Reply #27: I think it's a vicious circle, or better yet a vicious spiral.

[Raksha]

You have to be a little bit nuts to be attracted to a cult in the first place. Then after they rope you in, they make you even MORE crazy as you adapt to their particular delusional system, until finally you end up 100% batshit insane! Only you don't know it because everyone around you is as batshit insane as you are. Cults specialize in isolating their members, after all--that's part of how the brainwashing works.

It doesn't always work permanently, though. People HAVE been known to wake up. The Internet is full of websites for recovering fundies, recovering Scientologists, recovering JWs, etc. I've looked at some of them.