…And some sort of mental illness in several of the parties is not the least of it.

The extreme manipulative nature of these groups seems to transcend any religion bashing in my opinion. If you removed all religion from the knowledge of man, these groups would either reinvent it for themselves, or just find some other means with which to control people. Because in the end, having complete control over people is the only thing people like “Queen Antoinette” want, and religion is merely a convenient means to gain this control.
Disparaging faith by picking the absolute worst twisted examples of its misguided application might be fun, but it doesn’t represent the whole picture by any means.

There’s not an ounce of goodness in this “Queen Antoinette” person from what I can see.

From the article:

(Frees your soul from what, I wonder?)

This was simply a mean manipulative person who was able to create her own sick enabling environment in which to perform her sadistic controlling acts. Ignorance is not the main culprit in cases like these, though it does complete the equation as far as who will be preyed on for any cult’s development.