"founding father" Charles T. was a practitioner of the "sleight" kind. His success at mass social "duping" & his interest in deeper magic(k) is an enlightening subject.
I wouldn't necessarily call it "duping".
I've studied the time period.
Keep uppermost in mind WHEN Russell came along.
It was the aftermath of two important periods.
1.The slow, dying failure of Puritan Perfectionism. Religious zeal to transform the world through self-perfection and social reform by establishing a "city on the hill" left many eager to "get on with it" and simply bring about a godly world even if it meant Jehovah himself had to do the heavy lifting.
2. The promises, excitement and disappointments (Great Disappointment) of 2nd Advent's predictions had cleaved mainstream believers into two camps and one of them were radicalized and stubborn.
Into this mix came a young, intelligent, wealthy fellow who picked up the pieces and began anew.
The "Magic" comes in to the picture in this way. C.T.Russell could pick and choose seemingly convincing outside corroborative evidence to back up his predictions and explanations.
The visual chart DIVINE PLAN OF THE AGES and the Great Pyramid charts were the razzle-dazzling and the "invisible Jesus" explanation was the "patter".
It was all in the timing and the performance. After that, it was stubborn stick-to-it-iveness and obsessive-compulsive determination.