FL thread 2

[mortil2]

To follow on so to not lose what is such an interesting thread

CainInThePunting Trying to reason with a cult adherent can be compared to trying to reason with someone who has fallen head over heels in love with an outwardly-attractive partner, but whom you know to be a serial abuser.

Cult adherents are conditioned to meet with 'negative' persons, so try to avoid doing what your friend has been conditioned to expect.

I find that thought-provoking questions can be the best approach; particularly, if the questions demonstrate that you have an inside knowledge of how groups like 'FLP' function as two dimensional 'us vs them' games of makebelieve. I would initially avoid all explanation of why 'MLM' is a fraud, because that's bound to put any adherent on the defensive.

e.g. You could try asking your friend why the leaders of 'FLP' are so keen to prevent their followers from listening to persons outside of the organization?

You should always try to get your friend to think back to a time before she became controlled.

Also remember, cults always reflect their adherents' existing beliefs and instinctual desires in order to give them the illusion that they are making free choices. Thus, it has to be the adherents' choice to leave their group.

You could also try to remind your friend that, in life, it's your real friends who always tell you the truth, no matter how painful this might be.

This is very general advice. For more specific advice, I would need some more information, so please do feel free to contact me directly.

CainInThePunting - Stitchintime1 is right to say that 'MLM' adherence often fizzles out when the money doesn't arrive, but the more cash (or credit) your friend has access to: the more danger she is in.

On the pretext that they are 'only interested in helping her to succeed,' her handlers will pump her for information about her own finances and those of her friends and relatives.

In some cases, 'MLM' adherents will also drift from one group to another. The worst example I've personally encountered, was a guy who passed through 7 different 'MLM' groups always looking for financial redemption.

Cain
The dodgy boyf approach sounds useful.
Could you discuss any of the other mlms? Have a moan and see if the penny drops?

Personal testimonies mean nothing if the testator is the consumer and seller,

How is this not clear?

I completely understand the idea of letting an unsuitable boyfriend fizzle out but I fear my Bot is beyond that, she may have already married him!

She has accumulated thousands of FB friends in the time I've known her, one of the tangible sources of income she has given up since FL was selling advertising space for a community magazine, she is exceptionally good at networking and when I was watching the video interview of the police woman, I could see my friend in that seat, being prompted by the interviewer, I could see her eyes darting to the prompts when she lost her train of thought, it reminded me of hostage footage I have seen.

At the moment her team are friends and family whom she trusts implicitly. If I'm right about her networking skills, she will start to encounter those further up the line who don't have her interests at heart but have more sinister intentions and that really does frighten me.

One of the links I read yesterday was to the description of a young woman who became a sexual object within a cult. I realise logically that it's a leap in the context of FL but it made me nauseous. I stopped reading but I can't drop the feeling that this isn't something I can just let play out.

Ooh it's a bit deep! Might sign off for tonight. Apologies.

CainInThePunting- At the risk of disturbing you even more, I feel obliged to warn you that, in 1994, when faced with partial exposure in the London listings magazine, 'Time Out,' the bosses of the 'Amway' mob easily bought the 'consultancy' services of two self-styled 'cult advisors' in the UK, Ian Howarth ('Cult Information Centre') and Graham Baldwin ('Catalyst').

Mr. Baldwin is a particularly absurd character, who (for years) has got away with pretending to be 'a former Army Intelligence officer.' Following the 'Time Out' article, a significant trickle of desitute, but confused, 'Amway' victims were beginning to come forward in Britain. Not surprisingly, the 'Amway' bosses were keen to maintain their monopoly of information in order to prevent an investigation and to isolate themselves from liability.

Subsequently, all persons approaching Messrs. Baldwin and Howarth (including myself) with complaints, and enquiries, about 'Amway' (imagining that they were consulting independent experts) were told that although certain 'Amway Networks' had been accused (in the past) of operating like cults (by ill-informed journalists), the company itself was not a cult.

Between 1994 and 2007, escorted by the affinity-pretending 'Amway' double-agents, Messrs. Baldwin and Howarth, numerous dissatisfied former 'Amway' adherents continued to be taken back to the organization where they were shown finely-printed clauses in their take-it or-leave it 'Distributor' contracts which appeared to oblige them to remain silent and pursue 'Amway's' own internal system of dispute resolution.

It's difficult to know exactly how many British 'Amway' victims were kept away from regulators, legislators, law enforcement agents and journalists using these tactics.

In the UK, there is only one independent cult advice organization I would personally recommend - The Family Survival Trust (formerly known as FAIR, Family Action Information and Resource).

www.familysurvivaltrust.org/

Annie65 - 'The Secret' contains a number of short biographies of persons presented as exemplary role-models for readers to follow.

