NXIVM

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Drink the Kool-Aid Cults

But you WANT to stay!

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NXIVM (a.k.a. DOS) was a self-help organization that claimed to provide "personal-development" seminars, but was later exposed as a highly exploitative and depraved sex cult involved with human trafficking. It also operated Executive Success Programs, Inc. It was founded by Keith Raniere (1960–) ("The Vanguard") in 1998. The name is pronounced to rhyme with "Nexium", an over-the-counter 24-hour antacid.

At one point, they ran a news site called "The Knife of Aristotle", which later just became "The Knife". They claimed to help readers snuff out fake news, but their methodology for doing so was incredibly vague. Nevertheless, Media Bias/Fact Check apparently felt confident enough to give it a "Least Biased" rating, somehow. The Knife shuttered its doors somewhere around August 2018.

What it claims

NXIVM boasted "a remarkable development in scientific and psychodynamic understanding, education, and technology that can facilitate this transition so the pattern of humanity's rises and falls can actually be broken and transformed."

Allegations

Celebrity recruitment and wealthy heiresses

Taking its cues directly from the Church of Scientology, NXIVM had managed to acquire a handful of celebrities to boost its image and increase its membership, though admittedly, most of them were televisions actors that lacked the same level of star power from the likes of Tom Cruise and John Travolta. Echoing the experiences of former scientologists such as Leah Remini, the cult's celebrities were also encouraged to recruit their fellow cast and crew members (both on-and-off set) from the shows and movies they currently acting in to join up with the group, similar to a pyramid scheme.

For instance, former Smallville star Kristin Kreuk allegedly recruited her co-star Allison Mack, into the cult starting in 2006. She was sent to a self-help retreat which turned out to be one of their recruitment seminars. Kreuk just barely got in and then got out, but Mack did not. She co-founded the sex sect, recruited and kept the women underfed, branded them with her initials, and introduced corporal punishment along with her leader. Marketing her cult as a "feminist" organization, Mack would also use Twitter during the mid-to-late 2010s to try and recruit several high-profile women into NXIVM, including Harry Potter star Emma Watson, country singer Kelly Clarkson, and New York Times cultural critic Amanda Hess. Actress Samia Shoaib recalls that soon after meeting her while they were both were auditioning for a television pilot episode sometime in 2013, Mack attempted to "lure" her (in Shoaib's own words) into NXIVM through various emails and text messages, describing Mack's behavior as love bombing.

Grace Park and Nicki Clyne from the hit Sci-Fi Channel series Battlestar Galactica were also involved in the organization in some capacity as its top recruiters, the latter of whom was so devoted to the cult that Clyne (at the very height of her popularity and following Keith Raniere's instructions) broke her contract with the show's producers and had her character killed off before quitting acting entirely just so she can support NXIVM full time and later ended up defending Raniere even after he was convicted. Clearly, Raniere was trying to fuck and brand all the women from your favorite sci-fi shows you watched as a kid. In addition, the guy got two heiresses to give him $60 million.

Sorority scandal

The 2018 indictment against Raniere et al.

A secret sorority within the organization, said to have started in 2015, was discovered in 2017, with female recruits being non-consensually branded with a mark below their hip after being asked to voluntarily offer naked photographs and other compromising material as "collateral" and a show of trust. The sorority was structured around obedience, with each circle led by a "master" who would recruit six "slaves", who were then expected to recruit slaves of their own. Punishments for lack of strict obedience included fasting and corporal punishments. Over time, more collateral was demanded from its members. Text messages suggest that Raniere was aware of its practices, including the brand which incorporated his initials. According to court testimony by ex-member Lauren Salzman, Raniere envisioned having thousands of slaves.

In 2018, Raniere was indicted with charges of sex trafficking, sex trafficking conspiracy, and conspiracy to commit forced labor. Allison Mack was arrested and charged with the same crimes on April 20, 2018. Reason has, however, criticized the charges of "sex trafficking", noticing that although what they did at NXIVM can be called several things, it cannot be called "sex trafficking", and that they're calling it so because of sensationalism.

In April 2019, Allison Mack pleaded guilty to the crimes of racketeering and racketeering conspiracy charges. In July 2021, Mack was sentenced to three years in prison.

In June 2019, Raniere was found guilty of "racketeering, racketeering conspiracy, wire fraud conspiracy, forced labor conspiracy, sex trafficking, sex trafficking conspiracy, and attempted sex trafficking", with the "racketeering" charge including "extortion, identity theft, and production and possession of child pornography". Raniere was sentenced to 120 years in prison on 27 October 2020.

Response to critics

While gratuitous comparisons to Scientology annoy the experienced cult watcher, it really doesn't help NXIVM's case when they take their moves straight out of said tax-deductible religion's playbook:

• They label dissenters "suppressives".
• They respond to said dissenters with attempted overwhelming legal force (to the point where judges call them out on it).
• They sent private investigators to go through Rick Ross's garbage cans, of all the people to try such a stunt on.
• They also tried to sue Ross for copyright violations when he quoted their material to criticise it, which surprisingly enough didn't work out too well for them.
• They even cited a Scientology lawsuit victory as a defense against the forced labor/nude photo blackmail charges filed in the sorority scandal.

External links

• Executive Success Programs^{[dead link]}
• World Ethical Foundations Consortium — another Raniere site; it is not clear whether the Dalai Lama endorses his name and image being all over it^{[dead link]}
• Rick Ross links on NXIVM/ESP
• Daily Beast reportage on NXIVM:
  • Feds: ‘Self-Help’ Guru Kept Women as Sex ‘Slaves,’ Branded Them With His Initials, 27 March 2018
  • How ‘Smallville’ Actress Allison Mack Became a Women-Branding Cult Leader, 28 March 2018
  • The Hollywood Followers of NXIVM, a Women-Branding Sex Cult, 30 March 2018

See also

• Erhard Seminars Training
• Steve Drain