Yet again, 'a little learning is a dangerous thing'

What the demonstrably egocentric and ethnocentric American, Kasey Chang, continues to post on Corporate Frauds Watch, is dangerous and nonsensical drivel, which could very possibly persuade some vulnerable and ill-informed Indian(s) to sign up for an abusive, cultic fraud. However, the self-righteous Mr. Chang is completely incapable of accepting that he is at fault. Yet, he has revealed plenty about himself by foolishly stating on his own Blog: 

'Frankly, I have NO position on Amway. It has been operating legally in the US (and elsewhere) for DECADES. What Amway does in INDIA, frankly, is none of my business. I have not studied Amway in any way, shape, or form, except peripherally as part of studying up on TVI Express, and how TVI Express scam CANNOT be multi-level marketing. As Amway basically defined what is legal MLM in the US, I know it "somewhat", nowhere well enough to defend against Mr. Brear's tirade that essentially said "you're either with us (i.e. against Amway) or against us" '

Thus (so far) Mr. Chang has clearly demonstrated that his major concern is not for the truth, or for his fellow human beings. Tellingly, he continues to assume that I am addressing him directly, when I am self-evidently addressing you, Shyam, and your free-thinking readers. 

The evidence is plain for all to see on your Blog. Mr. Chang has repeatedly used the terms:  'normal' or 'legal MLM companies' (i.e. by which he means those with non-salaried commission agents who sell a majority of products and services to the public for a profit) and 'fake' or 'illegal MLM companies' (i.e. by which he means those with non-salaried commission agents who only buy products and services themselves and who attempt to recruit other agents to duplicate the same mathematically impossible plan). Thus, by extrapolation, Mr. Chang merely assumes that significant numbers of people must exist who have earned their living by regularly retailing products and services supplied by (what he describes as) 'normal MLM companies', to the public for a profit. However, Mr. Chang is now denying that he has put this unsubstantiated opinion forward on your Blog, on the grounds that he has only examined one fake 'MLM company' in depth, and that the criteria upon which he has formed his verdict (that 'TVI Express' is an irredeemable, inherently-evil scam), is the theoretical boundary between a pyramid fraud and a legitimate marketing business - which 'TVI Express' has crossed, but which we are unable to see, because we are fixated on 'Amway'. 

What we have clearly explained to Mr. Chang is that, in the adult world of quantifiable reality, 50+ years of damning evidence (in the form of tens of millions of individuals who have been churned through all-manner of so-called 'normal MLM companies' around the globe, and who sold virtually nothing to the public for a profit) proves beyond all reasonable doubt that no such thing as a so-called 'normal MLM company' has ever existed, and that the instigators of the original dissimulated closed-market swindle (presented as a so-called 'MLM business opportunity') are major racketeers who maliciously dodged all regulation, and criminal prosecution, in the USA in 1979, and who, as a result, have been allowed to generate billions of dollars of unlawful profits and to export their profitable racket elsewhere, simply by steadfastly pretending to have reformed their unlawful closed-market activities in the USA by introducing rules which oblige their company's non-salaried commission agents to retail a majority of goods and services to the public for a profit on the open-market. 

There isn't any rigorous-observer anywhere who now seriously disputes that these fake 'Amway rules' (which Mr. Chang believes have defined what is a 'normal' or 'legal MLM' and a 'fake' or 'illegal MLM' in the USA) have never been enforced for more than 30 years. Thus, Mr. Chang's contention that 'Amway is not beyond redemption' demonstrates a level of ignorance and naivety which beggars belief. 

I observe that Mr. Chang is now giving your free-thinking readers the benefit of his equally-limited knowledge of the cult phenomenon and, in the process, completely misrepresenting my own extensive published views on that vast subject. Mr. Chang imagines that I only have knowledge of 'Amway' and that I have said that the instigators of 'Amway' were the first bunch of charlatans to have developed a thought-stopping 'cult-speak' to control their adherents' model of reality. If Mr. Chang had taken the trouble to do a little bit of research, he would have discovered that I am the author of the 'Universal Identifying Characteristics of a Cult', a short booklet which was synthesized from the detailed study of many different groups (from ancient times to the present day) and from carefully reading what generations of intellectually-rigorous observers have had to say about this ongoing, major, historical phenomenon. The following are some relevant extracts from my work:  

'Pernicious cults are presented externally as traditional associations. These can be arbitrarily defined by their instigators as almost any banal group (‘religious’, ‘cultural’, ‘political’, ‘commercial’, etc.). However, internally, they are always totalitarian (i.e. they are centrally-controlled and require of their core-adherents an absolute subservience to the group and its patriarchal, and/ or matriarchal, leadership above all other persons). By their very nature, pernicious cults never present themselves in their true colours. Consequently, no one ever becomes involved with one as a result of his/ her fully-informed consent.' 

