❀ the cult of: ➥motivational speakers ➥life coaches ➥personal growth gurus ➥new-age charlatans ➥AWESOMENESS FEST

https://sports.yahoo.com/us-open-2019-self-help-214107798.html

Flushing Meadows is all but empty, the fans that bayed for Bianca Andreescu's demise in the second set have long departed and, in the players' lounge in Arthur Ashe Stadium, the US Open champion is at ease and very much excited.

Andreescu is excited not because she's still revelling in winning her first grand slam title, though that is unquestionably also the case. Instead the 19-year-old is abuzz because she is sat around a table with a group of reporters and has just been asked if she has recommendations for self-help books.

"Where's my phone?!" she enthusiastically shouts. "I have all the books I've read on my phone."

After that extremely modern statement, Andreescu is handed her phone and frantically scrolls through her reading list in search of a book she cannot remember the name of.

"Code of the Extraordinary Mind!" Andreescu exclaims after locating the title of the 2016 work by Vishen Lakhiani.

no fuckin way lmao

malarkey? or effective way?

https://www.documentjournal.com/2019/11/the-radical-feminist-sex-worker-who-photographed-her-clients-at-their-most-grotesque/

On a mission to make photos, Tolui ended up working at the Lusty Lady longer than she thought she would, never asking management for permission to do what she loved. “I didn’t tell them because I didn’t want them to say no. That would have given them something to manipulate me about,” Toloui says.

According to Toloui, everyone in management had to attend Erhard Seminars Training (est), a two-weekend, 60-hour self-help course offered in the 1970s and early ‘80s, which has since been reinvented as the Landmark Forum. Popularized in books like Fight Club and parodied in films like Magnolia, est and the Forum have their proponents and detractors alike.

Toloui is of the latter group. She explains, “They would break you down then build you back up again with all of these ideas about how to manipulate others and how to get your way and succeed in life. Everyone who worked in management had to go through that training so they used that bullshit on us to manipulate the dancers. It was really infuriating. This is a big part of why the dancers rebelled and unionized.”

Tony Robbins has been accused of sexual assault.

*faints dead away*

https://onezero.medium.com/inside-the-social-media-cult-that-convinces-young-people-to-give-up-everything-f3878fbec632

a lot going on there: a self-conscious "cult" with woke/hipster overtones that also maybe is a real cult

definitely a real cult

Well, that was a lot to take in.

if you took all that in we're going to have to quarantine you

Wull cumply as needud.

It reads like a libertarian alt-right cultist's wet dream: 'see how brainwashed they are! this is the true face of leftist wokeness!'

hoo boy

I had heard about this cult before and it was possibly on here somewhere.

anyone watching the nxivm doc on HBO (the Vow)? It's good, though I'm not completely sold on the way they've decided to tell the story, just because it's confusing (it's completely non-linear so it's difficult to tell at what point various things are happening; and a lot of stuff was filmed in real time as the nxivm shit was starting to go down)

I started in on this, but I'm not sure if I'm going to last all 10 episodes.

It's slow going but I think the back half is starting to pace itself well, digging deeper back into Raniere's early days. I will forever be thinking "Hm, well, convenient" when it comes to Mark/Sarah being the heroes of their own stories (and apparently Catherine O might have been more involved than she lets on, per a comment on the Sup Doc episode about the first half of the series) but for all the behind the scenes shenanigans alone, an amazing resource, and just reconfirming how incredibly low-rent Scientology the whole mess was. On a simple filmmaking note, the just queasy enough colors and graphics layered behind the many phone conversations and recordings are pretty well done.

Anyway, Clare Bronfman sentenced today; Raniere's sentencing is in a month:

https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Heiress-faces-sentencing-in-upstate-New-York-sex-15607913.php

Also, there is deep truth here:

possibly the most sinister part of NXIVM was making everyone move to albany pic.twitter.com/s2nR8S6gmD

— Talia Lavin (@chick_in_kiev) September 28, 2020

Two posts in response when I shared that:

At one point Keith equates Albany w/ Ancient Rome and I was like OK

— Mark Coleman (@MarkColeman57) September 29, 2020

A friend of mine who lives in Albany has said, “it’s a great place to live, but I wouldn’t want to visit there.”

