I was watching something the other day with Dawkins going on about cargo cults. He said when you look at stuff like that and Scientology and Mormonism, it's not hard to see how the first religions took root. They're such young belief systems that you can quickly go back to the start and see how something like that develops.
Scientology in particular I just find bizarre. It's so clearly bullshit yet seemingly sane adults continually fall for it hook, line and sinker. I can't work out what they're doing to them. Whether they're blackmailing people or taking them hostage or really just that convincing. There was a bloke in that Louis Theroux doc who claimed to have spent something like 50k on books and whatnot whilst in the grips of it.