at the Martian northern summer solstice, the Order carries the device in procession for ceremonies in the Temple of Truth;

one year, as the procession passes, Hanny Dayan examines the device with scientific instruments;

she publishes her finding that the circuits in the device never did anything;

devout believers call her a liar.

Poul Anderson understood belief and self-deception.