Cult

A cult is a group of people who have a religion or a set of beliefs. In modern times the term "cult" usually does not mean a mainstream religion, but a group set up "in opposition to a centre of established authority".^[1] New Age religions were often called cults because they were thought to be deviant social movements.^[2]

The word cult originally meant a system of ritual practices. It was first used in the early 17th century to mean homage paid to a divinity.^[3] It came from an ancient Latin word cultus meaning "worship".

A cult is often a small, newly started religious movement. Cults have beliefs or practices that many people think of as being odd, or that have practices that most people in the world do not practice. More than that, cults have often been led by people who are not elected, and control the group according to their own wishes.^[4] Some cult leaders have been dangerous criminals (Charles Manson; Peoples Temple) or even lunatics. Killings and mass suicides have occurred in cults (Order of the Solar Temple; Heaven's Gate). Of course, a "suicide" enforced by armed guards carrying sub-machine guns (Peoples Temple; Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God) is not a simple suicide as generally understood. It is at least an assisted and coerced suicide.

Whether a religious group is or is not a cult can be a hard question to answer. What is at one point in time considered a cult may later be accepted as a religion and what at one point of time is considered an accepted religion may later become a cult.

1. ↑ Cite error: The named reference Bullock was used but no text was provided for refs named (see the help page).
2. ↑ OED, citing American Journal of Sociology 85, 1980, 1377: "Cults[...], like other deviant social movements, tend to recruit people with a grievance, people who suffer from a some variety of deprivation".
3. ↑ Its root was the Latin cultus, meaning "worship", ultimately from colere, to "tend" or take care of something for example a shrine.
4. ↑ See testimony of John G. Clark Jnr. M.D. to the Vermont legislature and the U.S. House of Representatives: [1]