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grits-galraisedinthesouth · 4 years

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NXIVM's Clare Bronfman (Seagrams Heiress) sentenced to 6 years and 9 months prison. Ordered to pay $500,000 FINE.

Meghan should be worried.

NXIVM group founded by a (Clinton Political Operative ) Hope, AK Amyway salesman, multi-level marketing schemer & child rapist & an RN, Nancy Salman (Clinton global initiative member) trained in HYPNOSIS & NEUROLINGUISTIC PROGRAMMING& financed by the Bronfman-Seagrams family Canadian alcohol bootleggers who used anti-Semitism in identity politics & political disruption.

Canada's SNC Lavalin, connected to America's Uranium One obama-clinton scandal, paid over $1 million dollars in ESCORT services, SEXUAL Services in VARIOUS Canadian cities to entertain Libyia's Saadi Gaddafi, Libya's dictators son.

Who provided Trudeau with the honeypots to service Gaddafi's son? ------------>NXIVM

Mexican slaughter victims were from NXIVM recruiting ground

Robert Gavin Nov. 8, 2019

9A car passes through Colonia LeBaron, one of many locations where the extended LeBaron family lives in the Galeana municipality of Chihuahua state in northern Mexico, Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2019. Drug cartel gunmen ambushed on Monday three vehicles along a road near the state border of Chihuahua and Sonora, slaughtering at least six children and three women from the extended LeBaron family, all of them U.S. citizens living in northern Mexico, authorities said Tuesday.Photo: Christian Chavez, APShow More

ALBANY – The nine U.S. citizens slaughtered in an ambush Monday were from a Mormon community in northern Mexico where NXIVM recruited teenagers for a "girls school" to live in the Capital Region under the care of a high-ranking "slave" for Keith Raniere.

The Mormon community’s ties to the disgraced NXIVM leader's cult-like organization were revealed in May during the testimony of NXIVM defector Mark Vicente, a filmmaker based in Los Angeles who once lived in Knox Woods, the same Halfmoon townhouse complex as Raniere.

The nine women and children killed -- including eight-month-old twins -- were traveling in a mountainous area where the notorious Sinaloa drug cartel has been waging a turf war. The victims were related to the extended LeBaron family community in the state of Chihuahua.

Vicente’s testimony in May helped lead to the conviction of Raniere, 59, formerly of Halfmoon, on all charges of sex trafficking, forced labor and racketeering in his trial in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn. Raniere, known within NXIVM as “Vanguard,” faces the possibility of life in prison at his sentencing on Jan. 17 by Senior U.S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis.

According to Moira Kim Penza, the lead federal prosecutor at Raniere's trial, Raniere created a “girls school” for Mexican teenagers, many of whom were recruited from within the LeBaron community to live in the Albany area under the care of a "first-line slave" for Raniere.

Raniere secretly operated a"master/slave" group known as DOS or “Dominus Obsequious Sororium," which translates from Latin as "Lord/Master of the Obedient Female Companions." Under the orders of Raniere, the "Grand Master," women in DOS were starved on 500-calorie-a-day diets and forced to provide "collateral" in the form of sexually explicit photos or false information about themselves and their family to ensure their loyalty. They also were required to have Raniere's initials branded onto their pelvic areas by a person using a cauterizing pen.

Penza, now a partner at the firm of Wilkinson Walsh + Eskovitz in Manhattan, told the Times Union that some of the girls attending the so-called school took courses at Jness, a purported women’s group in NXIVM. There, they were “exposed to Raniere’s pedophilic and misogynistic teachings, and, I believe, being groomed to have sex with Raniere,” the former prosecutor explained.

“I believe the girls from the LeBaron community were targeted specifically because, having been raised in a polygamist sect, they were more vulnerable to Raniere’s teachings on sexuality, including that it is natural for women to be monogamous and for men to have more than one partner—a philosophy that served Raniere’s own sexual preferences,” Penza said.

At a Jness meeting in Apropos, a former Halfmoon restaurant on Route 9, NXIVM president Nancy Salzman parroted Raniere's words that some children are "adult-like," mentally capable of experiencing sex with adults and "perfectly happy" doing so.

