Yes, it seems to me, the broad 'LDS prepping' thing drew people together and they bonded over it on social media and events.
But once they'd prepped enough, the bonds were still there but they wanted something new to share with these special friends.
It's like LDS prepping became a carnival: you'd buy your ticket and in one tent the show would be multiple probations, another tent was a show about the approaching doomsday, JR was in big tent, she was a real carnival queen. Chad was initially just out there, hawking JR's books.
JR was evidently really into her intuitive visions, the ability to psychically predict the future ie who would die soon. But rather than set up a crystal ball and do individual readings, she turned to 'energy healing'. That's very interesting to me, it's all about people having dark, negative energy, but she works with them to draw it out and turn them light.
IMO Chad wanted the biggest tent, the whole show, and took bits and pieces of all this stuff to combine it into Prophet Chad.
IMO he overlapped with all of these groups, ie gave a date to the doomsdayers and a plan to respond, he gave multiple probation insights to people into that, gave psychic light/dark energy readings about people, did future predictions as to who would die. But, unlike the others, IMO he wasn't interested in healing others, or exploring his faith, or (like some of the guys) just getting laid, or even just making money. I think he really believed his own PR, whereas for others it was just a fad.
