Warning Signs Of The Amway Cult

I was trying to find a web site that might help spouses, family, and friends of Amway cult followers.

The CultInformation Center is a British group but they provide a page that has links to groups worldwide that assist people in dealing with cult exit strategies and help for families. http://www.cultinformation.org.uk/help.html


Here is their list of signs that an organization has cult characteristics:

1. Has there been strong pressure for me to join or to stay?
2. Am I being pressured to recruit others?
3. Are my doubts and questions discouraged, avoided, or even forbidden?
4. If I’m critical of the group, am I told there’s something wrong with me?
5. Do I not have an opportunity to verify information provided by the group?
6. Am I expected to reveal fears and secrets?
7. Does the group’s leadership dictate how I should act, think, or feel?
8. Do I not get enough sleep now or have enough time to devote to outside pursuits and responsibilities?
9. Am I made to feel fear or guilt when I don’t do exactly as my leader or elders in the group told me?
10. Have I lost my old friends?
11. Have I missed important family occasions because I was encouraged to be with fellow group members instead or given an urgent task to complete?
12. Is there a belief that the leader has special powers?
13. Have I been promised things by the group that have yet to materialize?
14. Was I told that joining this group was my only path to happiness, peace, God, or even prosperity?

Wow! Talk about summarizing our Amway experience!

Here’s my answers:

1. The pressure was on to join. “Now is the time to sign up with Amway. Its about to explode on the Internet. You want to get in now.” Seeing as how we’d already tried Amway once before and I wasn’t interested in losing money again I suggested to Ambot that we wait and see how his friend Captain Fuck Up made out. If that fuck up was doing good after a few months then that might be proof to me that things are different in Amway. Ambot was mad. He’d already been sneaking around meeting the cult leaders and had all the canned responses. We were going to miss out BIG if we didn’t sign up now and get in while the getting in was good. After a few months the pressure was on to stay. “You can’t quit now. Not when success is right around the corner and you’re about to go really BIG!”
2. Ha ha! That goes without saying. That’s what Amway is about. Recruiting other IBO’s and tricking suckers into going to Amway meetings.
3. Absolutely! “Never question upline!”
4. That’s another big yes. “Don’t speak negative!” unless of course you’re an unchristian, negative dream stealer who is a loser with a J.O.B. and worse than that a broke loser!
5. “Don’t search on the Internet. Its full of lies and you can’t believe anything you read there.”
6. Yes. Your upline wants to know EVERYTHING so they can use it against you later on.
7. Another big yes! You’re told to dress in business attire, drive high end vehicles, carry cell phones, do whatever it takes to project a successful image. Fake it till you make it!
8. Sleep! Ha! “You’ll have time to sleep when you’re dead!” Amway meetings start at 8pm. Then there are meetings after the meeting. You’ll be lucky to get to bed by 1am but usually later than that. Forget about anything else in your life that doesn’t have anything to do with Amway.
9. Oh yes! You must ask upline’s permission before doing anything! If you don’t you will be the subject of ranting and raging at the next Amway meeting. Plus you’ll be harassed with phone calls, text messages, and emails criticizing you for doing your own thing. The Amway cult leader is a person to be worshipped and feared.
10. Yes, your old friends don’t want nothing to do with you anymore because you’re prospecting them to come to Amway meetings, sign up as an IBO, or buy overpriced Amway shit. They’ll avoid you like the plague!
11. Family occasions? Forget about them if there’s an Amway meeting scheduled or someone upline wants you to drop everything and kiss their ass.
12. Yes. Upline were displayed as having these magical powers to be successful in Amway and if you spent time with them and learned from them and duplicated them you would have these secret magic powers too.
13. Ha, ha. Makes me laugh again! Another big yes. Amway is full of promises (broken ones) and dreams (shattered ones).
14. Yes. We were going to have Amway residual income rolling in for the rest of our lives. And if that didn’t happen we were going to be nicer people!

LOL!

Let’s just send out another big old FUCK YOU to Amway and all the fucking assholes in the Amway upline.