During the trial, Vicente testified that he spent eight years working on a 2016 documentary, Encender EL Cocorazon, which was based in LeBaron and chronicled efforts to stand up to violence in Mexico. The film included interviews with Julian LeBaron, whose brother, Benjamin LeBaron, the spiritual leader of the LeBaron community and an anti-violence activist, was murdered in 2009.

Julian LeBaron, a relative of the victims in the massacre, by Wednesday afternoon had received condolences from more than 300 people on his Facebook page.

Vicente testified that during the making of Encender EL Cocorazon, members of NXIVM's executive board, including Seagram's heiress Clare Bronfman, became angry at him because he was "minimizing" Raniere in the film and not recognizing the "greatness of Raniere."

"And I said, 'No, I'm not, this is the story I'm following that started,'" Vicente testified. "And (Clare Bronfman), at one point, really exploded at me saying, 'It's unbelievable that given everything you've been given by this man, you can't -- you know, you can't give him tribute.' And so that went on for years."

Bronfman, who pleaded guilty in April to conspiracy to conceal and harbor illegal immigrants for financial gain and fraudulent use of identification, will be sentenced NXIVM president Nancy Salzman and other former top NXIVM officials, including her daughter, Lauren Salzman, actress Allison Mack and NXIVM bookkeeper Kathy Russell, also await sentencing.

Vicente said the program was headed by NXIVM member Rosa Laura Junco, the daughter of a media mogul in Mexico. The program, built on Raniere's teachings, claimed to immerse children in nine languages at the same time.

On May 9, Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark Lesko asked Vicente about a separate program for girls from LeBaron that NXIVM set up known as Rainbow Cultural Gardens.

Junco was identified at the trial as a “first-line” slave of Raniere in DOS, which means she answered directly to him.

Vicente also testified that India Oxenberg, the daughter of actress Catherine Oxenberg and who is now out of NXIVM and DOS, was put in charge of Delegates, a company in the Halfmoon area within NXIVM whose members were mostly younger people from within the LeBaron community.

"You call somebody, 'I need my laundry picked up, or I need to be picked up from the airport' kind of thing," Vicente said. "People would call her or text her and tell her what we needed and she would look at the workforce that was available and then assign them."

Vicente added: "A lot of the LeBaron girls were working for Delegates, and then some of the other younger members. They were -- they were, you know, younger people that didn't really have a career choice yet that were working for her."

Members of the LeBaron community, who are said to trace their origins to the 1950s, live about 70 miles south of the border town of Douglas, Ariz.

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freshbloodandgothicism · 4 years

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21 Questions tag!

Rules: Answer 21 questions and tag 21 people you’d like to learn more about

Tagged by @emptymasks thank you for tagging me and I’m sorry this has been in my drafts for so long asdfgh

Name: Jessica!

Nicknames: Jess, Pookie, Spooky, jness, Wednesday and dickhead

Zodiac: Virgo

Favourite musicians or groups: too many to name but my main groups of musical interests are (in no particular order): - Musical theatre - mid-2000 emo and rock - anime bops - 80s pop - 80′s rock

Favourite sports team: don’t have one, I have no interest in sports

Other blogs: I’ve had various blogs over the years but currently this is my only one!

Do you get asks?: not really, I had a few when I posted my Ben Solo! Meatloaf fanfic but usually only if i ask for writing requests

How many blogs do you follow? about 150!

Tumblr crushes? bruh idk what this means

Lucky number? 13

What are you wearing right now? nightmare before christmas pj bottoms and a dracula t-shirt i got from whitby abbey last year

Dream vacation? well, I was supposed to go to whitby with my girlfriend this year but we had to reschedule to auguts but that probably won’t be happening either because of people not listening to social distancing I think an absolute dream holiday would probably be to Japan with unlimited spending money so I could buy everything I wanted, see various musical productions and try lots of nice food

Dream Car: i dont care for cars at all because i have too much anxiety to be able to drive but just something safe and black

