Agreed. I honestly think the Scientology conditioning and the influence of the extremely twisted sci-fi writer L Ron Hubbard as a mentor at a very early age did a number on Gaiman. I posted that entire bit - because I was surprised by it and it explained a lot. Scientology is a nasty cult and very abusive towards children. It specializes in behavioral conditioning or the Pavlovian method of torture and award. This method of behavioral conditioning was very popular in the previous centuries - and didn't start to fall out of favor in the psychiatric community until the late 1990s. EST was another group that did it. I have a close friend who fled a situation that was utilizing this approach in the 1990s, and it was very popular in the 80s. (I remember seeing this in a Psychology course in college in 1986 - I took it from the only Prof who wasn't a Behaviorist, and I refused to torture my lab rat, I found another way to do the experiment. And as a result, the lab rat and I got along, and I did really well on the lab portion. Torture is not productive in my opinion, EVER. It damages people and is why we have so many humans that do monstrous things.)