Cold Open:

The NXIVM Sex Cult!

Founded by Keith “Creepy Ass Super Punchable Face” Raniere [ruh near ee] in 1998 - at its height, this NXIVM had NOTHING to do with acid reflux medication and counted thousands of members, including celebrities, heirs and heiresses who all paid thousands, and sometimes MILLIONS of dollars to attend a never-ending series of classes at various NVIXM training centers.

Lying at the intersection of a multi-level marketing scheme, a self-help group, and occasionally a summer camp, NXIVM was a true cult.

For a few die hards… it kind of still is.

People started publicly worrying about how dangerous this cult might be all the way back in 2003. But it wouldn’t be until 2017, when the New York Times published an article about one of its former members being literally BRANDED like cattle as a part of an initiation into a secret sex cult within NXIVM, that the group’s true and terrible practices would be brought into the light and exposed.

We’ll meet some people - seemingly ordinary people - that so desperately wanted someone to lead them to enlightenment that they allowed themselves to be slowly manipulated into paying to participate in weirder and weirder “exercises” until they finally agreed to be actual slaves. And part of, basically, a harem.

We’ll meet Keith Raniere [ruh near ee], the devious and perverted mastermind at the center of all of this, who used his experience at Amway - a Michigan-based multi-level marketing company - and then borrowed a lot from Scientology, to make people think that he was some kind of once-in-a-lifetime guru spiritual Jedi who had the answer to all of your - and all of the WORLD’S - problems.

But he wasn’t - ISN’T - a guro. He didn’t have any answers. Not really.

Keith Raniere [ruh near ee] is just a man. A really selfish, sick, and bad man who convinced people that doing what he wanted - even if what he wanted was to sexually exploit and degrade them - was the only way for them to lead an ethical, enlightened life.

And now he’s in prison, about to be sentenced, possibly for the rest of his life.

How did Keith manage to keep NXIVM going for almost twenty years? Who the Hell is this guy? How do NXIVM and other multi-level marketing schemes keep manipulating people and taking their money? What psychological processes lead to people getting into and then staying in a cult?

All of this, and more, on another CULT! CULT! CULT! edition of Timesuck.

PAUSE TIMESUCK INTRO

I.Welcome!

A.Happy Monday: Happy Monday you beautiful bastards!

Hail Nimrod, Hail Lucifina, Praise Bojangles, and sing to me Triple M - I had one helluva week!

I’m Dan Cummins, the Master Sucker, Covid Slayer, and you are listening to Timesuck.

This past week for me and the crew here at Bad Magic Productions was ALL about Covid-19. I tested positive and was sick for a week, then the Queen of the Suck Lynze tested positive and is STILL sick - in bed right now - and Logan and Kate Keith tested positive and are ALSO still sick - Zaq the Scriptkeeper has been staying home out of the office away from us virus carriers, and Reverend Doctor Joe P already had it.

And we’ve been safe around him to minimize the very small possibility that he could theoretically get it again.

Pretty sure my daughter Monroe has it, she tested negative but has since started showing symptoms, and I think my son Kyler has so far dodged it.

And I AM EXTREMELY GRATEFUL that NONE of us have ended up in the hospital. We all skipped suffering from any severe and scary respiratory symptoms. For me - it was mostly about a week of the worst body aches I’ve ever had. And so many trips to the bathroom. I’m pretty sure I about McGill popped off my butthole a few times. Super fun. All that toilet paper we stocked up on months ago ended up coming in handy.

So glad it’s behind me now. Thanks for the well wishes - I hope you all, if you do get it, don’t get it any worse than I had it.

Covid has been spiking here in Couer d’Alene and the hospitals are currently at basically max capacity. Hope that changes soon so everyone who needs medical treatment can get it. FUCKNG 2020!

B.Merch: AWESOME new LAW OFFICE OF KEMPER, JOACHIM, AND KROLL SHRUB SLUT tee in the store at Bad Magic Merch dot com. Very much a Better Call Saul Vibe. Check it out ! It cracks me up so much.

C.Additional Announcements: Also - Happy Halloween to everyone! Don’t feel like much trick or treating is gonna happen but you can always dress up at home and just eat your own candy I guess.

I know the NXIVM Cult isn’t necessarily a spooky topic - creepy for sure, not necessarily spooky - but guess what - I have another podcast with NOTHING but spooky topics now. If you want some late October chills - check out Scared to Death!

Almost sixty episodes now and literally hundreds of paranormal horror stories have now been told. Become a Creep or a Peeper if you haven’t done so already.

D.Segue to Topic: Okay. Let’s get to culting. Let’s learn about a cult that hung around for roughly twenty years - a cult that is still technically, just barely, alive.

Let’s get to the bottom of NXIVM’s pyramid of fuckery.

CULT! CULT! CULT!

PAUSE TIMESUCK INTERLUDE

II.Intro/Establish Premiss:

Though we’ve covered lots of cults on Timesuck, we’ve yet to cover a cult quite like NXIVM.

The closest we’ve probably gotten is Scientology, which only makes sense because NXIVM’s founder, Keith Raniere [ruh near ee], borrowed some terminology and concepts from Scientology when he was engineering his new cult.

Like Scientology, NXIVM posed as an organization providing a path to personal empowerment, an organization that included notable celebrities who made huge donations to the cause.

I say “posed” - past tense - because, while there are still followers, you can’t really become a new follower because the MLM the cult is based is no longer open for business and its leaders are either in jail or waiting to go to jail. Hard to put on empowerment retreats when you’re behind bars.

Like Scientology, NXIVM wasn’t based in any existing religion. It’s the rare Western cult that didn’t spring forth in some way from a form of Christianity.

Unlike Scientology, NXIVM was never able to become classified as a religion. On the surface - it was corporate. Executive leadership seminars. It wasn’t REALLY that. But that’s what it was supposed to be. Leadership training. Had it been given more time to grow, maybe it would have morphed into a full blown religion. It was certainly evolving in that direction.

The NXIVM cult blended elements of self-help programs, women’s and men’s groups, corporate leadership seminars, and summer camps. But the thing that Keith borrowed the most from was multi-level marketing, a marketing strategy that actually has a lot of crossover with cult tactics.

And, within this web of fuckery, a secret group within a group called DOS formed that offered to help women achieve their own empowerment goals by agreeing to become slaves to a female master - a female master who would demand that they have sex with their master - “Vanguard” aka Keith Keith Raniere [ruh near ee]. Weird way to become empowered.

This whole story is SO fucking weird.

Some of these women even agreed to get branded. Like human cattle. They rationalized it as just another “exercise” - an expression of loyalty, an “empowerment” exercise - like many of NVIXM’s other strange exercises.

These assholes sold people on “empowerment” by getting them to do just the opposite - by getting them to subjugate themselves to another’s will.

Pretty amazing mindfuck to pull off.

The only thing NVIXM ever had to do with empowerment was just saying the word over and over.

Today, in order to better understand the world the NVIXM cult was born from, we’ll go over how multi-level marketing and pyramid schemes work, including some of the most famous schemes of all time.

THEN, we’ll dive into NVIXM specifically, following the life and times of its supposedly-one-of-a-kind-genius, really more of a typical-master-of-lies leader, Keith Raniere [ruh near ee] right up to and then through the arrest of many of NXIVM’s leadership in 2018 for a variety of charges, including sex trafficking and child pornography.

And, as I record this, the group still lives on, with Keith Raniere [ruh near ee] leading a few devoted just-can’t-let-go followers from prison.

I find it especially interesting how FRESH all of this is.

Most of the cults we cover here existed long enough ago for us to possibly feel like, “Wow - can’t believe what we Meatsacks USED to fall for! Thank God we’re smarter than that now!”

Don’t get to do that today.

People are still falling for this shit! Right NOW.

Odds are there other cults operating at this very moment that will soon be brought down or at least exposed and we’ll be covering them in future episodes.

What’s especially troubling about today’s cult is how successful its members were and/or are. The people who fell for Keith’s bullshit - many of them - VERY successful seemingly VERY intelligent people.

People you wouldn’t - or at least I wouldn’t - expect to fall into cult. At least not until you really dive into this story. Then, it makes a little sense. If you’re a big-time spiritual seeker - be careful. You might find the enlightenment you seek - OR - you might really get taken advantage of.

Today’s Suck is a good reminder that you always have to keep your guard up. No shortage of con artists in the world, and, there probably never will be.

Seemingly successful and confident folks pushing “Get rich quick” schemes and “hack your brain to solve all your life problems” type philosophies still attract a lot of interest.

Such a sexier pitch than a pitch of “Work really hard for a really long time and maybe you’ll get ahead!”

That just doesn’t have quite the same appeal does it?

