I would understand a cult as having something to do with a charismatic personality and not necessarily to do with religion - it could be political or even stylistic or musical. We could speak of Michael Jackson as having a 'cult' following, but obviously not in sectarian terms. As a term it has to do with a 'group' following of normally one person who may have some kind of aura or other persuasive powers. A sect always has a religious side to it, and is normally a variant at odds with the main stem of a religion, though not always. Sometimes the main stem of a religion started as a sect. A sect may also make use of someone having a 'cult' like following, but it does not have to be that way. What is noticeable is that the word 'sect' is often used in a negative way, and attached to a grouping which you want to discredit - the test is 'how easy is it to leave' ?
North Korea is the classic case of a cult of personality. The children are stripped of critical thinking skills at school and their Dear Leader is held up as a god by any other name. Apparently the latest decree is that drivers have to slow down to 3mph when passing his statue. The mass hysteria is part necessity for survival and part genuine adulation and all totally crazy.
I think you could argue it started out as a sect. However, having existed in its own right for over 200 years and using its own book almost exclusively it is no more a sect than is Islam of Christianity or Christianity of Judaism. It's a spin off - do we have that category
I understand a 'sect' as being a dissenting clique from a mainstream belief, normally religious. There has been something of an alarm in recent years about the activity of sects in our society. A few years ago there was a Fecris conference in Hamburg entitled ''Sects and Esotericism; new challenges for the civil society of Europe'', chaired by Udo Nagel, then Senator of the interior of the Hanseatic city of Hamburg. The head of the Evangelical church of Hamburg actually identified over a hundred sects as being active in the city - paranoia or what ? Germany appears to have a problem with this (or, generally the idea of parallel societies) - about 15 years ago, in order to get a teaching post, I was required to sign a contract stating that I was not a Scientologist, never had been, was not in contact with any Scientologists, have never read any of their literature or been to any of their meetings. My natural inclination was to screw up the contract and throw it in their faces, but it was a lucrative post (and non denominational) and I, unfortunately, didn't. In fact I have had 2 friends that were Scientologists, and both were nice people who never tried to offload their ideas on me, but I am sure that this would have damned me in the sight of the 'thought police'. Even the organization which trained me as a Yoga teacher, many years ago, was classified as a sect by these people (and watched) - although membership was not a condition of my qualification, and I was able to walk away from them without any hinderence.
