My dictionary has long been significantly different from your dictionary.
Cult Definition: What is a cult?
Do you know the definition of a cult? In other words, what is a cult?
Sometimes it seems that question has as many answers as there are, well, cults.
Yet the term ‘cult’ has a precise definition — or rather, several precise definitions.
Which definition is the right one largely depends on the context in which the term ‘cult’ is applied.
A ‘cult wine’ is, after all, something different than a ‘religious cult.’ A rock band with a ‘cult following’ differs greatly from a ‘suicide cult.’ And a ‘cult following’ is not necessarily the same thing as ‘following a cult.’
Cult Definition
Let’s first look at the definition of the term ‘cult’ as provided by a dictionary:
1 : formal religious veneration : worship
2 : a system of religious beliefs and ritual; also : its body of adherents
3 : a religion regarded as unorthodox or spurious; also : its body of adherents
4 : a system for the cure of disease based on dogma set forth by its promulgator <health cults>
5 a : great devotion to a person, idea, object, movement, or work (as a film or book); especially : such devotion regarded as a literary or intellectual fad
b : the object of such devotion
c : a usually small group of people characterized by such devotion
– Source: Merriam-Webster dictionary 1
The dictionary also explains the term’s etymology: French & Latin; French culte, from Latin cultus care, adoration, from colere to cultivate.
See also: History and usage of the term cult.
Cult: Meanings Vary
The term is confusing because it is ambiguous — infused with a variety of meanings depending on who uses it — and for which purpose it is used.
For example, the term ‘cult’ can be used in a theological and/or a sociological sense. The word takes on different meanings depending on the context in which it is used.
Theological
The theological sense is used when discussing major religious differences: a group or movement is theologically a cult if it identifies itself as belonging to a mainstream, recognized religion — and yet rejects or otherwise violates one or more of the central, essential teachings of that religion.
Essential teachings are those doctrines that define a given religion’s basic essence.
A silly example, but one that illustrates this concept:
You cannot call something a tomato sauce if it does not include tomatoes — because tomatoes are a central, essential ingredient (‘teaching‘ or ‘doctrine‘) of tomato sauce.
A sauce that is made with apples instead of tomatoes but is sold as ‘tomato sauce’ is a ‘cult of tomato sauce’, because it rejects one of the essential ingredients of tomato sauce, and thus misrepresents itself as something it is not.
See for instance, What is a cult of Christianity?
Sociological
The sociological sense is used when discussing behavior or other sociological aspects: a group or movement may be a cult if it acts in ways that are illegal or otherwise unacceptable in a civilized society.
Silly example:
A restaurant that serves a perfectly acceptable, genuine tomato soup by pouring it into your lap is sociologically a cult restaurant.
Destructive Cults
When most people hear the term ‘cult,’ they tend to think about destructive cults they have read or heard about. For instance, Scientology, Branch Davidians, Aum Shinrikyo, Peoples Temple, Solar Temple, the Manson Family, and so on.
Psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton, M.D., said that cults can be identified by three characteristics:
a charismatic leader who increasingly becomes an object of worship as the general principles that may have originally sustained the group lose their power;
a process I call coercive persuasion or thought reform;
economic, sexual, and other exploitation of group members by the leader and the ruling coterie. 2
Louis West and Michael Langone defined a ‘totalist’ cult as follows:
A cult is a group or movement exhibiting a great or excessive devotion or dedication to some person, idea, or thing and employing unethically manipulative techniques of persuasion and control (e.g., isolation from former friends and family, debilitation, use of special methods to heighten suggestibility and subservience, powerful group pressures, information management, suspension of individuality or critical judgment, promotion of total dependency on the group and fear of leaving it, etc.) designed to advance the goals of the group’s leaders to the actual or possible detriment of members, their families, or the community.[…]
Totalist cults are likely to exhibit three elements to varying degrees:
(1) excessively zealous, unquestioning commitment to the identity and leadership of the group by the members,
(2) exploitative manipulation of members, and
(3) harm or the danger of harm.
Totalist cults may be distinguished from “new religious movements,†“new political movements,†and “innovative psychotherapies†(terms that can be used to refer to unorthodox but relatively benign groups), if not by their professed beliefs then certainly by their actual practices.
– Source: Cultism: A Conference for Scholars-Policy Makers, Cultic Studies Journal, 1986, Volume 3, Number 1, pages 85-96 3
The characteristics of a destructive cult:
Authoritarian pyramid structure with authority at the top
Charismatic or messianic leader(s) (Messianic meaning they either say they are God OR that they alone can interpret the scriptures the way God intended…..the leaders are self-appointed.
Deception in recruitment and/or fund raising
Isolation from society — not necessarily physical isolation like on some compound in Waco, but this can be psychological isolation — the rest of the world is not saved, not Christian, not transformed (whatever) — the only valid source of feedback and information is the group
Use of mind control techniques (we use Dr. Robert Jay Lifton’s criteria from chapter 22 of his book Thought Reform & the Psychology of Totalism to compare whether the eight psychological and social methods he lists are present in the group at question)….
https://cultdefinition.com/1/cult-definition