Most cults in the ancient world revolved around either rock worship (west and middle east had 17 Kaaba's with black rocks, Rome (the city during Roman times) had 3 total, and I don't really know how many total India has, or China. Arabia had at least two, Muhammad kept one feom Becca, and destroyed one in Yemen. Only one in western world still in religious use is the one relocated to Mecca.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baetyl
You also have cults of sacred space. Our concept of the sacrosant and the secular comes from the center of Rome, the outline of the lath which the vestal virgins would march. I've seem some argue the Lapis Niger isn't the column, but rather a black rock (Baetyl) buried UNDER the grave of Numa Pompilius. I'm unaware of a excavation that went underneath his grave, just the one that found the black column.
You also have cults centered around mythological supernatural figures, or heroes. It has locations sacred, as small as a tree or a sping, or as big as a mountain. There is alot of syncretism in this.
You also have cults of personality. Two aspects of the mind dominate here- the left hemisphere is what governs our fanatical attraction to someone, like teenage girls to a boy band. But the three tiered dopamine pump's third stage ends in the thalamus, and personalities in this region of the mind are the corporate bureaucrats that form councils and endlessly debate. Think congressional committes. They tend to be attracted to strong executives, and those tend to be second tier in the dopamine pump (rarely first but it happens).
Marxists are a classic example of this. It's a very cultic religious belief system. Absolutely confirmed atheists in the congress of the soviets were more religious than the pope. And they not so coincidentally had a very similar governing structure.
When their system fails, they go through a period of ideological nihilism until the next strongman pops up to lead them. They lie tooth and nail and it is the authority of the party that matters more, not empericism or thrawting structural rot or needed reforms. Democrats since at least the 80s have been identified in study after study as attracring the bulk of these thinkers. Most democrats are not these thinkers, just their upper echelon party members. They are highly cuktic, abhore extremism, but don't know how to tell if they themselves are extremists. They like to combine ideas. It doesn't always work. They are poor administrators and always try to govern by council, SOPs and procedures. Endless paralyzing regulation is the result. When it is pointed out they are radical, they deny it- and when the shit falls apart they abandon ship until another strongman comes along to put the pieces back together again. Then everything is ok to them.
You also have cults of Ideas, like Pythagoras.