Favourite food: ramen! i went to the little ramen shop every day for lunch during first year at uni, i would eat ramen everyday if i could and i would never get bored of it. My favourite is spicy chicken ramen and I’m so sad i’ve only been able to have packet ramen for the last few months but i am buying the Fattest bowl of spicy chicken ramen when all this shit is over

Drink of choice: i drink a LOT, i am arguably too hydrated, but my most common would be water, tea, cranberry juice, mountain dew and strawberry squash

Instruments: I used to play the cello but i’ve always wanted to learn the piano properly but my hands are too small lmao

Languages: english but i would love to learn others

Celebrity crush?: uhhh not particularly but aesthetically I like Shirota Yu, Yuta Furukawa, Adam Driver, Mizu Natsuki, Gerard Way, Eva Green, Mads Mikkelsen, Uwe Kroger (1992) and usually whoever is playing Krolock in Tanz Der Vampire. i guess these are just the celebrities i tend to keep track on what they’re doing on social media !

Random fact: about myself? i’m really allergic to mould and penicillin, i’m actually one of the most allergic people in the uk when it comes to penicillin because im allergic to that and then the next nine equivalent medications. a general random fact? people who store and move dead bodies say that the preservation fluids stick in their throat and give them ‘death breath’

Favourite ecosystem: uhhh idk? rockpools?

Favourite cat species: i love all types of cats they all deserve forehead kisses and i Will give it to them but if i had to pick one type of cat it would be british shorthairs I tag @need-not, @idontgiveahux, @httptomie and @arbokzee but please don’t feel obligated!! <3 only do it if you want to!

#about me #tag game

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killer-fun-podcast · 5 years

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This is a Cult, Not a Heartburn Medication - NXIVM

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staylitmusic · 8 years

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THE HIP HOP MIKE SHOW FEAT. J NESS by IG: @HipHopMike THIS EPISODE OF THE HIP HOP MIKE SHOW FEATURES AN INTERVIEW WITH JERSEY'S OWN J NESS! FOLLOW HIM @J_NESSCOASTING!!

#Music #SoundCloud #JNESS #HIPHOPMIKE #THEHHMSHOW #JERSEY #NEWYORK #Song #LMSRadio

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note-a-bear · 5 years

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Alison Mack really built up a whole wing of this cult. A literal women's auxiliary called jness

What the heeeeeeedeeellllllllll

#elizabeth Vargas thinger

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jerseydeanne · 6 years

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SHOCKINGThe Hollywood Followers of Nxivm, a Women-Branding Sex Cult

Its founder, Keith Raniere, was just arrested in Mexico. But the controversial cult Nxivm has also attracted many rich and famous followers over the years.

AMY ZIMMERMAN

03.30.18 5:15 AM ET

From a Smallville actress turned alleged top recruiter to heiresses and billionaires, the cult Nxivm has cycled through a host of famous and influential followers.

Formerly known as Executive Success Programs, Nxivm is the brainchild of Keith Raniere, who was just arrested in Mexico on sex trafficking charges. As The Daily Beast previously reported, Raniere has been accused of creating DOS, a “sorority” in which female “masters” recruited “slaves” who were reportedly branded with Raniere’s initials and, according to FBI official William Sweeney, “considered [Raniere’s] sex slaves.”

Sweeney continued, “He allegedly participated in horrifying acts of branding and burning them, with the cooperation of other women operating within this unorthodox pyramid scheme.”

According to the AP, “Investigators said Raniere preferred exceptionally thin women, so ‘slaves’ had to stick to very low-calorie diets and document every food they ate. As punishment for not following orders, women were forced to attend classes where they were ‘forced to wear fake cow udders over their breasts while people called them derogatory names,’ or threatened with being put in cages.”

But long before Raniere was arrested—before ex-followers alleged branding rituals in The New York Times, leading him to flee upstate New York for Mexico—Keith Raniere was just a sketchy “executive coach” hawking his courses to an impressive list of acolytes.

