The oc likened conspiratorial thinking to other addictions like alcohol or gambling and, while not perfect, I think this is a good analogy. People don't join cults because of its reasoning, they join because the cult provides them with something that was otherwise missing in their lives, such as a strong feeling of dependent community or whatever. The intelligent mind then post-rationalizes that being in the cult is good and reasonable (even over-riding blatant evidence to the contrary). The stronger the mind, the better this rationalizing will be. Conspiratorial thinking follows a similar trend -- it is giving them something they were missing. Gambling addictions, abusive relationships, and so on all have similar rationalization processes where a person's own intelligence is weaponized against them to continue in self-destructive behavior. Humans are weird that way.