Who wants to just put their head down and bust their ass for years and slowly grind forward when someone’s promising you that you can skip all that shit if you just listen to them and give them some money? Give them thousands to then earn millions! What are you waiting for!?! Stop living in fear and just go for it! Just give me all your fucking money!

Personally, I favor a more pragmatic approach.

I think your best odds for career success lie in first assessing where your talents are, and then second, looking at the job market and figuring out what career your talents are most suited for, figuring out within that slice of the economic pie what you’ll enjoy the most - what will fulfill you the most - your odds for success always go up if you enjoy what you’re doing because you’ll work that much harder. And then, third, giving that job everything you have and not living above your means - spend only what you can afford and make purchases based on need a lot more often than on want - but that philosophy just isn’t that sexy I guess.

Good old pragmatism. Rewarding the patient time and time again. But who has time for patience? We live in a give it to me now society! Let me post those status shots on socials NOW!

My philosophy of personal fulfillment is to write down what you want.

Pretty simple.

What do you want in a relationship? Write it down. There’s power in seeing it written in front of you. Where do you want to live? Write that shit down! What makes you feel happy? Write it down. If you’re lucky enough to make it to old age - what kind of life do you want to look back on? What would fill you with pride? What legacy do you want to live when you die? Write all that shit down. Hard to get what you want out of life if you don’t really know what you want. If it’s just a vague concept. I write goals down all the time. I write personal reminders. And then put those words where you can see them every day. Where you can’t escape them. Hold yourself accountable.

And that really is the gist of my philosophy. Sure - I could dig into little deviations and smoe more intricate details, but that’s basically it.

And I just gave it away for free like A FUCKING IDIOT!!

Damn it! I didn’t even try and make any of you my sex slaves. Didn’t even charge you ten grand for a seminar. I don’t have one branded lady let alone a harem - I’m a shit cult leader.

Forget everything I just said Cult of the Curious member.

You’ll never, EVER be happy or successful unless you buy into my secret, esoteric knowledge, okay motherfucker?

You’re a dirty little ignorant, sad worm and you always will be unless you BUY MY SECRETS.

BUY MY SECRETS! Let me fuck some knowledge into you. My secrets are mostly conveyed through fucking.

Do you want to keep struggling? Or do you want to be fucked into success??? Hail Nimrod! Only Nimrod has the answers you seek and only I am his horny PROPHET! Hail Lucifina!

Really wondering what my neighbors in this office complex are thinking right now. I should start coming to work in my robe to really make them nervous.

But seriously, real improvement regarding your life circumstances, emotional or financial, it generally takes a lot of focused, hard work to make meaningful improvements. Always has. Always will.

And dirty birds like Keith Raniere [ruh near ee] …. they know this. They for sure know this.

And the cult leaders of this world know there will always be those who just hate to face that fact.

And they’ll always be lurking around to take advantage of the poor people who just want a shortcut - to manipulate the desire of those who want some guru to give them a MAGICAL shortcut.

And speaking of taking shortcuts, let’s go over what a multi-level marketing scheme is. The promise of a shortcut - to more money, more happiness - that’s what NXIVM started out as.

III.Context:

A. Multi-Level Marketing

According to a 2017 report, The World Federation of Direct Selling found that there were 116 million independent distributors in the world working under various MLM companies.

Is that number way higher than you thought it would be? It’s way higher than I expected.

MLMs, or multi-level marketing companies, are businesses that sell their products through distributors rather than through retail or online stores.

Pretty simple structure.

In a normal or “traditional” business model, the product goes from the manufacturer to a wholesale distributor, then to a store, and THEN to the buyer.

But in MLMs, the manufacturer sends the merchandise directly to the distributor - usually to one person.

Where the “multi-level” part comes in is based on the fact that the existing workers are paid a percentage of new worker’s sales.

The more salespeople you personally recruit to sell under you, the more money you make.

And you need to recruit people to actually have a chance at making any real money, because even if you’re able to sell your entire inventory, you only make a very small percentage of what you sell because the MLM company gets a cut and every distributor up the ladder from you gets a cut as well.

No one’s quite sure when companies started using MLM as a tactic, but Avon seems to be the oldest MLM company in the world. At the very least, it’s the oldest one still in operation today.

You’ve probably heard of the infamous makeup company. Founded way back in 1886 in New York City. https://onlinemlmcommunity.com/top-10-oldest-mlm-companies/

The second oldest MLM? I doubt you can guess this one. You really know your MLM history if you can.

Most sources point to Wachter’s [walk ters] - a weird California vitamin company founded in 1932.

Wachter’s, like Avon, is still around. Unlike Avon - they’re not doing billions in annual worldwide sales. They sell “organic sea products.” Basically, the sell everything from vitamins, to dog food, to cleaning supplies - all made in some way from sea weed.

And they don’t seem to be…..very popular.

I’m amazed they’re still around at all. Hard to build a gigantic business empire, when your entire pitch is essentially that sea weed is super cool. https://www.wachtersdistributor.com/#ordering (Video is embedded in this page. Start at :38. Play through :52) https://www.wachters.com/

That early 80s promotional video is still the one embedded on their website.

Not an indicator that they’re crushing it.

And this type of business, while not everyone thinks its ethical, is definitely legal.

In 1979, the Federal Trade Commission ruled that MLMs were not illegal in the United States, and in April 2006, the FTC ruled that as long as a MLM company provides appropriate information to prospective participants so they can make an informed decision about whether to buy in, it’s kosher.

Of course, companies don’t always do this. And how much information is “appropriate” - that’s pretty subjective. https://startupstrings.com/multi-level-marketing/

Probably the most famous, legal American-based MLM company currently is Amway, a company that primarily sells health, beauty, and home care products.

Amway was founded in 1959 just 12 miles East of Grand Rapids, Michigan in Ada.

And I have performed a number of standup comedy shows in Grand Rapids over the years - and I’ve made quite a few jokes about Amway - and they have NEVER gone over very well.

People in an MLM SEEM to be VERY sensitive to teasing.

Always gotten the vibe that folks around there are REAL touchy about Amway being labeled as a multi-level marketing scheme, even though that’s exactly what it is.

NOT a pyramid scheme - not exactly - but it is an MLM.

How does Amway work? They make home, beauty, and nutritional products. Stuff like bleach, dish soap, meal replacement bars and smoothies, lotions, toothpastes, whips, throwing knives, Satanic altar candles, cock rings, pipe bombs, robot spider monkeys, and more!

I might have made up those last few, but the rest were legit.

And they sell a LOT of this shit. They do almost ten billion dollars a year in sales. Some years, they’ve done ten billion in sales worldwide. They’re HUGE.

And each Amway product is assigned a certain point total. And the more products you sell or those you’ve recruited to sell underneath you sell - the more points you earn. And the more points you earn, the more money you make.

Simple!

Kind of.

I would have to study the point system for at least a full day to get my head mostly around it. It’s a complicated - in my opinion - algorithm that factors in how many points each person beneath you sells - ALSO factoring in how FAR these people are beneath you level-wise - also factoring in a certain percentage of each sale you make that changes based on the total volume of sales you and those beneath you make, and, well… it all makes my head hurt.

Many, many pages of diagrams and equations are required to explain it all.

I downloaded some pdfs, I watched some tutorial videos, and it still feels confusing.

But I’m sure the right charismatic Amway seller could break it down and, if I wasn’t so skeptical, have me convinced that not only is it easy to understand - it’s also impossible to not make SO MUCH MONEY!

I don’t know.

It all feels so much less honest to me than just buying shit directly from a store.

But if it works for you - fine. Their products do look good. And if you don’t feel taken advantage of, maybe you’re not being taken advantage of.

Just not for me.

I remember being approached about Amway by the brother of a girl I was dating right after high school, and my immediate reaction was - I don’t want to be the guy hassling everyone I know to buy soap and vitamins.

Still feel that way.

And Avon and Amway and Wachter’s [walk ters] weird sea weed vitamins - just three of oh so many MLMs, worldwide.

So many companies offering new recruits the opportunity to start their own business under a parent company. And these MLMS almost always make lofty promises about how much people can earn in just a few months.

START MAKING MILLIONS NOW! Don’t miss out on a once-in-a- lifetime, wealth-building opportunity!

These companies set you up with your own ‘business’ for a small percentage of the profits, and in turn, you can empower people to start their own businesses.

MLM companies tend to really push a perceived sense of autonomy and empowerment. You’re not buying into a shitty business model, you’re starting your own small business!

You’re a business owner!

Asterisk!

You’re a business owner who has to sell their products. Which on the surface isn’t so different than owning a franchise - like say, a Sonic Drive-inn or a Taco Bell.

