MLM and network marketing businesses tend to have similarities with religious thinking. Let me know if you disagree or if you consider MLM legitimate in some way. Can also apply to forex and options scams, vending machine scams, work at home, and other "be your own boss" opportunities where you tend to be a part of a system you have to pay for.

-Tends to rely on wishful thinking, faith, optimism, enthusiasm, and positive expectations rather than realism.

-Criticizes any criticism as negative thinking detrimental to the positive vision of the program.

-Often relies on "converting" people to believe in the business, starting with close friends and family members. Members can become more fanatical and aggressive by believing they will do better by converting more. Regular social behavior becomes unimportant and neglected in favor of the communal optimism of the group of people who believe in the system. Money is spent on books and videos that are worthless to those outside the belief system.

-Members often give some "insignificant" amount of money to the business in charge with some vague promise of helping the member in the long run, without ever seeing where the money goes or any direct results.

-Physical gatherings of likeminded people use persuasion, enthusiasm, rhetoric, stories, "common sense" analogies, and hearsay often involving something miraculous that a friend has experienced.

-May involve bothering strangers and going door to door to take an hour of someone's time to persuade them. Tends to have a powerful but intrusive presence on television, in print and online.

-Legitimization of business structure by referring to own success and membership numbers, making claims that more people will see the light and become members, more customers will shop through them than traditional business, and that society itself will switch to the MLM structure. Meanwhile, traditional business taught in schools is villainized, seen as wrong or flawed, and is seen as something illegitimate compared to the "inevitable truth" of MLM in the future.

-Structural hierarchy involves people at the top who spread positive messages to persuade members and the public of while ignoring faults and scandals. May set up related organizations, subsidiaries, and training centers to create a self legitimizing community, or try to have some influence in traditional businesses before being kicked out or sued. Often has breakaway businesses from members who decide to leave and start their own sect where they can be in charge, creating communities of conflicting ideals which all believe they are right.

-The future is heavily emphasized, claiming "this is how things will be," overcoming and superceding traditional business. Proof of superiority over traditional business is given in self referential pamphlets and literature that make enthusiastic predictions, use persuasive rhetoric, give fantastic ideals and promises that rely on imagining an extremely positive outcome, and promise a potentially negative outcome as "punishment" if you don't follow the system. Failure, negativity, and lack of belief is the fault of the individual, not the system.

- Participants often don't realize when they're being manipulated or fleeced, and will use confirmation bias to point out positive results within a sea of negative results. Those who are truly blinded will have faith no matter what, trying to convince others to join and believe with them, even if it means lying to one's self and promoting delusional thinking.

-Lies repeated enough become held as truth.