A concise analysis of the prototype 'MLM' cult

Shyam

I know that you have recently been trying to deal with some Indian police officers who are fearful of investigating 'Amway India Enterprises.' It is not difficult to imagine the reaction of busy Indian police officers when it is explained to them that 'Amway' is neither original nor unique and, consequently, it cannot be fully-understood in isolation. Unfortunately, 'Amway India Enterprises' is just one fragment of a labyrinthine, American-based, major, organized crime group which has been built following well-documented esoteric principles. Classically, the 'Amway' labyrinth was maliciously designed to be beyond ordinary human understanding. Indeed, the fearful reaction of Indian police officers, is exactly what was intended.

Here, for the benefit of your free-thinking readers, is a concise analysis of ‘Amway.’

The global organization which has been most-commonly referred to as 'Amway,' is a divisive totalitarian cult which (due to chronic US regulatory failure, and/or political corruption) has been allowed to grow out of control, generate many billions of dollars and spawn countless imitators. 'Amway' was first presented externally in the USA in 1959 as a ‘commercial’ group. This was arbitrarily defined by its instigators as the ‘Ja-Ri Corporation’ — a ‘privately-controlled, limited-liability, commercial company’ apparently supplying banal household products to an affiliated ‘Sales Network’, the ‘American Way Association’, but which internally required of its core-adherents an absolute subservience to the group and its patriarchal leadership above all other persons. The movement went on to be presented externally around the globe as a labyrinthineseries of (apparently independent) corporate structures arbitrarily defined by its instigators as the ‘Amway Corporation’ a.k.a. ‘Alticor Inc.’ a.k.a. ‘Quixtar Inc’ a.k.a. ‘Access Business Group Inc.’, etc. comprising various ‘commercial companies’, and subsidiaries apparently supplying diverse products and services to various affiliated ‘Sales Networks’; and as a further mystifying series of (apparently independent) corporate structures apparently supplying so-called 'Motivation',  ‘Training' and 'Business Support Materials’, including, ‘IBS’ (‘International Business Systems Inc.’), ‘Yager InterNet System Inc.’, ‘Internet Services Inc.’, ‘WWDB’ (‘World-Wide DreamBuilders Inc.’); ‘INA’ (‘International Networking Associates Inc.’), ‘ILDI’ (‘International Leadership Development Inc.’), ‘Creative Lifestyles Inc.’, ‘INA’ (‘International Networking Association Inc.’), ‘IDA’ (‘International Diamond Association Inc.’), ‘Network 21 Inc.’, ‘ProNet Inc.’, etc. 

'Amway's'  fictitious scenario of control has been reflected as fact to its core-adherents using a cocktail of pseudo-scientific mystification combined with the dualistic myth of the ‘Chosen People,’ plagiarized from the Bible, but transposed into the contemporary vocabulary and imagery of the ‘American Dream’. The group's joint-instigators, and first self-appointed sovereign leaders, were Richard Marvin De Vos (b. March 4^th. 1926) and Jay Van Andel (b. June 3^rd. 1924. d. December 7^th. 2004), two USAF veterans. Although they once paid many millions of dollars to avoid extradition, and imprisonment, for organizing the largest tax-fraud in Canadian legal history, for over half a century, the deconstructed explanation of their clandestine criminal objectives has been occulted by the reality-inverting, ritual terminology of: ‘MLM’ (‘Multi-Level Marketing’); ‘Direct Selling’; ‘Network Marketing’; ‘SDI’ (‘Self-Directed Income’); ‘IBO’ (‘Independent Business Owner’); ‘Free-Enterprise’; ‘Christian Values’; ‘Compassionate Capitalism’; ‘Capitalism in its Purest Form’; ‘Prosperity Gospel’; ‘Truth’; ‘God’; ‘Jesus’; ‘Lifestyle’; ‘Freedom’; ‘Financial Freedom’; ‘Freedom of Time’; ‘Exclusive’; ‘Good-Value’; ‘High-Quality’; ‘Money-Saving’; ‘Products’; ‘Services’; ‘Code of Ethics’; 'Retail Sales‘; 'Customers'; 'Retailing Rules'; Money-Back Guarantee’; ‘Nutrition’; ‘Vitamins’, ‘Nutrilite’; ‘Preventative Medicine’; ‘Artistry’, ‘Insurance’; ‘Home Security’; ‘Prospects’; ‘Sponsoring’; ‘Presenting the Opportunity’; ‘Equal Opportunity’; ‘Showing the Plan’; ‘Drawing the Circles’; ‘ABC’ (‘Amway Business Compendium’); ‘Amagram’; ‘BV’ (‘Business Volume’); ‘PV’ (‘Points Value’); ‘Sales and Marketing Plan’; 'Business Plan'; ‘Compensation Plan’; ‘Monthly Bonus Cheque’; ‘Regulation’; ‘Code of Conduct’, ‘DSA’ (‘Direct Selling Association’); ‘WFDSA’ (‘World Federation of Direct Selling Associations’); ‘Retirement’; ‘Secure Residual Income’; ‘Government Approval’; ‘Dept. of Government Affairs’; ‘Position Against Pyramid Scams’; ‘Internal Arbitration’; 'Arbitration Agreement'; ‘Distributors’;‘Diamonds’; ‘Emeralds’; ‘Pearls’; ‘Directs’; ‘Gold Producers’; ‘Silver Producers’; ‘Ambassadors’; ‘Crowns’; ‘Pin-level’; ‘Recognition’; ‘Helping’; ‘Advising’; ‘Counselling’; ‘Belief’; ‘Faith’; ‘Family’; ‘Family Reunion’; ‘Building the Dream’; ‘Dream Session’; ‘Dream Weekend’; 'Dream Stealers'; ‘Crossing the Bridge to the Future’; ‘Excitement’; ‘Motivation’; ‘Self-Betterment’; ‘Upline’; ‘Downline’; ‘2-5 Year Plan Versus the 45 Year Plan’; ‘Success’; ‘Profiles of Success’; ‘Winners’; ‘Losers’; ‘Leadership’; ‘Admiration and Respect’; ‘Negative’; ‘Positive’; ‘100 % Positive Mental Attitude’; ‘Duplication’; ‘Teamwork’, ‘Business Building Tools’; ‘Business Support Material’; ‘Business Functions’; ‘Nuts and Bolts’; ‘Step by Step Training’; ‘Training System’; ‘Plugging into the System’; ‘Seminars’; ‘Rallies’; etc.