EXCEPT - if you own a Taco Bell, you’re probably not badgering your grandma to ALSO own a Taco Bell. You’re not telling her that she should open a Taco Bell and then ALSO get her friends to open more Taco Bells underneath Taco Bell. A pyramid of Mexican Pizzas and Locos Tacos Supremes!

Does all that make sense?

I think you can see why I lot of people find MLM’s, at the very least, really fucking annoying.

You’re not just trying to get new customers all the time like a normal business owner, you’re trying to indoctrinate your customers into also selling the same shit that you’re selling, and in that way - to me it feels culty.

One newer MLM I find especially shady is LuLaRoe [lou luh row] , founded in 2012 in Corona, California.

They sell women’s apparel.

Unlike Amway, which does NOT require you to buy any inventory - you just direct people to Amway’s website - with LuLaRoe [lou luh row]- you have to buy their inventory and then sell it. Much more risk with this business model.

And, when they first hit the scene, you had to buy SIX THOUSAND dollars worth of inventory just to get started.

SIX THOUSAND BUCKS! That’s a big commitment right off the rip.

Enough to really fuck over someone who’s only getting into LuLaRoe [lou luh row] in the first place because they’re low on cash.

AND - when you spent that money, you didn’t even get to choose your inventory. The company sent you whatever was in stock and you were then expected to sell it.

LuLaRoe [lou luh row] currently has more than a dozen lawsuits pending from disgruntled former consultants.

I hope it bankrupts them.

Now, you ONLY have to spend $495 and you get to pick your products. Products that are notoriously low quality.

But people keep signing up, thanks mainly to the testimonials of a few members who have legitimately become millionaires selling this stuff.

And you can TECHNICALLY become a millionaire by joining an MLM.

That’s their main appeal!

That’s the basic dream they all sell you - an almost limitless financial ceiling. Which IS true - technically. It’s just really, REALLY unlikely that you’ll be the one to do that.

According to the Consumer Awareness Institute, only one-quarter of people who get involved in multilevel marketing manage to actually make any money.

At all.

75% of the people who try this shit - three out of four - will literally never, EVER make any money.

None at all.

Of the 25% who WILL make money, 14% will make less than $5,000 total.

6% will make between $5,000 and $9,999.

Just 3% will make between $10,000 and $24,000.

Another 3% will make $25,000 or above - and that’s their LIFETIME total.

And just 0.05% will ever make $100,000 and above. Just one in 2,000.

No figures for millionaires are listed, but, I’m guessing it is way, WAY less than 1 in 2,000.

As you can see, you do have a chance - a better chance of getting rich than you do if you just buy a lottery ticket - but - the chances of making decent money from MLM are pretty slim.

And a lot of people LOSE money. They never recoup their initial investments.

27% of respondents to an AARP Foundation Study said they only broke even during their time in an MLM company.

AND - for those who do make a little bit of money off an MLM, they generally have to work real, real, REAL hard for it.

A website, MagnifyMoney.com, surveyed 1,049 multi-level marketing scheme participants — from a variety of MLMs — and found that most people, when it was all said and done, were making less than 70 cents an hour BEFORE deducting business costs - and 60% of participants said they had made less than $500 in the past five years.

Not exactly enticing numbers when you look at the cold, hard facts. https://medium.com/@pricelindy/the-cult-psychology-behind-mlms- f9426e8601e7#:~:text=The%20target%20audience%20for%20MLM s,community%20that%20an%20MLM%20provides

So - any company that says trying to convince you that you’ll make hundreds or thousands of dollars in weeks - that is the exception to the rule. Not the rule. Good to keep in mind. https://www.cheatsheet.com/money-career/the-15-most-hated- multi-level-marketing-companies-right-now.html/ https://jobsinmarketing.io/blog/mlm-statistics/ #:~:text=Fascinating%20Multilevel%20Marketing%20Statistics%20 https://www.ftc.gov/sites/default/files/documents/public_comments/ trade-regulation-rule-disclosure-requirements-and-prohibitions- concerning-business-opportunities- ftc.r511993-00017%C2%A0/00017-57317.pdf

Now we’ve gone over what a legal MLM looks like. A place where you might make some money if you work really hard, and even then, you probably won’t make much.

Next, let’s go over what an illegal MLM looks like. The infamous “pyramid scheme.”

A multi-level marketing company becomes an illegal pyramid scheme when the salespeople encourage you to buy a small stake in one of Egypt’s ancient pyramids, under the pretense that you can turn around and sell that stake to someone else at a pyramid profit. That’s one form.

Another form of a pyramid scheme is when you’re sold a piece of a sandstone brick from one of the pyramids. And you’re told to sell that to a museum at an enormous profit. Some especially shady pyramid schemes will claim to sell you a timeshare apartment located INSIDE one of Egypt’s pyramids, and then your job is to find people who will go stay in your timeshare for a profit, and then - when people realize they’ve been conned when the people they’ve told to go to Egypt get there and get arrested for trying to break into their pyramid apartment, the con comes crashing down. And THAT is where the name “Pyramid” scheme comes from. It’s all about Egypt’s pyramids.

And - last thing - I really hope at least one person bought that bullshit, then pushed pause on this episode, and is now trying to convince someone that pyramid schemes have everything to do with actual Egyptian pyramids. Which is crazy talk.

A REAL pyramid scheme is an MLM that doesn’t actually sell any products to customers - they simply recruit new members, new members who have to pay to join who then turn around and recruit other members who then pay them.

Let me illustrate this with an example.

Founder Dave Dingleberry sits alone at the top of shit mountain, represented by the number “one,” even though he’s a walking pile of number “two.”

Mr. Dingleberry then recruits ten second-tier turds to the level directly below him, and each new turd must issue him a cash payment for the privilege of standing on the slopes of shit mountain.

Not only do those buy-in fees funnel directly into Dave’s pocket, but each of the ten new members must then recruit ten tier- three turds of their own for a total of a hundred dumps.

And these third-tier-turds must pay fees to their tier-two recruiters, who must then send a percentage of their takes back up to Dave Dingleberry. https://money.howstuffworks.com/pyramid-scheme1.htm

And so on, and so on.

This is different from multi-level marketing because there’s a negligible or nonexistent product— the main product - sometimes the ONLY product - is literally recruiting new investors.

In the mid-2000s a Pyramid scheme scam swept through Ireland where people were asked to invest 10,000 Euros - around $14,000 US Dollars at the time - and to also entice other friends to invest.

The money was then paid to a fictitious “headquarters” in Germany, supposedly to get around Irish tax laws.

Investors were told they’d get €80,000 Euros in profit when, after a predetermined period of time, they hopped over to Germany to collect their profits.

But no one ever collected shit. People just got sent on a REAL expensive wild goose chase.

Altogether, before the Irish government shut it all down, the scammers behind this shit mountain cost those bottom tier pyramid turds almost thirty million dollars. https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-20017726.html

There was another Pyramid scheme that run in the US in the mid-80s called United Sciences of America.

William Shatner endorsed them.

And while I couldn’t find a video of him speaking to this, searching for that video led me to William Shatner singing Elton John’s Rocket Man at the 1978 Science Fiction Film Awards and I need to share a snippet of this because it’s one of the biggest “What the fuck is going on here?” clips I’ve come across in awhile. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOCM8No1HAM PLAY FROM 2:23 to 2:42.

Why? Who that that was a good idea?

I have no other info to share about United Sciences of America. I literally only brought them up as an excuse to play that amzing clip for you.

You’re welcome.

Now let’s round out our understanding of these type of scams by talking about a racket related to MLMs and Pyramid schemes called “A Ponzi Scheme.”

With Ponzi schemes, investors give money to a portfolio manager.

Then, when they want their money back, they are paid out with the incoming funds contributed by later investors. So - unlike a typical pyramid scheme - there’s only two levels.

There’s the manager level who makes all the money, and then on the other level, there’s everyone risking being royally fucked over by the manager.

1. Ponzi: This scheme is named after one Charles Ponzi, an Italian man who, a century ago in Boston, Massachusetts, figured out that international reply coupons, a type of document you could send with a letter to pay postage for the reply, could be exchanged for stamps.

The US Postal Service stopped selling these in 2013 because not enough people wanted them or understood how the Hell they worked.

I know a scheme based on coupons and stamps sounds stupid and boring. Stay with me. It only started out as being about that, and then quickly became its own thing.

In places where the value of the currency was low, like post World War I Italy, these IRCs could be bought and exchanged for stamps in the US, which had a much higher value.

Basically - these coupons created a potential financial loophole. You could buy the equivalent of a US stamp with Italian money, and pay a lot less than it was worth. And then sell it in the other country for an immediate profit.

In theory.

