Keith Raniere

Don't Call It a Cult: The Shocking Story of Keith Raniere and the Women of NXIVM

by Sarah Berman  · 19 Apr 2021  · 399pp  · 107,932 words

Raniere Acknowledgments Notes Index Photo Insert CAST OF CHARACTERS Adrian* Brother of Marianna, Daniela, and Camila. All three sisters were groomed for sexual relationships with Keith Raniere at a young age. Adriana* Mother of Marianna, Daniela, Adrian, and Camila. Moved the family from Mexico to Albany starting in 2002. Enforced Daniela’

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s confinement in 2010. Agnifilo, Marc Lead defense lawyer for Keith Raniere. Ames, Anthony Actor and longtime NXIVM coach. Husband of Sarah Edmondson. Aviv, Juval Private investigator hired by NXIVM. Banks, Teah Girlfriend of Mark Vicente when

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NXIVM publicist turned tabloid blogger. Briefly worked on Bronfman real estate project in L.A. Penza, Moira Kim Eastern District of New York prosecutor at Keith Raniere’s 2019 trial, along with colleagues Tanya Hajjar, Mark Lesko, and others. Piesse, Bonnie Actor and NXIVM whistleblower. Wife of Mark Vicente. Powers, Kenny

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and persuasive NXIVM executive. Testified against Raniere and pleaded to racketeering charges for her role in secret sorority. Salzman, Nancy Hypnotherapist who cofounded NXIVM with Keith Raniere in 1998. Convicted of racketeering. Snyder, Kristin Disappeared after a NXIVM intensive in 2003. Friends say she suffered a psychological break. Disappearance was ruled

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a suicide. Target of hacking and spying. Sutton, Michael Son of wealthy New Jersey parents. Lost $1.3 million to Keith Raniere’s commodity trading bets. Subject of failed intervention by cult expert Rick Alan Ross. Sutton, Morris and Rochelle Wealthy New Jersey couple hired Rick Alan

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Added to NXIVM’s growing list of enemies. Skip Notes *Identified by first name only in keeping with court ruling. PROLOGUE “The Most Ethical Man” Keith Raniere needed sleep, that much was clear. How much sleep? Well, for decades before his arrest in March 2018, that was a point of debate. Some

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sex trafficking. Over the coming weeks, lead prosecutor Moira Kim Penza and her colleagues would walk the jury through a gut-wrenching version of the Keith Raniere story. Raniere secretly groomed three young Mexican sisters into sexual relationships, photographing one of them naked when she was fifteen years old. He confined one

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: she’d told me about the sashes they wore to denote each member’s rank, about secret handshakes, and about bowing to a photo of Keith Raniere, whom they called “Vanguard.” In my notebook I had bullet points on calorie restriction, sleep deprivation, arranged marriage, and BDSM-style punishment. Edmondson was

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girls was just getting started. CHAPTER THREE Mothership, New York Heidi Hutchinson caught her fifteen-year-old sister Gina with a twenty-four-year-old Keith Raniere in her bedroom during the Christmas holidays. It was 1984. Heidi and Gina lived in Clifton Park, a quiet, mostly white suburb less than

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bank accounts on the line. CHAPTER FIVE When Keith Met Nancy (and Lauren) The beginning of NXIVM was also the beginning of the end of Keith Raniere’s relationship with Toni Natalie. In the wake of the Consumers’ Buyline shutdown, Raniere and Natalie redirected their efforts to a new multi-level

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, put on a colored sash that signaled their rank in the organization, and bow when entering and leaving the teaching room. They learned that Keith Raniere was the leader of a philosophical movement and therefore held the title Vanguard. When whoever was leading the session arrived, students were encouraged to stand

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a new “chosen one” to be Raniere’s girlfriend and business partner. CHAPTER SIX Albany Shrugged Only five months after Toni Natalie walked out on Keith Raniere, Barbara Bouchey received a fateful phone call. Pam Cafritz had picked Bouchey’s asset management company out of the Yellow Pages because it listed two

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would pale in comparison to the legal spending and commodity trading losses they would incur in the next several years. CHAPTER EIGHT Us vs. Them Keith Raniere had reason to be wary of reporters. When newspapers reached out for comment during his Consumers’ Buyline days, it was usually about unflattering accusations,

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whatever he could on the proposal, completely unaware of the reporting rabbit hole he was about to venture down. “I didn’t know anything about Keith Raniere. I didn’t really know anything about this group,” he said, recalling the quiet before the storm. Yusko heard from neighbors that before the

