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The term cult has been criticized as lacking "scholarly rigour"; Benjamin E. Zeller stated "[l]abelling any group with which one disagrees and considers deviant as a cult may be a common occurrence, but it is not scholarship". [15] However, it has also been viewed as empowering for ex-members of groups that have experienced trauma. [15]
Historian Jan Plamper wrote that modern-day personality cults display five characteristics that set them apart from "their predecessors": The cults are secular and "anchored in popular sovereignty"; their objects are all males; they target the entire population, not only the well-to-do or just the ruling class; they use mass media; they exist ...
Cults range from the relatively benign to those that exercise extraordinary control over members' lives and use thought-reform processes to influence and control members. While the conduct of certain cults causes nonmembers to criticize them, the term cult is not in itself pejorative but simply descriptive.
As cults grow, they bureaucratize and create many of the characteristics of denominations. Some scholars are hesitant to grant cults denominational status because many cults maintain their more esoteric characteristics. However, their closer semblance to denominations than to the cult type allows them
About Category:Cults and related categories: This category's scope contains articles about Cults, which may be a contentious label Wikimedia Commons has media related to Cults . The main article for this category is Cult .
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The term "cult" first appeared in English in 1617, derived from the French culte, meaning "worship" which in turn originated from the Latin word cultus meaning "care, cultivation, worship". The meaning "devotion to a person or thing" is from 1829. Starting about 1920, "cult" acquired an additional six or more positive and negative definitions.
Wyatt recalled a time when vendors were moving records by Ya Ho Wah 13, Father Yod and the Spirit of ’76 and other Family-related recordings for $20 or less because the Source had fallen out of ...