Abstract of the paper "Separating Religion from Cult: An Analysis of Cult-like Organizations":

"This paper aims to separate the term cult from religious and spiritual assumptions and create resistance to the growing cultish nature of organizations. Through analysis of sociological and communication literature, this paper demonstrates that the currentdefinition of cult, “a religious group, often living together, whose beliefs are considered extreme or strange by many people,” (“Cult,” n.d.)is too restrictive. Rather, this term more accurately acts as an umbrella term for various types of organizations that operate in a manipulative and controlled environment. There is much research and discussion regarding the dark culture of organizations; however, there is minimal definition and consensus on the line between a strong cultureorganization, defined ashaving “a strong sense of mission ... and being adaptable,”and a cult-like organization(Lee & Yu, 2004, p. 341).

The literature review begins by defining the key characteristics of a cult and demonstrating how these traits are not at all restricted to religious or spiritual structures. Through analysis of cult formation models from Bainbridge and Stark (1979), it is clear that what constitutes a cult is not confined to religious beliefs and attitudes and that cult-like structures are increasing among the workplace. The literature review moves on to demonstrate how organizational structures have changed overtime, and I reinforce that this shift to social structures has provided more opportunity for control and manipulation, and thus the increase of cult-like businesses. We then analyze employee identification with an organization and the cultic relationship between a manager and an employee to determine that these two crucial elements of a cult are not as simple or as conscious as society portrays them to be. This paper concludes that while there is a blurred line between strong culture and cult, this line still exists and a way to identify this line is to look at the relationship between manager and employee. How controlled are the employee’s beliefs and values, and are managerial control and employee identity conscious or unconscious?"

 Separating Religion from Cult: An Analysis of Cult-like Organizations  (by Wheeler)