Monopoly of information. The leaders of pernicious cults seek to control all information entering not only their adherents’ minds, but also that entering the minds of casual observers. This is achieved by constantly denigrating all external sources of information whilst constantly repeating the group’s reality-inverting key words and images, and/or by the physical isolation of adherents. Cults leaders systematically categorize, condemn and exclude as unenlightened, negative, impure, absolutely evil, etc. all free-thinking individuals and any quantifiable evidence challenging the authenticity of their imaginary scenarios of control. In this way, the minds of cult adherents can become converted to accept only what their leadership arbitrarily sanctions as enlightened, positive, pure, absolutely righteous, etc. Consequently, adherents habitually communicate amongst themselves using their group’s thought-stopping ritual jargon, and they find it difficult, if not impossible, to communicate with negative persons outside of their group whom they falsely believe to be not only doomed, but also to be a suppressive threat to redemption.
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| In 1925, the so-called 'Second KKK' claimed between 5 and 6 millions adherents in the USA. These included many upstanding members of the traditional establishment. However, until it was effectively destroyed by a grotesque corruption scandal in 1927, 'KKK Inc.' generated millions of dollars annually for its instigators http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D._C._Stephenson . |
A few years back, a British government official, who had been part of a team of accountants tasked with investigating 'Amway UK Ltd.,' told me (off the record) that he 'considered Amway to be the KKK dressed in a suit and tie,' but he also told me that he'd discovered many of his colleagues were 'unwilling to accept' his 'shocking analysis.' However, I told this unusually-frank civil servant that I had long-since formed the same opinion.
Revenue was generated in the 'KKK' simply by obliging its membership to keep buying all manner of over-priced merchandise and services (including: life insurance, publications, recordings, tickets to meetings, hooded robes, jewelry and other esoteric accessories, etc.). To increase their profits, the 'KKK' leadership acquired various manufacturing plants including a textile factory in Georgia which produced the hooded robes. Percentage commissions on all these millions of profitable transactions were offered to 'KKK' adherents as an inducement to recruit further adherents. In theory, the more adherent-customers any individual 'KKK' adherent -customer brought into the organization: the higher he climbed in the command structure and the higher the commission payments he received. Men often joined the 'KKK' believing that it was was means by which they could become not just wealthy, but also admired and respected. This has led many contemporary commentators to describe the 'Second KKK' as a pyramid scam, but fundamentally the organization was a classic, perverted 'secret society' - designed to shut down its adherents' critical and evaluative faculties in order to exploit them, but prevent them from facing reality and complaining.
In the most simple terms, the so-called 'Second KKK' was a enormous racket which survived by hiding in plain view.
Self-evidently, when you examine the evidence, all 'MLM Prosperity Gospel' cults are perverted 'secret societies.' However, even traditional 'secret societies' (i.e. those which have not been instigated or perverted for the clandestine purpose of human exploitation) are essentially deceptive organizations; for, internally, they exhibit the universal identifying characteristics of traditional dualistic religions whilst, externally, they are invariably presented using non-religious vocabulary and imagery. Furthermore, their instigator/leaders have steadfastly pretended that they are not religions. Thus, once you know how they function (by hiding their internal nature), its all too easy to copy the universal structure of traditional 'secret societies' and plagiarise their universal, two-dimensional 'positive versus negative' controlling scenario, but history proves that almost any reality-inverting external camouflage can be employed by the instigators of esoteric, non-rational ritual belief systems (religious, political, cultural, commercial, etc.). In the final analysis, what counts, is what these groups actually do, not what they say they do.
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| 'Masonic Tools' |
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| 'Amway Tools' |
The original 'MLM' cult, 'Amway' and its many copy-cats ('Herbalife', 'Forever Living Products', 'Nu Skin', 'Xango', 'Fortune Hi-Tech Marketing' , etc.) borrowed plenty of essential 'Masonic' key-words and images. e.g. Without the slightest pause for thought, 'MLM' adherents invariably speak of 'Building the Business' (i.e. recruiting new adherents in the hope that they too will recruit new adherents, etc., ad infinitum) and of 'Tools' (i.e. thought-stopping publications, recordings, meetings, etc. which teach the adherents how to recruit and bring more money into the organization).
