In my view, 40 years after Menninger published, a single phenomenon accounts for both observations: the social construction of the Public Cult of Progressivism.

Even though Menninger could not name the social construction, he picked up on key features.  That explains the eerie title.

Notably, Ted Peters, on the West Coast, writing in 1994 (20 years after Menninger), appeared completely unaware that the private cults of the New Age Movement complemented the Public Cult of Progressivism (or Secular Fundamentalism, the label is still yet to be fixed).  Both private and Public cults belong to the same emerging symbolic order.  Peters “saw” only one side of a Janus-faced phenomenon.

What does this indicate?  Individuals immersed in the historic social construction of the Public Cult of Progressivism did not recognize what was happening.