No, most of what you are offering as definition technically is about sects. Cults form around charismatic persons. Sects form out of specialness, exception or differentiation as in different denominations of protestantism or catholicism or denominations or types of meditation. Those are sects. Sects are around fragmentation and cults are around persons as charismatics. For instance, If someone really 'charismatic', like earlier defined by Weber, like a Robin were to show up in Fairfield, Iowa and take off a bunch of meditators as his followers by force and power of personality then we're talking cult, as a sect. That is different than the different sects of people out teaching meditations and some others out there teaching other things they've learned. -Buck in the Dome
Salyavin808 writes: You don't need any leader to be a cult. All you need is a belief system that sets you apart from the norm.