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

by Sarah Berman

The two would be making a lifelong commitment to each other, though not on the equal footing they had as best friends. Edmondson would have to take a lifelong “vow of obedience” to Salzman—to become her slave.

Then Edmondson would usually jump in with her own compliments—in my case, for example, telling me she’s heard that I’m a great writer. It was all in the service of fostering a meaningful, pleasant connection. NXIVM called it “building rapport”—a straightforward concept, and not particularly unique, but one that NXIVM students practiced and studied at length.

“I would try to mirror back the words that you used so that you felt listened to and heard. And you wouldn’t even clock that, if I did it well,” she said.

Clancy’s research has found that our memories are changed every time we access them, and that memories played back and recontextualized in hypnosis are at higher risk of becoming distorted, or “false.” People who are higher in creativity or more prone to fantasy are more likely to have these kinds of vivid trance experiences—such as a belief that they’ve been probed by aliens or that they’re the reincarnation of Simone de Beauvoir—committed to memory.

Cult expert Steven Hassan’s theory is that Raniere used neuro-linguistic programming, or NLP, to leave suggestions in women’s subconscious minds.

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.”

They forged intense personal relationships and accountability structures that were unusual in the world of psychotherapy. Years later, NXIVM would implement a rule that no psychologists or psychiatrists were allowed to attend its courses, a rule shared with Scientology.

he studied Eastern religious theories on energetic channels in the body and had mastered the path to enlightenment through sexuality. He told one of his partners that he required sex constantly, or else spiritual energy might consume him to the point of death.

Scientific studies of conformity have found that our minds are more prone to caving when we’re outnumbered.