Ponzi quickly figured out how to sell the possibility of an almost immediate positive return on an investment to a number of investors.

He set up his own company, the Securities Exchange Company, in January of 1920.

And in the first month, eighteen people invested a total of $1,800.

And he paid them promptly the very next month.

But he did NOT pay them with money he made buying IRCs for less than they were worth back in Italy, and then selling them for a profit in the US.

No. He paid them with more investment money obtained from new investors.

And the Ponzi scheme was born.

As time moved forward, Ponzi realized it was actually WAY fucking harder to change the IRCs into cash than he’d first assumed. It worked in theory, but not in real life. And the more IRC exchanges he sold, the more impractical it became to cash them all in.

It quickly became a logistical impossibility.

For example: for the initial eighteen investors of January 1920 - for their $1800 investment - it would have taken 53,000 postal coupons to realize the profits he sold them on getting.

That’s a LOT of coupons. And that was just for the first eighteen investors.

For the subsequent 15,000 investors that Ponzi had - he would have had to fill several Titanic-sized ships with postal coupons just to ship them to the U.S. from Europe. He’d need to transport MILLIONS and MILLIONS of these coupons.

So Ponzi gave up on ever actually completing these coupon transactions. Once he got going, he realized he didn’t need to do anything with them. He just needed to keep selling more and more people on the money they could make with the coupons he said he’d buy to keep his house of cards scam from caving in on itself.

And for a little while - this all worked beautifully.

Investors kept investing and re-investing. Especially after July 24th, 1920, when The Boston Post printed a favorable article on Ponzi and his scheme. Soon, Ponzi was making $250,000 a day. A DAY.

In 1920!

It was as if he’d literally built a cash machine that printed out money.

But the run didn’t last long.

By August, authorities had caught on, and on August 11th, it all came crashing down on the Ponz.

First, the Post came out with a front-page story about some of his criminal activities in Montreal thirteen years earlier, which included a forgery conviction.

This sent a wave of investors to withdraw their funds. And when more people withdraw than invest, the Ponzi scheme falls apart pretty quick.

That afternoon, the Bank Commissioner where the Ponz held his money froze his funds due to numerous irregularities.

The gig was up. After his money was frozen and investigators had begun to examine his investment firm, the Ponz knew he was going down.

He turned himself in and was imprisoned.

And most of his investors… were shit out of luck.

Some lost all their money, some got a little bit back. In total, they lost about $20 million in 1920 dollars, approximately $193 million in 2019 dollars. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/in-ponzi-we- trust-64016168/

One more Ponzi scheme example, just because it’s interesting and more recent and fairly well known.

Bernie Madoff. [may doff]

2. Madoff:

Bernie Madoff’s [may doff] Ponzi scheme collapsed in 2008 and cost his investors about $18 BILLION dollars.

So much money.

Madoff [may doff] was at one time the chairman of NASDAQ. He knew all too well what he was doing. He started his firm in 1960 as a penny stock trader with $5,000, earned from working as a lifeguard and sprinkler installer.

The way Madoff claimed he was investing was complicated and we won’t get into it here, but - he wasn’t actually doing much investing.

Investors who gained access to Madoff [may doff] typically did so on word-of-mouth referral, believing that they had entered the inner circle of a money-making genius

His scheme began to unravel in the fall of 2008, when the market downturn accelerated. As the market's decline accelerated, investors tried to withdraw $7 billion from his firm.

And to pay off those investors, Madoff [may doff] needed new money from other, new investors. But - due to the market’s decline - they just weren’t coming in. Uh oh.

By November of 2008, the balance in his business account - where he stored all the “investment” money - dropped to dangerously low levels.

He had just barely enough in the account to meet his payroll on November 19th.

By December, he was stalling with investors. He didn’t have the money to pay all of their withdrawal requests.

On December 10th, he suggested to his sons, Mark and Andrew, that the firm pay out over $170 million in bonuses two months ahead of schedule, from $200 million in assets that the firm still had.

Mark and Andrew confronted their father, asking him how the firm could pay bonuses to employees if it could not pay investors.

At that point, Madoff asked his sons to follow him to his apartment, where he admitted that he was "finished", and that the asset management arm of the firm was in fact nothing more than a Ponzi scheme – as he put it, "one big lie.”

Mark and Andrew then reported him to the authorities. How sad for them, to realize that their father’s business - the business he’d hired them for - was a giant con. He wasn’t a financial guru - he was just a big liar.

On June 29th, 2009, Madoff [may doff] was sent to 150 years in prison

https://www.businessinsider.com/how-bernie-madoffs-ponzi- scheme-worked-2014-7

IV. Psychology of MLMs

So, pyramid scheme, Ponzi scheme, MLM company, why do these people do it?

I think the simple answer is “greed.”

They do it because they want a lot of fucking money and, this type of crime, when you get away with it, pays a lot more than running a legitimate investment company.

Also - and I’m guessing a bit here - power and control.

And who else loves power and control? Cult leaders.

They love to have god-like influence over the lives of their followers.

I wonder if some people who run these financial schemes love the con itself as much as the money that comes with it?

I wonder if they truly love to con people?

To prove to themselves over and over again that they’re smarter than all the people who’ve trusted them, even if they’re not smarter - just less scrupulous.

And what about the people who buy into these schemes? Why do they keep falling for too good to be true investment promises? Some MLMs are able to drag their profitless participants along for a ride for YEARS. How?

Because MLMs often affect their victims in psychological ways very similar to how cults affect cult members.

According to Rick Alan Ross, an expert cult deprogrammer, cults and MLMs are incredibly similar.

Over the years, Ross has helped deprogram more than 500 cult victims, and MLMs pop up so frequently in Ross’ line of work that an entire chapter of his book, Cults Inside Out, is devoted to an Amway intervention.

And Amway is actually where NXIVM Cult Leader Keith Raniere [ruh near ee] got his start.

According to Ross, most destructive cults and MLMs share three defining characteristics:

1. A charismatic leader who is worshipped and revered.

2. A culture of coercive persuasion or thought reform, in which all members of the group are taught to think alike and isolate themselves from anyone who questions their devotion.

3. Sexual, economic or other forms of exploitation of group members by leaders.

Obviously, with MLMs, the exploitation is usually economic and not sexual. https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/43e573/how-to-get-a-friend-out- of-an-mlm-herbalife-amway-younique-

Like a cult leader, the MLM leader controls everything regarding how individual members operate within the group.

Charmed by the opportunity of making money and having a community, people suddenly find themselves under the control of a powerful institution.

Like cult leaders, MLMs heavily promote the success of the distributors who do profit, and they shame those who don’t.

If, in a cult, you don’t believe the leader is the one true god, or prophet of god - that’s not THEIR problem - it’s YOUR problem!

YOU don’t have enough FAITH, maggot!

If you don’t make money in the MLM, that’s not because the MLM system isn’t built for everyone to succeed - it’s because YOU aren’t trying hard enough to succeed. YOU are the problem, not the system. The system is PERFECT, Maggot! Worship the SYSTEM! Sell those vitamins you lazy, unworthy piece of shit!

HAIL THE GOOD GOD AMWAY!

Uh oh. I just felt ten central Michigan members leave the Cult of the Curious.

Once people begin working for the company, the MLM doesn’t tolerate questions or criticism. Do NOT DEFY THY GOD, AMWAY! HAIL AMWAY!!!

JK.

Gosh Dang.

I think Amway is probably the most harmless MLM by the way. It just cracks me up to tease them.

Douglas M. Brooks, an attorney who represents victims of pyramid schemes, describes what often happens when a distributor questions the MLM’s authority:

“You’re trained to avoid people who question whether this is a viable business or not. Which is exactly the same technique that cults use — they try to isolate you from people who question your belief system. I’ve been contacted by a number of people who deal with cult survivors, and some of their clients are former MLM people.”

As time goes on and participants lose money, their self-esteem diminishes and they feel at fault for their failures. Anytime they attempt to blame the MLM’s system, the blame is only shifted back on them by other distributors who are unwilling to accept criticism about the company.

Like a cult, MLMs also target the desperate.

Who do cults go after? Often, they go after people who are down on their luck in some way. People who are lonely and spiritually hurting. Lost souls desperately looking for a home. Lonely souls looking for a family.

MLM’s typically go after people who are financially hurting. People who don’t seem to have - or at least don’t feel like they have - many other financial options. V. Psychology of Remaining in an MLM:

Now let’s talk about some psychological principles we’ve talked about in the past here in the Suck-verse, but definitely worth discussing here again.

The key to why people throw more money away after initially losing money in a shady MLM lies in the psychological principal of doubling down - when our brains try to prevent us from acknowledging that we’ve made a wrong decision.

