S03E12: NXIVM (CULT MINISERIES, PART IV)

Stephanie: Coming up on this episode of Crime Family.

AJ: The cult we'll be talking about this week is without a doubt, the most well-known and most current cult that we've discussed yet.

Katie: And the whole point of an "EM", this is what Nancy Salzman says, "It's breaking your stimulus response, disconnecting it from how you would normally think. Once, you used to be uncomfortable with a situation that could have been dangerous, but now you don't feel those negative thoughts towards it anymore."

Stephanie: They would just sit there or lay down and get this tattoo. But what it really was, was being branded with a cauterizing pen.

AJ: So it's just crazy to think that somebody who was in Hollywood, who was in a big show, as big of a show as Smallville was, to be a part of this and in the secret society and taking collateral from these women and branding them with her initials. Like it's so wild to think of that.

Hi, everyone. Welcome to Crime Family. I'm your cohost AJ and I'm here with my two sisters, Stephanie and Katie just like always. This week we are actually wrapping up our four part mini series that's focused on cults. So we hope that you've enjoyed these last few episodes. Us talking about specific cults and doing a deep dive into some of these most notorious or interesting cults. The cult we'll be talking about this week is without a doubt, the most well-known and most current cult that we've discussed yet. So it happened pretty recently and I guess it probably is considered one of the most well-known ones now and that is "NXIVM." So while you may know quite a bit about this one already, we felt that we couldn't really do a miniseries on cults without discussing "NXIVM", because it is definitely a major part of the modern day discussion on cults. There are quite a few sources out there that are focused on "NXIVM" already. So mainly the HBO docu-series called "The Vow", and the docu-series called "Seduced Inside The NXIVM Cult." Both of these will inform our discussion and a lot of the information will be coming from these two major docu-series. So even though the cult is so well known, we'll still give you a bit of a rundown of the major factors in the case and some of the major people that are involved. And because there are two multi-episode documentaries and there are full books and full podcast series just about "NXIVM" already, we could never cover every aspect of it in just this one episode. So it will just be a very basic overview. And in the show notes, we'll give you, you know, sources and resources where you can go and learn more about some of these details if you're interested in knowing more, because we will be scratching the surface only. A lot of these details, there's just too much depravity and too many events that are involved to go into every one of these.

Katie: So I think it'll be interesting when you're listening that even though it's a lot more recent than the other ones we did, you'll still see a lot of those same patterns that I think all cults have and that cult leaders kind of embody. So that's interesting as well.

AJ: Yeah, definitely. When I was watching documentaries and learning all this, or reading all the research, there are many of these common themes that we do see in every single cult that we've talked about so far and probably every single cult that exists out there. So we might as well just start this discussion with the leader of the cult himself, and that is Keith Raniere. And I feel like it's hard to know what is actually true about Keith's upbringing and his early life, as we'll see later on, he drastically exaggerates much of his achievements and he was pretty much a professional con artist and a master manipulator. So therefore we don't really know if the information about his early life is 100% factual. If it came from him, we don't know if it can be completely verified. So with that being said, there is a great article by the CBC called "The Making of Vanguard" by Josh Bloch, Kathleen Goldhar, Anita Elash and Dave Pizer. This gives us a good picture and a look into the earlier years of Keith Raniere's life. But like I said, I mean, I'm sure some of it has been corroborated with other people in his life, but things that came from Keith directly himself, can't be a 100% verified. So Keith was born on August 26th, 1960, and his father was in advertising and his mother was a dancer who died when Keith was only 17 years old. Keith's parents supposedly separated when Keith was eight and after the divorce, he went to live with his mother who he claimed was an alcoholic. And the CBC article says that Keith, at some point told a former girlfriend that" he became a night owl because as a teenager, he was often up late looking after his mother." So Keith boasted about the amazing achievements that he had in his formative years. He says that he was "Speaking in full sentences by age one, reading by age two and had mastered college level math before highschool." He also allegedly had a genius level IQ according to himself anyways. He went on to get college degrees in math, biology, and physics. So, I mean, I don't think there's any doubt that he was, you know, an intelligent person at the very least. I mean, he did get, you know, degrees in these difficult or hard subjects, math, biology, and physics. So he was smart in that way. He also claimed that he was a musical prodigy. He was able to play master level piano at a very young age as well. So he basically said that he was a master of everything. He was basically the smartest person in the world. One of Keith's earliest professional endeavors was the formation of "Consumers' Buyline Inc." This is a company that he founded and ran until it was eventually shut down in the early 1990s after being investigated by over 20 states and was accused of being an illegal pyramid scheme. So according to an article from Times Union, Keith did not admit any wrongdoing, but he did sign an agreement which prevented him from taking part in a pyramid scheme again. He also had to pay a $40,000 fine, but that's all he got as punishment. So he basically ran this corporation "Consumers' Buyline." That was a pretty successful company at its height, but it was structured very much like pyramid schemes that we all know about. And so...

Katie: Aren't you not allowed to be in a pyramid scheme anyway? So his punishment is just to agree, not to do something illegal. Okay, great.

AJ: Yeah, he did something illegal.

Katie: Yeah. That's just like someone murdering someone, as long as you don't do it again, just don't murder somebody and we're good.

AJ: Yeah, and pay $40,000, which I'm sure he made a lot of money with "Consumers' Buyline." Cause like I said, it was a pretty successful business at its height. So, you know, $40,000 to him was probably not much. Pocket change for him, maybe. So he really got off with really no consequences at all. Which is unfortunate because if he had actually had consequences back then, then it would have prevented all of this horrible stuff that eventually ends up happening. So it seems like after his experience with "Consumers' Buyline", Keith didn't learn his lesson as he took some of the pyramid schemey aspects of "Consumers' Buyline" and brought that over to his next professional endeavor, which was NXIVM, which he ended up founding only a short time after. So while I said he didn't learn his lesson, or maybe he did learn exactly the right lesson that he wanted to learn, figured out how to run a successful pyramid scheme, but maybe he took some of the mistakes that caused" Consumers' Buyline" to be short-lived. He was able to prevent NXIVM from having that same fate for a long time until eventually it all unraveled. Founded in 1998, alongside Nancy Salzman, NXIVM began as Executive Success Programs, or ESP, which we'll probably refer to it as ESP throughout the rest of the episode. So ESP was basically a series of self-help programs within the NXIVM umbrella company. And these programs claim to offer help for people seeking self-improvement and claim that it could lead people to the success that they were falling short of in their lives. And my understanding is that ESP is really what it was known as, and was advertised as. The people that were going out and recruiting other people to become a part of ESP didn't really know necessarily about the name NXIVM, although NXIVM was the umbrella company that it eventually was under, but that wasn't what it was referred to. As everyone knows now it's referred to as NXIVM, but it really was Executive Success Programs. It was the main bulk of the work that they were doing at the earlier stages of it. According to professional cult expert, Rick Ross, a lot of the teachings of these Executive Success Programs were taken from other organizations or cults such as Scientology. So there were topics such as neuro-linguistic programming, which, you know, on its own can be a very legitimate technique for licensed psychotherapists to use with clients. This topic, NLP, was one that Nexium took and re- crafted or used in their own way. So they made it look bad, but on its own it could have been something that could be very useful if used right. So essentially a lot of the programming and the curriculum that they were offering in these programs were not original or revolutionary material, but it was rather ideas and techniques that were stolen from other places. Some legitimate places and then other cults that were used for Keith's own nefarious means. So he's plagiarizing a lot of the curriculum and then rebranding as his own ideas. People thought that he was the smartest person in the world because he had all of these amazing techniques and he could, you know, reform people's lives, even though a lot of it was either bullshit or was stolen from other sources. Keith Raniere himself is a classic example of a narcissist. As I mentioned earlier, he drastically exaggerated a lot of his accomplishments and thought very highly of himself, therefore everyone else around him did as well. So he seemed to be very good at turning on the charm and bringing people into his close circle and making them really trust him in a very short amount of time. So as we'll see a little bit later on when we discuss this case, this proved to be very successful for him at the beginning and allowed him to amass so many devoted followers. According to the CBC article, "The Making of Vanguard", Barbara Boucher, who's an ex-girlfriend of Keith's, disclosed that a lot of times she would often be told by other ex-girlfriends while she was still with Keith, that things like her diet and her bad mood could affect Keith. He apparently had the ability to feel other people's energies, even when they're not in his presence. Therefore, if she was in a bad mood or had a bad diet, that would impede Keith's own wellbeing. So people were telling her this to make her control what she was doing, because her quote unquote, "bad actions, bad diet would impede Keith's ability to basically be at his top potential."