A 2003 Forbes profile of Raniere reported that “some 3,700 people have flocked” to Executive Success Programs. “Prompted by a potent word-of-mouth network, they include Sheila Johnson, cofounder of Black Entertainment Television; Antonia C. Novello, a former U.S. surgeon general; Stephen Cooper, acting chief executive of Enron; the Seagram fortune’s Edgar Bronfman Sr. and two of his daughters; and Ana Cristina Fox, daughter of the Mexican president.” Emiliano Salinas, the son of the former president of Mexico, likened Raniere’s courses to “a practical M.B.A.”

“Why should we pay attention to this psycho factory? Because it has well-placed, well-heeled members and appears to be actively pursuing an entrée into political fund-raising...”

Salinas is listed as “VP Ethics” on Executive Success Programs’ website; his bio notes, “A member of ESP’s Executive Board since 2009, he is involved in helping to maintain the company’s standards and responsible for leading its sales force.”

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While Raniere appears to have long courted wealthy and high-profile followers, there’s a wide range of involvement, from those who took Executive Success Programs to long-term believers who are alleged to have been involved in Raniere’s more nefarious machinations. A 2010 Observer articlecalled out a few high-profile dabblers, including billionaire businessman Richard Branson. Branson reportedly “has hosted an intensive NXIVM course on the Caribbean island he owns” and was “listed along with Sara Bronfman as one of the two ‘benefactors’ of the 2008 Albany A Cappella Innovations conference, the culmination of Mr. Raniere’s brief obsession with a cappella singing.”

According to a Virgin Management spokesperson, “Sir Richard Branson has never heard of Keith Raniere, he has never met him and there is no association between Sir Richard and the NXIVM group. Necker Island is available for hire by members of the public and Sara Bronfman hired Necker Island several years ago. Sir Richard believed the booking was for Sara Bronfman’s family and friends.The booking was not in the NXIVM name and Raniere was not listed as a guest on the island.”

Forbes was cited in 2003 court filings, in which Raniere said “we have been called by MSNBC and Forbes who are contemplating running stories based on the false information.” Later on in the filing, Raniere complained that, “Goldie Hawn cancelled her engagement with us next week because of the false press.” This cancellation was cited in a 2009 op-ed in the Daily Gazette, which argued that the Dalai Lama ought to cancel an upcoming trip to Albany in light of the fact that it was sponsored by a Raniere-founded group, the World Ethical Foundations Consortium. The writer argued, “In 2003, Keith Raniere roped actress Goldie Hawn into speaking at Vanguard Week, an annual NXIVM event. When Hawn learned about the controversies surrounding Raniere, NXIVM and ESP, she canceled her appearance. If Goldie Hawn has the sense not to appear at an event sponsored by Keith Raniere, then cancellation by the Dalai Lama, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, should be a no-brainer.”

While the Dalai Lama did initially cancel his visit, according to a 2010 Vanity Fair expose, “What happened next is something of a mystery.” The article continued, “People believe that Sara and Clare [Bronfman] flew to Dharamsala, India, to plead with him. And, if so, it’s possible they were just extremely persuasive—because His Holiness changed his mind. But the Dalai Lama Trust, registered in New York State just two days before the Dalai Lama’s appearance in Albany, raised eyebrows. Calls to the trust were not returned. The Bronfman money, it was said, might still be able to buy a lot of things, but not respect.”

Although the aforementioned Bronfman sisters may not be Raniere’s most A-list associates, various reports have made them out to be an invaluable resource to Raniere.

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The Bronfmans, heiresses to the Seagram’s fortune, made an appearance in the 2003 Forbesprofile, which featured allegations that Clare Bronfman had “lent” $2 million to Raniere’s program. Allegations against Executive Success Programs were made by none other than the Bronfman’s own father, Edgar Bronfman. While Bronfman once participated in an Executive Success Programs course, Forbes reported that, “He hasn’t talked to his daughters in months and has grown troubled over the long hours and emotional and financial investment they have been devoting to Raniere’s group.” Bronfman even went so far as to call ESP a cult.

The subsequent Vanity Fair piece, “The Heiresses and the Cult,” delved much deeper into the Bronfman sisters’ financial backing of Raniere’s dubious endeavors, alleging that, “According to legal filings and public documents, in the last six years as much as $150 million was taken out of the Bronfmans’ trusts and bank accounts, including $66 million allegedly used to cover Raniere’s failed bets in the commodities market, $30 million to buy real estate in Los Angeles and around Albany, $11 million for a 22-seat, two-engine Canadair CL-600 jet, and millions more to support a barrage of lawsuits across the country against Nxivm’s enemies.”

