Right out of college I got tricked into going to a presentation by a cult leader, and it was a lot like these Amway meetings sound. It was a group called the American Buddhist Church, the leader was a white guy, a former psychotherapist I think, who called himself "Rama".
He had a very strange take on Buddhism, that didn't fit with much of what I knew about it beforehand. He talked a lot about how materialism is not incompatible with spiritualism, using himself as the exemplar: he bragged about his Mercedes and his American Express card, and how he could achieve enlightenment while also embracing the pursuit and trappings of wealth.
I almost laughed when he said he was levitating, but those of us who hadn't started our spiritual path couldn't perceive it.
I later learned that the American Buddhist Church combines the People's Temple with Amway: recruits to the church were given training in programming software and then sent out to do contract work as developers while most of their earnings were funneled back into the church.
Finally there was the inevitable cult scandal, in this case "Rama" was implicated in the suspicious death of a follower, and Rama himself died under mysterious circumstances, possibly as part of a suicide pact.
Anyway, almost 20 years on it stands out in memory as a truly bizarre experience. As you can see I've kept track of the group ever since.
The only people making it in AMWAY now are people from Asian speaking countries. People who have never heard of AMWAY until 10 years ago.