Richard  De Vos and Jay Van Andel (and latterly their successors) organized the creation, dissolution and subversion of numerous (apparently independent) corporate structures pursuing lawful, and/or unlawful, activities to prevent, and/or divert, investigation and isolate themselves from liability. In this way, the crimnogenic ‘Amway’ organization has survived all low-level challenges to its authenticity and infiltrated traditional culture to a degree almost without parallel in the sordid pantheon of modern day cultism. Sadly, De Vos and Van Andel (and latterly their successors) have been fêted as philanthropic billionaire-industrialists and exemplary Christian conservatives by an alarming number of casual observers in the US media, and the political and religious establishment. 

The mystifying mathematical detail of the so-called ‘business plan' was originally set out in a ritual document known as the ‘Amway Business Compendium’ or 'ABC'. This mind-numbing text was standard issue in each new recruit’s so-called ‘business bit’. However, no one who became involved with ‘Amway’ did so as a result of their fully-informed consent. In reality (despite its ‘commercial’ camouflage), at its heart, ‘Amway’ was (and is) - exactly like the second 'Ku Klux Klan' of the 1920s - a divisive totalitarian cult and a perversion of traditional Judaeo-Christian beliefs and those of ‘fraternal secret societies’. Consequently, much of the ‘negative’ versus ‘positive’ ‘Amway’ jargon was a transposition of 'good' versus 'evil' Christian, or ‘sacred’ versus ‘profane’ ‘Masonic,’ terminology. The ‘Amway’ paramilitary structure was evidently copied (but transposed into commercial jargon) from ‘Freemasonry,’ which itself reproduced the initiation and command structures of medieval ‘Catholic military orders’ like the 'Knights Templar.' Consequently, 'Amway' comprises parallel pyramids of initiation and obedience.

‘Amway’ initiates were originally divided into hermetic circles of secret 'positive' knowledge: 

‘Diamond Distributor and above’ (‘Grand Master’)

'Jewel Distributor' (‘Master')

'Direct Distributor' (‘Fellow of the Craft')

'Distributor' (‘Entered Apprentice’) 

The hermetic circles of secret 'positive' knowledge were originally sub-divided into 12 ranks of obedience known as ‘Pin-Levels’: 

'Crown Ambassador Direct Distributor'.

'Crown Direct Distributor'.

'Triple Diamond Direct Distributor'.

'Double Diamond Direct Distributor'.

'Executive Diamond Direct Distributor'.

'Diamond Direct Distributor'.

'Emerald Direct Distributor'.

'Pearl Direct Distributor'.

'Ruby Direct Distributor'.

'Direct Distributor.

'Gold producer'.

'Silver Producer'

As its architects, Richard De Vos and Jay Van Andel originally occupied the pinnacle of the ‘Amway’ structure. They held themselves accountable to no one. The pair sought to overwhelm their ‘Downline’ adherents emotionally and intellectually by pretending that progressive initiation into their own God-given knowledge (coupled with total belief in its authenticity and unconditional deference to the authority of its higher initiates) would defeat a negative force of impurity and absolute evil, and lead to future, exclusive redemption in a secure, capitalist Utopia - where the ‘American Dream’ of ‘Prosperity, Happiness and Freedom’ would come true. By making total belief a prerequisite of redemption, ‘Amway’ recruits were drawn into a closed-logic trap (i.e. failure to achieve redemption was solely the fault of the individual who didn’t believe and obey totally). The ‘Amway’ pseudo-science was written in an impressive, made up, technical-sounding vocabulary. It was tailored to fit the spirit of the times. Typically, unquestioning ‘Amway’ adherents were granted ego-inflating ranks and titles, whilst non-initiates were referred to using derogatory dehumanizing terms: 'losers', dream-stealers', 'communists', etc. Although initiation at first appeared to be reasonable and benefits achievable, the ‘Amway Plan’ gradually became evermore costly and mystifying. Ultimately, it was cripplingly expensive, completely incomprehensible and its claimed benefits were never quantifiable. The self-righteous euphoria and relentless enthusiasm of core-‘Amway’ proselytizers was highly infectious and deeply misleading. They were convinced that their own salvation depended on saving others.

David Brear (copyright 2011)