Thank you for this from someone who tries to raise the alarm about scientism. I did my undergraduate work in a philosophy department that still carried a torch for the Vienna Circle. The department treated my interest in Husserl and Heidegger as heresy, so I agree with your depiction of logical positivism as displaying cult-like behavior. I would extend that depiction to most of analytical philosophy. To my mind, the analyticals have resurrected the world-denying logic chopping of the medieval scholastics, with similarly empty results. We need a new Enlightenment, one which includes reversing the historical revisionism that the first Enlightenment was about scientism and positivism.

Are you familiar with the work of Susan Haaack? (https://miami.academia.edu/SusanHaack) She is a fairly lone voice in writing against the dangers of scientism.

I also heartily agree with your assessment of neoclassical economics. It is not a science; it is not an art. It is a political statement. These political economists are a prime example of why cults are a way of thinking about and approaching the world that exists independently of religious thought. Yes, as you put it, a secular cult. I find this amalgamation of positivist-economic-political reactionism to be a huge social problem that humanity faces.