Doubling down on a bad decision is the result of two psychological processes at work: cognitive dissonance and “the backfire effect.”

I find this so interesting. Also kind of depressing, but, SO interesting.

The former involves the difficulty in reconciling two opposing ideas.

In the 1956 book When Prophecy Fails, psychologist Leon Festinger and his co-authors described what happened to a UFO cult when the mother ship failed to arrive at the appointed time. Instead of admitting error, “members of the group sought frantically to convince the world of their beliefs,” and they made “a series of desperate attempts to erase their rankling dissonance by making prediction after prediction in the hope that one would come true.”

This UFO cult scenario is an example of cognitive dissonance - the stress we experience when we hold two contradictory thoughts, beliefs, opinions or attitudes.

Cognitive dissonance is what we feel when the self-concept — “I’m smart, I’m kind, I’m convinced this belief is true” — is threatened by evidence that we did something that was NOT smart, that we maybe did something that was NOT kind and hurt another person or ourselves, that the belief is NOT true.

To get away from these uncomfortable feelings, you either have to modify your view and accept the new evidence and come to terms with the fact that you’ve made some terrible choices, or you deny all incoming evidence the points towards you fucking up.

And if you choose the path of denial - uh oh - you’ve begun walking down a real shitty path that has literally never made anyone a better person.

When you refuse to admit your mistakes, you train yourself to be less open to constructive criticism, which is NOT good if you care at all about evolving and improving.

Constructive criticism helps hone skills, correct bad habits, and improve yourself overall. Ironically, doubling down on a shady MLM company that claims to empower you but does the exact opposite - it makes you STOP growing as a person.

Talking criticism - it’s NOT fun.

I struggle with it every week. Getting nice emails and good reviews - that’s a blast! Getting critical emails - it definitely stings sometimes. And it stings the MOST when I know they’re right.

I got some emails regarding the American Riots Suck that really stung.

They stung because I realized I did get some things wrong. And that didn’t line up with how I like to see myself - as someone who works really hard to get things “right.”

That I perhaps didn’t analyze some evidence to the best of my ability - that I used the wrong descriptive terms - really, really bummed me out.

After beating myself up awhile, I had to remind myself that it’s okay to be wrong as long as you use that experience to motivate you to work harder to be right the next time. I had to remind myself that it’s okay to feel stupid. To sometimes BE stupid. It’s okay to feel inadequate. That I should use these feelings to IMPROVE!

What’s not okay - is to brush off criticism and always think, “FUCKING NAILED IT AGAIN! Good job, Cummins - you’re the BEST!”

That type of arrogance is a great way to quickly become the worst.

I only bring up myself here as an example, because I’m amazed how hard admitting your wrong is for a lot of people. I feel like many people see it as a sign of weakness. Don’t/ It should be seen as a sign of strength. Be strong enough to admit that sometimes - you’re fucking weak.

And the person who can’t do that? The person who never apologizes? The person who can’t handle any criticism? Who has no humility? Watch out for them.

I never trust that person. And that is the kind of person who runs a shady MLM. Or someone who leads a cult.

AND - refusing to accept you messed up - that’s a GREAT way for a member or follower to fall further into something like a cult or an MLM, instead of cutting your losses, realizing you made some shit decisions, and getting out.

The other psychological process I mentioned that keeps people throwing away more money after an initial loss is “the backfire effect.”

The backfire effect illustrates, sadly, how our brains, in some ways, they no work too good.

This describes this frustrating concept where being corrected actually makes some people feel MORE correct in their original, faulty belief.

This was originally proven by two grad students, Brendan Nyhan and Jason Reifler in 2010 based on their research of a single survey item.

They asked people whether they believed that, immediately before the US invasion, Iraq had active weapons of mass destruction, but before US forces arrived, Saddam Hussein was able to hide or destroy them.

The people who responded “yes, that’s what happened,” were then presented with evidence to the contrary - well-documented evidence that Saddam had NOT hid or destroyed the weapons - and then they were asked again - did Saddam hide or destroy the weapons?

To the researchers surprise, they participants said they still believed he did, AND - many of them now believed this to an even greater degree than before.

How maddening is that?

Interestingly, this concept may hold the key to why arguments online rarely get solved. According to David McCraney in his book You Are Not So Smart: “What should be evident from the studies on the backfire effect is you can never win an argument online. When you start to pull out facts and figures, hyperlinks and quotes, you are actually making the opponent feel as though they are even more sure of their position than before you started the debate. As they match your fervor, the same thing happens in your skull. The backfire effect pushes both of you deeper into your original beliefs.”

How depressing, right?

For some of us, when our deeply held beliefs are challenged with contradictory FACTS - not opinions - FACTS - instead of relenting to the new knowledge, we instead double down on our now- proven-to-be-incorrect beliefs and defend them even MORE, instead of changing our minds.

Why do some of us do that? It’s so incredibly illogical and annoying?

Unfortunately, because we’re not cold, emotionless robots, and our brains aren’t built on just logic.

According to researchers, as human beings, our brains love consistency more than logic sometimes. We want to stay consistent with our self image, and we prioritize information that is consistent with our current beliefs over other information, even when that other information is actually CORRECT.

The backfire effect helps us stay consistent with our previous beliefs and patterns by strengthening those beliefs when they’re threatened. Psychologically, it’s easier and more comforting to stay consistent than it is to be “right.”

And right here - THAT - is why it’s so fucking hard to argue about, say, politics.

Doesn’t matter if you’re right. Some people just will not EVER hear your truth. Or the truth.

And this is ALSO why it’s so damn hard to get some people out of a cult. Or to get them out of an MLM.

Or, in the case of the NXIVM Cult, why it was so hard to get people to recognize they were in an MLM AND in a cult.

The more facts thrown at them about how shitty their cult was, the more they doubled down and defended it. The more entrenched they became.

This is why - and I know this sounds crazy - if a cult ever gets their hooks into one of my kids - it’s gonna be real, REAL hard not to just focus on straight up murder the cult leader.

Feels like killing them would be a lot easier than trying to deprogram their followers.

Murder. Sometimes, I’m in very much morally in favor of it.

Too bad no one killed Keith Raniere [ruh near ee] a long, long time ago.

The world would’ve been better off without him.

Alright - let’s explore the formation of Keith Raniere’s [ruh near ee] manipulative MLM sex cult, in today’s Timesuck Timeline…

(PAUSE)

…right after today’s sponsor break.

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Huge thanks to our sponsors! We’ve gotten more of them lately and feel very lucky to have them.

Now it’s Timeline time.

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https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/the-psychology-of-doubling- down-2 https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/22/smarter-living/why-its-so-hard- to-admit-youre-wrong.html

PAUSE TIMESUCK TIMELINE INTRO

VI.Timesuck Timeline

https://www.thecut.com/2019/04/nxivm-sex-cult-case-a-complete- timeline-of-events.html https://www.forbes.com/sites/willyakowicz/2019/05/15/keith-Raniere [ruh near ee] -the-leader-of-the-nxivm-sex-cult/#3fdfd035a992 https://www.thefamouspeople.com/profiles/keith-Raniere [ruh near ee] -36713.php https://www.vice.com/en_us/topic/keith-Raniere [ruh near ee] http://www.reasoned.life/2018/03/nxivm-parallels-to-scientology/

1. August 26, 1960: On August 26th, 1960, Kieth Raniere [ruh near ee] is born in Brooklyn to middle class parents. AND WITH HIS ARRIVAL - the sky above New York suddenly crackled with explosive lightning!! Angels filled the sky and blasted their heavenly trumpets to announce his arrival. A solar eclipse occurred at the exact moment the chosen one floated out of his mother’s virginal body…

OR… none of that shit happened and it was just another day.

Keith’s father, James, worked in advertising and his mother - not actually named in any sources I can find - taught ballroom dancing.

The family moved to Suffern, New York - 30 miles northwest of Manhattan, a place once described by the New York Times as “small-town America near the Big City,” when Keith was five.

Neither parent , as far as I can tell, seemed to recognize that Keith was some sort of once-in-a-lifetime prodigy. He was not, it seems, placed in any kind of school for the gifted. His father WOULD tell one of his girlfriends, Barbara Bouchey, that Keith was super intelligent, and apparently Keith REALLY ran with this.

Barbara said that James relayed to her that when he told his son he was very intelligent, maybe even gifted, “ was almost like a switch went off. And suddenly overnight he turned into like Jesus Christ. And that he was superior and better than everybody like he was a deity. He said it was that dramatic and that profound; he said it went right to his head.”

Sounds like a super fun kid.

https://filmdaily.co/obsessions/true-crime/nxivm-keith-raniere- childhood/

Keith's parents divorced when he was eight, and his mother, who was living with a heart condition, and who Keith referenced being “somewhat of an alcoholic,” became his sole caretaker.

