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Thanks!

Many insurance salesfolks can put undue influence on say a recent widow also…. She may not really need a product, but play to their weakness and sell something to them. It also happens all the time on the internet ad someone sending their life’s savings to someone in India. My point is cults aren’t the only ones being shady. As the proverbial saying goes, a sucker is born eveyday. Everyone has to be sharp and cognizant of their surroundings and going ons. To be honest, today the influnce of cults on our society, is minimal compared to all the other cons going on in the world.

Perhaps you skipped the YT video. Hassan studied undue influence and has written about it. That's the point of this discussion thread. Yeah, to make a sale, one has to find potential buyers. But the entire ministry of The Way International was about undue influence and high demand practices.

This is certainly nothing new and not limited to cults. Salesmen use the obits, wedding license notices, new home sales documents, etc. to contact prospective clients to sell them their products. If a young couple applied for a marriage license they might be contacted about buying a life insurance policy or stocks to protect their future. If someone purchased a new home a salesman would contact them about homeowners and car insurance. They could contact a recent widow about covering their cars mechanical and electrical systems as their husband handled all this prebiously. You could say the sales person was contacting them at a vulnerable time, but if the widows transmission went out next week, she would be thankful for the coverage. It seems to me the Corps studied the book, “How To Win Friend and Influence People,” and adopted it’s principles to their goals of winning folks to the class. Good ideas will always be used for bad outcomes.

That's revolting, Penworks. Just so wrong.

Thanks for this, Rocky. As for tactics TWI used in the past to find prospects. In the 1970s, one big time leader I won't name, told us to comb throught the obituaries to find the names of families who'd lost loved ones so we could approach them, offer "comfort," and try to sign them up for the PFAL class. I found that piece of advice so revolting I never did it. At least I had some good sense tucked in my mind somewhere back then ...

Robin Boyle Laisure teaches at St. John's University School of Law https://www.stjohns.edu/law/faculty/robin-boyle-laisure On her faculty page, she lists her books and articles. This one got my attention: Undoing Undue Influence: How the Doctrine Can Avoid Judicial Subjectivity by Omitting the Vulnerability Element The YT video also mentions things that have been taught in Way Corps training and sexual coercion by way of drugs. For example (but NOT limited to this practice), having trainees write autobiographical information (i.e. from Birth to the Corps) that to be used for psychological manipulation (e.g. shaming).