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

by Sarah Berman

unspoken success formula, which always seemed to involve heroic acts of self-denial and sacrifice.

The classes taught that suffering is optional, that the power of positive thinking creates reality, and that there’s no such thing as a “victim.”

“The truth just didn’t matter; it was all about control,” he told me. “They were Trumpian before Trump.”

these exercises helped proctors and coaches sort who happily accepted an unfamiliar set of rituals, who resisted, and who needed to be ejected for asking too many questions.

throws considerable skepticism at the “evangelical” tone of most NLP workshops and the over-the-top claims made by some of its practitioners.

Instead of letting anger get the best of me, I could choose to analyze the source of my discomfort and why it was manifesting in an aggressive way. This was how you became what NXIVM called an “integrated” person—to be in complete control of your emotions and not be unduly swayed by past traumas and misperceptions.

PART OF WHAT made an integration so appealing was the honest, self-assured dispositions of the people in class who said they’d had them.

“What Keith Raniere is masterful at is using secrets and lack of transparency to not allow people to know the whole story, or to discredit someone who might,” Bouchey says. “NXIVM was all about teaching people how to be more honest, honorable, forthcoming, and genuine. So nobody ever expected that the leadership were all liars.”