— Bagel Strike! #338 (@bagelche) September 29, 2020

More details on the sentencing:

https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/ny-clare-bronfman-nxivm-sex-cult-keith-raniere-sentence-20200930-erflkamkqje6teovbg7bpwq44u-story.html

And a comment from Barbara Bouchey, who was featured in the most recent episode:

Barbara Bouchey, formed Raniere girlfriend, gave a victim impact statement today. She recalls the legal battles she fought when she broke up with Raniere. She says those legal battles were funded by Bronfman. She had to move to the west coast from Saratoga because of everything pic.twitter.com/gu7LomTLWv

— Giuliana Bruno (@GiulianaBrunoTV) September 30, 2020

Bouchey is hoping to get her good name back. She is pleased with Bronfman’s sentence. She never expected 7 years

— Giuliana Bruno (@GiulianaBrunoTV) September 30, 2020

It is, BTW, really worth reading that Daily News link for the details about the woman whose immigration status she essentially threatened her with and what happened in court today -- Bronfman's just as petty, bigoted and manipulative as any number of people I could guess do the same things to non-citizens, Mexicans or otherwise, in this country.

seemed like this was getting alluded to in the last ep:

In fact, Salzman owns Nxivm, and Raniere has nothing to do with it, officially. He received no salary from Nxivm, nor possessed a credit card, A.T.M. card or a car. He told me, “I don’t pay taxes because I live under the poverty level.” I asked him where he got his clothes, which require money to buy. He answered that they usually appeared. Pointing to the polo shirt he was wearing, he said, “until I put this on this morning, I don’t think I’d worn it before, and I didn’t know about it.”

"Who put this food in my mouth?"

One documentary draws to a close, another rises.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqcNp4UFnnM

And get ready for season 2!

https://variety.com/2020/tv/news/hbo-the-vow-part-2-nxivm-docuseries-1234807751/

So The Vow ended and we'll get Nancy in Season 2 and maybe even Keith complaining directly. But -- surprise surprise, and I honestly was surprised -- the Seduced documentary series that started last night is handling all this far more interestingly and far more skillfully overall. Though the focus is on India Oxenberg's story there's a lot of other voices being brought in, as well as some thoroughly concrete detail via interviews not only from journalists on the story (including, notably, the Albany Times-Union team that did work back in 2012) but a variety of psychologists and experts on cult/manipulation tactics and more. Indeed, the way the first episode was structured often clearly functioned as a way to be a curriculum to show how those tactics work and are employed, but in a way that didn't feel pedagogical. It also just laid out the basic early history of Raniere's MLM and eventual launch of NXIVM more concretely and the whole thing was punchier, crisper, way less meandering (and will only be four episodes long).

Interview with India Oxenberg here also has a very interesting section about said other series:

https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-socialite-india-oxenberg-escaped-the-nxivm-sex-cult-and-leader-keith-raniere

Q: I’ve watched Seduced and The Vow, and The Vow is sort of the Mark Vicente show, while this one is more focused on your story and DOS. What is your relationship with Mark Vicente? Because in Seduced, and from what I’ve read about NXIVM, he was essentially one of the people controlling you and ordering you to do things while you were in the cult.

A: I think you’re kind of spot-on. I just want to be careful about what I saw about The Vow, because I want to be respectful of their project since my mom is in it, as well as other women who stuck their neck out and were incredibly brave to speak out. To me, they give the wider strokes of NXIVM whereas our show goes deeper into what it felt like internally to be there. It’s less about the details of NXIVM, more about the experience, and is more human. And I don’t have a relationship with Mark. I do with Sarah (Edmondson), and I have plenty of friends I speak with who have left NXIVM who I speak to regularly. Mark, I don’t. I have some mixed feelings about that as well.

Q: About what happened between you two while inside NXIVM?

A: Yeah. Some of it happened inside, some of it happened with some of my friends, and I wasn’t pleased with the way they were treated as subjects in the documentary (The Vow). There were things that made me cautious about who I was going to trust again. You go through a shedding process, and once you’re done, you realize that the people who are still there are your real friends.

we watched the investigation discovery 'the lost women of nxivm' -- p good, more lurid than the vow complete w/ theorizing the cluster of ladies who had lived w keith to die from cancer could have been via his poisoning them w rat poison

i mean this is more christian than "personal growth" but holy fuck
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w--j_hnoDVI

“with the simple push of a button remove all negative thoughts”

https://www.inspirationcube.com/

Keith R had some words the other day and they were stupid.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/nxivm-founder-keith-raniere-discusses-his-odious-public-image-in-rare-interview

Last night's Seduced episode reconfirms that it's the better documentary, and Mark Vicente gets his to a strong degree in that one.

