Lost Souls: The World of Cults.

The word comes from the Latin secare sect; sectar, cut.
It is also said that the word comes from secedere; separated.

In these cases there is the idea of ​​separation.
In Europe the word sect is designed mainly derived sequi; follow.
These follow a teacher, a leader. In fact this happens in many sects.

Sects are religious groups, usually small, full of enthusiasm, composed by men and women, voluntarily associated for a conversion, they believe and detect truth and the solution, radically excluded to others are placed up against the Church and against the world and blindly obey its founders.

They are free and voluntary religious movementswith a tendency to exclusivity, which emerge and grow mainly in popular sectors, develop strong community ties and they lack of a group of highly specialized.
They are also groups of "protest" against the social order and the dominant religious societies and respond to a dualistic doctrinal profile, pre-apocalyptic and millenarian and fundamentalist biblical inspiration.

(GOOGLE)