For me, this is a lesson in the capacity of seemingly rational to believe something so completely irrational. They buried a man in full view of thousands of people after he was pronounced dead by a team of doctors and yet people still insist that he never died and he is walking around SOMEWHERE, 118 years old. But nobody has ever seen him since he died. People believe what they want to believe.
Let us take another example: Disgraced rabbis. You can have a hundred woman [or boys...] who come forward with stories and yet these rabbi's followers will swear on their lives that they are completely innocent. He could be found guilty in a court law based on broad testimony. He could be in jail. Maybe he even admitted guilt. No matter. He is a complete tzadik in the eyes of the devoted. Character assassination, they say. People keep following them, throw money at them, learn from them etc. etc.
Of course there are cases where people are unjustly accused but למיחש מיהא בעי - there has to be some level of suspicion. But no - followers of these people are passionately devoted to believing that their leaders are completely innocent.
In general, contemporary research has proven again and again and yet again that most of what people decide and believe is not based on rational faculties, even though we LIKE to view ourselves as rational beings. [As in the books of the Ponovitcher Rov's nephew, Prof. Daniel Kahanamen].