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he would talk about his experience,” Ross recalled of the beachside intervention, which stretched out over several days. “It was then that I learned that Keith Raniere had a special title of Vanguard. And that they celebrated his birthday during Vanguard Week.” Ross revised his assessment of NXIVM, telling Michael Sutton that

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the Los Angeles development scheme, often in increments of half a million dollars every couple of weeks. * * * — WHEN FRANK PARLATO was first hired by Keith Raniere in 2007, it was to fix NXIVM’s public relations troubles. The company was fighting off bad press, and Parlato was brought on to place

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I wanna do,’ ” Edmondson told the CBC. This new way of looking at health and relationships impressed her. She listened as Vicente told her about Keith Raniere, a guy with a really, really high IQ—a true polymath with concert pianist skills—bringing people together to change the world. Vicente was still

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—in attracting younger creative types to NXIVM. CHAPTER FOURTEEN An Ethical Breach In many ways, Daniela was the perfect candidate to act as accomplice in Keith Raniere’s secret mission. She was a fast learner and a capable computer programmer. But more importantly, she didn’t “cause problems.” Initially she seemed

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set in by 2006, another six years would pass before Daniela escaped Albany for good. CHAPTER FIFTEEN Golden Boy Daniela didn’t want to have Keith Raniere’s baby, but there were many women in the NXIVM community who did. Publicly, Raniere maintained that he’d renounced all physical pleasure and

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the adoption story that Nancy Salzman and Barbara Jeske were spreading. After more than six months of investigation, Kirsopp finally confirmed that Kristin Keeffe and Keith Raniere were the parents. “Whatever story had been put out there by NXIVM was a fallacy,” Kirsopp said in a Vice interview in 2017. * * * — GAELYN

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of dollars and that the company had lost millions as a result of Bouchey’s extortion efforts. “Barbara Bouchey has flagrantly slandered Nancy Salzman and Keith Raniere,” reads part of the letter. The Bronfmans fired Bouchey as their financial manager on May 1, 2009. A year later, Bouchey filed for bankruptcy.

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, and being spun a certain way…. When we consume this skewed media it distorts our perception of reality.” The pitch went on to say that Keith Raniere had guided the development of a news analysis “product” that would raise media standards “forever.” “What we need is scientific media. Media with high

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women were receiving this escalating attention from Raniere, it seemed only a matter of time until things went too far. CHAPTER TWENTY Slave Number One Keith Raniere had a lot of secret girlfriends. But the level of secrecy varied widely, depending on the girlfriend, and this had an interesting effect. If

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CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE The Call Barbara Bouchey was speechless. It had been more than five years since she’d left her boyfriend and business partner Keith Raniere behind—though he continued to chase her with lawsuits in several states. NXIVM had accused Bouchey of defamation and breach of client confidentiality, and she

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s trying to enslave,” Keeffe told her. * * * — FOR NEARLY TWO hours Keeffe unloaded her knowledge of what she described as crimes and conspiracies committed by Keith Raniere, Nancy Salzman, Emiliano Salinas, and Clare Bronfman. This included an alleged plot to get Bouchey and others thrown in jail in Mexico. Keeffe asked whether

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master and I told them to.” CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE Reckoning In March 2017, Mark Vicente was reaching a point where he had to choose between Keith Raniere and his wife, actor and former NXIVM member Bonnie Piesse. Piesse had decided in January to resign from all things NXIVM over conflicts she

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the worst part was my closest male friend not believing me.” The next day, October 17, 2017, The New York Times published an investigation into Keith Raniere, another man who, like Harvey Weinstein, stood accused of feeling entitled to the bodies of women he encountered. Edmondson was featured on the front page

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bad, or criminal. The irony wasn’t lost on Edmondson: it took leaving and challenging NXIVM to finally uphold the world-changing ideals she thought Keith Raniere had taught her. EPILOGUE Vanguard on Trial Nancy Salzman was the first to plead, in mid-March 2019. Suddenly, after months of silence from lawyers

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around them better.” Mack said it had been her motivation to help others, “misguided though it was,” that brought her closer to Keith Raniere. “Through it all, I believed that Keith Raniere’s intentions were to help people, and that my adherence to his system of beliefs would help empower others and help them

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same afternoon as Bronfman. Four out of five defendants had moved from the “not guilty” column to “guilty.” There was only one left. * * * — WHEN KEITH RANIERE’S day in court finally arrived, on May 7, 2019, he was a lone defendant with the knowledge that his closest allies had all pleaded

