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

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

This woman also posted in that thread:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amy_Malkoff

Dug around a bit and:

Waaay too complicated to tweet. Will have to email you. But I (personally) have had conversations w/Keith where he tries to refute my suggestion that NXIVM is a cult (and this was in 2008).

— Amy Malkoff (@amalkoff) October 17, 2020

wild thread, thanks for sharing... here is the nxivm a capella group. love the comment 'wow... this sucks!' it is quite bad

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrnOaQG7Tgk

I read that entire thing, my goodness, and I just want to say that Deke Sharon is an utter boss and I seriously recommend reading the thread just to get a master class in how to be polite but authoritatively firm when people are trying to snake around your boundaries.

the thread was tl;dr but deke was being very thorough in his responses

There's also a great B story about a capella bros shitting in the dresser drawers, seriously, people, it's worth your time

otm
Bingamton Crosbys are the real heroes

^^ yes

gr80 have you tracked this one down yet:

Online you can see him posting repeatedly in another forum (HiIQ topic) and being chatty.

I felt like the final episode of Seduced was about 1000x more informative, powerful, and impactful than all 9 hours of the Vow. I know some people are poo-poohing India and think this is meant to rehab her image; certainly there's a part of that, but it seems evident to me that she's a victim. Cult shit is tricky, it's too easy to say she was 100% complicit. I really like all the women with whom she gave that presentation to the law school. Seemed like some fairly strong hints in it that everyone thinks Scientology needs to be tackled next.

they really said “no guatemalans, just vibes 🥰✨” pic.twitter.com/uv3L6FrZqW

— ratty tooey ☭ (@200mgedible) March 21, 2021

not going to say i hope someone there gets kidnapped and held for ransom but im not going to say the inverse

Just started in on this...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKtbJvL2xWI

If I didn't know the T3@l Sw@n cult was real, I'd assume it was fake. It's that far out.

Omg. Someone I have mutual friends with posted a long, weird thread defending this person. Something about how TS is an "energetic mirror" so if you think she's psycho it means YOU'RE psycho.

Wow look at the YouTube comments

she needs to make herself waaayyy less accessible, appearing only briefly in an upstairs window once a week

That's how you run a dangerous yet highly profitable cult

ok, I watched half an hour of that show over lunch and that lady crazy

having listened to podcasts/and having read about some incredibly weird utah-based "therapies" that kids were subjected to, I have no doubt some incredibly fucked up things happened to her as a kid, though

apparently she then consulted with the recovered memories/satanic cult therapist afterward? good lord

this is a zillion hours long but, oh boy
T3@l Sw@n childhood friend:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pY04M9tNEq0

Turquoise Falcon
Fuschia Egret
Lavender Seahawk
Mauve Albatross
...man, I'm never gonna get my cult off the ground...

"If I didn't know the T3@l Sw@n cult was real, I'd assume it was fake. It's that far out."

My first thought was "what has Tilda Swinton done wrong, and why do we have to censor her name".

listening to that long interview with the friend. ummm holy shit!