His dad wasn’t around much.

Then, when he was sixteen, his mysterious mother mysteriously died. Cult Leaders! They LOVE to hide their backstories. The more people know about their childhoods, the harder it is for them to lie about it.

Around the same time, Keith dropped out of high school and moved to Albany, where he enrolled in the Rensselaer [ren suh lear] Polytechnic Institute - America’s oldest technological university.

And this actually is fairly impressive. Not necessarily indicative of the genius Keith would later claim - but proof he was no dummy.

RPI alumni include the current President of Marvel, one of the founders of silicone valley, the co-founder of Nvidia, the co-founder of Texas Instruments, the founder of Garmin, the founder of How Stuff Works, the inventor of the microprocessor, a man known as the father of modern television, astronauts, tons of professional hockey players, senators, and military commanders, and on and on and on.

It IS a prestigious university.

But you know who’s NOT listed among the very long list of notable alumni? Boy Genius Keith Raniere [ruh near ee]!

Keith will later claim that he received three degrees from RPI, in math, physics, and biology. He claimed to have also minored in psychology and philosophy, but he didn’t.

This is certainly a lie.

Records show him just having one degree, a bachelor’s of science in biology.

If he majored in anything else, it was in bullshit.

Keith would claim that he was a ‘genius student’ but his transcripts don’t back up the claim at all. He maintained a 2.2 GPA at RPI. Not exactly genius level. Which he means he was a C student. Average.

Keith would convince followers he spoke in full sentences at a year old, read by two and taught himself to play concert-level piano at 12, the same year he allegedly learned high school math in 19 hours.

Exactly ZERO family members have ever come forward to validate these 100% unsubstantiated claims.

Keith also claimed to have won an east coast judo championship at the age of 12 and set a record for the 100-yard dash in New York as a teenage student.

IF ONLY IT WAS POSSIBLE TO VALIDATE OR INVALIDATE THESE ADDITIONAL CLAIMS!

It definitely is.

Raniere [ruh near ee], born in 1960, became a teen in 1972.

Which means he stopped being a teen by 1980. SO - if he set this record, it would have happened during that eight year stretch, right?

The New York Sportswriters reference website lists all New York State High School state champions from 1972 onward for outdoor track.

Works out nicely for us.

1977 was the last year the 100 YARD dash was run. It then became the 100 meter dash, and those state champions are also listed.

And Keith Raniere is NOT listed among them anywhere.

WEIRD that the kid who SET THE STATE ALL TIME RECORD never even won state! https://artvoice.com/2018/04/11/raniere-told-nxivm-sex-slave- followers-media-tied-state-record-100-yard-dash/ http://www.newyorksportswriters.org/reference/ boys_outtrack_72_81.shtml

And what about his judo champion claim?

Raniere was eleven in 1971. The age he most often claimed he won a judo championship.

Searching 1971 AND going every year for a DECADE on either side of 1971, there is not a single news report of Raniere winning any judo championship in any of 5,100 newspapers archived by http:// www.newspapers.com – including Raniere’s hometown newspaper – The White Plains Journal News – which might have thought it newsworthy that an eleven year old hometown boy defeated the assembled judo masters to win the Championship of the entire East Coast.

Another obvious lie! The only proof that Keith ever did this shit is Keith SAYING he did that shit.

Big thanks to investigative journalist Frank Parlato - a man who helped take down Keith’s cult - for that info. Frank used to be the group’s publicist before dedicating his life to destroying this group. Yay Frank! https://frankreport.com/2020/09/28/keith-raniere-lied-about- being-east-coast-judo-champ-i-know-i-beat-him/

Keith also claimed to possess one of top IQs in the entire world.

A Forbes article - he was on the cover of Forbes in 2003 for being an executive coach - stated that he claimed that his IQ was 240. TWO HUNDRED AND FUCKING FORTY. That is ABSURD.

Any score over 160 is considered a genius IQ.

The highest official score ever recorded?

Marilyn vos Savant - Parade Magazine’s "Ask Marilyn” advice columnist who logged a score of 228 as a kid, recorded in the Guinness Book of World Records.

So how did Keith score over thirty points HIGHER than that!?!

The answer, of course, is that he didn’t. Another lie he used with great success to get people to follow him. His fake-IQ was his most important recruiting weapon. He convinced his followers he was literally the smartest man in the fucking world.

He WAS listed in the Australian 1989 "Guinness Book of World Records" for being one of only THREE people in some fake-ass, made-up super-IQ group called Mega, a Mensa-like collection of supposed geniuses requiring a minimum one-in-a-million IQ level and formed by philosopher and librarian Ronald K. Hoeflin.

But then this record was taken out of the book the very next year.

In 1990 - Guinness retired the "Highest IQ" category after concluding IQ tests were too unreliable to designate a single record holder. Weird coincidence. It almost seems like, after reviewing Keith’s record, they realized he’d conned them.

If the people at Guinness won’t accept a record - you KNOW it’s bullshit - because they accept almost anything. There are people with their names in this book for “Most toilet seats broken by the head in one minute” - 46 by Kevin Shelley. and “Most watermelons chopped on the stomach in one minute” - 25 by Jim Hunter.

Their names remain. Keith got kicked out. Not a good look.

Keith DID take the Mega-IQ test. An AT-HOME IQ test. Which means it was real, REAL easy to cheat on it.

And - VERY few people even took this “Mega test” - and it was NEVER once peer-reviewed.

So, there is no way of knowing how tough this test was and how rare Keith’s score was. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marilyn_vos_Savant

https://frankreport.com/2017/12/09/raniere-proved-his-highest- iq-by-conducting-his-own-study/

So - safe to say - like a lot of cult leaders, Keith made up an impressive back story to specifically to recruit people.

2.Early 1980s: Then, at some point in the early 80s, Keith worked for Amway, that MLM we mentioned earlier. Sources don’t provide an exact date.

And at Amway, he’d learn many of the tactics he’d later put into use when he creates NXIVM. HAIL AMWAY! BLESSED BE THE SACRED VITAMINS AND CARPET CLEANERS! MAYBE THE AMWAY OPEN AND BESTOW QUALITY ORGANIC PROTEIN BARS UPON US!

https://www.timesunion.com/news/article/Secrets-of- NXIVM-2880885.php

3.1984: In 1984, when Keith is twenty-four, we have the first known red flag appears in regards to how truly monstrous he is.

That year, Keith meets Gina Melita, a 15-year-old who performed with him in an RPI theater group that included members of the community.

They started going to arcades together, playing Pac Man. Keith described himself as a genius and judo champion. She thought it was cool to be with an older, smart guy who might help her graduate from high school early. And then, he took her virginity and they had a four month relationship she hid from her parents.

Man.

That’s how you KNOW you’re operating on another spiritual level. How you KNOW you’re a real guru - when you’re 24 and either can’t get another adult to fuck you, or, even worse, when you’d prefer NOT to fuck other adults.

Also in 1984, Gina Melita introduced Keith to another fifteen year- old, Gina Hutchinson.

I’m guessing you know where this is going.

Gina’s older sister Heidi went to the cops accusing Keith of having sex with her underage sister, after catching Keith sneaking into her little sister’s room one night, through Gina’s bedroom window.

Another indication of greatness! When you’re old enough to be a doctor, and are climbing into the bedrooms of fifteen year old’s at night.

Too bad Gina’s dad wasn’t home. Some 24 year old breaks into my daughter’s room? I would take GREAT pleasure in taking some batting practice swings on their fucking skull. Paint the wall with their blood and their brains.

I fucking hate this guy so much.

Have you seen pictures of him, by the way? He LOOKS like the dude who would do this. Straight up looks like a pedo. And that’s coming from a dude rocking a really creepy ‘stache at the moment.

I hope Keith gets savagely beaten in prison. His face is so epically punchable.

Keith told Heidi he was an “enlightened being” and that the Gina was spiritually older than her physical age.

That’s a new one. “No I was not molesting a fifteen year old! I was fucking a THIRTY year old. She’s older than ME… spiritually.”

He tells authorities that Gina is a Buddhist goddess and that the two of them were meant to be together forever.

Charges are never pressed - Keith convinces Gina’s parents he’ll marry Gina.

He doesn’t.

Years later, while she’s 33, Gina goes to a Buddhist monastery in Woodstock, NY and shoots herself in the head, killing herself.

Hard not to wonder if Keith sent her down the path that eventually led to that sad and tragic conclusion.

Dude is pure poison.

https://www.timesunion.com/local/article/In-Raniere-s- shadows-3341644.php

4. 1988: Around 1988, Keith moves to a townhouse in a middle-class suburban development in Halfmoon, just a few miles from Clifton Park's cluster of chain stores and restaurants in Albany, New York.

