To historians, the word cult is a technical term for a religious group which is usually in a minority and often seen as exotic or non-native, especially in its early stages. Originally meaning "careful attention," cult comes from the same Latin root as other English words like cultivate, cultural and agriculture, all of which share a sense of scrupulous management and devotion. It is ironic, then, that a word as innately positive as this can carry a negative sense in modern English which often uses it as a derogatory term for a fad or the excessive adoration of something. Religion, conversely, means "obligation" in Latin (lit. "the act of binding back," cf. ligament), a reference to the repressive aspect of some forms of worship in which the faithful are "bound" by vows and rules. Thus, I use cult here and in later chapters in its technical sense, "a foreign system of worship, often one that has been recently imported into a society."

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