When “Hope” Becomes Harm: The Hidden Dangers of High-Demand Groups and MLM Schemes

In times of grief, disillusionment, and uncertainty, many of us find ourselves searching for meaning. For purpose. For healing. For belonging. And it’s in this deeply human search that high-demand groups, pyramid schemes, and manipulative communities quietly thrive, all while claiming to offer light, leadership, liberation, or love.

These groups promise empowerment, spiritual awakening, or financial freedom, but all too often, they prey on people who are vulnerable, exhausted, in need of community, or navigating trauma and hardship. Instead of freedom, they create dependency. Instead of healing, they foster confusion. And instead of empowerment, they offer control, often wrapped in love-bombing, carefully crafted words, and a false sense of unity.

Who Gets Targeted?

These schemes often prey on:

• People who’ve experienced deep trauma or grief

• Those with mental health struggles

• Indigenous communities, especially when language of ancestral healing is misused

• People in financial distress or feeling stuck

• Women and mothers seeking purpose, connection, or “work from home” solutions

• Spiritual seekers longing for depth, ritual, or identity

• Those craving community and genuine connection

The most dangerous part? These groups often don’t look dangerous at first glance. In fact, they often look exactly like you, because they intentionally present themselves that way.

The Cult Leader Disguised as “Your Friend”

One of the most insidious patterns is how cult leaders and group founders stay quietly in the background. They rarely appear authoritarian, instead, they present as humble, grounded, and “just like you.” They’ll say:

• “I’m not your guru.”

• “We’re all equals here.”

• “This is a collective, not a hierarchy.”

But behind the scenes, they’re reaping the rewards:

• Living in luxury while asking you to “invest in your growth”

• Using your vulnerability to create emotional or financial dependence

• Letting their “team” or community do the emotional labour, recruitment, and loyalty-building

• Acting like they’re your peer, while they’re absolutely in control

This false humility is a manipulation tactic. It disarms your scepticism. It makes you trust them. Because if they look “relatable,” they don’t look threatening. But in truth, there is often a carefully maintained hierarchy, with inner circles, financial power, and total lack of transparency at the top.

Some leaders appear humble and grounded, while others flaunt their wealth, using expensive cars, designer clothes, and overseas retreats to sell a dream. They’ll claim, “This is possible for you too,” suggesting that your financial security, your children’s future, and even the healing of the planet depends on following their lead. It’s emotional blackmail dressed up as inspiration. One moment they are sharing a vlog of them in checkered shirt, sport shoes, feeding their chickens in an eco friendly home, the next, strutting around in thier $10k YSL pant suit getting chauffeured in their Bentley. 🙄

Tactics They Use to Pull You In

• Love-bombing: You feel celebrated, seen, adored, especially in the beginning

• Trauma-targeting: They speak directly to your wounds, and promise healing

• Scarcity pressure: “Only a few spots left.” “This is your one chance.”

• Blame-shifting: If it doesn’t work, you weren’t committed enough

• Emotional dependency: You feel like you need them to stay on your path

• Financial manipulation: You’re asked to pay again and again, always being promised “this one will be the breakthrough”

• Sexual/spiritual entanglement: Boundaries blur under the guise of intimacy or embodiment

• Contradictory messaging (see below)

• Isolation tactics: You’re told to only trust those inside the group

• False transparency: They share personal stories that seem raw, but only to build rapport, not accountability

• Fear-mongering: You’re told that if you question anything or stop someone else from joining, bad karma will follow. You’ll “block their spiritual path” and cause suffering. It’s used to control both your actions and your guilt

Coerced Control of Friendships and Relationships

These groups will often attempt to dictate who you spend time with and who you confide in. Over time, you’re discouraged, sometimes gently, sometimes not, from maintaining friendships or family connections with people outside the group. You’re told that others are “not in alignment,” or that “they’re holding you back,” or even that they’re “ dangerous” or “you a danger to them”. Family and friends who raise valid concerns are dismissed as negative, unconscious, “unawake” or “jealous of your growth.”

The result is isolation. You begin to only trust people within the group, only wanting to date people within the group is common for example only wanting a partner who is aligned with your future goals and values, further entrenching your dependence on the system. And that’s exactly what they want: to become your entire world.

Common Contradictions You Might Notice

These groups are often riddled with confusing double standards:

• They say there’s no hierarchy, but there’s always someone at the top with more access, more power, and more wealth

• They claim you are “awake” or more “self-aware” than others, but we are also equal

•They take your humanity by claiming natural human emotions such as grief, anger, sadness are something to fix or “shift” to get to a higher vibration or “mode” or to “manifest” something better for yourself and bypass your human experience, whilst getting you to commit to saving all of humanity by first “saving yourself” (classic toxic positivity and spiritual bypassing)

• They claim “you are whole,” yet constantly sell you the next thing to become more “empowered”

• They profess to be inclusive, yet subtly or overtly shame those who can’t afford to pay or make it financially inaccessible for all walks of life to attend, you’ll often see this reflected in the large percentage of attendees being middle aged to older white women

• They claim to be anti-capitalist or “against the system,” while charging thousands for courses and living lavishly

• They say, “follow your intuition,” but if you question them, you’re accused of “being in resistance”

• They encourage authenticity, but only when it aligns with the group narrative

• They say they’re not your saviour, but treat your trauma as something they alone can fix

• They will claim you’re indoctrinated by the system and dismantle you’re whole belief system to nothing, but are more than happy to plant their own affirmations and beliefs into you and build you up from scratch in the way that suits them

• If you question anything they will claim it is your own transgressions being projected on to them

• They encourage being curious but not about them

• Everyone is scared of the leaders even those that have been apart of the group for decades

• There’s an initiation (enough said)

This contradiction keeps people confused and emotionally destabilised. It’s a deliberate tactic: if you can’t make sense of what’s happening, you’re less likely to leave and put your full trust in others over yourself.

