The Cult I Almost Joined - Young Living Essential Oils

[Music] Mattel's new baby secret she whispers talk to you how can you take control of your life and live the way you've always wanted the answer lies in essential oils okay here it is finally the story of my involvement with the multi-level marketing company Young Living Essential Oils I've mentioned Young Living so many times on my channel I'm gonna have this display for a reason but I've never told the whole story of my past involvement or how I came to realize that it's a cult it's about time I tell that story and discuss why Young Living isn't just a business I think it was 2013 my sophomore year of college that I first started hearing about essential oils some family members of mine got involved with Young Living and started telling family friends about what the oils could do I lived on campus away from home so I only occasionally heard about oils for a while honestly I didn't pay much attention to the situation and I knew nothing about oils or Young Living for a while after my family got involved eventually some family members begin expressing to me how excited they were about starting a business selling the oils apparently they heard a lot of people made really good money selling them they also started telling me about what the oils could do simple things like alleviating headaches allergies joint pain and nausea everything sounded great to me at the time I was excited for them and believe that the oils could do all those things because I trusted my family's judgement then they told me that I could make money selling the oils too I was in college and didn't want that as a job at the time especially because the oils were too expensive for college students to buy off me my family was cool with that though and made a deal with me that I was totally on board with for a while they would build their Young Living business and while I was still in college I would learn about the oils and prepare myself to become a distributor upon graduating I would go into the family business at least part-time but preferably full-time since I'd likely be making amazing money right out of the gate given my family's mentorship the first step in this process was to begin attending classes about essential oils which my family began teaching for a few classes everything seemed great I was taught how the oils alleviated minor ailments new attendees always bought the oils at classes and I was totally on board with it all after a while though I began hearing more impressive claims about Young Living and essential oils in general Gary young the founder of Young Living said that he healed from crippling paralysis using only essential oils the government was said to be covering up cures for major diseases so they could make money and that's why essential oils were only classified as supplements rather than medicine also explanations of what the oils could do begin involving terms like frequency and detox which I could never get anyone to actually define for me I just got weirded out upon hearing all that a few months and multiple classes had gone by and I hadn't looked into any of the information I was taught myself I had just trusted my family so I decided to check things out on my own by this time my college classes had taught me how to actually recognize read and write scientific research articles and I checked out any sources which young living or to distributors cited to back up their claims none of it was even close to scholarly I then hunted for evidence within reputable literature for the oils efficacy and still nothing the things I was taught in classes about oils simply had no proof behind them I just sat on this realization for a while not telling my family about it it was all pretty disappointing soon though I've looked into the history of the company and what I found left me shocked and actually worried about my family the founder of Young Living Gary Young famously claims to have been paralyzed by a logging accident in his 20s apparently his doctor told him he'd never walk again then Young says he discovered essential oils and they healed him entirely the medical records of his accident though are nowhere to be found after his incident young started the golden six health club in Washington State in 1982 although lacking any training Young attempted to deliver his wife's baby in a whirlpool at the club this is where things start to go bad during the delivery he held his baby underwater for nearly an hour killing her the case was ruled an accident but the coroner involved said that the baby likely would have lived if it were delivered conventionally then in 1983 a federal agent went undercover to investigate young services when young offered the agent prenatal care and treatment for her mother's cancer all while falsely claiming to have graduated from the American Institute of physiology neurology he was arrested for practicing medicine without a license after pleading guilty and serving a year of probation he started a cancer clinic in Mexico where he treated patients with laetrile that's illegal in the US because it's known to produce cyanide in the body and injure or kill people and it doesn't even cure cancer later he started a clinic in claiming to be a physician that led to his arrest in 1988 for and I hope you're ready for this deceptive advertising selling unapproved medical devices and unapproved drugs manufacturing medical devices and drugs without a license advertising drugs and devices to cure cancer and practicing medicine without a license after serving even further for his crimes Gary young finally founded Young Living Essential Oils where he touted his expertise as a doctor of naturopathy with a master's in nutrition the problem was even young admitted to having gotten these degrees from Bernardin University a known mail-order diploma mill with no authorization to grant degrees his only real degree comes from his high school in Idaho Young Living knowingly utilizes a business model which has been proven to be riskier for employees than gambling as I've said before on my channel according to a study made by dr. John M Taylor which was made publicly available by the FTC ninety nine point six percent of MLM recruits lose money that's actually worse than classic no product pyramid schemes and even less lucrative than literally playing roulette in Vegas and yet Young Living continues to utilize this incredibly manipulative and unethical structure the company is also known for getting in legal trouble for directly claiming or having its distributors claim that its oils treat or cure disease young living earned an FDA warning letter in 2014 for instance for claiming that its products could treat viral infections including Ebola Parkinson's disease autism diabetes hypertension cancer insomnia heart disease post-traumatic stress disorder dementia and multiple sclerosis they're not allowed to make any of those claims because there's no scientific proof that their oils can cure any disease at all after discovering