Prosperity Mandala: financial scheme uses feminist discourse to deceive women

Women united in a chain of spirituality and mutual cooperation, in order to make each other’s dreams come true: this proposal seems incredible, but it may not be so. These dreams involve money, without that premise of profit as a focus. The idea is to make women find an alternative to patriarchygenerating savings without depending on the structural machismo that devalues ​​the female gender in the labor market.

The ideology of Mandala of Prosperity – or Telar dos Sonhos and Mandala of Abundanceas it is also known – is noble, but based on a perverse scheme: the old logic of the financial pyramid that promises multiplication of profits at the expense of enticing new members.

The scheme has already become popular in countries such as the United States, Mexico and Peru. For some months, it has also been gaining strength in Brazil, especially in the South and Southeast.

Explaining in practice: to join the scheme you need to be invited by someone from within it and also need to pay the equivalent of $1,700. Thus, you become a Fire Woman. The friend who invited you was a Fire Woman, but she becomes an Air Woman when she manages to convince two other women to join the Mandala. That done, it’s her turn to “invite” two more women and so on. After the Air stage, you transform into Earth Woman and finally reach the center of the Mandala, in the Water stage. The promise is that when you become a Water Woman, you will receive the sum of $1,700 ~donated~ by all the women who arrived after you at Mandala. As there will always be two Earth Women in each Mandala, at the stage when the Earths become Water, the Mandala is divided in two and a new cycle begins.

Understand better through this explanation HERE and watching this video:

The structure is a pure and simple pyramid, only on a small scale. In theory, when a Water Woman receives the money (about R$ 36,000), she should start as a Fire Woman in a new Mandala that is being formed. Even so, the scheme is bound to harm many women and benefit only a few. It is mathematically impossible for everyone to profit.

It turns out that the great idea of ​​the Prosperity Mandala is to use feminist discourse and spiritual ideology new age as the basis for his narrative. There is the premise of sisterhood as the basis of everything, but there is also a mystical foundation involved. The strength of the sacred feminine is invoked as a pillar, to convince the participants that it will work, that there pulsates an energy fed by the union of hundreds of women in pursuit of their dreams.

The whole thing takes on the contours of a sect, where it is necessary to entice more and more women, and in the most discreet way possible. There is even talk of the energy blockage that is supposedly established when a newcomer is resistant to making the payment and/or questions the legitimacy of the Mandala.

To maintain the effervescent climate among the women, meetings are held frequently. According to testimonials from former Mexican supporters, in an interview with Vice, the meetings have an air of motivational speech, mixed with the celebration of graces achieved, which is standard in any financial scheme of this type. In Mandala da Prosperidade, the feeling of rivalry and greed is not preached, even so, there are little parties to celebrate the profit acquired by the Water Women. “The applause didn’t stop, it was like birthday parties”, says a former participant. She says that the purpose of the parties was very clear: to motivate other supporters to reach the center of the Mandala – in other words, the top of the pyramid – as well. And so a passionate climate is created, a frenzy around the promise that you are on your way to making your dreams come true, as long as more women are convinced to donate money.

Women’s empowerment and the search for spirituality are very noble things, but unfortunately, they can be used perversely. This does not mean that feminism and new age philosophies are illegitimate – not at all! But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be oblivious to this type of situation, which is hurting so many people. Even so, we will continue to believe (a lot!) in the strength of women and continue to respect beliefs that preach good. It doesn’t change!