Cultism is a spectrum, but a spectrum without a threshold warns no one. The Group Control Spectrum measures eight dimensions of control, sorts groups into six tiers, and draws the line with three conditions that must all be met.
There is no single agreed definition of a cult. This traces the word from worship to warning, sets out how experts and dictionaries define it, and offers a test whose one job is to separate an actual cult from a political base or a fandom.
Cult researchers are moving to high-control group and coercive control. The reasons are real. But for warning people before they walk in, the blunt word cult still does work the softer terms cannot.
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