In their book The Future of Religion: Secularization, Revival & Cult Formation (University of California Press, 1985), Stark and Bainbridge observe that cults (and all religions) offer compensators to their members. Though hard to describe unambiguously, these compensators would include heaven, personal fulfillment, control over evil influences in life, etc. Religious compensators always contain some supernatural element.

Three levels of generality in religious "compensators" suggest three types of cults:

"Audience cults" offer vague, weak compensators and they are diffuse, only very loosely organized. Stark and Bainbridge write, "sometimes members of this audience may actually gather to hear a lecture [or attend a convention]. But there are virtually no aspects of formal organization to these activities, and membership remains at most a consumer activity. Indeed, cult audiences often do not gather physically but consume cult doctrines entirely through magazines, books, newspapers, radio, and television." (p. 26) Examples would include astrology, UFOs and spiritualized aliens, and many other doctrines and mystiques available through the media.

"Client cults" offer more specific compensators and are more organized than audience cults. They may claim to heal, to cure mental dis-ease (Dianetics, Scientology), to clear the mind of obstacles to the unhampered pursuit of one's goals (EST), or to induce calm and serenity by their practice (Transcendental Meditation, yoga). Stark and Bainbridge write of client cults that "here the relationship between those promulgating cult doctrine and those partaking of it most closely resembles the relationship between therapist and patient or between consultant and client. Considerable organization can be found among those offering the cult service, but clients remain little organized. Furthermore, no successful effort is made to weld clients into a social movement. Indeed, client involvement is so partial that clients often retain an active commitment to another religious movement or institution." (p. 26)

"Cult movements" offer a system of compensators and a complete meaning framework. They are more fully compensatory than either audience or client cults. Cult movements are full-fledged religious organizations that attempt to satisfy all the religious needs of converts.

Of all the many literary genres, only SF has produced a "Fandom." But SF has a general spiritual compensatory function in our society and thus it is not too surprising to discover that its more avid readers have come together to constitute a kind of audience cult. Here is Stark and Bainbridge's account of a visit to an audience cult -- keep in mind your last visit to an SF convention:

Conversations with many in attendance...reveal that these people are not the stuff of which social movements can be made. They accept everything, more or less, and in effect accept nothing. They are "interested" in all new ideas in the general area of the eccentric and the mystical. Their sheer open-mindedness makes it impossible for them to develop a strong commitment to any complete system of thought; they are constitutional nibblers. Many speakers at the conventions want to found cult movements, but effort to create organization meet with no significant success. [Think here of the recent failure of Scientology to develop sympathy for itself within the SF community.] Later observation within several cult movements taught us that such movements soon learn to avoid the cult audiences in their search for converts. It is easy to get a hearing from such persons, but serious commitment is almost never forthcoming. (p. 27-28)