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| 'Masonic Levels' |
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| 'Xango' Pyramid of duplicating 'KKKs' leading to 'FFF' ('Financial Freedom Forever') |
Thus, for more than half a century, 'MLM' recruitment has worked by invitation (through personal relationships) into wheels of (apparently autonomous) sub-groups corresponding to 'Masonic Orders, Chapters, Lodges,' etc. In reality, these have been centrally-controlled and unified by the one controlling narrative. The largest sub-groups (which have been styled as commercial companies) have operated in geographically-defined enclaves, i.e. continents and countries. Behind their reality-inverting 'direct selling' fronts, the sanctimonious bosses of a growing number of essentially-identical , perverted 'secret societies' have all been pretending moral and intellectual authority whilst running, and dissimulating, blame-the-victim, closed-market swindles and related advance fee frauds. In general, the employees of the constituent 'MLM' front companies have not even been low-level 'MLM' initiates and, therefore, they have had little idea of what they have really been involved in. After all, by their very nature, only the instigators of 'secret societies' have access to the truth.
Despite its bosses' carefully worded, and illustrated, claims to have helped over 3 millions people to start their own businesses, 'Amway' in particular, has been a vast, constantly-churning, pyramid of humans, which itself has comprised ever-smaller, constantly-churning, pyramids known as 'Companies, Networks, Groups, Legs' etc. The movement can, therefore, also be accurately described as a mind-numbing game of construction played to strict, geometric rules using a never-ending chain of expendable human building-blocks.
Currently, by the organization's own disclosures, at least 1.5 millions ill-informed individuals are being churned through the 'Amway' pyramid annually. During the previous 50+ years, it is possible to extrapolate that 40- 50 millions so-called 'Amway businesses' have come and gone around the world. Far less than 5% of these de facto slave, human building blocks have remained to support, and build, the shifty 'Amway' structure for more than 5 years, and its not difficult to understand why.
The hidden object of the 'Amway' game has been to trick vulnerable people into paying to climb through its hierarchical levels of 'obedience', and through parallel levels of 'initiation' in a classic esoteric system of 'outer and inner hermetic circles of secret knowledge'. 'Amway's' human building blocks have been graded by 'Pin-Levels' corresponding to the 3 classic, 'Masonic Levels, Entered Apprentices, Fellows of the Craft,' and 'Masters' - which themselves were graded by 23 Degrees.
At the top of the constantly-churning 'Amway' pyramid, has been a insignificant minority of exemplary human building blocks whose '100% positive' attitude and behaviour are to be duplicated in order to achieve 'Total Financial Freedom.' The highest initiates' secret knowledge, derived from the ‘God,’ must not be passed to the uninitiated and, for obvious reasons, it has generally not been written down. Internally, the 'Amway' leadership has said that their own prosperity, health, happiness, etc. has derived from exactly duplicating a proven 'business building plan.' (i.e. buying a regular quota of 'Amway' products whilst recruiting others to duplicate the same self-perpetuating plan). However, externally, to avoid criminal investigation, the 'Amway' organization has steadfastly pretended that success in 'Amway' can be achieved by selling products. In reality, because there has been no significant, or sustainable, source of external revenue other than the ill-informed participants in a dissimulated closed-market swindle, the hidden, overall loss/churn rate for so-called 'Amway Independent Business Owners,' has been effectively 100%. As ever, in all such frauds, 'Amway' victims have actually been peddled infinite shares of their own finite money.
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Amazingly, this revealing illustration of a typical 'MLM' pyramid has been taken from an 'MLM' propaganda Site which pretends to explain why 'MLMs' are not illegal pyramid schemes. Classically, this Site fails to mention that, during the previous 50+ years, virtually no 'MLM' products have ever been retailed to the general public for a profit by the participants, and that all 'MLMs' have, consequently, been in a constant state of collapse (a secret which has to be kept from all new recruits). 'MLMs' are simply closed-market swindles dissimulated behind effectively-unsaleable wampum and sustained by endless-chain recruitment.