'Pernicious cults employ co-ordinated, devious techniques of social and psychological persuasion (variously described as: ‘covert hypnosis’, ‘mental manipulation’, ‘coercive behaviour modification’, ‘group pressure’, ‘thought reform’, ‘ego destruction’, ‘mind control’, ‘brainwashing’, ‘neuro-linguistic programming’, ‘love bombing’, etc.). These techniques are designed to fulfil the hidden criminal objectives of the leaders by provoking in the adherents an infantile total dependence on the group to the detriment of themselves and of their existing family, and/ or other, relationships. Pernicious cults manipulate their adherents’ existing beliefs and instinctual desires, creating the illusion that they are exercising free will. In this way, adherents can also be surreptitiously coerced into following potentially harmful, physical procedures (sleep deprivation, protein restriction, repetitive chanting/moving, etc.) which are similarly designed to facilitate the shutting down of an individual’s critical and evaluative faculties without his/ her fully-informed consent.' 

The instigators of pernicious cults seek to overwhelm their adherents emotionally and intellectually by pretending that progressive initiation into their own superior or superhuman knowledge (coupled with total belief in its authenticity and unconditional deference to the authority of its higher initiates) will defeat a negative or adversarial force of impurity and absolute evil, and lead to future, exclusive redemption in some form of secure Utopian existence. By making total belief a prerequisite of redemption, adherents are drawn into a closed-logic trap (i.e. failure to achieve redemption is solely the fault of the individual who didn’t believe totally).Cultic pseudo-science is always essentially the same hypnotic hocus-pocus, but it can be peddled in an infinite variety of forms and combinations (‘spiritual’, ‘medical’, ‘philosophical’, ‘cosmological,’ ‘extraterrestrial’, ‘political’, ‘racial’, ‘mathematical’, ‘economic’, ‘New-Age’, etc.), often with impressive, made-up, technical-sounding names. It is tailored to fit the spirit of the times and to attract a broad range of persons, but especially those open to an exclusive offer of salvation (i.e. the: sick, dissatisfied, bereaved, vanquished, disillusioned, oppressed, lonely, insecure, aimless, etc.). However, at a moment of vulnerability, anyone (no matter what their: age, sex, nationality, state of mental/ physical health, level of education, etc.) can need to believe in cultic pseudo-science. Typically, obedient adherents are granted ego-inflating names, and/or ranks, and/or titles, whilst non-initiates are referred to using derogatory, dehumanizing terms. Although initiation can at first appear to be reasonable and benefits achievable, cultic pseudo-science gradually becomes evermore costly and mystifying. Ultimately, it is completely incomprehensible and its claimed benefits are never quantifiable. The self-righteous euphoria and relentless enthusiasm of cult proselytizers can be highly infectious and deeply misleading. They are invariably convinced that their own salvation also depends on saving others. 

'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.' 

'The instigators of pernicious cults can continue to organize the creation, and/or dissolution, and/or subversion, of further (apparently independent) corporate structures pursuing lawful, and/or unlawful, activities in order to prevent, and/or divert, investigation and isolate themselves from liability. In this way, some cults survive all low-level challenges and spread like cancers enslaving the minds, and destroying the lives, of countless individuals in the process. At the same time, their leaders acquire absolute control over capital sums which place them alongside the most notorious racketeers in history. They operate behind ever-expanding, and changing, fronts of ‘privately-controlled, limited-liability, commercial companies,’ and/or ‘non-profit-making associations,’ etc. Other than ‘religious/philosophical’ and ‘political’ movements and ‘secret societies,’ typical reality-inverting disguises for cultic crime are:

‘charity/philanthropy’; ‘fund-raising’; ‘lobbying’ on topical issues (‘freedom’, ‘ethics’, ‘environment’, ‘human rights’, ‘women’s rights’, ‘child protection’, ‘law enforcement’, ‘social justice’, etc.); ‘publishing and media’; ‘education’; ‘academia’; ‘celebrity’; ‘patriotism’; ‘information technology’; ‘public relations’; ‘advertising’; ‘medicine’; ‘alternative medicine’; ‘nutrition’; ‘rehabilitation’; ‘manufacturing’; ‘retailing’; ‘direct selling/marketing’; ‘multilevel marketing’; ‘network marketing’; ‘regulation’; ‘personal development’; ‘self-betterment’; ‘positive thinking’; ‘self-motivation’; ‘leadership training’; ‘life coaching’; ‘research and development’; ‘investment’; ‘real estate’; ‘sponsorship’; ‘bereavement/trauma counselling’; ‘addiction counselling’; ‘legal counselling’; ‘cult exit-counselling’; ‘financial consulting’; ‘management consulting’; ‘clubs’; etc. 

This text was written years before the cultic group arbitrarily defined by its instigators as, 'TVI Express', appeared on the scene, yet it describes it with a high-degree of accuracy. 

David Brear (copyright 2011)