I just started to watch a Netflix series called Unwell. The first episode is all about essential oils. They interview a lot of different people and show different sides to the essential oil industry.

It shows totally nutso obsessed people who have bought into essential oils as medicine to an extent that is practically cult-like. And they also interview people with scientific backgrounds who can speak to the fact that essential oils are not actually curative.

At the end of the episode, they talk about a famous essential oils company called Young Living. apparently thousands of people were conned by this company into becoming salespersons as an MLM pyramid scheme.

Basically, someone would become a salesperson for the company and they were expected to sell all the products but to also spend thousands of dollars of their own money buying those products in order to be a salesperson! The only way they could make money was if they recruited other sales people into the scheme. And even then, they would not get commission on their "downline" sellers (those they recruited) unless they gave the company $100 a month! Not surprisingly, those salespeople lost tons of money.

The fact that they were expected to recruit other sellers reminded me of SGI and how we were all expected to convert other people, get them to join SGI and buy a gohonzon. Except for the fact that even if recruited hundreds of people, we got literally nothing out of it... Nothing but a huge headache and responsibility to make sure that all of those people retained their practice, went to meetings, studied, etc etc. More free labor and money for SGI!

I brought a couple of acquaintances to one of my district meetings some years ago. These guys were actually very well educated on real Buddhism. So they found SGI to be complete nonsense, of course. I remember really talking up the practice to them at the meeting and they literally asked me, "What are you getting out of this? Do you get paid to convert people?" I just laughed because I thought that was so crazy! I had been indoctrinated to tell them that I only wanted to share the practice because it was so effective in my life and I wanted everybody to have that benefit.

Looking back on it now, those guys were on the right track to thinking that SGI was some sort of pyramid scheme. Except that I guess it technically isn't because the religious "sellers" who do shakabuku are not getting a penny for any of their hard work. All the benefits go to SGI in the end.

Another similarity between the MLM pyramid scheme and SGI is the fact that they both encourage their sellers/members to recruit EVERYbody they know - friends, family, people they haven't talked to in years. You are basically trying to turn all of the people that you care about into the profits for your own business. And in the case of SGI, you end up scaring all those people away with your religious zealotry and insistence that people try the practice. OR you suck them into the sick cycle of cult life, and when/if you ever wake up to the truth, you are stuck in a very awkward situation in which you have to try to explain to your recruitments why you suddenly had a change of heart. Any way you look at it, it's bad news.