She was vulnerable and she was snapped up like a tasty fish. i am sorry to hear it.

g

I suspect it's an emotional need and she's going to go wherever she thinks she'll find someone that can accommodate that. By attending a sympathetic gathering of people who can communicate with her in a language she can most easily understand, you're outgunned. You can do and say all the right things, but you can't rise to that volume of support. You've already said that she sought you out when she needed you. Continue to be there for her.

When my first wife's mother developed bone-marrow cancer my wife left Germany to be with her mother in Bakersfield (ugh). Her lover went with her and she filed for divorce. I went to Bakersfield (again, ugh) and asked the mother (a strict Christian) how she could allow her daughter to be there when she was having an affair. The mother told me she fretted over this and prayed and one night she heard a voice telling her to let her stay. She said she was awake and the voice was loud and clear. Problem was, that a minister she was working with and whom I went to for help told me she told him the voice came to her in a dream. These people have a problem with reality and seeing/hearing things that are not really there. The mind is a powerful thing. Ever hear of Stigmata's? [en.wikipedia.org] The problem with these thigs is that they are wrong. There should be not signs in the hands. They should be in the wrists since that is where the nails are put in cruxifictions.

I would point to the many Trump supporters on this site to refute the notion that atheists are immune from mass delusion. All you have to do is appeal to a persons primal fears and they will follow anywhere they are led. I believe that the original idea of the Christ Spirit as taught by Yeshua the Nazarite, was actually freedom from these primal fears through higher thought or higher consciousness. Sadly this idea was forgotten and a mythical savior was created (Jesus the Nazarene). This allowed the church that was formed in his name to defeat his teachings through the use of the same primal fears he sought to deliver us from. We all still have the pre-frontal cortex (Christ Spirit) within us. Sadly it is still under employed. When everyone utilizes it to its fullest capacity this is the actual "Second Coming". So there is literally nothing to fear but fear itself, but fear leads to hate and that is frightening. This theory is proven at every Trump rally and Fundy Church service.

If you cannot offer this woman the help & support she desperately needs in the life she has, why are you trying to rip it away from her? Do you pull rugs out from under people too?

People can imagine anything they believe.
The Native Americans didn't imagine Jesus, but spirit guide animals, etc.

As reasonable a hypothesis as any other I have heard