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fraud conspiracy: guilty. Forced labor conspiracy: guilty. Sex trafficking: guilty. Sex trafficking conspiracy: guilty. Attempted sex trafficking: guilty. * * * — MORE THAN A year went by before Keith Raniere faced Judge Nicholas Garaufis for sentencing in October 2020. Raniere’s remaining followers, Nicki Clyne and four other DOS loyalists among them, lined up outside

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2019. disposable phones: Ibid. might have included group sex: Ibid. taking the red pill: Interview with Maja Miljkovic, July 2018. dramatic scene unfolding: NXIVM Founder Keith Raniere Arrested on Sex Trafficking Charges, ABC News video, April 2018. indicted for racketeering: Criminal complaint, USA v. Raniere et al, July 2018. sexually explicit pictures

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IQ Tests website. shameful secret: Incident was first recounted to Bowen Xiao in The Epoch Times, May 28, 2018. Raniere read the Isaac Asimov novel: Keith Raniere affidavit, NXIVM v. Ross et al, August 29, 2003, 7. ready for a lifetime together: Barbara Bouchey, quoted in “Sex, Money and Nazis,” Uncover:

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with Toni Natalie, May 2020. had grown an average of 40 percent: Raniere affidavit, NXIVM v. Ross et al, August 2003, 10. “quite the creature”: Keith Raniere address to followers, 2014. he had a “type”: Interview with Sarah Edmondson, October 2017. $39 annual fee: Rhodes v. Consumers’ Buyline, August 21, 1992.

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wins and growth: Toni Natalie interview, May 2020. pitching in with advertising: Ibid. “her entire flock followed”: Toni Natalie, The Program: Inside the Mind of Keith Raniere and the Rise and Fall of NXIVM (New York: Grand Central Publishing, 2019), 53. Arkansas was one of the first: Attorney General complaint, Arkansas v

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MET NANCY (AND LAUREN) a new multi-level marketing company: Toni Natalie interview, October 2017. Also in Toni Natalie, The Program: Inside the Mind of Keith Raniere and the Rise and Fall of NXIVM (New York: Grand Central Publishing, 2019), 83. wasn’t living up to relationship agreements: Toni Natalie interview, April

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Exile (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1993), 93. no such thing as a “victim”: Ibid, 71–73. used Scientology terminology: i.e., “overt” in Keith Raniere letter to Toni Natalie, May 12, 1999. denied being influenced by Dianetics: Raniere deposition, March 2009, 362. raised almost $50,000: “The Concept School,” Raniere

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O’Hara v. Raniere et al, 2012, 8. Salzman was a senior: Lauren Salzman testimony, USA v. Raniere et al, May 2019. a patent application: Keith Raniere, The Rational Inquiry Method, Application number 09/654,423, filed September 4, 2000, rejected August 19, 2004. early trial run of classes: Lauren Salzman testimony

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NXIVM v. Ross et al, August 22, 2003. more than twenty factual falsehoods: Raniere affidavit, NXIVM v. Ross et al, August 2003. joyous interdependent civilization: Keith Raniere quoted in Dennis Yusko, “Group Gathers Both Acolytes, Doubters,” Albany Times Union, August 28, 2003. complete radical shift: Kristin Keeffe, quoted in Ibid. campaign contributions

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Plyam et al, 2009, 58. CHAPTER 10: MISSION IN MEXICO she got it right: Daniela testimony, May 2019. wrote a story for Vice: Sarah Berman, “Keith Raniere’s ‘Sex Cult’ Was Powered by Gaslighting, Experts and Witnesses Testify,” Vice, June 11, 2019. CHAPTER 11: THE HEIST multibillion-dollar self-help industry: The

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Claims,” Vice, May 1, 2018. “philosophical founder”: Mark Vicente testimony, May 9, 2019. You could say I don’t know what I’m talking about: Keith Raniere Conversations on YouTube. CHAPTER 20: SLAVE NUMBER ONE more emotionally mature: Daniela testimony, May 2019. secret boyfriend for nearly nine years: Camila texts, USA v

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Weinstein: Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey, “Harvey Weinstein Paid Off Sexual Harassment Accusers for Decades,” The New York Times, October 5, 2017. an investigation into Keith Raniere: Barry Meier, “Inside the Secretive Group Where Women Are Branded,” The New York Times, October 2017. the U.S. Declaration of Independence: Lauren Salzman testimony