Seduced covered more in two hours than The Vow irritatingly danced around in seven hours.

Also, Raniere's being sentenced today.

Report from the court:

https://www.thedailybeast.com/nxivm-victims-confront-sex-cult-leader-keith-raniere-at-sentencing

BREAKING: #NXVIM founder Keither Raniere sentenced to 120 years in prison and $1.75 million fine.

— Pilar Melendez (@pbmelendez) October 27, 2020

Seduced covered more in two hours than The Vow irritatingly danced around in seven hours.

Also, Raniere's being sentenced today.

― Montgomery Burns' Jazz (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Tuesday, October 27, 2020 8:12 AM (five hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

yeah, the fact that in the vow they don't show the misogynistic/abusive shit in the "curriculum" that mark, sarah and nippy were all peddling for years - and making good money doing so - until the penultimate episode is such bullshit. first ep of seduced you have Keith talking about raping babies.

In addition to the sentence and fine, the federal judge ruled #Raniere is forbidden to contact anyone affiliated with #NXIVM.

Speaking before the sentencing, Raniere said he was "deeply remorseful" for the pain and anger he has caused—but stressed he is innocent of some crimes.

— Pilar Melendez (@pbmelendez) October 27, 2020

"It is true I am not remorseful over the crimes I do not believe I have committed at all. But I am deeply remorseful of all this pain," Raniere said in his statement to the court.

Later he said: “I am truly sorry. It’s still painful.”

— Pilar Melendez (@pbmelendez) October 27, 2020

Exactly — in Seduced, you’re immediately hit with what a predatory misogynistic piece of shit this guy is. In the first four or five hours of The Vow, he’s a goofball who plays volleyball.

xp

in retrospect now the Vow is utterly bewildering to me. Hours of focus on irrelevant parts of this story. Loads of repeated footage. And avoiding getting around to the point until nearly the end, and even then, being vague about a lot of it. The filmmakers were ex-NIXVM members, no? Maybe they are just too close to the material to understand what other people find compelling.

yeah it's a bizarre series. 9 hours when it could have been half that.

also yes, started Seduced last night. Part of what it has going for it is that India Oxenberg is a more interesting person to listen to than Mark and Bonnie. I though Sarah was the most interesting person in the Vow but felt the doc focused too much on Mark near the end. Mark reminds me of someone I met in college; smart, engaging, but something off. He was a religious studies major so maybe it goes with the territory.

I mean the real problem is that you could just as easily see Mark leading his own cult.

i watched it in real time and thought it was going to be only 4 hours... thought i had read that somewhere or something. havent watched an episode since and dont think i will. coulda been good with the right editor.

Seduced is 4 hours. Vow is 9. Feels like 900.

India Oxenberg on the sentencing

https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2020/10/keith-raniere-nxivm-india-oxenberg-court

inspiration cube is not a cube!

it's a cube of the MIND

So here’s a bizarre NXIVM artifact that ex-ilxor gr8080 & slutsky) found ...

I’ll quote gr8080 bc he summarized it better than I can

“In 2008 NXIVM sponsored an a cappella festival where college a cappella groups from all over the country to network, see performances by world renowned a cappella groups, and ostensibly participate in workshops and clinics, but a lot of participants felt like the whole thing was off and possibly a recruiting scheme

This is the a capella world’s premiere internet message board, and EVERYONE shows up - Vicente, Raniere, Claire Bronfman, Alison Mack, all of them

“2020 sex cult documentary but make it vintage ILX””

it literally is like reading the documentary filtered through an acapella board’s experience
...though forewarning, it’s 200+ posts long 😬

https://web.archive.org/web/20101109232011/http://forums.casa.org/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=4412

wow

also towards the end this guy Deke Sharon kinda goes toe to toe challenging Keith & eventually the thread ends with Deke saying he wont have anything more to do w this acapella group at all bc of nxivms involvement

reading it i was like, huh, that’s ballsy

turns out he is Kind of A Big Deal tm
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deke_Sharon