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

by Sarah Berman

NXIVM insiders floated a theory that Snyder had simply skipped town, and later hired a private investigator to help back up the claim that she was alive and “resort hopping” in another state.

Idk what becomes of Keith Raniere yet but I hope it involves a wood chipper

Clare and Sara’s loans weren’t typical ones in that they weren’t expected to be paid back. The sisters considered themselves “passive investors” who weren’t focused on returns.

I wish i was rich enough to be this stupid

“Keith never admitted that his math formula and commodities knowledge was lousy,” Bouchey added. “I never heard him say that once. It was always a plot against him and what he was doing.”

~narcissism~

self-styled gurus like himself (and Raniere) are most powerful when audiences are willing to suspend disbelief and trust that something exciting and improbable is about to happen.

YEAH! NO SHIT!

Rapport is a central concept in NLP and hypnosis. Matching someone’s breathing or heart rate, mirroring their movements, and watching their complexion and facial tics for signs of agreement are taught as ways to increase agreeability and trust. NXIVM students learned to “lead” a conversation by mirroring subtle movements for a while and then testing out whether the other person unconsciously mimicked them. If you took a sip of water and the person you were mirroring followed suit, you knew that person was in deep rapport.

Dont car salesman do this too?

A simple way to leave suggestions in someone’s unconscious mind is to overload them with information and hope that some of it unconsciously sticks.

In Thinking, Fast and Slow, psychologist Daniel Kahneman writes about the difference between “system one,” our associative brain, and “system two,” our skeptical processing brain. Research tells us that the first system is quick and freely associating and linked to believing in a statement. The second system is a slower, more critical process “in charge of doubting and unbelieving.” One study by psychologist Daniel Gilbert found that participants made to hold a set of digits in their head while reading a series of nonsensical statements like “Whitefish eat candy” were more likely to think false sentences were true. “The moral is significant: when system two is otherwise engaged, we will believe almost anything,” Kahneman writes. “Indeed, there is evidence that people are more likely to be influenced by empty persuasive messages, such as commercials, when they are tired and depleted.”

sticking to the rules only limited the total number of options available in a given situation. That meant bad people were always going to win.

Raniere in his library, which was really a dimly lit condo that housed his Steinway piano, his books and whiteboard, a sauna, a hot tub, and a loft space containing a bed with a TV mounted on the ceiling.

Andrew Tate in beta mode

“You are going to kill me,” Raniere said.

God, if only

Her financial planning business struggled, her credibility was seemingly ruined, and NXIVM supporters actively spread false rumors of her guilt.

My sympathy is limited.

These so-called garbage runs, which are legal in New Jersey,

WHAT

Keeffe had become a near unstoppable force. But she was also kept on a shorter and shorter leash.

Shocking a control freak would manipulate a woman smarter than he is

By this measure, the journalists who wrote about NXIVM were failing at their jobs because they lacked the firsthand experience of taking courses.

Everything is a grift

“The extra weight hurts my heart physically when I am with you.”

Keep eating, girl. Something needs to kill this man

when in your life do you have five weeks where you don’t have to also pay rent, you know?” —

But you did have to pay rent, it was $6000