I’m not religious at all, but one of my favorite lines is Chesterton’s “When a man stops believing in God he doesn’t then believe in nothing, he believes anything.” So when people abandon traditional Christianity, they don’t usually become rational materialists. Instead, they latch on to any and every faddish New Age superstition and cult that comes down the road, be it Wicca, healing crystals, astrology, Scientology, and so forth.
What you say seems to be true. I think that man has a deep need to know the one true God, and these unfortunate souls are trying to fill that need with gobbledy gook.