In reality, a number of the listed persons are quasi-cultic, narcissistic charlatans who have pretended to have discovered a secret knowledge which can enable ordinary persons to transform into superhumans (for a price).

Included in this tragicomic collection of unoriginal 'self-help' gurus, was James Arthur Ray.

After being featured in 'The Secret' in 2006, Ray became a national celebrity in the USA. Two appearances on Oprah followed, as well as his 2008 best seller 'Harmonic Wealth: The Secret of Attracting the Life You Want.'

The cost of entering Ray's 'World Wealth Society' was $90,000.

In October of 2009, 3 of Ray’s followers were killed in Sedona, Arizona.

Around 75 men and women had paid $10,000 each for one of Ray’s week-long programs. This included an 'Indian sweat lodge ceremony' held in a makeshift hut draped with plastic sheets and blankets and heated with rocks. As temperatures climbed to 200°, Ray's adherents began passing out.

Kirby Brown (37) and James Shore (40) died of heatstroke, 18 others were hospitalized for everything from burns to kidney failure, 9 days later, Liz Newman (49) died of organ failure.

Ray pretended affinity with prosecutors and victims during his trial, but was sentenced to 2 years for 'negligent homicide'.

James Arthur Ray is lately back to his old (profitable) tricks.

www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-03-03/self-help-author-imprisoned-for-sweat-lodge-deaths-is-making-a-comeback

OMG, that is some scarey shit. I always think we are all human beings, and we shud only trust 1 person completly and that is yourself. The trouble is some people for one reason or another are very insecure and these bastards take complete advantage of them, it really is disgusting.

Annie65 The court found that James Arthur Ray had no intention of killing his victims.

However, it wasn't explained to the court that Ray tricked his victims into fasting and going without sleep during these so-called 'Harmonic Wealth' programs, and that protein restiction and sleep deprivation are two devious techniques of physical persuasion used in almost all cultic groups.

The so-called 'sweat lodge ceremony' was designed to further weaken Ray's victims' physical condition in order to facilitate the shutting down their critical and evaluative faculties so that they could be defrauded.

Ray seems to have miscalculated the heat inside his human oven.

I personally believe that Ray should have been charged with deceiving ill-informed human beings into participating in an impermissable, and ultimately lethal, medical experiment with the hidden objective of robbing them and preventing them from complaining.

Had heard folk mention Arbonne as a similar scheme. Had a look at an old thread on another site. Started back in 08 and some women just joined up and asking for help, finding it tough making their sales, families and friends backing off etc. they seemed genuine but quickly disappeared as I imagine the business wasn't selling and they weren't thick skinned enough to brazen it out. Then the slick sellers came in, subtly recruiting, using a lotmof the same smiley, upbeat jargon FL seems to use. One in particular seemed to be a natural more hard nosed sales type and put it on the line for those looking to join

"I totally can relate to your concerns but the beauty of this business (network marketing) is that it really is not about knowing lots of people....you can have an extremely successful business by just sponsoring and supporting four people. Once you find these people it is your job (with your sponsor's help) to support and train them to find four people, who then find four people, who then find four people and so on. From personally sponsoring four people you can end up having thousands on your team.

The sponsor is the person who brings you into the business - it is their job to help you with absolutely everything! From understanding the compensation plan, understanding the QVs (these are basically just points) launching their person and so forth. It's basically like having a mentor and they help you until you feel confident to meet people yourself. Then you just copy everything your sponsor did with you, to do with people you sponsor.

To summarise, this business is not always easy but its is very simple....you just copy the people who have been successful before.

I am more than happy to answer any questions, so feel free to get in touch on this,"

Can't those reading that thread - read what's happening? Lots joining and fading away after spending a few hundred quid because that aren't the brash hard nose type who will sell their mother? If some are struggling to sell, why on earth are they encouraging so many more to join in their area - encouraging competition?

I know. The idea that you can increase the number of sellers without reducing sellers' profits. It's an unreal business model. My friend, it turns out, has had people backing away from her. She posts long pieces on social media defending her position.

Bambambini Why, when insightful persons (such as yourself) can understand this perfectly, haven't regulators, law enforcement agents and legislators done their jobs, and protected the public?

It's not as though this is a new phenomenon. Essentially the same pernicious tragicomedy has been presented as reality by countless copy-cat criminals since the late 1940s, but 'MLM' just about played itself out in the USA.

The point of 'MLM' racketeering is that the so-called 'business/income opportunity' cannot work, because it's based on the same unviable, and unlawful, pseudo-economic theory which all inflexible pyramid, and Ponzi, schemers have proposed whilst steadfastly pretending that, this time, it is viable and lawful.