Emotional Manipulation Through Integrity and Responsibility

Another tactic is using powerful language around integrity and responsibility, not to empower, but to trap. You’re told:

• “You need to keep doing the work to clear for future generations.”

• “Stay in integrity and follow through.”

• “This is your sacred responsibility to the collective.”

• “You’re doing this for your great-great-grandchildren.”

This sounds noble. But it becomes a coercive force: a spiritualised guilt trip. You’re constantly made to feel like you’re letting humanity down if you don’t invest more, show up more, or push through. Responsibility becomes compliance. Integrity becomes never saying no and always self-reflecting and “doing the work”

They Steal Content Without Credit

High-demand groups, especially in the self-development, spiritual, or coaching industries, also often present teachings and materials as their own, without referencing or crediting their original sources. This is another red flag. You may hear neuroscience, psychology, yoga philosophy, trauma theory, indigenous wisdom, or nervous system language being used, but none of it is cited. They claim authorship as a way to elevate their own image as a “thought leader” or “new age entrepreneur,” when in truth they are appropriating knowledge without integrity. Or claiming that in actual fact the ideas and tools came to them by some divine source or spiritual experience, from angels or aliens.

Red Flags to Watch Out For

• They say “we’re all equals,” but there’s an unspoken hierarchy that you may even aspire to climb up to • When you, yourself are hiding what you are doing, how much you are spending and regurgitating the same scripts and jargon either given to you or that has rubbed off on you

• They tell you not to name the product/course/strategy at first to rope people in by creating curiosity

• Someone else gets a cut of what you make

• The leader pretends to be “humble,” while being revered like a prophet and gratitude is encouraged to be expressed in some shape or form towards them

• There’s a constant pressure to recruit others to contribute to “ the mission” to prove your commitment or help others thrive

• You feel guilty when you can’t invest more money and you haven’t made your money back

• They use spiritual or psychological jargon to gaslight your discomfort

• Transparency is vague /no clear costs, no clear boundaries, they encourage debt

• You’re discouraged from outside support from family, therapy or exploring other modalities

• You feel more dependent over time, not freer

• You’re told your “blocks” are why you’re not succeeding, never the system

• They belittle you by scorning you like a child often in front of others or claim “ you’re just not ready” keeping you dependant on the leaders approval or the need to keep coming back to work on yourself, to “change”, to “do better”

• They use reverse psychology or manipulate you with the fears you’ve confided in them especially if that fear is them rejecting you, they then might reject you to keep you coming back for more, to prove you are worthy of them

**Note: ( it only takes just one of these red flags 🚩 to be deemed a Cult/HDG or Pyramid scheme )**

How to Protect Yourself

• Ask direct questions. About money, training, qualifications, and power structures

• Check for legal complaints, negative reviews, or stories from past members, notice if you bring this to them, do they claim the “complainer” just wasn’t ready to do the work or “take personal responsibility”

• Trust your nervous system. If something feels off, believe that

• Talk to people outside the group. If you feel discouraged from doing that, big red flag

• Look for patterns, not just people. Even “kind” leaders can be part of toxic systems

• Notice your sense of self. Are you feeling stronger, or more reliant on the group?

• Watch how they respond to dissent. Do they invite curiosity or shut it down?

• Trust your body

The Cost of Staying

Many people only realise after months or years sometimes decades that the group or scheme has:

• Drained their bank accounts

• Taken over their time, energy, and relationships

• Burnt them out physically, mentally and emotionally

• Hijacked their identity and self-trust

• Left them more isolated, confused, and spiritually disconnected than when they started

And sometimes the exit is traumatic, because by then, the group is your identity. Your friends, your work, your worldview.

But leaving is not failure. It’s a return to yourself.

You are not broken, naïve, or unworthy if you’ve been pulled into one of these systems. You do NOT need to feel embarrassed. You are human. Your vulnerability, kindness and aspiration to grow and heal has been exploited…remember that! These schemes are masterfully designed to find your deepest pain, fears and dreams to use to coerce you into keep “moving forward” with them. To be enlightened so you can heal humanity.

But healing isn’t a product.

Liberation doesn’t need a monthly payment or debt.

And empowerment doesn’t require submission.

You don’t need to commit, purchase, or prove your way into wholeness. You already belong to yourself, to your own truth, to the people who love you without conditions.

Stay discerning.

Ask questions.

And if someone says, “This is the only way…”

Run the other way!