Stephanie: It blows my mind how very manipulative he was even at a young age. People believed he's the smartest person in the world. I first heard about NXIVM, when I was reading about it a couple years ago, before we even started this podcast. When the news came out about NXIVM, I didn't know what NXIVM was. I didn't know what a cult was. Those programs that NXIVM started, I would think they were legit. Those courses seemed like they were self-help courses. I never thought in a million years that that's what it turned into. It was so crazy how, for me, it was "Oh,, NXIVM can't be that bad."

AJ: I think I've watched interviews with some people who got out of the cult, specifically Sarah Edmondson, and she's the main one, but a lot of them say that, you know, they can't necessarily say that some of the early stuff that they did or the courses they took weren't helpful because they feel like if they weren't helpful, then they wouldn't have stayed as long as they did, if it didn't help them at all. So I feel like a lot of them think, in general, if you took a self-help program that had the right intentions, that was similar to some of these, you might have a lot of success. And if you feel like you're more successful and you overcome certain things that you're struggling with in your life, then, you know, who's to say that that's not a success story. So I feel like some of this, if it hadn't had all the stuff behind the scenes or all of the things that were going on that they didn't know about, or all of the intentions that Keith really did have, then obviously for a lot of these people it did help them in many ways. I think this is also an example too, of that one guy, I don't know if it's in "The Vow", or maybe it's in the other documentary, but the guy who had Tourette's and he is able to overcome his Tourette's because of these ESP programs in the neuro-linguistic programming. We can't sit here and say that that wasn't a success story for him, even though it was a part of something that ended up being bad. But you know what I mean?

Stephanie: Going back to, you talked about Sarah Edmondson, I'll get into her story a little bit later, but she was coming from Vancouver where she was an actress and she was struggling. It's like these cult leaders always know who to target. They're targeting people who need help or are looking for a different path in life. They're not looking for somebody who's very successful. They were looking for people who wanted something else in their life that was meaningful. People who wanted to change their life and I just find it so fascinating that these people can just be brainwashed. When I was reading about her, I was in such awe because I felt so bad for her in the beginning. I still feel bad for her now, but I always felt so bad for her in the beginning. And when we get later into the episode, I'll talk about her, but it was just crazy to me, how these people can just be sucked into something that's, to them it's real, but in reality, it's actually not really real at all.

Katie: Also I think like AJ was saying the first ESP, if you just took that and then got out then, yeah, that probably was a good thing. It was a good course. It taught you something and maybe it did help you in your life. And I feel like they use that every step of the way as kind of a filter. So you did that and then you left. People that were left were kind of maybe a little bit more vulnerable. The next step filtered out more people. Some people are "No, this is getting too weird. I'm out." People that didn't leave, the next step got weirder and weirder and more dangerous as they kept going. And I wonder if it was intentional from the beginning for that to happen, or if Keith saw the power that he had and made it that way. I find it hard to believe that people, someone like Nancy Salzman was in with him at the beginning being like "let's brainwash people to get them to be completely different people." I feel like that's just the road it went and maybe she didn't even realize at the beginning that she was helping him do that. So I would find it interesting to see what it was meant to be from the beginning or if that's really what his whole plan was this whole time.

AJ: Yeah, that's what I wonder too. It's so hard to determine. I would be very interested to know if they just sort of fell into it. They realized the power that they had over these people and then they just kept taking it a step further, a step further, a step further, as much as they could get away with, or if it was this huge elaborate plan from the beginning. And I can't really tell what it was.

Stephanie: But it surprises me that, for someone like Nancy Salzman, who had a successful career, that she stuck with it. Even when it got weirder or maybe she just didn't realize or understand what was happening at the time and just kept going with it. But I know for me, it's really hard for me to believe that.

