We’re going to kick this one off by sharing a story an aunt and uncle went through. Where a couple moved into the aunt and uncle’s neighborhood who, like the aunt and uncle also had two kids and were very nice. Oftentimes, when you have little people, you meet many other parents through your little people. So two couples met because of their kids becoming friends and it was all fun and lite. Yet a couple of weird social occurrences started popping up, eventually leading to the realization that this other couple is in a multi-level pyramid cult.
The first odd thing was that after just two casual get togethers, the aunt was called by the woman, who we’ll just call MLM woman, and then, mind you without knowing the aunt that well, told her that the MLM couple was going to be “retiring early” and then asked the aunt if she and the uncle might be interested in joining them for a “business opportunity”. Mind you without even knowing that much about the aunt and uncle. That aunt and uncle told them they could further discuss down the line and then secretly together thought the MLM couple might have been in some kind of swingers groups.
Over the course of continued get togethers it was mentioned by this MLM couple that they spend their weekends helping other people how to build their small businesses, through all these products they sell and could teach others how to sell as well.
One day, while at the MLM couples house, while the kids were playing together, the MLM male offered the uncle an unusual energy drink from the fridge and the uncle liked it. Being told by the MLM couple that it's one of the products their company sells. A few weeks later, MLM female asked the uncle if he might like any more of the drinks, and the uncle, thinking the MLM couple must get free cases of them all the time and have a lot of excess, agreed.
Then a few days later a package of the drinks was nicely set on the aunt and uncle's porch. It was a small case and inside, was… a pack of other products the MLM couple’s company sells, samples if you will, and drumroll… an Amway invoice. Meaning a receipt for money owed for the drinks. So to the uncle this latest interaction was a neighborly sign of kindness, but in reality to the MLM couple it was a way to make a sale and thus make money off the neighbor. Glass break, record scratch, shovel to the face.
This interaction was the beginning of exposing high weirdness not to mention dark sorcery. A dynamic that inevitably happens with millions of people through those who have joined a Multi-Level Marketing company - otherwise known as a pyramid scheme, and most accurately called a multi-level marketing pyramid scheme cult. Everyday, people get sucked into the initial lure of MLMs (“multi-level marketing” or “network marketing”) and it can not be stressed enough to stay far, far away from them. With roots into the late 1800’s, these include ponzi schemes cults masquerading as companies under names such as Mary Kay, Rodan + Fields, Herbalife, Arbonne, LuLaRoe, Younique, and Amway among many many others who sell a variety of products.
The initial allure is it’s a job an individual or couple can do themselves, with very little credentials, work from home, create their own schedule, and “supposedly” be very lucrative doing. With supposedly being, of course, in parentheses. Yet, that is illusory. The reality is that the dangers of these dark MLM pyramids can not be overstated. For the way they work is that one is hired as basically an independent subcontractor to market for the MLM cult. Many small and large reputable corporations employ marketing departments directly or hire outside marketing agencies in order to do what nearly all companies and small business owners wish for - to make their products more known. But MLM’s are different in that they outsource this marketing to individuals which then means the company doesn't have to pay for marketing and instead gets armies of individuals to do it for essentially free on the companies behalf, with just taking a percentage of those independent contractors sales. A new recruit signs up, pays a buy in fee, usually receives some kind of start up kit for whatever supposid product the parent company sells, and then has to sell it to others. And most commonly, that means via friends, family, neighbors, and constant junk posting on anti-social personal marketing media.
The business model actually doesn't mainly intail retail sales but instead the recruitment of additional participants who will field the enterprise by making whole purchases of that very product being marketed. So what’s more really happening is the customers end up becoming the employees. Buying more and more of the company, who they’re marketing for products, and this is of course encouraged by the company, which then results with sale people’s garages filling up hoarder style with their own products. Hence why the MLM couple wanted a new sales stream of those energy drinks and targeted the uncle.
Now, for each individual who becomes involved, the MLM system is extremely predatory because it’s a pyramid scheme. Meaning it funnels all the money upward in the hierarchy to those who started it early, while those lower in the hierarchy are actually losing money. Which, like how all pyramid schemes operate, are most of those involved. Like 98+%. MLM’s are extremely predatory because the only way to make any money inside them is to sign up more and more people under you which will just ruin your social relationships and make you a pariah where it matters most: your friends and family members. This is why MLM couple, oh so quickly tried to also wrangle in the aunt and uncle couple to join the company, because then the aunt and uncle couple would be in their downstream. For the more people in your downstream the more money you’re making. So better for you, less good for them. Until they loop other people to be further in their downstream. So it’s like assimilation from the Borg Collective. Just as was seen in the initial examples, the MLM couple ends up seeing everyone in their life primarily as their potential cash register.
