There were people who were delusional, or pathological liars (who didn’t believe what they were saying), but there were also plenty of con-men. (Something on the scale of the Satanic Panic absolutely requires all three, I think.) Warnke may have been a con-man who told stupid lies (which just makes one a bad con-man), but he wasn’t that stupid - he knew his lies would simply be accepted by the audience he was targeting, because they wanted to believe him. He managed to scam millions of dollars over almost 20 years until he gained enough mainstream attention that anyone bothered to fact-check him. There were plenty of guys like him who were more careful in their lies (or at least tailored their lies for their audience and stuck with that audience) and who profited off of being “occult experts” without ever saying anything outrageous or specific enough that anyone could pin it down to disprove it. Those guys came off as pretty cynical from their histories and things they said in their unguarded moments - they clearly didn’t buy what they were selling.
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