cult

1. (religion) The veneration, devotion, and religious rites given to a deity (especially in a historical polytheistic context), or (in a Christian context) to a saint; a subset of worship.Examples: "imperial cult"; "the cult of Mary"

2. (informal) A group of people having an obsession with or intense admiration for a particular activity, idea, person or thing.Examples: "the heavy metal cult"; "the cult of basketball"; "the guitarist's cult of loyal fans"informal

3. (chiefly derogatory) A group, sect or movement following an unorthodox religious or philosophical system of beliefs, especially one in which members remove and exclude themselves from greater society, including family members not part of the cult, and show extreme devotion to a charismatic leader.Examples: "Two former cult members explain the difficulties they had extricating themselves from it."; "Werner Erhard's highly successful est cult is partly derived from Scientology. Erhard had some experience with Scientology in 1969. Then he worked for a while in Mind Dynamics, itself an offshoot of Jose Silva's Mind Control."; "There are scores of modern religious cults and sects that have been influenced by Hinduism to varying degrees. Werner Erhard, founder of 'Landmark Education's 'The Forum',' and 'est' seminars, which have about 700,000 graduates, was influenced by Hinduism through Swami Muktananda, one of Erhard's principal gurus."derogatory