In 2012, Albany’s Times Union published a list of high-profile Nxivm-ites entitled “NXIVM courts rich, powerful and influential.” It cited Roger Stone, who was allegedly employed by Nxivm. A 2007 New York Magazine articleasked, “Why should we pay attention to this psycho factory?” continuing, “Because it has well-placed, well-heeled members and appears to be actively pursuing an entrée into political fund-raising. Stone, paid by NXIVM, had funneled at least $20,000 to the state GOP; the heirs to Seagram’s fortune are devotees; and, per the Post, Richard Mays—a Clinton friend and one of Hillary’s top fund-raisers—is an ‘Espian’ as well, having taken so-called intensive classes with Raniere.”

The Times Union piece also named a contingent of actresses, including Linda Evans, Nicki Clyne, Allison Mack, and Kristin Kreuk. Grace Park, best known for roles on Hawaii Five-O and Battlestar Galactica, took part in “Keith Raniere Conversations,” a collection of “informal thoughts on civilization, ethics & humanity.” While the conversations featuring Park appear to have been taken down, remnants of Park’s participation can still be found on the internet.

Raniere fled for Mexico after The New York Times published its shocking Nxivm report in October, complete with testimonies from former members. The article featured Dynasty actress Catherine Oxenberg, whose daughter India was initiated into the sorority. In a statement following Raniere’s arrest, Catherine Oxenberg wrote, “For months, I have worked to expose Keith Raniere and NXIVM, and today’s arrest vindicates my efforts. I want my daughter to know I love her and that I want her back in my life.”

As The Daily Beast previously reported, allegations have swirled around Mack, the former Smallville actress who is now rumored to be a top Nxivm recruiter. Mack has written openly about her involvement with Nxivm and Jness, a Nxivm women’s group of which Raniere has deemed himself the “conceptual founder,” and can be seen in Jness video testimonials, as well as ones interviewing Raniere himself.

Frank Parlato, a businessman and reported former Nxivm publicist who is involved in an extended legal battle with the Bronfman sisters, has spoken out about Nxivm on his blog, The Frank Report.

In a 2017 blog post, Parlato wrote at length about Mack’s alleged involvement in DOS: “Both women’s groups, Jness and DOS are based on the teachings of Mr. Raniere. Both require members to keep the teachings secret. Jness is open to females who want to take entry level self-improvement courses on female empowerment. A beginner is not told about the higher level teachings until she proves qualified…Since Miss Mack has assumed control of both organizations, Jness is evolving into a training ground and recruitment camp for women who may qualify for the teachings of DOS. The ‘cream’ of Jness women are invited to join DOS, and the ‘cream’ of DOS women are invited to join Mr. Raniere’s harem [subject to his approval].”

Mack is further alleged to be one of the women who was living with Raniere at the time of his arrest, who “chased the car in which the defendant was being transported in their own car at high speed.”

On Wednesday, Parlato told the New York Post that Kristin Kreuk actually introduced her Smallville co-star Allison Mack to Nxivm. “Kreuk had come first, sometime around late 2005, early 2006,” said Parlato, although she allegedly left the group in 2012. Parlato further claimed that, “Allison was used, as was Kristen, as a lure to bring in other women because of their celebrity status.”

UPDATE:

Kreuk tweeted out a statement acknowledging her affiliation with Nxivm, writing, “During my time, I never experienced any illegal or nefarious activity.” The actress insisted that she left the program “about five years ago” and that, “The accusations that I was in the ‘inner circle’ or recruited women as ‘sex slaves’ are blatantly false.” Kreuk went on to share her disgust with “what has come out” about DOS, and described herself as “deeply disturbed and embarrassed” by her former ties to Nxivm.

Amy [email protected]@thedailybeast.com

Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast here.