AJ: I mean, I'll get into a little bit later, the hierarchy there, but she was basically as high up as Keith without being Keith himself. So she was throughout the whole thing, his right hand person. And so I would find it hard to believe that she wouldn't know everything or wouldn't at least be involved in some sort of, she's just as guilty as Keith is in many ways, maybe less so for certain things, but, you know, she was there with him every step of the way. Yeah. It's just, it's crazy to me that somebody like Keith can be just so manipulative and so powerful that he can have this hold over this group of people. And like Katie said too, a lot of people, there are stories too, where, you know, we'll get into it a little bit, like India Oxenberg, is one of the main people who was in it, but her mother talks about how she attended some of the early ESP courses with India and they did it together. She saw through Keith or saw him for what he was. So it was sort of a filter, people who caught onto his BS early on would take the ESP course, maybe get something out of it, maybe not, and then just leave versus the ones that by the time they got through all the steps they were willing to do anything. If they were going to back out, they would have backed out very early on. So that filter thing is actually a pretty accurate depiction I feel. So with the thing with his ex-girlfriend Barbara, how her diet and her bad mood would affect Keith, it was just an example of the type of aura that Keith had and the attitudes of the people who thought so highly of him as well. So they thought that he had the potential to save the world. So anything that would sort of impede that had to be stopped. So they would tell Barbara that she had to be on a certain diet or she couldn't have these mood swings or anything like that. So to them, Keith was the Vanguard. He was an all-knowing master who was extremely smart and had ideas that could save the world. So like I said, things that would impede this was unwanted and anything that would nourish that potential was encouraged. So because of the way that he presented himself, he was the center of everyone's universe within NXIVM. They looked to him for advice on everything they did, and even had to ask his permission for many things. So people lived their day-to-day lives, according to how Keith would want them to. Never wanting to do anything that would damage their relationship with him or his opinions of them. So now having a very powerful and knowledgeable person with great life experience and great wisdom of the world would be a very valuable asset to have in a community, but only if that person has the right intentions at heart. And this is something that Keith definitely didn't have throughout the whole thing, whether he had it at the beginning and then lost it, or whether he never had it at all. Like I said, we don't know, but yeah, he could have been a great resource and a great asset to these people if he had good intentions. One of the major pyramid schemey aspects that Keith implemented into NXIVM was something known as the "stripe path." Now this is something that if you look into NXIVM in any sort of detail, you'll probably find something about the "stripe path" and when someone began taking these ESP courses and became immersed in the program, they could earn a colored sash, which would represent the level that they were at within the company. As you worked your way up by taking more and more courses and recruiting more and more people to take courses, you would earn a higher level sash or higher color sash, eventually working up your way to a gold sash, which in theory was the highest sash. But barely anyone in the company ever made it this high. So according to Frank Parlato, he was a member of NXIVM who eventually left and then helped to expose the cult afterwards, he broke down the different steps of the "stripe path." He wrote about it on his blog and it's documented on art voice.com. So I'm going to just run through the different sort of stages of the "stripe path" just to give you a general idea of what people were working towards and how the structure of it worked. So the white sash was the entry sash. So this was for people who just joined the company and paid to take a training. So as soon as you paid to take your first ESP course, and you attended the training, you were given a white sash. And then the next step up was the yellow sash. And this was when you were a coach. So basically these people worked for the organization for free, to bring people into the group. And you would become the coach for the people who you would recruit into the company. So just basically still entry level, but just the next step up, you've taken a couple of trainings, you know a little bit more, and you've recruited someone into the program. And then the next step after that was the orange sash, and this was the Proctor level. And this is the first stage in the "stripe path" where people could start earning a salary for their work in the company. It was a very small salary compared to what you were paying to take the course, so a lot of people mention in their interviews, when they left NXIVM were saying that if you were making any sort of money from commissions, a lot of that money you were making was just going back into NXIVM to take more trainings because it started with the five day training and then the 11 day training, and then you just had to keep taking more and more trainings. You were always having to pay so much money. You weren't really earning or taking away much money, you were just putting all of it back into NXIVM basically. And then there's the green sash, and this is considered a senior Proctor. And it's estimated that by the time you've made it to a green sash, you've invested about $1 million into NXIVM after all the training you've taken and all of the money that you've spent in order to reach this level. So this is according to Frank Parlato in his blog about this. I don't know if that's a hundred percent true, but according to him, you've probably invested close to a million dollars by the time you reach the green sash. And then the next stage up after that is the blue sash. And when you have this sash, you are considered a counselor and you've invested up to $5 million in the company. And I believe, I think in the blog posts that Frank writes, there's only one person who ever had a blue sash. And then there's the purple sash, which is the senior counselor. And according to Frank Parlato only a few people have ever made it to this stage as well. All of the people who made it to the purple sash stage were, all of them are women and all of them were girlfriends of Keith Raniere. And then the next stage after that was the gold sash, though, like I said before, the gold sash was the highest level that you can reach. It's the top of the top basically. And Nancy Salzman, she's the co-founder of NXIVM she was also called Prefect by everyone in ESP or in NXIVM, they had to refer to her as Prefect. She was the sole gold sash in the entire history of NXIVM. She was basically at the top of it all, right underneath Keith. As it turns out, the decision of who moved up the ranks into the various colors of the "stripe path" was solely Keith's decision to make. It was completely arbitrary. So I see it as dangling the carrot. You were told that you can make it up to this stage if you just take another training, but then you take the training, you pay all this money and then it's "Oh,, well you still haven't learned everything that you need to learn, so if you take this next training, more training, then you'll get up to this level." So it was always dangling the idea of getting up to this higher level, but you have to pay all this money, and it was really arbitrary, like Keith would just decide," I don't think I want this person to be on this level so I'm just going to tell them they're not ready." There was no real criteria that was actually legitimate.

Katie: Yeah. In the "Seduced" documentary, there's one woman that says she probably had spent over a hundred thousand dollars going through these courses, trying to make her way up. And then when she finally paid it off by working for NXIVM then that's when they'd be, "Oh, we have these new courses, this new track that you can take if you really want to get promoted." So you've already invested all this time and money and it would be a waste to give up now. So I feel like that was probably people's mentality as well, "I might as well keep going, cause I'm this far." Which, you know, screwed a lot of people out of a lot of money.

AJ: Also, when you think about it, in their mind, Keith's mind and Nancy's mind, it's, "Well, if they do get up to as high of a level as us, we can't make any more money off them. If there's no more training for them to take, they're not going to be paying anything, so what use are they?" It's like, "Well, they're going to keep paying us if we just tell them there's this $10,000 training that you haven't taken yet." So that also probably had a lot to do with it too. So as you can tell, this aspect of the company was very much structured like a pyramid scheme, which is the thing that Keith loved best. And like I said earlier, ESP was very much promoted as these self-help courses to improve people's lives. Like we've seen in other cults. Because these people were going through these intense trainings, these intense courses were treated like group therapy sessions. They were 16 hour days of group therapy and people were telling their deepest secrets and feeling that they were overcoming these huge hurdles in their lives. It really bonded a lot of these people together early on. You're going through this great thing together. It did really form this little community of people very early on. And you know, it came with lavish week-long celebrations every summer for Keith's birthday. This was known as V week and V week was like the culmination of everyone's hard work throughout the year. The purpose of this event was basically to thank Keith for creating NXIVM and helping them to vastly improve their lives, and when you think about it, if creating an annual week-long celebration for your own birthday, where people bow down to you, sing for you, and thank you endlessly, if that isn't the epitome of narcissism, then I don't know what is. Everyone had to call him Vanguard. That's how they would refer to him. That's why it was called V week cause he was a Vanguard. So that gives you sort of an idea of Keith. Who he was, and what the foundation of NXIVM was like. Why people joined it and why they thought it could be a good thing for them.

Stephanie: Going back to Sarah Edmondson. She was one of the women in NXIVM to, after she left, to "out" NXIVM and expose it for what it really was. So Sarah Edmondson was in NXIVM for about 12 years, and like I just said, in NXIVM there were these different levels. She worked her way up to be a coach. Then when she became a coach, she was the one who was recruiting people into NXIVM. She took these people under her wing. She was..

AJ: It was like a pyramid scheme. When you would recruit someone, you would be their coach, and then with every person that that person recruits you get money. Right? That's like the foundation of a pyramid scheme?

Stephanie: Yes, and so her goal was to eventually make money, because I don't know AJ, if you mentioned this, but a lot of these courses were really expensive and a lot of people were going into debt as more courses they took the more money they would have to pay. So you work your way up as quick as you can so you could get to the top level and be paid. For Sarah, she eventually ended up being Proctor and became one of the, I won't say head of NXIVM, but she became one of the well-known people of NXIVM.

AJ: Yeah. I think she made it as high as a green sash. She was the senior Proctor. That was her level. She says in some interviews that she was making, at the height of it, she was making 20 K a month. Sometimes from all the people she was recruiting and she was really good at sales, so she was able to get so many people into NXIVM, taking these programs.

Stephanie: Because she wasn't from Hollywood, but she was an actor in Vancouver, she had those connections and as she kept ranking up higher and higher, she got more interested in NXIVM. She was starting to really become proud of herself. She wasn't getting very many acting jobs and so when she got into NXIVM, it was , "Oh, I can do more. I'm finding out stuff about myself that I never knew I could." So as high as she went, the more proud of herself she was becoming because she...

AJ: And she also said too that it helped her. There was a period where she was starting to get a lot more acting roles because of the work, I guess she was doing. She was able to self-help and improve and clear her mind better, and therefore she was getting more roles. And then it got to a point where she started to feel bad for taking acting roles, because the sort of general vibe of NXIVM was that they wanted you to move to Albany and be close to that main base of NXIVM. If you didn't do that, then you were seen as maybe your focus was split and they didn't want that, which is maybe why Allison Mack didn't really do much acting after she was in Smallville. So, yeah.

Stephanie: So Sarah, eventually ended up meeting her husband in Nexium and he goes by the name "Nippy". Sarah really leaned on one of her good friends that she met in NXIVM, Lauren Salzman, who was a daughter of Nancy Salzman. Lauren and Sarah really hit it off and became close. Lauren was already in NXIVM for a few years before Sarah was so she could help Sarah be the better person that she wanted to be. Sarah really looked up to her. This is how Sarah got into the program called DOS.

