This is an excerpt that was originally on the Rick Ross web
site. I guess he must have let his domain expire and another guy with the same
name picked it up. Or if it’s the same guy he’s now reviewing casinos. Anyway
Rick Ross is on the Cult Education Institute now. You might have seen him on
various TV documentaries on the Charles Manson and Jim
Jones cults where he gave insight to these dangerous, evil people who Amway
cult leaders model themselves after. The original article can now be found
here. http://culteducation.com/warningsigns.html
This page is worth a read. In addition to warning signs of a leader it includes
a list of warning signs that people might be involved with a dangerous leader.
Interestingly there is also a list of 10 signs of a safe leader. Ha ha! Nothing
on the safe list can be said about our former sack of shit Platinum! He’s the
complete opposite!
Anyway Rick Ross’s list is called Ten warning signs of a potentially unsafe
group/leader but it could just as aptly be named Ten warning signs of a
dangerous Amway leader. The comments in black are Rick Ross’s warning
signs. The comments in red are mine. Get it. Red
is a color warning of danger.
- Absolute authoritarianism without meaningful accountability. This was mostly clear to me from our sack of shit Platinum who we heard speak more than we heard any other speaker, Emerald or Diamond. He demanded everyone in his downline to “ask permission” before doing anything. Constantly telling us to “submit to upline” and never question upline.
- No tolerance for questions or critical inquiry. “Never question upline! Who do you think you are asking me something like that! Everything I say is the truth!”
- No meaningful financial disclosure regarding budget, expenses such as an independently audited financial statement. The sack of shit never showed us his budget, his profit and loss statement, tax returns, etc. though he wanted to see all of ours.
- Unreasonable fear about the outside world, such as impending catastrophe, evil conspiracies and persecutions. All the time! What else is out there except Amway? The answer to everyone’s prayers. Financial security for the rest of your life. Everyone else is doomed to have a J.O.B. and work for someone else. Nothing but negativity at Amway meetings with all the talk of doom and gloom and businesses shutting down and social security won’t be there when you retire, etc.
- There is no legitimate reason to leave, former followers are always wrong in leaving, negative or even evil. The ones who leave are quitters, losers, broke losers, negative, dream stealers, etc. Nothing but insults for those who have quit Amway and current IBO’s are not allowed to associate with them anymore.
- Former members often relate the same stories of abuse and reflect a similar pattern of grievances. Our stories are all over the Internet. They’re all the same story: upline abuse, brainwashing, financial losses, house foreclosures, bankruptcy, emotional distress, destroyed marriages, alienation from friends and family.....
- There are records, books, news articles, or television programs that document the abuses of the group/leader. Again all over the Internet are blogs written by former IBO’s. NBC Dateline did an expose. Many former Amway cult followers have written books. Abuse from the upline and lives that have been destroyed by Amway is well documented.
- Followers feel they can never be "good enough". A good example of this was the attempt our WWDB group made to sell Amway items for Christmas and rented a community hall for the event. Ambot had several friends show up and one person made purchases. Ambot had the only sale there all day and was rather pleased with himself. When it was over the Platinum highlighted Ambot who was expecting praise but instead he was criticized that only one of his friends purchased Amway products and that meant they weren’t his true friends. It was a constant cycle of abuse where the Platinum would punish, scold and berate and then say “but we still love you”.
- The group/leader is always right. The sack of shit Platinum is always right. Pompous son of a bitch even told us once that his wife never wins an argument with him because he is always right. Oh gee, one of the top criteria for a happy marriage. According to Amway cult leaders that is.
- The group/leader is the exclusive means of knowing "truth" or receiving validation, no other process of discovery is really acceptable or credible. Its all about information control. Our Platinum wanted to control the information the IBO’s received. Cult followers are brainwashed to believe the Platinum is always telling the truth. He gave his version of the news and told IBO’s not to listen to the news or read the Internet because it was wrong and could not be trusted whereas he would always tell the truth. Discrediting an information source is easier for the Platinum than debating the truth. By controlling the information the Platinum removes the IBO’s ability to think for themselves. Sleep deprivation also helps the cult leader in the brainwashing. Keeping IBO’s up to 1 or 2 or 3 in the morning and they are so tired that they’re willing to agree everything they hear at that hour is the truth.
Of course we can see it now. I’d say I saw this within a
month of knowing the Platinum and getting involved in Amway. Too bad for the
bastard that I wouldn’t drink the kool aid. Like we need any further proof that
Amway leaders used cult techniques to brainwash their downline.
And then these same cult leaders claim Amway is not a cult. Deny, deny, deny.
Lie, lie, lie. That’s the secret to success in Amway.
I’ll just send out another big old fuck you to everyone in our Amway upline.
FUCK YOU AMWAY!!!
Anna, it's clear that your Amway Platinum was a total piece of shit. Unfortunately. most of the Platinums in Amway are exactly the same.
ReplyDeleteThey are just little Hitlers, giving orders and demanding obedience and screaming furiously against anyone who dares to question them.
Anonymous - exactly. Our Platinum is everyone's Platinum. They are all exactly the same. Issuing orders. Demanding obedience. Love bombing or refusal to love bomb depends if the Ambot has fallen out of favor for some infraction. Like missing the last meeting or couldn't find a sucker to bring.
DeleteAmway wasn't always cultish. That really kicked in when the AMO subsystems developed, because they were interested in recruitment primarily, and selling tools. This meant keeping IBOs on the hook as long as possible, and the best way to do that was to use cult mind-control.
ReplyDeleteHowever, even back in the early days (the 1970s) I noticed that in a small group of persons in a particular down-line, a kind of cultish atmosphere would begin to develop. There was groupthink, in the sense that you were expected to think positively all the time, and never think anything bad about the Amway racket. You also had to use pretty much the same language as everyone else when talking about Amway, and you had to be thinking about Amway all the time. There was a trend towards conformism in both thought and speech.
What the AMO subsystems (WWDB, BWW. Network 21, etc.) did was to make this cultic control total, so that you couldn't do a goddamned thing without the permission of your up-line and the generalized consent of all higher-ups. Today, being in Amway is like being in the army, or a fundamentalist church in the boondocks.
Anonymous - there's a small book written by a former member of the People's Church cult who left prior to the mass suicide at Jonestown and joined Amway so must have been late 70's. It took him 3 months to figure out this group he was with was Amway! So even back then the Amway cult was very secretive and deceptive. But then he started to notice the similarities between the Amway cult leaders and Jim Jones and got the hell out. At some later point he wrote about his experiences in both cults.
DeleteBut yes the whole AMO system is where the Cult of Greed comes in so the top Amway cult leaders can make the bulk of their income selling "tools" to the Ambot suckers.