#NXIVM #branson

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kammartinez · 2 months

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In Vancouver, monthly Jness meetups aimed to tackle big questions about what “womanhood” really was, but at the end a group facilitator would read out a “disquisition” that served as the final word. These debriefs claimed to be culled from psychological, sociological, and anthropological studies, but of course it was Raniere behind the rulings. This was how Raniere’s “primitive hypothesis” was disseminated to the NXIVM community. “The primitive hypothesis is the thing in Jness that says men are designed to spread their seed and women are designed to be monogamous,” Sarah Edmondson told me. This thinking became a shorthand used throughout the NXIVM curriculum, and a quiet point of contention for women who identified as polyamorous. Men needed sex with many partners—it was in their genes, Raniere claimed—while women were best suited to stay with one person for life. Any woman who challenged this was viewed as a troublemaker. “If you have a problem with it, it’s because you think you’re special. It’s the woman’s problem,” a former member told me.

from Don't Call it a Cult: The Shocking Story of Keith Raniere and the Women of NXIVM by Sarah Berman

#quotes #don't call it a cult #sarah berman #nonfiction #cults #true crime #books

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kamreadsandrecs · 3 months

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Salzman testified that the conditioning instilled by NXIVM’s women-only “Jness” curriculum planted suggestions that women should want to have kids with Raniere. Talking points at some meetings raised eugenicist ideas about prioritizing the genetically fittest mate—Raniere naturally being the smartest, most evolved example on everyone’s mind. This kind of conditioning was part of the reason why Salzman and many other women in NXIVM’s inner circle held on to the hope that they would one day have Raniere’s child.

from Don't Call it a Cult: The Shocking Story of Keith Raniere and the Women of NXIVM by Sarah Berman

#quotes #don't call it a cult #sarah berman #nonfiction #cults #true crime #books

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estj-destroyer-of-misinformation · 7 years

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Would 9w1 counter an INTJs...Jness? As well as most of the future orientation?

It wouldn’t counter the future orientation at all, it’s just weaken the Te and strengthen the Fi. Double down in the lazy inf Se

#intj #enneagram 9 #9w1

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iwt-v · 6 years

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i mean... if allison actually did those things and worked her way all the way up the totem pole to being second in command and was doing things like branding people with her initials (and her own blog is pretty incriminating because not only does she mention the cult, she talks about being in charge of JNESS) she should definitely face some kind of charges. if she tortured and abused people the way it sounds like she did, they deserve justice for what they went through.

What source are you using for this info? I don’t have time to look it all up again, but I see this morning there’s more legitimate news sources posting about it, so clearly something is going on. But obviously this is a developing story and we don’t have all the facts yet. I read in one of the (admittedly) less-legit sources that she could have been brainwashed even. If there’s any truth to that then that complicates things. Oftentimes people who get sucked into cults are victims as much as they are guilty of things. Just saying. Either way it’s definitely fucked up that she got involved to begin with. And the cult leader is, of course, an old creepy white guy. Shocking.

#allison mack #Nxivm #Anonymous

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howwelldoyouknowyourmoon · 4 years

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A new docuseries details why so many were enthralled with Keith Raniere, leader of NXIVM self-help organization/sex cult

Rolling Stone: How HBO’s ‘The Vow’ Tells the Non-Sex-Cult Side of NXIVM

“ ... The first few episodes of the show make painstakingly — at times uncomfortably — clear why so many people would be drawn to Raniere’s teachings. The language of the ESP curriculum, while abstruse, contains echoes of scientific jargon, making it seem on the surface a lot more legitimate than woo-woo New Age pablum. The filmmakers also feature footage of NXIVM members raving about the effectiveness of the course, such as Marc Elliott, a member who says that Raniere and cofounder Nancy Salzman helped cure his Tourette’s syndrome. The series also tracks how Raniere laid the groundwork for his members to accept some of the more extremist aspects of his philosophies, such as the all-female organization JNESS and the all-male group Society of Protectors, which inculcated members to his more misogynistic beliefs.