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book have been included for use as search terms. They can be located by using the search feature of your e-book reader. Note: KR = Keith Raniere A Adrian (brother to Daniela) Adriana (mother to Daniela) Agnifilo, Marc as KR’s defense lawyer and KR’s use of abortion Ames, Anthony

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NXIVM classes in 2002 and 2003. Photo courtesy of Barbara Bouchey An inner circle photo taken at V-Week in 2006. Back row: Barbara Bouchey, Keith Raniere, Lauren Salzman, Pam Cafritz. Middle row: Sara Bronfman (with the hat), Kathy Russell, Monica Duran, Karen Unterreiner, Linda Smith. Bottom row: faces have been

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harboring an illegal migrant for financial gain in April 2019. She was sentenced to six years and nine months in federal prison. © Drew Angerer/Getty Keith Raniere’s defense attorney Marc Agnifilo. © Mark Lennihan – AP/Canadian Press The Eastern District of New York’s lead prosecutor Moira Penza. © Mark Lennihan – AP/

Scarred: The True Story of How I Escaped NXIVM, the Cult That Bound My Life

by Sarah Edmondson  · 16 Sep 2019  · 227pp  · 76,850 words

executives chose the spot for its location, just a four-minute drive from the Albany, New York, suburb of Clifton Park—home to our founder Keith Raniere and the upper ranks of his team, including Lauren. Physical proximity is crucial to Keith, and all the women who work as senior-level coaches

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constructed to serve as the ultimate “trauma bonding” to connect us five women with one another for life. (This sadistic type of conditioning is classic Keith Raniere methodology.) I’ll learn how they were bringing me in to recruit young women whom they would coerce to have sex with Keith. This mark

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in the world that the Dalai Lama spoke at a NXIVM event and even agreed to provide the foreword for the book that our founder, Keith Raniere, had written. Some of the best-known CEOs, actors, and spiritual figures on the planet had endorsed him—and we were his megaphone, his tentacles

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. Nancy Salzman’s praise fell on me like I was a rescued puppy waiting for crumbs. Known to ESP students as Prefect, Nancy had been Keith Raniere’s right hand since they founded NXIVM in 1998. She wasn’t only the self-help group’s highest coach; she was the head of

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her. Unfortunately, not even her mastery of these paradigms would be enough to save her from the fate she’d encounter as the president of Keith Raniere’s organization. Away from an audience, Nancy could be harshly critical—but over the years she’d pushed me, and she had my respect. I

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meeting, or to brainstorm new curricula, I had no idea there was such a strong likelihood that each of them had at some point been Keith Raniere’s sexual partner. In fact, as these women worked closely with one another over the years to develop new education, sales, and enrollment strategies, every

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while in port. One morning while wading knee-deep in crystal waters, Mark shared with us that he’d recently joined an organization run by Keith Raniere, whom he said was one of the smartest men in the world. He explained that about five years earlier, Keith had started NXIVM (pronounced “NEX

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, this was one of several questions I had. I also had to wonder: why were the leaders instructing us to refer to NXIVM’s founder, Keith Raniere, by the name Vanguard? Why were we paying what they called “tribute” to him, like prayers recited as a group, when he wasn’t even

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time when we still believed in Santa Claus, then of course we would hold other beliefs that weren’t based in reality. As part of Keith Raniere’s science-inspired “technology,” Nancy claimed that ESP would “upgrade your programming.” These seemingly simple breakthroughs—such as that dishes or going to sleep at

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that third day about “suppressive” people, basically anyone who questioned any of the principles of the organization or wouldn’t pay “tribute” to the founder Keith Raniere—Vanguard. Anytime you refused to acknowledge someone in a positive way or even go so far to take pleasure in their suffering, that was what

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Mark on day one of my Five-Day, he encouraged all of us to ignore everything unfavorable that we’d ever heard or read about Keith Raniere. After all, Jesus, Buddha, and all other thought leaders met with resistance, he and the leaders explained, because most people in the world wanted things

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targets would want to stay in. In passing conversations during the Five-Day and now here in Tacoma, I’d heard the senior coaches compare Keith Raniere to Steve Jobs and Bill Gates—leaders who saw the world differently and inspired millions everywhere to live their lives by totally different everyday practices

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had been developed around this deficiency, and that system of behavior was getting in the way of everything we really wanted. They explained one of Keith Raniere’s principal beliefs: that all we humans really need to survive are food, water, shelter, and air. Anything else—clothes, connection, love, money, relationships—were