all of this I never wanted anything to do with the company again I've confronted distributors with this information including some of my family members but they've just dismissed it all reflexively many distributors responses to criticism of the company is actually vitriolic and reeks of brainwashed indoctrination it always seemed cultish to me until recently though I never actually considered Young Living a cult but now I definitely do last year I discovered telltale on YouTube who is a cult member as an extra Havas witness he consistently discusses what makes a group a cult and his channel introduced me to the work of psychologists and cult expert Steven Hassan among other scholarly work on cult psychology as I've explained on my channel before Hassan developed a tool the bite model to describe and list cult manipulation tactics and help identify cults in the real world Young Living fits the bite model to a frightening degree it spreads false information exploits people financially fosters hyper loyal self sacrificial followings etc previously on my channel I've gone through every manipulation tactic on the bite model and discuss how multi-level marketing companies utilize most of them here though I thought it'd be great to have telltale himself discuss a few of young livings most heavily used tactics which cement its cult classification so I talked about young living on my own channel a while back and at the end my conclusion was that I hadn't yet been convinced of its status as a cult since GM was heavily involved in this we talked about it and have picked out a few key points that young living meets on the bite model a few damning marks so let's take a look at a few we'll start with some markers from behavior control financial exploitation I feel comfortable saying that this is one of the biggest issues you find with the group you find people commonly blowing through their entire life savings in no time to reach higher and higher goals buying products that don't benefit them in any way next thing they know they're stuck with a bunch of useless junk that they believe has almost supernatural abilities to cure diseases Steven asan actually updated the bite model fairly recently he added a few new markers here's one he added that they definitely me major time spent with group indoctrination and rituals and/or self indoctrination including through the internet now this one could apply to a lot of different types of ideologies people can be indoctrinated in lots of different ideologies through the internet but the key here is which other markers it meets in addition to this one I would say this could apply to say for example Flat Earth that doesn't mean that flat earthers or cult members necessarily I have my own thoughts on that which I won't get into here but when you add this marker to the other markers Young Living meets I feel like it's just another nail in the coffin like I said they meet a lot of different markers it isn't just two or three from each category but I want to point out the most glaringly obvious the ones that make them occult let's take a look at information control sometimes propaganda can make or break a cult look at some of the really beautiful eye catching propaganda this is what it's all about spend lots of money on propaganda and you'll draw lots of eyes another marker they hid under information control is compartmentalizing information into insider versus outsider doctrines they demonize anybody who disagrees with them they don't want essential oils being sold on the market because it's cutting into their bottom line this is a good way to create an extremist start small and malign something that's widely distrusted and then give a pseudo scientific explanation for why you were right to distrust that thing thanks dad an antibiotic patent or muscle several times and she was on two different types of medications give them another option our product they're building a trust relationship they're feeding off of this person's fears and beliefs don't trust chemotherapy it's dangerous don't you see that people get sicker when they go through chemotherapy they might even get a sham doctor on screen to act like an underdog saying big science pushed me out because I threatened to expose them guy might not even be a doctor might just be wearing a lab coat people are ready to buy this stuff and thanks to human psychology it's a lot easier to sell than you'd think then they go through a quote unquote scientific explanation for why chemo is bad for you and they put their lavender oil up on display or tea tree oil or whatever other thing they're peddling the person being indoctrinated already has that trust relationship after being told that chemo is bad for you now they're presented with an alternative finally let me address one more point from the bite model under emotion control they make the person feel like the problems are their own fault never the leaders or the group's fault and often the people who don't succeed will blame the company and accuse it of being a scam that's especially true of young living because you're selling a fake product people are inevitably going to have a hard time selling this stuff in an effort to sell others on essential oils and essential oils products they have to perpetuate the propaganda themselves the victim becomes the victimizer they bought into these grandiose claims and now they're spreading them as though they're fact they're giving them to friends and family people who trust them and when it doesn't work it's programmed into them to blame themselves for the failures never the leader we have a solid product here we have something that cures almost any disease we just have to get it out to people if you can't manage to spread something that cures almost everything then it's your fault not the leaders so my final determination after talking with somebody who is closely associated with the group after reviewing their extreme nature in context and after looking at the new updated bite model I'm gonna have to call it it's a cult thanks for having me on glad to be here now I need to talk you into coming on my channel thanks telltale so for good reason I'm now incredibly distant from young living and I plan to keep it that way upon realizing that it's a cult I was relieved that I got away before it was too late for me but I also became incredibly worried about everyone I know who's still in it I don't know if they'll ever get out even if it seriously hurts them but if speaking out like I do prevents even one person from joining the cult I almost joined it'll be worth it thanks for watching I've been drew of genetically modified skeptic if you're not subscribed to tells he'll already fix that right now especially if you like learning about cults it's one of my favorite channels he's definitely one of my favorite people and it's more than worth yourself as always go ahead and subscribe to me check out my patreon follow me on Twitter and Facebook @ GM skeptic join my discord and until next time stay skeptical you

