It's worth reminding readers here that David Foster Wallace committed suicide, so perhaps some of his views on topics like this were not the healthiest.
Rituals and beliefs are not the same as "worship with religious conviction".
I ritually shower every day and I have beliefs like, when water comes out of the faucet it will fall to the floor because of gravity. That is wildly different than worshipping the water or the shower.
I suspect you have a very strange definition of the word worship.
I agree with you. When I was younger, I spent many many years in evangelical Christian work and went to seminary. It is not difficult to manipulate people especially if one orates well and echoes the audience's pre-existing beliefs.
There appears to be a neurological wired-in need to 'believe' whether in God or UFOs (think Mulder in X-Files) which I think is a evolutionary survival mechanism to have an advantage to cope with the uncertainty of primitive survival. Any psychological edge such as believing we are special (chosen people arose during nation-building phases of cultural development) or that some supreme being will protect us against threats or enemies unifies and motivates feats involving danger.