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own values and beliefs won’t come into conflict with the cult’s mission (which is almost always to deify one person—in this case, Keith Raniere). They introduced one segment of tech called Blame & Responsibility, the only module taught in both the Five-Day and the Eleven-Day. In essence, according

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the material with curiosity and ease. I still felt like something was wrong with me. This trip was also the first time I would meet Keith Raniere in person. I encountered him during a NXIVM volleyball game, which I had heard was one of his favorite activities. I’d never been the

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’t believe in it; that he thought it was a “shifter strategy.” In the Five-Day, we had learned the NXIVM principle of the “shifter.” Keith Raniere’s philosophy was that a shifter is an individual or a corporation that creates a problem and uses it to profit from the solution, which

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late. The executives in NXIVM had scheduled that Eleven-Day in August 2005 to roll conveniently into Vanguard Week, their annual ten-day retreat celebrating Keith Raniere’s birthday. Hundreds of Espians from across the United States and the four centers in Mexico would attend V-Week, as the more veteran members

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lies. “Just be careful,” she said. “I don’t think any one person can be credited with having all the answers.” But she was forgetting: Keith Raniere was known to be one of the smartest men in the world. “Who says that about themselves? Only a megalomaniac,” she said under her breath

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was all phony. That exchange in Nancy’s kitchen, when he’d revealed the “illusion of hope,” was the last time I would ever see Keith Raniere. Chapter Thirteen Nondisclosure March–May 2017 As soon as I arrived home from Albany, Lauren informed me of the next step in finalizing my collateral

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you finally gain a certain piece of information at the end, so much lines up about everything that happened before. Bruce Willis is dead! And Keith Raniere is a sociopath. It was the same kind of epiphany, as I pieced it all together. When I figured out that Keith wasn’t who

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mouth. In what century are you living? I wondered. More like, on what planet are you living? To judge all of this normal and OK, Keith Raniere had to be living in another world. But this understanding about NXIVM was followed immediately by a new concern about myself. Oh my God, I

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at a hard right angle, I saw her expression change. Susanna looked up at me. “Sarah,” she said. “There’s a K and an R.” Keith Raniere. Oh. My. God. Susanna held my arm as I had to brace myself and sit down. No. No. No. I looked at Susanna—my friend

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should respect and obey men. They’d preached that our leader was the most ethical humanitarian in the world, but in this instant, I saw Keith Raniere clearly for who he was. It had taken me twelve years to finally reach my own opinion, in the form of a permanent mark on

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solution to every issue that came up, and we knew we had to get out in front of their legal playbook. Going public and exposing Keith Raniere and the entire DOS scheme was a huge part of that goal. But we also understood the repercussions: going public also meant opening ourselves up

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shy of a year after Mark and I had realized what we’d been part of, and one year after I’d been branded with Keith Raniere’s initials—Mexican authorities found Keith after a monthlong FBI search. He was hiding inside a villa in Mexico with a group of women that

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my former friends to heal. Less than three months after his arrest, in June 2018, the FBI had gathered a great deal of evidence against Keith Raniere, including a series of text messages I read between Keith and one of my former friends, though the way the affidavit had been written, I

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of members of our community and their friends and families as well.” Weeks later, in May 2019, Lauren took the stand as a witness in Keith Raniere’s federal trial. There, she and others—including a sales representative from a company in California that sold and shipped sex toys to one of

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. First, that Pam and Barb J. were not the mentors I had thought them to be. Both were liars, having propped up the myth of Keith Raniere as a celibate genius while acting as his pimps, bringing women in for the sole purpose of having sex with him, even taking women for

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evolve the world and live and work among an empowered community of women. If Mark Vicente had asked me on that cruise, “Would you like Keith Raniere’s initials burned into your flesh?” I would have run the other way. But twelve years later, by developing the support I needed to come

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happened, I stopped more women from being branded. I’ll never know how many women gained the information they needed to end their association with Keith Raniere because I, along with Mark, Bonnie, Nippy, and Catherine Oxenberg, had come forward with what we knew. Each of us, including Frank Parlato, Barry Meier

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role in exposing the darkness behind NXIVM’s front of “personal development.” On Wednesday, June 19, 2019, after a six-week trial, a jury convicted Keith Raniere of all counts—racketeering and racketeering conspiracy; sex trafficking; attempted sex trafficking and sex trafficking conspiracy; forced labor conspiracy; and wire fraud conspiracy. As these

