I have a friend who is a high-ranking muckity-muck in The Church of the Subgenius.
One day in the 1970s he was "between homes", walking the sidewalk in Dallas, and it started raining. He was thinking about stepping in front of the next bus when he spotted a flyer that said "Now is your opportunity to get in on the ground floor of a lucrative new cult."
Not all relgion is cult like. IF you are following someone or even look up to someone who says they and only they have contact with God then you are on the slippery slope to a cult.