Channel: Genetically Modified Skeptic

Views: 807,395

Rating: 4.5486913 out of 5

Keywords: atheism, atheist, agnostic, skeptic, skepticism, genetically modified skeptic, gm skeptic, r/antimlm, multi-level marketing, MLM, Doterra, Young Living Essential Oils, Essential Oils, anti-mlm, pseudoscience, joining a cult, why people join cults, is young living essential oils a scam, young living scam, pyramid scheme, are mlms cults, BITE model, Steven Hassan, cult psychology, young living is a cult, D Gary Young, aromatherapy, alternative medicine, telltale atheist, telltale

Id: TsDrIAsVgTQ

Length: 13min 2sec (782 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 26 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/[deleted]]

He pointed out that many distributers become "vitriolic" and their responses reek of brainwashed indoctrination.

That is exactly why I won't show this video to my SIL, the Young Living hun. She is incapable of considering that she's been taken for a ride, that her oils are just smelly goop, and that Young Living was founded by a known murderous charlatan.

[u/bluehedgehogsonic]

I like that he’s calling MLMs cults, because it’s pretty close to being exactly accurate. ‘MLM’ is easy for people to dismiss as not a big deal if they’re not aware of what actually goes on in them, but if you call something a cult it makes people think about just how manipulative and toxic they are.

[u/EdgeSoSharpItHurts]

This channel is gold in my opinion.

[u/SevanIII]

As a former Jehovah's Witness, I'm already subscribed to Telltale. So nice to see him featured here and learn about another cool YouTuber.

[u/iagbbt]

Wow, the founder was terrible.

[u/infernalkitty216]

He's by far one of my favorite youtubers.

[u/spuddo2018]

Good to see Drew featured here again! He does such a good job explaining how MLMs are tantamount to cults. I wish he got more love!

[u/[deleted]]

Yes! I love his MLM videos

[u/charisma2006]

I just came across this video and am watching it now. Glad to see it’s been posted already. This is terrifying, honestly.