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Cults, like sects, often integrate elements of existing religious theologies, but cults tend to create more esoteric theologies synthesized from many sources. [citation needed] According to Ronald L. Johnstone, cults tend to emphasize individual and individual peace. [32] Cults, like sects, can develop into denominations.
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.
In their typology, a "cult movement" is an actual complete organization, differing from a "sect" in that it is not a splinter of a bigger religion, while "audience cults" are loosely organized, and propagated through media, and "client cults" offer services (i.e. psychic readings or meditation sessions).
The application of the labels "cults" or "sects" to (for example) religious movements in government documents usually signifies the popular and negative use of the term "cult" in English and a functionally similar use of words translated as "sect" in several European languages.
Religious fanaticism (or the prefix ultra-being used with a religious term (such as ultra-Orthodox Judaism), or (especially when violence is involved) religious extremism) is a pejorative designation used to indicate uncritical zeal or obsessive enthusiasm that is related to one's own, or one's group's, devotion to a religion – a form of human fanaticism that could otherwise be expressed in ...
A new religious movement (NRM) is a religious, ethical, or spiritual group or community with practices of relatively modern [clarification needed] origins. NRMs may be novel in origin or they may exist on the fringes of a wider religion, in which case they will be distinct from pre-existing denominations. Academics identify a variety of ...
Cult (religious practice), literally the "care" owed to God or gods and to temples, shrines, or churches; New religious movement, cult in a common modern sense; Cult following, a group of fans who are highly dedicated to a specific work of culture; Cargo cult, a religious practice ritually mimicking another culture, popular in Melanesia in the ...
Durkheim (1858-1917) expanded on the concept of the totem, viewing religion as a collective societal force. For him, religious forces are essentially collective societal forces, embodied in the totem. The society imparts the totem with its power, meaning, and existence, which in turn gives the god or the religion its significance.