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’d left a location, in case Keith wanted to track down where I was. That was the level of paranoia, because my opinion was that Keith Raniere seemed to have a strong determination to silence a woman when he wanted to. Call it dishonorable, but I have no doubt that Keith is

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feel bad or guilty about it. I’m learning to navigate everyday situations without second-guessing every emotion, and I understand that no person—not Keith Raniere, and not me—can know, do, or be everything. I don’t put anyone on a pedestal anymore. No one can determine my worth. On

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in all this, and that is the positive parts of NXIVM I’ve taken with me. Although it was through an unexpected and hellish experience, Keith Raniere was indeed a “master teacher who brought my issues to light.” Don’t get me wrong, I am not paying tribute to him. He was

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to end DOS and stop the continued abuse, I had an opportunity to become the type of person I’ve always wanted to be. While Keith Raniere sits in prison, I hope he still believes that each of us causes everything that happens to us. I hope he is wondering how he

Nobody's Fool: Why We Get Taken in and What We Can Do About It

by Daniel Simons and Christopher Chabris  · 10 Jul 2023  · 338pp  · 104,815 words

will unquestioningly scribble down whatever he says, no matter how outrageous it becomes. Cult leaders would see this cartoon as a recipe for success.9 Keith Raniere was the founder of NXIVM, a multilevel marketing organization that offered self-improvement courses but became infamous for enticing women into master-slave relationships and

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conspiracy, sex trafficking, attempted sex trafficking, sex trafficking conspiracy, forced labor conspiracy, and wire fraud conspiracy [https://www.justice.gov/usao-edny/pr/nxivm-leader-keith-raniere-sentenced-120-years-prison-racketeering-and-sex-trafficking]. The NXIVM case is detailed in several sources, including the 2020–2022 HBO documentary series The Vow

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-women-branded-albany.html]. Toni Natalie’s memoir of her membership in the group (written with Chet Hardin) is The Program: Inside the Mind of Keith Raniere and the Rise of NXIVM (New York: Grand Central Publishing, 2019); her quotation is from p. 10. Note that multilevel marketing organizations are often described

Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism

by Amanda Montell  · 14 Jun 2021  · 244pp  · 73,700 words

of medical jargon with supernatural-speak is nothing new, either; it’s a strategy problematic gurus from Scientology’s L. Ron Hubbard to NXIVM’s Keith Raniere have employed for decades. In the social media age, a throng of shady online oracles have followed in Swan’s footsteps, using this speech style

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’t change the outside world, so you have to look inward to solve the conflict. (So many shady New Age gurus—ranging from NXIVM’s Keith Raniere to Teal Swan–type self-help guides—warp similar teachings to fault followers for their own mistreatment under the guise of “internal work” and “overcoming

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Scientology). The linguistic world Hubbard created was so legit-sounding—so inspired and comprehensive—that it sparked a host of copycat “cult leaders.” NXIVM founder Keith Raniere lifted all kinds of terms straight from Scientology, like “suppressives,” “tech,” and “courses,” as well as illusory, pseudo-academic acronyms, like EM (exploration of meaning

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, “How NXIVM Used the Strange Power of Patents to Build Its ‘Sex Cult,’” Vanity Fair, June 27, 2018, https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2018/06/keith-raniere-nxivm-patents-luciferian; Gina Tron, “ESP, DOS, Proctors, and More: NXIVM Terminology, Explained,” Oxygen, August 27, 2020, https://www.oxygen.com/true-crime-buzz/what

It's Not TV: The Spectacular Rise, Revolution, and Future of HBO

by Felix Gillette and John Koblin  · 1 Nov 2022  · 575pp  · 140,384 words

to air documentaries investigating the alleged misdeeds of director Woody Allen, the music manager Ike Turner, and the NXIVM multilevel marketer and convicted sex trafficker Keith Raniere. * * * • • • THE ON-AIR SHIFT toward more female protagonists could be traced back, in part, to the directive made in 2016 by Casey Bloys to diversify

All That Glitters: A Story of Friendship, Fraud, and Fine Art

by Orlando Whitfield  · 5 Aug 2024  · 306pp  · 104,072 words

conditions (which are still terrible), nor because of the numerous Covid-19 outbreaks which have occurred there, but because of the celebrity of its inhabitants. Keith Raniere, the founder of the NXIVM (pronounced ‘nex-oo-eem’) sex cult and Allison Mack, the former Smallville star and high-level NXIVM member, were both