This is a theme in some of my sociological writings. Some related articles are linked below, if you're interested.
I'm talking about cultures in general, though, not just about religions.
That's a plausible list of features of cults that you've provided. However, I suspect that many of those features distinguish cults from cultures in virtue of the size difference between them. Cults are smaller so they're more fragile, which means they have to worry about recruiting new members, and so on. I concede that there's an obvious size difference between cults and mainstream cultures. But the question I mean to raise here is whether there's a qualitative comparison to be made the two. In both cases, we'd be dealing with inadequate, parochial, unenlightened worldviews which need to be politically reinforced or fallaciously defended, and so on.
It's just striking to wonder whether the main difference between a bizarre cult and the culture we take for granted is their mere difference in scale.
https://medium.com/grim-tidings/do-all-cultures-start-from-childish-twaddle-6a7cf341d066?sk=0340a347f82ad7b501edf9d01f37bae6
https://theapeiron.co.uk/mass-hallucination-and-the-dream-of-waking-life-a7520e48ca5d?sk=8f1a9f6e56497a7996cf6f3b6724c135
https://medium.com/grim-tidings/is-a-worldview-just-a-weapon-we-wield-in-power-struggles-ffdb3c610d84?sk=f1a0de4410e37a5965fe568ee08b30f9
https://aninjusticemag.com/are-cultures-just-big-compromised-cults-4bad417a3f30?sk=ad17fc40a0acd3c7bb308227671043ff
https://medium.com/grim-tidings/how-the-mass-mind-absorbs-potent-countercultures-bd9368c5c8c1?sk=d968bc785701f03b78abdd725b34daab
https://medium.com/history-of-yesterday/have-we-been-conned-into-civilization-d50f2cbcaf02?sk=5e2e4107289e65d94f21946d289938a4
https://medium.com/grim-tidings/how-to-find-the-absurdist-comedy-in-historical-progress-a83e34536b4c?sk=39feec02dfe72f80a91166f98bb1a9cd
https://medium.com/illumination-curated/how-we-hallucinate-the-legal-fiction-of-private-property-e155ac52ce30?sk=5e46fb185742a35c851fd97bca36c1e0
