You really want to know the way of things?
Only examples will work.
Let's take the average cult leader. No programmies, just ordinary 'consensual' cults. Jim Jones, L. Ron Hubbard, etc. They're morons, because they believe they have godlike power when all they've really done is built one little echo chamber for their own vibrations. But the principle is there.
Let's take another common example: The Wave. A few guys on the sides decide they want to create a literal vibration in a crowd. They get enough agreement and boom, suddenly the whole stadium feels obligated to participate.
The same can be said for all the world's major religions. The fact that they're all bullshit is immaterial here. It was never about reality. Superman and Santa Claus work just as well. Get enough guys to do something and it takes on a life of its own.
Even ideas expressed in a book can spread in such a way. Karl Marx. Nick Machiavelli. Of course, this means that what you create will be long out of your hands when it truly becomes effective (Did Karl know what the Commies would do later? Did Christ know that kids would be tortured in his name?), but that's what it is to unleash a beast.
And, if you know how to do things just right, you can create not an idea or a definite belief system, but rather a hyper-idea that threads through everything else and changes the way people think. (The Scientific Method would be such a hyper-idea.)
Just don't take such power lightly, and don't expect to be rewarded for using it...