User blog comment:FairyRaven/Fairy Tail Chapter 425: Sabertooth X792, Review and Commentary/@comment-24039250-20150326034121/@comment-7418318-20150328073904

Yes I know they are a cult and not a guild. You seem to be misunderstanding what I was saying, so let me elaborate a bit:

I think what BWZ suggested was that Avatar could possibly be trying to gather up all those people who used to be members of Dark Guild. Trying to recruit former Dark Guild members and convert them to their believes doesn't make Avatar any less of a religious institution.

And it makes sense. Who else would be crazy/evil enough to join a Zeref cult? People all over the world have grown up with scare stories of Zeref as the most evil mage of all time, so turning regular folks (be they mages or not) into Zeref followers would be rather hard.

But those who lust for Zeref's powers and those who have already proofen a willingness to damn themselves in their pursuit of power by joining highly illegal oranisations like Dark Guild won't have such moral qualms and thus are likely far easier be swayed to join the dark flock of Avatar.