Katie: Yeah. So DOS, which means "Dominus Obsequious Sororium", which translates to "Master Slave Sorority".

Stephanie: Lauren was a big influence on Sarah for getting Sarah into DOS. Lauren made it sound like it was a great thing that she needed to get into. So when Sarah, when she was talking to Sarah about it, I remember watching the episode on "The Vow" and you could tell in Lauren's voice how excited she was to be in DOS and Sarah, she seemed skeptical at first. But then the way that Lauren was convincing her and she finally was " Okay, this is my best friend. I don't think she'd be like lying to me. I think she's just looking out for my best interest." So when Sarah decided to join DOS, she just thought it was just like another type of program where you had to recruit people and the same thing she was already doing. But it started becoming more of a constant everyday thing. She had to call Lauren her Master, cause Lauren was responsible for her when she got into DOS. So...

AJ: Lauren actually used those words slave and master. Those were the words that she used and in this interview, I think it's ABC 20 /20 and the interviewer asked the question, "She used those words?" Then Sarah says, "Yeah, she used those words." But she would always say, "It's just a metaphor. Yes, that's what it's called. It's just the metaphor for what we're doing." And basically the whole thing of DOS was supposed to be this secret society of women within NXIVM. So obviously NXIVM was both men and women, but DOS was supposed to be the secret society that none of the men knew about and it was the secret sorority, and the person who brought you in would be your master. And then you would then become the master of the people that you brought in. So again, it was like that pyramid scheme leveling aspect to it. DOS was obviously created much later on. Sarah was in NXIVM for 12 years and DOS was the very end stages of her being in it, because it's what happened in DOS that really pushed her over the edge. So DOS was created by Alison Mack, right? Well, Keith, but wasn't Alison Mack...

Katie: At the beginning, they sold it as, "Keith has nothing to do with it." It was supposed to be separate from NXIVM, but people in NXIVM could be selected for this special secret group that Keith wasn't a part of. That's what they said at the beginning. So I think that was the allure of it. Not everybody gets invited into this secret women's sorority. That was one of the things that people liked about it, I guess.

AJ: But it was like they were using the people within NXIVM as a recruitment for DOS. Nobody from outside of NXIVM would have been put into DOS, right? You had to be part of NXIVM to be in DOS even though it was supposed to be separate?

Katie: Yeah, they probably picked you specifically because of how you looked and what Keith liked, but also because you had that vulnerability and that they knew that they could do these kinds of things to you and you'd either be accepting of it or you would eventually just learn to be accepting. So they weren't just gonna pick some stranger off the street and get them in this group because a person that hadn't gone through that whole NXIVM levels wouldn't, you know, they'd definitely have some red flags right away.

AJ: Yeah. Like, you know, you're not going to be day one in NXIVM and you're going to ask to be joined and become a slave for someone literally using that word. So yeah. It's years and years of you already putting in hundreds of thousands of dollars or millions of dollars for all these trainings, and obviously having some success, like I said, with the filtering thing, if you've come this far and you've taken all these courses to the point where you're being approached to be in DOS, then they know that you're somebody who is so deep into it, that you're very likely to agree to it by that point.

Katie: I guess one of the main things about DOS was, like we were saying the master slave thing, but it was also made for the women to feel very uncomfortable in the situation that they were put in, but to do it any way to overcome your fears or overcome that uncomfort. And so that's how you grow as a person. So that was their mantra, I guess, to get people to do these things that they wouldn't normally feel comfortable doing.

AJ: But that was it. That was the big thing of NXIVM, part of the courses that they were taking, one of the major aspects of it was, I guess in simpler terms saying you have a fight or flight response, but in a way that was training that out of you. It's like if you're in a situation that's uncomfortable and you want to flee, then you have work to do. That must be a reflection of you. There's something that's blocking you from wanting to take part in this. So let's explore what's causing this and then it trains you to ignore the fight or flight response, which was perfect training for DOS.

Katie: Yeah, exactly. They called them EMs which was an Exploration of Meaning. So if you had a negative thought about something, they would be, "Oh well, go get an EM on that." The whole point of an EM, this is what Nancy Salzman said, "It's breaking your stimulus response and disconnecting it from how you would normally think. So you see a bad situation, get an EM and you'll no longer have that negative feeling towards that situation anymore. So that issue will be gone, and then eventually you'll forget that you even had an issue with that thing." it was very much breaking down that fight or flight. So once you used to be uncomfortable with a situation that could have been dangerous, but now you don't feel those negative thoughts towards it anymore. That's exactly what they were doing.

AJ: Yeah. Which is so crazy to think that they're able to do that. And I guess that makes it make sense. Right? When it's like years of training that out of you, then all of a sudden, you know, you're approached to be part of DOS and you hear those words of master and slave, and then your initial reactions would be, "What? No. "And then they're probably gonna say, "Go get an EM and then you'll work that out and then come back to us because there's obviously something within yourself that's causing you to have this negative reaction, because this is like a great thing. So if you're reacting negatively to it, then there's something you need to work on."

Katie: Yeah. And I think this is where, when they first begin the program and you get an EM, cause even some people at the very beginning, the very first five day course, you could get an EM on something and people would have these breakthroughs. But it probably would be something where in real life, everyday life is something that you'd want to overcome, like say, "Oh I have social anxiety about going and meeting new people." "Well let's talk about that. You'll get over that." So that's something actually great. Now I don't have social anxiety anymore. But then you take it further. "Let's take a naked picture of you and send it to Keith." "I don't like that." But now it doesn't seem so weird. That was exactly the kind of thing that they were doing. That exact example was happening. So, I mean, they were just breaking you down one EM at a time.

Drew: Hello internet friends and welcome to "Go Ask Alice." The show that jumps down random internet rabbit holes, and brings you wonderful factoids from our adventures of Wiki Wonderland. I'm Drew a forensic scientist and my favorite word is sesquipedalian.

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Drew: Our travels through Wikipedia could lead us anywhere. So you never know what interesting topic you're going to hear about. Places we've previously visited on wikipedia include...

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Stephanie: I think for Sarah, since she looked up to Lauren, she thought it was okay cause Lauren's in it, it must be a good thing. So to be in DOS, the secret society, you had to give collateral and collateral could be anything that's worth your life. So like Katie said, a naked picture of yourself. For Sarah, she didn't really have anything bad about her life at that time that she wanted to give up. So she started shit talking her husband.

AJ: There was an example she gives in an interview where, actually I can't remember if it was Sarah herself or she's talking about it, but it's where if they didn't have anything negative to say, then it would be "Make up a huge lie or a secret, write a letter, a confession letter to your family about something awful that you did, even if it's not true. That's going to ensure that you don't tell anyone about DOS or you don't leave DOS because then we'll release that confession to your family that you've written." Sarah says that Lauren even asked her to get the deed of her house signed over to Lauren as collateral. So basically once you're in DOS and you sign this over to me, if you leave DOS, I'm going to take your house. Sarah said she didn't actually end up doing that, but that was one sort of option that Lauren had asked.

Katie: Oh, I was just gonna say the collateral, it gives me Jim Jones flashbacks. Right? Because he made his members do that too, where if they were going to leave, you've signed this incriminating thing that we will release. So it's, you know, along the same lines.

