A common description from those who've been in it is that they had one auditing session where they had some amazing and brilliant internal experience, and they can spend years in Scientology trying to get that one feeling back.

More often, it's the phenomenon where having a theory - any theory, even a bad one that doesn't work when properly tested - makes one feel more confident and therefore able to better apply the master hack to humans of telling people to do what you want them to, whereupon they often do.

So yes, there is indeed bait. And, like bait, the bait's just part of a process centred on hooking you.