Since the real money to be made isn’t in selling their products but in recruiting more people to join their team (basically, under you doing the work for you). Among the most vulnerable to these pyramid schemes are stay at home parents, immigrants who may have very large families because they’re indoctrinated or too uneducated to believe in birth control, as well as low information folks in smaller towns and rural areas, or if you want the blended mix of all that - Mormons. Also any other low status socioeconomic individual that ideally has a lack of knowledge about finances. For this is a slimy tentacle situation and it needs easy access to large amounts of people it can spread to and infect. Women also typically do more to keep up social networks so joining an MLM is appealing to women who think they’ll find hope in their promises of a better life: freedom, and supposed economic independence. Despite professing quick-income prospects though, it’s difficult for MLM consultants to earn more than minimum wage or straight up not just lose money.
Those that do get involved with MLM’s and end up somewhat successfully assimilating others, usually slimily also friends and family, who then start actually making some level of salary, then get sucked deeper and deeper into the cult. One such definition of cult being “a social group that is defined by its unusual religious, spiritual, or philosophical beliefs, or by its common interest in a particular personality, object, or goal.” For MLM’s offer utopian-like existence, opacity of their business model, lifetime membership, authoritarian grip, alienation of dissenting voices, moral high grown as cover or diversion, promotion of self-help through gaslighting, unquestioning devotion, and usually have a somewhat charismatic con woman/man leader or series of con women/men leaders at the capstone of the pyramid.
Another trapdoor with bloody spikes below members fall through when getting involved in these things, sacrificing much of their livelihood to them, is their cult of personality. Inspiring the mindset that members engage in changes of personality to cater to company loyalty, encouraging members to think of the company and themselves as one. This is oftentimes seen in employees who always speak on behalf of the company instead of for themselves - which can also certainly be seen in corporate culture outside of MLM’s. Where employees say “we” or “us” as a sign that they think they and the company are the same thing. This similarity also very much exists in authoritarianism where one starts to think that to threaten their demagogue leader is to threaten them directly.
Probably the main thing that highlights someone is in a cult however, over all the others, is that they can not leave without pain. This is true for orthodox Judaism, new age UFO ranches, Mormonism (second time mentioned now), or MLM companies.
After becoming more and more involved in an MLM and starting to see the obviousness of non congruence of the majority of their own and fellow cult members money hemorrhaging, while at the same time constantly being encouraged to stay the course by the plastic cheap suit con people comprising their “upline.” Some members, the wise ones, decide to just cut their losses, which have parasited upwards mind you, and get out. So unfortunately, many members end up being in debt to the company they worked for. A tactic which is by design to prevent members from leaving without struggle and hardship. This on top of the other hardship suffered by years and years of bad feelings with family and friends lost after being tired or discussed at trying to be monetized. This is very common actually once being involved reveals the reality over the illusion and as a result, there is an extremely high turnover in MLM’s and hence they’re constantly recruiting to replace those massive amounts that quit.
In a 2018 VICE article, Rick Alan Ross, an expert cult deprogrammer who founded and serves as executive director of the Cult Education Institute was quoted saying “I receive complaints on a regular basis about the toxic and destructive nature of MLMs”. “They hurt families and relationships, destroy people financially and really do a great deal of harm.” As of the late 20 teens, more than 18 million people in the U.S. were “employed” by multi-level marketing companies. According to the Federal Trade COmmission, more than 99 percent of people who join MLMs ultimately lose money. While at their huge seminars they throw up on stage a tiny few early brainwashers that are financially lucrative, even though most people in the audience are secretly losing money. This continues to happen while numerous MLM cults like Amway and Herbalife have started expanding overseas to India, China and many Southeast Asian countries like Vietnam, Indonesia and the Philippines.
It's proven quite difficult to stop the multi-level marketing industry because, now doing billions in sales per year, there’s a large amount of investors and lobbyists who are profiting from them. Because of big government interests primarily helping big corporate special interests, MLM’s have lobbying strength in Washington in the USA. As well as an existing revolving door of corruption between industry and supposide regulation. Norway has the right approach creating a policy which says any business where 50% or more of the revenue comes from recruiting more members is declared an illegal pyramid scheme. Practical, easy to understand, fair, and reasonable.
We've done essays on the long con of centralized monetary systems as well as mis-distribution and imbalance of resources. Yet one could certainly counter that there has also been long con indoctrination to encourage working people to not think they’ll ever become wealthy by disparaging those who have achieved financial freedom. That will be one for another future essay. But for us individuales, in a world where many make money honorably, usually by interacting with others they directly know at the ground level, it’s sad that giant dark pyramids of corruption have also been built up, based around money, which cause so much pain to so many once their tentacles run their course. And this is one thing that’s so sad about the MLM couple mentioned earlier. Is that in aunt and uncles exchanges with them, the MLM couple honestly and authentically in their early days of involvement with one of these dark pyramids, thought they were helping others and their community to build wealth by becoming small business owners when they were really unpaid sales reps to a dark fleet. Only adding to the world’s loosh.
So let’s see through and steer clear of large dark pyramids which aim to not only turn one into the victim but also the perpetrator. Instead moving toward small or medium sized pyramids of gold, where individuals may find themselves working together to get things done in the more timeless and honorable ways.
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