AJ: And like I said any normal person like us, who's not been in a cult, who hasn't been in NXIVM for 12 years is saying, Of course, like I'm not going to do that. It's ridiculous". But like I said, if you've had 12 years of thousands of hours worth of training to say that We have good intentions, we're saving the world. Everything that you think you know, if you're having a negative reaction to something that's bad, you have to overcome it and then you'll be over it and you'll reach your full potential." If that's all you're being told for 12 years, and, you know, she said that she did have obviously reservations when she's hearing all this, but she still did it because that's the way that she was trained for 12 years. So it would be hard for you not to do it.

Katie: Yeah. And like I was saying before, you go through all these levels and you're just trying to get farther up, and this was kind of presented as "this is how you're going to get there, because this is going to give you the ultimate empowerment. And so if you do want to keep working your way up, then this is a course that you have to take," and that was convincing for a lot of people. And it was very much after they would give them the collateral or give them the secrets, that's when they would introduce the slave master kind of thing. So they're already in it, then they hear about it, and then it's, "well, I've already, you know, committed to this. So here we go."

AJ: And that's the thing too. When you think of it just on a logical level, if this is really something good and we are saving the world, or we're all going to be better versions of ourselves, why do you need that collateral piece? Why is it that they need something horrible from you first? Because, you know what I mean, normally that's a red flag of, "well, what we're going to do to you is so terrible that you're going to want to expose us. But now, because we have this collateral, you can't." or you feel you can't. So just on a logical level also, if they're asking for collateral there's obviously a reason why they know that you would want to leave.

Katie: Well, yeah. And it's taking that self-help thing to the extreme, because I know some self-help things you have to write down all the reasons why, say, you want to give up drinking or something. Well, what are the reasons why and you list 20 reasons. And so every time that you're going to think about drinking, think about those reasons. And that's like collateral, but in a positive sense, it's like, I'm going to stop ruining my body for all of these reasons, but they took it the other way. Whereas if you don't do this, then we're going to ruin you in another way. So it was supposed to be motivating, but they twisted it to be blackmail. It was straight up blackmail.

Stephanie: Yeah. And not only did they want you to give up collateral, they also, in the program, in DOS itself, you had to count your calories. You had to only eat a certain amount of calories a day. You had to follow all these rules. You had to do this really rigid schedule of things. You had to get up at 5:00 AM, go to the gym, do courses or whatever. So you'd get sleep deprived and you'd be starving yourself. It's like, well, any cult, really? You have strict rules that you have to follow in order to stay in.

AJ: And it wasn't only that, it was also too that they were told "we can message you at any time. And we're going to text you saying, are you awake? Or are you, you know, whatever," and you have to respond within a certain amount of time. So, you know, your "master" could text you at 5:00 in the morning and you would have to respond by 5:03 and if you didn't respond by 5:03 then you're going to be punished severely. So it was like keeping you always on alert. You always had to basically be on call 24 hours a day. And even if they didn't have a task for you, they could just text you and then you would respond and they'd say, "okay, thank you." But that was it. So it was just constant ly being on top of you, controlling your every move basically, along with all the other stuff that you mentioned Steph..

Katie: Yeah. And that was one of the tactics, like Steph was saying, they had to count their calories. And when it came down to it, it was chalked up to what Keith preferred in women was really thin women. When we start talking about India Oxenberg, who was in even deeper than Sarah, she says that she was told she had to go down to 106 pounds. She said she hadn't been 106 pounds since she was like 12 years old. So when she didn't reach that goal, she was punished. She had to move to Albany for 30 days as a punishment. Then once she finally did lose all that weight, she was losing her hair, you could see that she was just not healthy, but she did it because that was one of her tasks that she had to do. It was basically just because Keith liked that kind of thing. So that was part of their routine. Keeping them hungry, keeping them exhausted and tired and busy. So that really all they could think about was how hungry they were, how much they had to do so they didn't really have time to think about what was actually happening to them. And that was one of the tactics that they used to control them.

Stephanie: So for Sarah, one of the things that was part of DOS was it's like a sorority. So, you know, how in sororities you have initiation night. Well for DOS initiation, Sarah describes it as she was blindfolded, taken from her house, put into this van and taken to a secret location. I'm using air quotes, "secret location." Once she got there and she took the blindfold off she actually realized it looked like Allison Mack house, is what she described it as in her interview. And when she got there, they were told that they were going to be getting tattoos of a brand, but like a tattoo, and they were describing it, how it was going to look. It was going to be, I forget what she described it as.

AJ: Oh, they were told that it was, the tattoo they going to get, was a symbol of the elements water and the mountains and the sky. It was supposed to be all of those elements put into one image, is what they were told that tattoo was going to be. It's part of the initiation into DOS in Alison Mack's living room.

Stephanie: Like I said, when Sarah got there, she thought "Okay, this is Allison Mack's house. Why are we at Allison Mack's house to begin with? I don't think she knew that Allison was a part of DOS. Well, she knew, but didn't know how deep Allison was in it, and so when they got there, they were told that they were going to get these tattoos and it turned out to be this dark room in the house, and there was this table, a metal table and they were to sit there or lay down and get this tattoo. But what it really was was being branded with a cauterizing pen. Sarah, in the interview, was being told, "This is the best thing. We're all going to have the same thing. It was going to be very exciting. We're all going to be sisters. And it's just something that we all need to do." And for Sarah, she's thinking like literally, what the hell? Why are we getting branded anyways? But she went along with it. She watched all the other people sit down or lay down on this table. Two people had to hold their hand and one person had to hold their feet and they just burned their skin. And Sarah said, when it was her turn, she just left her body.

AJ: There was an interview. She said it was worse than childbirth. And it was a hot laser going across your skin for half an hour without anesthetic. Like, that's a pretty drastic.

Stephanie: I couldn't imagine going to this place. I've gotten a tattoo and I mean, it hurt like hell, but I can't imagine like my flesh being burnt.

Katie: And I think one of the points of this is Keith, in one of his speeches, is saying "people don't bond over excitement and happiness. You only bond over pain and fear." So this is probably an exercise to bring people closer together in this kind of situation. Everybody went through it, this painful thing, and they came out stronger and closer in the end. So I think that was the thinking behind it or the, the rationale to tell people behind it. So yeah. When you think about India Oxenberg, who I said was in it even further, even though she wasn't in it, as long as Sarah, I don't think because she, let me see, she was in it from 2011 to 2018. So it was seven years and you said Sarah was in it for 12. So she was in it for less, but I think the fact that she was recruited when she was only 19, which is younger than when Sarah was recruited. So she was definitely just more vulnerable and able to be manipulated more at that younger age, but India was branded and she was one of the first to be branded out of everybody, and she didn't see it the same way as Sarah. She came out of it very proud and happy that she had this brand because that's kind of how deep in it she was. And she was branded and somehow it got out there that her mom had found out that this was happening and her mom had even asked her about it. She said," it's a good thing". She was talking to her mom about it. So her mindset was even after this had happened to her, she was still proud and happy to be in DOS and NXIVM

AJ: Yeah and it's pretty crazy that, you know, you could get to a state where you would be branded and go through that horrible, painful experience and still 100% be, like obviously I get the vibe from Sarah Edmondson that like the brand was the end of the road for her. She realized she had to get the fuck out of there. Even though she went through with the branding situation, but also when you're in that moment, because even the interviewer, the ABC 20/20 interview with Sarah, with the reporters pushing her on," How did you not run out of there? Get out when you found it it was a branding." Sarah said she didn't feel like she had a choice in that moment to leave. It was almost like she really felt that she had no other choice, but it was after getting the brand, shortly thereafter getting the brand that was really kind of the end of the road for her, especially when she found out what the brand actually was, because it wasn't actually a symbol of the elements.

