by bobld 19 Replies latest jw friends
Surely the set-up that Chazzer Russell had from the start with selling his Studies in the Scriptures via "Colporteurs" was near as dammit MLM ? and Rutherford continued and expanded it with his "Advertise Advertise Advertise " Sales Meeting (Convention).
Getting suckers to market your crap merchandise for you using cult methods is not new I guess.
Cults do not at all have to be religious in nature, what defines them is the methods they use. My ex husband joined at one point, he was quite drawn to MLM, he like the ego massage of the recruiting sessions. Of course he never made any money at it. I hated it from the get go, it seemed like a sucker deal. You buy soap at retail and try to sell it to your friends and family at twice it's actual value, then try to recruit them to do the same. If you con enough suckers into joining, you might have a chance to get a piece of that inflated price, otherwise you bought a lot of overpriced soap and alienated your entire group of friends and family. Yeah, sign me up for that!
years ago my ex inlaws were heavily into amway....and they were/are witnessess..I said then to them that both orgs were similar in structure...they did not appreciate my analysis!!..it's all pyramid strutured ..(rather fittting in view of early events in jw origins...)
I've posted this story over the years on many an Amway thread. My brother got recruited into it. A young engineer showed up and convinced my brother to join. My brother bought a "starter pack" of some kind and paid a membership fee. He was very excited about it until he went to one of their meetings. Amway met three times a week. The Witnesses met three times a week. Amway had three annual conventions. The Witnesses had three annual conventions. What put it over the top for him was the religious nature of the meetings and how similar they were to Witness meetings.
My brother is also a big believer in spiritism, the demons and what not, so he decided to quit Amway because he felt a "demonic presence" in the Amway meetings. More than likely it was a voice coming from the recesses of his mind trying to warn him that the Witnesses were just as goofy as the Amway people. He preferred to attribute the discomfort he felt to "the demons" and was able to continue with his life without having to reassess his life choices.
Aunt Fancy and AnnOMaly - I sure appreciate your support of my book "Journey to God's House". People like you have made my writing experience fulfilling.
NeverendingJourney - I am realizing now that recognizing a parallel between MLM and the Watch Tower Society is not all that new... or brilliant. I have mixed feelings about that now because on the one hand I now know that people will mostly likely agree with my position on it when my book finally comes out. But on the other hand that means many people like you will say to yourself "Duh. It's so obvious." Oh well. I'm going to write about it anyway because it was part of my life experience. I'm a bit embarrassed to say now that I thought I was being very clever to include this as a chapter in my book.
Maybe in the end it really just goes to show how observant and clever so many people on this board are, and that I should also get on it and read more often.
Brock Talon
LivingTheDream,
I didn't intend to be condescending. There's a lot of wisdom on this board. I first came here seven or eight years ago and I would stay up until 4 a.m. reading eye-opening thread after thread. It was a revelation at the time, but now it seems so obvious. There were a lot of things that I was blind to that others picked up on while they were still in. I wish you the best of luck with your book. While some of us may already be aware of the parallels, I'm sure others will benefit from seeing them for the first time.
I can only speak for myself, but this thread was the first time I'd seen this parallel made so clearly. I've seen people here call the religion an MLM scheme before, but I had no idea Amway et al. were actually so similar to the religion. It's definitely thought-provoking.
Neverendingjourney -
I didn't take what you said as condescending all. You were just stating fact that I was unaware of. I suppose I was just humbled by the notion that it's very possible none of my observations are all that original.
Oh well, hopefully the way I express them will be.
Brock Talon
Amway and the WTS have always been disturbingly similar; it weirded me out even back when I was a dutiful JW.
Brock Talon (LTD)
Not to worry-all success in your new book.
I used the illustration to show the deceiving and sneaky ways of some organizations to recruit new members.