Even DOS, with its dark veil of secrecy and its BDSM-influenced language and branding rituals, seemed relatively innocuous at first to many NXIVM members. It was presented as a network for powerful women to exert influence, something that appealed to Edmondson in the wake of Trump’s election. “I just felt there was stuff happening in the world that was scary for me, the shifting of power,” she explains. DOS was ‘presented as a way for us to have influence of good, and this would be the best way to, ironically, counter other abuses of power in the world, not seeing that this would be a massive abuse of power in itself.’”

“ ... One of the more compelling subjects interviewed is Barbara Bouchey, one of Raniere’s former girlfriends and a high-ranking NXIVM member. For more than a decade, Bouchey was relentlessly pursued by the company in civil and criminal court after departing in 2009, a battle that left her destitute, according to her own accounts. Throughout Raniere’s trial, Bouchey would often insist that most coverage of NXIVM ignored the positive aspects of the program, what led thousands of people to stay for so long and pledge fealty to the nebbishy little man who played volleyball and loved prog rock and inexplicably referred to himself as “Vanguard.” She reiterates this message in The Vow, at one point speaking fondly of the person who she freely admits ruined her life. “He could’ve been great,” she says, blinking back tears while watching old footage of Raniere playing piano. “There was so much potential. And he did do good and helped thousands of people, including me.”

It’s an uncomfortable moment, because it throws a wrench into our preconceived notions about not just NXIVM and Raniere, but about good and evil in general. We know, at this point in the series, the havoc that Raniere has wrought on Bouchey’s life, and the pain he has inflicted on his acolytes in the service of his own ego. Yet Bouchey steadfastly refuses to deny him the credit she feels he is owed for fulfilling at least some part of the group’s stated mission: to do good in a world that does not make doing good easy. A cynic would call this being in denial; an optimist would call it having hope. And The Vow is, at its core, a hopeful project.”

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Trial of NXIVM leader Keith Raniere begins, 'Smallville' actress pleads guilty

TOM HAYS ABC7NY April 8, 2019

NEW YORK — With jury selection beginning at the federal case against a cult-like upstate New York group, TV actress Allison Mack pleaded guilty Monday to charges she manipulated women into becoming sex slaves for the group's spiritual leader.

Mack, 36, wept as she admitted her crimes and apologized to the women who prosecutors say were exploited by Keith Raniere and the purported self-help group called NXIVM.

"I believed Keith Raniere's intentions were to help people, and I was wrong," Mack told a judge in federal court in Brooklyn as she pleaded guilty to racketeering charges.

Mack is best known for her role as a young Superman's close friend on the series "Smallville."

After months of reflection since her arrest, "I know I can and will be a better person," Mack said. Her sentencing was set for Sept. 11.

The plea means Mack will avoid going to trial with Raniere, wealthy heiress Clare Bronfman and another member of Raniere's inner circle, Kathy Russell. All have pleaded not guilty and denied any wrongdoing.

Potential jurors were expected to begin filling out questionnaires Monday. Opening statements are scheduled for April 29.

The question of whom jurors would see seated at the defense table that day had remained an open in wake of new allegations that Raniere exploited a teenage girl. His co-defendants have since sought separate trials and engaged in plea negotiations.

Court papers allege NXIVM formed a secret society of women who were branded with Raniere's initials and forced to have sex with him. Defense attorneys have insisted any relationship between Raniere and the alleged victims, including an unidentified actress and other women expected to testify against him at trial, was consensual.

On Monday, Mack said that at Raniere's direction, she obtained compromising information and images of two unidentified women - called "collateral" within the group - that she threatened to make public if they didn't perform "so-called acts of love."

The jury questionnaire covers several topics, including asking candidates for their opinions about "rich individuals" and people who "engage in relationships with multiple sexual partners" and whether they "believe that people under the age of 17 should be able to consent to sex with adults."

https://abc7ny.com/trial-of-nxivm-leader-begins-smallville-actress-pleads-guilty/5238219/

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How “God’s Day” was established on January 1, 1968

Moon’s theology for his pikareum sex rituals with all the 36 wives

The six ‘wives’ of Sun Myung Moon

Max Weber redefined charisma to describe leaders who are seen to possess exceptional, even superhuman powers that originate not from God but from human social dynamics.

#sex cults #NXIVM #Keith Raniere

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