Stephanie: It was actually Keith's initials and Allison Mack's initials as well. Basically, they were branding themselves with Keith's name, like he owns them.

AJ: Yeah. He owns them. He and Allison Mack. And to me, I mean, it doesn't look like a symbol of the elements at all. To me, it only looks like KR and AM. It's one of those things, once you see it you can't unsee it. Also I feel like in interviews with Sarah and other people, they said that they really had no idea at the very beginning of DOS, obviously, that Keith was at the top of DOS because it was supposed to be this sort of secret sorority that was run by women. So even if Allison Mack was at the top, they thought maybe Allison Mack was the top, but it was really just all the inner workings of Keith Raniere and he knew exactly what was going on. He knew who was in it. He knew what was happening and I mean, they have his initials on their bodies now. I mean, I don't know if that's ever been definitively proved that was a hundred percent what it was. Do we know that for sure?

Katie: Yeah. So when I first watched "The Vow", I was not convinced that Keith was involved. It was his initials. That it probably was his idea. But at the end of that, like they really don't have proof and they just think that it probably was him. But when you watch "Seduced", there's actual footage, audio footage of Keith talking about DOS and the master slave, and even the branding, even his initials and make it look like the elements. So the whole thing was planned out. So yeah, it definitely was Keith and it was supposed to be his initials and all that was planned out by Keith, even though they said it wasn't. I guess saying Keith wasn't a part of, it was supposed to make people, I don't know, trust it more, which is kind of weird or maybe they were branching off to their own thing. But one of India's assignments that she got from Alison was she had to seduce Keith and Keith was supposed to be like celibate, like, oh, he doesn't have sex. He's like a, you know, a monk kind of thing, was what he portrayed himself as. And so to seduce him, Keith had to take a naked picture of her and send it to Alison for proof that she had done it. She actually did do it and she just thought that was kind of the end of it but Keith would text India asking for, you know, close up naked pictures of her, but her face had to be in them as well. So it was kind of that thing and she felt uncomfortable about it, but it was that feeling, "Well, I feel uncomfortable, but I should do it anyway, just to kind of get over that." That was kind of her mentality every time she had to do something that she felt uncomfortable with. So Keith was definitely, he orchestrated the whole thing.

AJ: It's not a self-help group. What kind of women's self-help movement or group is headed by a man. That just wouldn't happen. So obviously it makes sense that they would hide the fact that he was even a part of it or at the top of it, because obviously it seems much less legit when you actually know that it's this gross man at the top of it.

Katie: Yeah. And part of "Seduced", as well, India's talking about one of their punishments was, I forget what they had done, but they were all punished and their punishment was they all had to line up naked and sit on the couch together, and Alison took a picture of all them naked. Then she sent it over to Keith and then Keith texted back and they saw that text message from Keith. He was, "Oh are those all for me with, with a devil emoji?" And they're, "Well, what the fuck is this?" So it was very much just "look, look what I've got for you." If Alison Mack knew what this all was when they were coming up with DOS or if she was being totally manipulated as well. I, I sway back and forth. I don't know if she's culpable completely or if she was a victim as well.

AJ: I really don't know. I feel like she is culpable or, I mean, I feel like she is a victim in many ways because she was so under his wing and I just think, I don't know, she got so far into it that maybe she turned a little bit evil towards, towards the end there. But I feel like obviously at the beginning of it, she was very much in it because she thought it was a good thing and it was just him that was manipulating her. But I mean, I think that we haven't explained it in full, but I'm sure if you know this case, you know, but Allison Mack was an actress. She was on the show Smallville for like 10 years. She played Chloe on that show. So if you're a fan of Smallville, you definitely know about this case. But as I was saying, if for some reason you don't know, Alison Mack was an actress who was in that. She was also in Honey, we shrunk ourselves. If you watch that she's in there as a kid. Anyway, so for anyone who doesn't know Allison Mack, yes, she was an actress. So it was just crazy to think that somebody who was in Hollywood, who was in a big show, as big of a show as Smallville was, to be a part of this and in the secret society and taking collateral of these women and branding them with her initials. Like it's so wild to think of that.

Stephanie: Speaking of Allison Mack, she also recruited one of her other costars, Kristin Kirk, who also starred in Smallville as well. But she very early on, she discovered what NXIVM really was and got out pretty early on.

Katie: You know, yeah, she got out early, she knew what was up or, you know, suspected something for sure. But I think that is part of the allure for a lot of the people, because when we touched on this before, some of the high caliber people that were in NXIVM, in Seduced, they mentioned people like Jennifer Aniston took some of the ESP courses or she took like the course. Obviously she didn't stay in it, she left, but there were celebrities that were in there taking courses, and that was something that they used to promote it. And then of course you have the billionaire sisters, the Bronfman sisters who were endorsing it and had given hundreds of millions of dollars to the organization. And then you had the Dalai Lama come in there, and get pictures with Keith. So you have these really famous, wealthy, influential people, and, when you have people like that in there, they've already done the research for you, you don't have to look at the background because you think that these smart people have already done that for you, already done the research, and that's why they're in it. And so it's okay for you to go in, and that's how they got a lot of people.

AJ: Yeah, didn't they have to, cause there were financing most of it with the Bronfman sisters, who were just basically heiresses to this huge fortune from their father. They had hundreds of millions. So their entire financing was done by them and they paid the Dalai Lama a lot of money to take a photo with Keith to basically legitimize or make it seem like NXIVM was this great thing. And also, yeah, Katie you're right, if you see an advertisement with the head of this company, with the Dhali Lama, you're not going to really do much research into it. It's the Dalai Lama. He must know what he's talking about. Or, you know, Jennifer Aniston took an ESP course. There's probably a lot of famous celebrities who took one ESP course one time, obviously weren't in NXIVM and weren't in the cult, but they might've taken the self-help program.

Katie: Yeah, exactly. And I think about it for myself even. I remember being a huge fan of Smallville. So if I was in a situation where I saw Allison Mack is in this group, then I'm like, yeah, I want to be in there too. If that was my thing, you know what I mean? So it definitely does have that credibility when you have those kind of people there.

AJ: I don't think it's mentioned in either "The Vow", or "Seduced", but there was an early news article that I saw that said that Allison Mack had even, tweeted Kelly Clarkson and Emma Watson, in an attempt to recruit them. She sent them messages saying, "Oh I hear you're a fan of Smallville. Well, I'm a huge fan of you. And I'm a part of this women's movement that I think you'd really be into. So send me a message and we can start." You know, very clear recruitment attempt. Obviously Emma Watson or Kelly Clarkson did not respond, but it's just crazy that it's those were the kinds of people that they were going after. These very powerful, successful people.

Katie: I think that's really dangerous to try to recruit someone like Emma Watson, because she's such a feminist and women's rights. And the second she got a whiff of what was happening, you know, she would have been pissed. So that was kind of a, not a smart move. Maybe she wasn't thinking about that, but, or maybe she was and was," if we can manipulate her and she's such a feminist, then we'll definitely have more credibility." When Keith is lecturing, when he's talking to people, it's very much downplaying victim and rape culture. He's saying that you're only a victim because that's how you perceive it, and so if you are raped, you're only raped because you think it's a bad thing. But if you just open yourself up to that, it's no longer rape. He talks about an example of someone that was being abused, sexually abused by her father, and when he says abuse, he puts it in air quotes," abused" by her father. "She actually loved it. She enjoyed it and the only reason that she called it "abuse" was because she realized that society told her it was "abuse." And so she's, "Oh it's abuse." But if it wasn't for society, she wouldn't have been a victim because she didn't see herself that way. So that was kind of the mentality, and he would say these kinds of things over and over again to get people to be like, you're only a victim because it's in your head.