Endless recruitment + endless payments by the recruits = endless profits for the recruits.

Decades of data proves that effectively 100% of all persons who have signed up for reality-inverting 'MLM income opportunities,' have abandoned their economically-suicidal closed-market activity, but his key-information has been deliberately withheld from the public and the regulators.

Today, yet again, reality-inverting 'FLP' propaganda has appeared in the UK media. The 17 year old daughter of a celebrity(?), Kym Marsh, has apparently become an FLbot.

www.wigantoday.net/what-s-on/gossip/emilie-s-got-a-new-living-1-7387788

eye I saw it shared on my FLbot page last week or so as 'proof' her business is a good un'

I have been asked to draw the attention of MN readers to the damage being caused to Africans by 'FLP.'

www.newvision.co.ug/news/639919-network-marketing-sucking-billions-out-of-ugandans.html

A remarkably good article. Puts the UK MSM to shame! I liked this "Emmy thinks the marketing strategy is more suitable for church leaders because they can ably convince their flock to join their networks and buy products. "

Indeed. the ambot I knew was recruited at a (fringe) church. Amway spreads often among congregations - a good source of believers, of course.

Bambambini wrote: "Lots joining and fading away after spending a few hundred quid because that aren't the brash hard nose type who will sell their mother? If some are struggling to sell, why on earth are they encouraging so many more to join in their area - encouraging competition?" The brash hardnosed type at low/mid levels also lose. The only people who win are the very top - 1%? - even the "middle managers" lose money. These middle-types have fooled themselves... Which is why Eric Schiebeler's book "Merchants of Deception" is so good. He was an "Emerald" pin in amway, quit his J.O.B, the whole shebang. And he went bankrupt.

(You only win when you get to share the profits from motivational tools (rallies, trainings etc), and then it helps to be related to the owners...

Very interesting reading Spy, Im learning something new about Mlms all the time, and its never good news. I thought the idea about talking to the recruits about Fl as if they had a boyfriend that you know is bad news was brill advice. I shall try that approach on my Sil, the softley, softley approach is sometimes the best way.

Annie65 - Again, just like people who are controlled by abusive partners, sometimes, adherents can can fall out of love with cults simply because they are given the time and space to think for themselves without being made to feel ashamed, and/or guilty.

Classically, just like abusive partners, 'MLM' cults try to occupy,, and dominate as much of their adherents' time, space and thinking as possible. Persons who are really deeply-controlled have been conditioned to feel bad about doing anything which is not related to the group. Everything in life becomes divided in 'negative vs positive' - from the food adherents eat, the clothes they wear and the words they speak: to the time they wake and sleep, and the people they associate with, etc. etc.

In 'MLM' cults, devout adherents would no more buy and use a 'negative' product: than a devout Muslim would buy and consume a product that was not 'halal' or a devout Jew a product that was not 'Kosher.'

Devout 'MLM' adherents also systematically see 'negative' persons (ie non-believers/ infidel) as a threat to their achieving the future 'MLM' paradise.

When dealing with any devout cult adherent, it is advisable always to keep gently reminding him/her that you have his/her true interests at heart, and that you will always be there for him/her, no matter what happens.

xenu1 When explaining 'MLM' rackets as a form of cultism, to Christian Ministers (of all denominations), I find that the following analogy helps.

In the Bible, a story is told of Jesus feeding 5000 people with only enough food for a family picnic. All this ordinary man with extraordinary powers requires of his followers, in return for their participation in his miraculous feast, is unquestioning belief in him, as the world's redeeemer.

As far as I recall, in the Biblical story, Jesus doesn't open a global chain of identical 'Miraculous Buffets' and demand an entrance fee to be paid in cash.

Consequently, Jesus does not become a billionaire.

www.netmums.com/coffeehouse/working-childcare-692/working-yourself-self-employed-76/wfy-self-employed-chat-clubs-501/295832-forever-living-general-discussion-all.html

That netmums website is very sad. Delusions throughout. One minute it's hard work and slow haul, the next it's sacking the boss in three months timem

Stitchintime - It states at the top of this other MN thread:

'Please remember we do not allow any kind of advertising, promoting or recruitment messages on our forum boards. Please read the Working for Yourself rules and Forum rules before posting. Please report any posts which breach our forum rules, or you can Talk to a Moderator in the Coffeehouse Helpdesk.'

One of the saddest, and funniest, comments on this other MN thread, is:

'They do say it's not a pyramid scheme.'

Stitch, did you notice the people that dared to say anything negative about the fl were totally ignored,, even the ones that asked questions.

Yes. The woman who said she decided to get a job instead was ignored.

I felt most for the poster who enquired if any had any ideas how to go about selling the products. Better to think of that before buying the starter kit.