You've just described, perfectly, the "charismaniac" vicitms of Medjugoogooism.
The "charismatic movement" was launched in Pittsburgh, PA in the late 1960s by postconciliarly-disoriented "Catholic heretics" and their protestant heretic pals after a "group experience" - centered on a reading of the novel, "The Cross and the Switchblade" - metastasized globally.
There are, I believe, objectively demonstrable psychological forces at work in the "movement". And those forces are malignant. In the 19th century, a work by a Catholic priest ( name forgotten, now ) wrote on "Entusiasm" as a response to the "Great Awakening" ( e.g., Elmer Gantry-style crapola ) that he saw in America. As Neil mentioned, the entire phenomenon is natural, hyperemotional and doctrinally empty.
The great Catholic theologians, including Doctors of the Church such as St. John of the Cross, emphasize that any genuine supernatural experience is rooted in the dogmatic teachings of the Church. There are no other forms. Period.
As to intention, a subjective matter at which only a guess can be tossed, it seems from my own experience with charismaniac Medjugoogoos ( from years back ) that they are "fervorini", the sort of loose canons that put on a great show of slobbering piety, near-hysterical "sensitivity" and great fondness for the latest "spiritual high". They're addicts. And, just as when the bottle or the syringe is empty, will stop at nothing to get high, again, there is little chance of reasoning with them. Like the commited drunk or junky, they have to hit bottom before they even begin to want to sober up.
Thus, it seems the "rapture" crowd is an evangelical variant of the "charismatic movement" in the Catholic Church, with all its Medjugoogoo zealots, "three days of darkness / apocalyptic" phobics - and every other soi disant "prophet" peddling books, tapes and personal appearances.