What do you think happened to these people that they end up like this?

The legal system did a bunch of stuff to them that they didn't understand using what sounded to them like woowoo until they became convinced that woowoo was actually the fundamental basis of the legal system, then someone else came along and exploited that mistaken belief by promising to sell them some woowoo that would let them turn the legal system to their advantage for once. Basically the mistaken idea that because you don't understand legal things that anything you don't understand is legal. A cargo cult.