Years later, when he starts NXIVM, followers will flock to Albany in droves.

5. 1990: But first - before NXIVM, there is Consumer’s Buyline, the first MLM Keith founded that sold groceries and other goods at a discount to those who signed up for memberships.

And members were responsible for recruiting other members. At its height in the early '90s, Raniere had 250,000 distributors nationwide and 173 direct employees.

https://culteducation.com/group/907-nxivm/5968-consumers- buyline-of-clifton-park-was-forced-to-close-after-25-separate- investigations-.html

Local papers in Albany portrayed Keith as an eccentric, appealing genius, noting that he slept only a few hours a night and could juggle and unicycle.

How did the paper know he was a genius? Because he told them. No other proof.

Also in 1990, Keith the future benevolent guru allegedly rapes another kid, a much younger kid, as GENIUS SUPER ENLIGHTENED JUDO champions are wont to do!

He hires a 12-year-old dog walker who was unnamed in the paper that broke the story, the Albany County Times Union.

Keith appears to have hired her to groom her and get close to her, showering her with attention and then he took her virginity. He’s thirty - she’s TWELVE.

So disgusting.

And he has followers dancing in support of him outside the prison where he is being held as I write these research notes.

SO FUN! Why do they still support him?

Cognitive dissonance and backfire effect. Good ol’ doubling down.

According to the Times Union, this young woman - this girl - said she had sex with Raniere [ruh near ee] at least 60 times, including in an office for his members-only buying club, Consumers' Buyline Inc., where her mom worked.

She later grew so uncomfortable with their relationship that she ran away from home, and though she went to police in 1993, there wasn’t enough evidence to charge him, and she was uncomfortable with trying to wear a wire and getting Keith to admit to it.

So he gets away with it again. https://www.syracuse.com/state/2018/04/nxivm_keith_Raniere [ruh near ee] _ny_cult_rape.html 6. 1991: In 1991, Keith meets Toni Natalie, an actual grown-ass woman who would become his girlfriend for several years.

The two met at a Holiday Inn near the Rochester airport.

In ’91, Keith’s multilevel marketing company, Consumer's Buyline Inc., was rapidly expanding, and he was coming to the Holiday Inn to pitch Natalie and her husband to become members.

With some cajoling from her then-husband, Natalie decided to hear Raniere [ruh near ee] out despite being burned by a different multilevel marketing company before.

She’d long been self-conscious about her own education, having dropped out of high school in the 10th grade, not knowing at the time she was dyslexic.

When she heard Keith speak, she was convinced he was the real deal. He was a GENIUS! He said so! And he would make her RICH! He ALSO said so!

Natalie and her husband bought into Consumer's Buyline.

They went on to become top sellers in the Rochester area and often traveled to Clifton Park, the Albany suburb where Raniere [ruh near ee] lived, to visit Keith at the company's headquarters.

The first time they visited, Raniere [ruh near ee] noticed the smell of cigarettes on Natalie, she later said.

He asked if she wanted to stop smoking and she told him she did.

He proceeded to lead her to a quiet room and they talked - about what made her nervous, what made her anxious.

He touched what he called "trigger points" in her hands, telling her to touch them whenever she got the urge to smoke.

When she returned, Natalie's husband asked what took so long.

Lost in conversation and in something of a meditative state, she thought it had been about 15 minutes.

He told her it was more than two hours.

Within a year, Natalie and her son had moved to Clifton Park after Raniere [ruh near ee] secured her a job with a skincare company that Consumer's Buyline partnered with. It wasn’t long before Natalie’s marriage ended and she took up with Keith.

Wow. How fucking PISSED was her husband? He talked her into joining Keith’s MLM - and then he seduced her away from him.

How much did he want to kill Keith? I’m so continually surprised more cult leaders aren’t murdered by the family members of their followers. I really am.

Also - this little example shows how smooth Keith could be.

How did he steal Natalie away?

By being a really, really good listener.

In some interviews I watched with former members, they talked about how Keith could make you feel like you were the only other person on Earth.

They talked about how he has this gift - this ability to listen, to FOCUS, on you SO intensely.

How he could make it seem like your problems were the only problems that mattered in moments when he focused on you, and he made you think he knew how to fix you.

I’ve heard former followers of Jim Jones and David Koresh say some similar things.

These guys know WHO to prey on, and they know WHAT so many people need - attention. Just basic, need-to-feel-cared about attention.

How many of us desperately want someone to really, really listen to us? To REALLY focus on us? To have someone who really, truly seems to care about how we’re struggling with the human condition?

All of us want some form of that! And a lot of us don’t get it from our current friends or partners or families. And these guys know that.

It’s like, if we were all plants, they know how to recognize which of us are the driest, which need the most water, and then they just give us that water - and it feels so good to get it, we mistake manipulation for love and understanding.

Fucking predators, man. Narcissistic predators who have no problem manipulating others to put them under their control.

https://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/news/politics/albany/ 2018/03/08/rochester-woman-battles-nxivm-keith-Raniere [ruh near ee] /360847002/

7.1993: In 1993, The New York attorney general files a lawsuit agains Consumers' Buyline, accusing it of being a pyramid scheme.

And they do that because it was.

Raniere claimed that his company did not require its distributors to pay for the opportunity to sell memberships or earn commissions on the sales of the people recruited below them.

People who wanted to could pay separately for membership in the buying club, he said.

The New York attorney general, however, was like, “Fuck that shit.”

The attorney general felt that the difference between people who paid for a membership and those who didn’t was fictional. The state’s complaint said:

“The emphasis in CBI is clearly not on the sale of a product but on recruiting new organizational rows to boost membership. Indeed, the only product in CBI, IS the membership. . . . CBI is a classic pyramid scheme.”

https://culteducation.com/group/907-nxivm/5968-consumers- buyline-of-clifton-park-was-forced-to-close-after-25-separate- investigations-.html

When served with the lawsuit, Raniere [ruh near ee] admitted to no wrongdoing and settled with the state for $40,000. He made changes to try and walk his company back from being a pyramid scheme to an MLM, before closing shop in 1997 under a mountain of lawsuits.

He then starts another MLM in 1997, the National Health Network, which sold vitamins and never REALLY gets off the ground.

It only lasted two years, before collapsing in 1999.

BUT - opening this company, which did include a brick and mortar health store - did lead to him meeting his second-in-command.

More on that in just a second.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/willyakowicz/2019/05/15/keith- raniere-the-leader-of-the-nxivm-sex-cult/#588231cd35a9

8. 1997: Also in 1997, Toni Natalie and Keith’s relationship begins to break down.

Natalie would later say in interviews, "What he kind of does is he elicits as much information as he can, almost as a friend you're sharing with. Then he takes those things and he manipulates you with them."

Far more troubling, Natalie alleged that Raniere [ruh near ee] raped her numerous times.

She said that he began to force himself on her against her will, sometimes while her son slept in the next room.

Dude is such a sexual deviant. Molesting kids and raping adults.

In a 2011 statement to police, Natalie wrote, “Prior to leaving him in 1999, I was raped repeatedly by Raniere [ruh near ee] , each time with him telling me it was harder on him than it was on me, that we needed to be together so that I could share in his energy.”

Gross.

Natalie sent her son to live with his father in 1998. And she left Keith in 1999.

https://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/news/politics/albany/ 2018/03/08/rochester-woman-battles-nxivm-keith-Raniere [ruh near ee] /360847002/

9. 1997-98: A little over a year before Natalie left, in late 1997, Raniere [ruh near ee] met a psychiatric nurse, Nancy Salzman at a health food store he owned in Clifton, NY. The one he tried to launch another MLM off of.

Nancy will become hi second-in-command.

These two wackadoodles hit it off. Keith told her he was enlightened being - a world class genius who wanted to share his gift of enlightenment with others, and Nancy bought this bullshit - or at least thought - “I could make some money with this dude.”

Nancy’s a con artist too. When she met Keith, she was super into hypnosis and Neurolinguistic programming, a method of changing another person's thoughts through communication techniques. Awesome cult recruiting tools.

She was a trained hypnotist. Cult expert Steve Hassan thinks she taught Keith - who was very interested in hypnosis - how to literally hypnotize people into following him.

In an interview with Vice, Hassan said. "I’ve talked to more than a few ex-members now who talked about their first meetings with Keith—they have no memory of what happened. These are two or four hour meetings. As an expert who studied NLP, I think that’s indicative of them being put into a hypnotic trance state, and specifically given a suggestion that they'll have no recollection of what was said or done.”

How fucking scary! Being hypnotized into joining a cult. Yikes! Being brainwashed into buying his bullshit.