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Currently, by the organization's own disclosures, at least 1.5 millions ill-informed individuals are being churned through the 'Amway' pyramid annually. During the previous 50+ years, it is possible to extrapolate that 40- 50 millions so-called 'Amway businesses' have come and gone around the world. Far less than 5% of these de facto slave, human building blocks have remained to support, and build, the shifty 'Amway' structure for more than 5 years, and its not difficult to understand why.
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| The 23 Degrees of 'Amway' initiation |
The hidden object of the 'Amway' game has been to trick vulnerable people into paying to climb through its hierarchical levels of 'obedience', and through parallel levels of 'initiation' in a classic esoteric system of 'outer and inner hermetic circles of secret knowledge'. 'Amway's' human building blocks have been graded by 'Pin-Levels' corresponding to the 3 classic, 'Masonic Levels, Entered Apprentices, Fellows of the Craft,' and 'Masters' - which themselves were graded by 23 Degrees.
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| The classic 'MLM' illusion of a free-choice - doom or salvation |
At the top of the constantly-churning 'Amway' pyramid, has been a insignificant minority of exemplary human building blocks whose '100% positive' attitude and behaviour are to be duplicated in order to achieve 'Total Financial Freedom.' The highest initiates' secret knowledge, derived from the ‘God,’ must not be passed to the uninitiated and, for obvious reasons, it has generally not been written down. Internally, the 'Amway' leadership has said that their own prosperity, health, happiness, etc. has derived from exactly duplicating a proven 'business building plan.' (i.e. buying a regular quota of 'Amway' products whilst recruiting others to duplicate the same self-perpetuating plan). However, externally, to avoid criminal investigation, the 'Amway' organization has steadfastly pretended that success in 'Amway' can be achieved by selling products. In reality, because there has been no significant, or sustainable, source of external revenue other than the ill-informed participants in a dissimulated closed-market swindle, the hidden, overall loss/churn rate for so-called 'Amway Independent Business Owners,' has been effectively 100%. As ever, in all such frauds, 'Amway' victims have actually been peddled infinite shares of their own finite money.
Obviously, in 'MLM' cults everything and everyone, has been systematically divided into 'Negative v Positive' rather than 'Sacred v Profane,' but the further into the mental labyrinth an initiate progresses, the more extreme the vocabulary and imagery has become. Ultimately, 'MLM' adherents' critical and evaluative faculties can be completely shut down. The great paradox of unquestioning 'MLM' human building blocks is that they will recite a script in which they steadfastly pretend to be absolutely righteous, even when all the quantifiable evidence proves their behaviour to be (at best) misguided, or (at worst) downright evil. Although 'MLM' economic cannon-fodder is demonstrably dissociated from external reality, it is always certain that it represents the truth, and it acts accordingly.
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| 'Masonic' ring |
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| 'Amway Diamond' ring |
In 'MLM' cults the highest initiates have worn ritual emblems (particularly lapel pins and rings) as an external sign of their moral and intellectual authority, whilst the Internet is full of vague speculation; particularly, about 'Amway' and 'Freemasonry.'
The instigators of the 'Amway' mob, Richard DeVos and Jay Van Andel, have appeared on various lists of famous 'Freemasons,' where they were described as having achieved the '33rd. Degree' of initiation. The above photograph of Richard DeVos, in which his hands are carefully posed in secret a 'Masonic' sign, appeared on the cover of a cassette tape sold to 'Amway' initiates during the 1990s. I am now reliably informed that the 'Amway' organization has firmly denied that Richard DeVos is a '33rd Degree Freemason.' However, it is interesting to note that the 'Amway' organization has apparently not denied that Richard DeVos is, or once was, a 'Freemason.'
David Brear (copyright 2012)