AJ: Yeah, very misogynistic. Gaslighting at its finest. Honestly, just like, yeah. Keith, obviously is a horrible person, if you can't tell by now.

Katie: Yeah. He's obviously awful and it just sucks. It's one of those things where it could have been, and it did start out as such a good program to help people get over things that people actually should get over, but then he just takes it too far of course, like every cult leader. So we were talking about India Oxenberg and how she was branded, but she still felt okay about it. When her mother was trying to get her out, even told her "you're being brainwashed, they're brainwashing you", and she was saying, "No I'm not, you don't know what you're talking about." She talks in this interview, she says how not believing she was of her mom and the outside world. When they came out about Keith, she still didn't believe them. And so that's how deep in she was. But the reason that all of this got exposed, one of the reasons, was because when Sarah got her brand and it was supposed to be a secret, but she did show her husband and tell him about it. He was the one, he was in NXIVM too, he was, "What the hell? This is actually not okay." Sarah told her friend Mark Vicente, who was the VP of communications for NXIVM. They were really close. And he was very...

AJ: He was the one who got her in, Sarah?

Katie: Yeah. And so when she tells him about all this and Mark's wife was in it as well, they all banded together and somehow their eyes were opened about all this that was happening, and that is NXIVM's downfall. This branding that Sarah got was just unacceptable to her husband.

AJ: Yeah. And eventually the FBI caught wind of this. They obviously reported it, and then eventually, I remember the first time I ever heard about NXIVM, was the day that Keith was arrested. It was all over the news that Alison Mack was a part of this sex cult and the leader of the sex cult was arrested in Mexico. He fled to Mexico during the initial investigations. I guess he thought he would be safe and it's actually, I think it's in "The Vow" where they talk about how they found out where he was staying in Mexico because all these people moved down there with him and they were posting social media pictures with clear, visible landmarks that they were able to trace to where they were. They ended up finding Keith living with a harem of women in this mansion in Mexico. The FBI arrested him and took him. Alison Mack and Lauren Salzman, and a couple others actually chased the police car down when they took Keith. Which is embarrassing to say the least

Katie: It's cringy.

AJ: Actually I think the first news article I ever read about NXIVM was that Alison Mack was chasing a police car and was in a sex cult. I was like, "What sort of tabloid is that?" I thought it was fake, but, , yeah, it's actually true, what happened. Keith was eventually indicted and arrested as was Nancy Salzman and Lauren Salzman and Alison Mack. The four of them were really the top people. Right? You would say those four and the Bronfman sisters too were financing the whole thing, but they ended up getting indicted by the FBI and they all went to trial.

Stephanie: Keith Raniere was found guilty of racketeering, conspiracy, sex trafficking, attempted sex trafficking, forced labor, and wire fraud. He was actually sentenced to 120 years in prison. Alison Mack pleaded guilty to racketeering and racketeering conspiracy, and she was sentenced to three years in prison. Clare Bronfman, pleaded guilty to conspiracy, to conceal and harbor an undocumented immigrant for financial gain, and fraudulent use of identification.

Katie: Not even related to Nxivm, or was that something else? Who was she harboring? What the hell!

AJ: What the hell! There is a story out there somewhere.

Katie: Yeah.

Stephanie: It says convicted for the Nxivm sex scandal so I'm assuming she was sentenced to 81 months in prison. Lauren Salzman...

AJ: Was that maybe, sorry, was that maybe in "The Vow" or maybe "Seduced", where Keith was holding that woman hostage in her bedroom for like...

Katie: Oh I was going to bring that up. Yeah. So another crazy thing that shows the mind control that Keith had over these people was, I don't remember if it was a punishment or it was a lesson that this woman had to learn and they called her Danielle. I'm not even sure if that was her real name. She was told that she had to go in this room in this house, a bedroom, until she could think about what she did or to reflect on it. She fucking stayed in that room for two years and she wasn't locked in, she could have walked out at any time. They would deliver her food at the door and she would just pick it up and eat it in her room. She was in there for two years on her "own "free will", because she wasn't locked in. She didn't feel like she deserved that she should get out yet. So that's messed up.

AJ: It's so crazy. It's so crazy. It just goes to show you the mind control that he had over these people. These people are willingly doing this because of what he says.

Katie: Yeah, that's unbelievable.

AJ: Yeah. So was Clare Bronfman involved in that? Is that why she's getting a harboring? What is that? Harboring someone was that the charge?

Stephanie: Conspiracy to conceal and harbor an undocumented immigrant for financial gain.

AJ: I don't know.

Katie: It could have been, I remember in "Seduced", they talked about a lot of Mexican people that had come up for this party that they were having at India Oxenberg mother's house. When they were right in the beginning, one of the ESP party things, and a lot of people had come up from Mexico because they had a big following there. So that could have been a Mexican, that they were hiding in that room. Or it could have been a foreign person that was just in there for two years that really should not have been in the country even, let alone fucking stuck in that room.

AJ: Shady shit, basically.

Katie: Yeah.

Stephanie: Then Lauren Salzman pleaded guilty to racketeering and racketeering conspiracy, and she was sentenced to five years of probation. Nancy Salzman pleaded guilty to racketeering conspiracy, and she was sentenced to 42 months in prison. And there's another person here and I don't know who she is. Kathy Russell pleaded guilty to visa fraud.

AJ: So this actress, Nikki Klein, and she was in Battlestar Galactica, but she apparently had married Allison Mack, but it was just so that she could get a visa or a green card to move to Albany because she was in NXIVM and still is in NXIVM or it's not called NXIVM now, but it's a very small group under a different name, but they still follow Keith Raniere. Nikki Klein gave a very cringe interview. She went on a podcast and was saying the media was lying and that NXIVM was a great thing. So, I mean, that was cringy. I don't think that's Kathy Russell or whatever her name is. So I don't know what that is. But Nikki Klein allegedly, married Allison Mack so she could get a green card or a visa.

Katie: Yeah. And Keith still has his followers. In "Seduced" it shows them dancing outside of his prison window.

AJ: Yeah and that guy who got over his Tourette's because of Keith or because of NXIVM, he's still a follower and he's one of the dancers outside the prison too.

Katie: Well, I get that it helped him for sure. But yeah, there has to come a point where you can't keep denying everything that's out there about it. When I was watching "The Vow", India Oxenberg was not in "The Vow", but her mother was, and she kept talking about how she was trying to get India out and how deep in she was. I was thinking, "Who is this India person? It'd be so interesting to hear it from her perspective." Then "Seduced" does it from India's perspective, her story in it. That was interesting. Now she finally realized, you know what she did wrong and she didn't get charged with anything because she was the one that had given a flash drive over to the police with a bunch of conversations that Keith had about a lot of stuff that he was charged for. So that was her and it was interesting to hear her side. But now I want to hear Alison Mack's side and is she still siding with Keith? Does she think she was brainwashed? Was she compliant the whole time? I really want to hear her side of the story now. I wonder if she'll ever come out with that.

AJ: Sarah Edmondson and her husband Nippy have a podcast called "A Little Bit Culty". They do talk a lot about this and I believe on that podcast, they say that they've heard that Alison Mack has woken up and she's not on Keith's side anymore. She's realized what she was involved in so that's good. We haven't heard anything from Alison Mack directly, but that's what I've heard by listening to that podcast. So hopefully that's true. And that was like early on in the podcast so I haven't listened to every episode, but that's, as far as I know. I hope that's true that she's kind of realized...

Katie: if she has realized then maybe she'll come out with another, there'll be another documentary about it from her perspective, which will be interesting.

AJ: Yeah, I'm very intrigued because there's a lot of YouTube videos of when she was in NXIVM and she's interviewing Keith in a promotional video for NXIVM. It's so crazy to see. You can tell how enamored with him she is, the way she looks at him, the way she talks to him. It's really crazy to watch, especially in retrospect.

Katie: Oh yeah. I know. I always think about that when I think about how deep in she was and in "Seduced", when they show some of the V week and the performance and she's singing and just the emotion coming out of her. She is staring at Keith and she just wants his approval. You can just see how deep in she was and how much she thought of Keith, how much respect and love even she had for him. So it was crazy.

Stephanie: After Keith was convicted, a federal lawsuit was filed in New York accusing Raniere and 14 associates. So this would be Nancy, Clare, Sarah, Lauren, Alison, Kathy Russell, and Nikki Klein and Danielle Roberts. There's a federal lawsuit on them for conducting illegal psychological experiments on members of the company and abusing them physically, emotionally and financially. Those are some other lawsuits that were filed. Also, in September of 2020, a judge of the United States district court for the Eastern district of New York, sentenced Bronfman to six years and nine months in federal prison. Her attorney promised to appeal, calling the sentence an abomination.

Katie: Yeah. Her bail was set at a hundred million dollars, which is the highest bail ever in American history.

AJ: Oh my god! Really? I didn't know that.

Katie: Yeah.

Stephanie: While Raniere is incarcerated, he still maintains his leadership role over NXIVM and he regularly communicates with his followers by phone.

Katie: Ah, and Keith is gross. You look at him and he looks awkward and he kisses everybody on the lips. If I was there and was close enough to him to have to do that, I would feel gross about it. You know what I mean? He looks gross for one thing. Just the way he talks

AJ: Sleezy!

Katie: His narcissism is even grosser. Then he just gives everyone a big old smooch on the lips every time he sees them. It's just...

Stephanie: I remember watching "The Vow" and they're playing a volleyball game that they would stay up till fucking 6:00 AM in the morning, and just him with his fucking headband on and his stupid short shorts.

Katie: I know he looks like a fucking idiot and he thinks he's so cool and smart.

AJ: Looser!

Katie: He's so stupid. Just the way he carries himself he thinks he is the ruler of everything. And it's so dumb.

Stephanie: Still now that he's in prison, he still thinks he can manipulate people.

AJ: Well, no. Well, they think he was wrongfully convicted and that's what their stance is. Also in the latest development there's a Rolling Stone article from four days ago, and it says that Keith Raniere is trying to appeal his conviction. He's in the process of appealing it, which, I mean, there's not a chance in hell, I would say, but he's going to try.

Katie: Yeah. So even if he gets one overturned, all of those convictions, aren't going to get overturned. So he's going to definitely be in jail for a while. There's no way they're all going to be overturned.

AJ: Yeah. I mean, you know, if he's successful in overturning one conviction, instead of being in prison for 120 years, he's just in prison for a hundred years. So...

Katie: Yeah.. So have fun getting out.

AJ: So basically overall it was horrific, as you can tell from the details, horrific. There's still so much involved in this cult. It went on for decades and there's so much involved. We didn't even go into many of the different aspects. There was another woman who allegedly committed suicide, but then they think that it might've been not suicide, and she was killed by somebody within NXIVM. Allegedly there's some articles, her name was Kristin Snyder, and they do mention her in the "Seduced" documentary. So if you do want to know more information about this cult, then we're going to be putting, in the show notes, we'll have some links to documentaries and some new news articles. So definitely take a look in the show notes to read more, because like I said, there's definitely way more than we even mentioned because you know, just when you think he can't get crazier, it does.

Katie: Yeah, definitely. That's a crazy one.

Stephanie: And to think that it wasn't that long ago that this cult came about. We heard about it because it was recently in the news, which most cults these days aren't in the news. I learned about this cult before we even started the podcast.

AJ: Oh, yeah.

Stephanie: I remember I was talking about it.

Katie: I didn't hear about it until all the shit went down and they were getting arrested. And I remember Lisa saying, "Did you hear about Allison Mack getting arrested for being in a Cult?" I was "What the hell? "And that's when I looked into it.

AJ: Yeah, cause she probably saw the same article I did. Alison Mack chases after a car. That's literally the first article I saw it was crazy.

Katie: Okay.

AJ: Allison Mack chasing after a police car in Mexico that held the leader of a sex cult which she was involved in. "What? I need to read more. What is going on?"

Katie: Yeah. So that's a crazy thing.

AJ: Yeah. Lisa is our other sister, by the way, if you didn't know. The rogue sister who didn't want to be on the podcast.

So did anyone have any like final thoughts or anything else before we wrap it up?

Stephanie: I just want to say when I first started doing research for it, I didn't know how deep NXIVM was and how sleazy it was.

Katie: Yeah. And I also think it's maybe important again, to reiterate some of the warning signs or the red flags. There are cults today and you, or someone, you know, could be in a cult. So I think some of the warning signs are; when the group is isolating them from their family and friends when that's their only priority is this group; if they have a sudden change in appearance or personality; if there's this almighty leader that they are bowing down to in a way or someone that they see as superior. Those are definitely red flags. Those are just a few the top of my head.

AJ: Yeah. A lot of these cults, like everyone we've mentioned and most cults do have the same sort of set of red flags. I guess just as a general reminder to everyone, if something seems a little bit too good to be true, there's a good chance that it is. If it seems a little bit on the culty side, based on some of the things you've heard in this mini series or other cults you know of. I said, we have that flight or fight response for a reason. We have our intuition for a reason. So definitely listen to that, if something seems a little bit off. So that about does it for our cult miniseries. It's been very interesting to take a look at these four cults and to tal about them in depth. So we hope that you've enjoyed the mini series and hope you've learned maybe a little bit of something about one of these cults you didn't know about, or, you know, just learned some things to be wary of when it comes to cults.

Katie: There's one thing I just wanted to mention that I forgot about. Another thing is even if you think it can't happen to you, but of course we hear this, like it can happen to you. And one good example is in NXIVM. One of the members who was in for almost 10 years, actually grew up in the "Children of God" cult. She escaped that, and then she found herself in NXIVM somehow. So even her having that background and being probably hyper aware of the situation was still able to be sucked in. So you just never know and you always have to keep your mind open about that kind of thing.

AJ: Also we'll say the name of the documentaries again, so you can watch "The Vow", which is on HBO. Definitely check that out. Then you can watch ""Seduced, Inside The NXIVM Cult", which was a stars documentary or docu series. So definitely find that on the streaming apps. Definitely watch them because they are very eye-opening and crazy.

You can find us on all the social medias as always. We're on Instagram @crimefamilypodcast, we're on Twitter @crimefamilypod1,, and we are on Facebook @Crime Family Podcast. You can always send us an email as well. We're crimefamilypodcast@gmail.com. Send us those case suggestions. We're always interested to know what cases you guys want us to cover. We might discover a really great one based on a suggestion. So definitely do that if you have a good case for us. You can also visit our website@crimefamilypodcast.ca. You can listen to all of our episodes on the website. There's also transcripts there. There is a link to our merch store, which is coming at some point soon. So, it's linked to the merchandise, but a page for the upcoming merch store. So it is coming. It's been a work in progress. Okay. So thank you guys for listening. We hope you've enjoyed the mini series and we'll be back next week with a new episode. So until then take care. Bye.

Katie: Bye.

Stephanie: Bye.