This guy’s a goddamn evil wizard! https://www.oprahmag.com/entertainment/a33752877/nancy- salzman-nxivm-now/

In 1998, Salzman incorporated the group that would become NXIVM in Delaware for tax purposes, while headquartering it in upstate New York.

Salzman wrote in a brochure, "There is probably no discovery since writing as important for humankind as Mr. Raniere's technology.”

High praise.

What technology is she talking about? Keith didn’t have any tech. He just had ideas.

They started the organization as a self-improvement multilevel marketing company that offered "Executive Success Programs,” or ESPs.

Corporate leadership coaching.

And they were VERY successful. Roughly 16,000 people enrolled in these personal-development classes and workshops to overcome "psychological and emotional barriers."

Raniere [ruh near ee] didn’t just promise to unlock clients’ greater potential; he claimed that his methods could do shit like cure ailments like Tourette’s syndrome and even help kids speak up to 13 languages.

Let’s look at NXIVM’s insane methods and philosophy.

(1) ESP:

Raniere [ruh near ee] based NXIVM around a series of techniques – or “technology”, as he called it – that he believed could “heal individuals and transform the world.” The courses taught that everyone was responsible for their own reactions to the outside word, and with enough “integrations,” you could reach “unification,” in which you’d be a happier, better, more meaningful person.

NXIVM featured a 12-point "Mission Statement", which participants recited, pledging to "purge" themselves "of all parasite and envy-based habits", to enroll others in such courses, and to "ethically control as much of the money, wealth and resources of the world as possible within my success plan.”

Haha! Classic MLM bullshit. “In order for this to work you MUST get others to JOIN! To keep my incredible ‘technology’ to yourself - the most important ‘technology’ the world has seen since the invention of writing - that would be TOO SELFISH! So don’t be SELFISH and get others to pay thousands and thousands of dollars for me to hypnotize them with my bullshit!”

Oh - and GET RICH! Help the world by getting SO RICH! Get RICH and give me a percentage of your riches!

NXIVM conducted "Intensives" classes for 12 hours daily for 16 days.

More classic cult shit. Wear people down. Get them tired. The more tired they are, the greater the odds they’ll eventually just let go of their critical thinking skills and buy whatever you’re selling.

One cited price for these workshops was $7,500.

Classes were divided into modules. In one module, "Relationship Sourcing", students were instructed to explore the benefits they would receive in the event of a partner's sudden death. Not shady at all. Find out how much money you can get so you can give it to us and take more modules!

Another module, "Dracula and his ghouls", reportedly discussed psychopaths and their followers. How ironic.

Other module titles included "Best People; Perfect World" and "The Heroic Struggle.”

NXIVM also offered the “Rainbow Cultural Garden” - an attempt to raise super-kids, by immersing them in a different language each day of the week, from infancy. Children spent most of their time away from their parents in this module, thus making them ripe for cult indoctrination.

Another group, “Jness” claimed to be about “empowerment of women,” with multi-day training courses using core NXIVM materials, but as we’ll see later, it was a breeding ground for a secret sex cult ol’ Pervy Keith was cooking up. http://www.reasoned.life/2018/03/nxivm-parallels-to- scientology/

Photographs of Raniere [ruh near ee] and Nancy Salzman were displayed during all of these seminars, which always concluded with participants showing gratitude to the two leaders.

CULT! CULT! CULT!

This “gratitude” portion is so critical to turning from MLM to cult. There is a fine line between demanding gratitude and encouraging others to worship you.

And these courses were tiered. King of like in Scientology, how you can pay to level up - buy more sacred knowledge.

With NXIVM, you paid thousands to take a series of initial courses and then, were offered the “opportunity” to pay progressively more for advanced classes. Classes taught by people with no teaching accreditation.

AND - as members leveled up, they earned fun new sashes!

And each sash denoted a different enlightenment status.

(2) Sashes:

In NXIVM classes, rank was signified by the wearing of these colored sashes, very similar to how different colored belts are used in various martial arts classes.

Do you want to be a sixth degree spiritual enlightened being black belt??? Cool! Just get down on your knees and suck Keiths’s dick! I mean, um, PAY THOUSANDS TO TAKE HIS CLASSES! ANNNNNND suck his dick…. if you’re a lady… and preferably no older than 15.

Each color in the hierarchy was not only a higher state of self- awareness but also reflected a member’s ability to recruit more members.

The process for moving up in rank was up to leader Keith Raniere - who wore a white sash and claimed to consider himself a student - the HUMBLE MASTER - but it generally involved taking more classes and paying more money, and of course, recruiting new members

White sashes were for students - those who just joined the program. Anyone who paid to join the program got a white sash.

Yellow sashes were for coaches. Members who worked for free for the organization, teaching lower level classes. Members who STILL had to pay for their classes.

Cool. Seems ethical.

Orange ashes were for “Proctors.” These people were able to earn a small salary or commission for recruiting new members. However, you had to pour a LOT of money into the organization to make this small salary.

Green sashes were for “senior proctors.” A green sash generally cost a member around a million dollars. A LOT of money for a stupid green piece of fabric.

I wonder if someone listening has a green NXIVM sash folded up in a drawer somewhere? And I wonder how badly they want that million bucks back?

Blue sashes are for “counselors” and cost around $5 million.

Damn!

These members would make a salary, but allegedly it was nothing compared to the money they’d put in.

Purple Sashes were for “senior counselors.” No word on how much this one cost, but allegedly, only THREE members ever made it that high. Those poor, mislead bastards. Guessing they’re out over ten million bucks each.

Unreal.

Black Sashes were reserved for pedophiles who figured out how to molest twelve year olds and not get caught. Keith would wear his black sash under his white sash. And then he’d wrap a second black sash around his hard, evil, and probably tiny dick.

JK.

But not about the tiny dick speculation.

There was also ONE gold sash. It was reserved for the “prefect,” of which there was only one: cofounder Nancy “Evil Wizard Hypnotist” Salzman. https://www.popsugar.com/entertainment/nxivm-scarf- colors-guide-47720085

The rigid hierarchy pushed members to revere those with a higher level of sash, to whom they were encouraged to pay tribute in words and deeds. WORSHIP THOSE SASHES! CULT! CULT! CULT! ALL HAIL THE GOOD GOD, AMWAY! I mean NXIVM!

(3) Vocab:

Along with all their sashes and classes, NVIXM also had a batshit personal dictionary.

For example, a “Luciferian” was NXIVM’s preferred term for a type of sociopath, one with “severe behavioral problems that are masked by good psychological adjustment,” who, as described in a patent, “typically experiences pleasure or gratification in situations where ‘normal’ people would be repulsed or disturbed.”

I love that Keith tried to PATENT this use of the word Luciferian.

Should I try and patent Lucifina?? Hail Lucifina! Great Goddess of the Suck!

Did you know, by the way, that if you pay me five million dollars, I’ll conjure up the real Lucifina and she’ll sleep with you and bestow divine sexual conquest powers unto you that will make you be able to seduce anyone at any time? And then you can use your newfound sexual power- energy to manipulate those around you into gaining basically anything your heart desires?

She’ll even change genders - she’s fluid - to appeal to whatever your sexual preference is. She can be a man or a woman. Don’t believe me? Just give me that five mil and I’ll disappear and go live on a beach somewhere - I MEAN - I’ll PROVE it. Hail Lucifina and her red sash of power!

One former NXIVM member speaking on condition of anonymity learned about such a person in a course called “the Fall” - as in the “fall” Lucifer took in Milton’s Paradise Lost. She said they were meant to understand those who had left the organization as Luciferians, lost people for whom bad feels good, and good feels bad.

Nice! Basically Keith and Nancy just stole a page out of Scientology’s playbook here - A Luciferian is really no different than Scientology’s “Suppressive Person.”

In the NXIVM program, which Raniere [ruh near ee] has claimed as copyrighted and also tried to patent, Raniere [ruh near ee] describes some people as "parasites," a term, usage- wise- he borrowed from Ayn Rand.

"All parasitic strategies lower self-esteem and therefore destroy value," Raniere [ruh near ee] wrote in his patent application. "It is our intent to rid the world of those things that destroy value. We can do this by modeling effort strategies with our own behavior and helping others learn to use them. This is spreading the mission."

Raniere [ruh near ee] also borrowed the term “suppressive,” from Scientology. Just gave it a different meaning. It referred to, in NXIVM, those who impede progress up the precious sash ladder.

He also came up with cool nicknames for himself and Nancy Salzman. Raniere [ruh near ee] was called “Vanguard” because he was the leader of their philosophical movement.

Salzman, his first student, was “Prefect.”

Hmm. Vanguard. I have to admit, that nickname sounds more legit and impressive than any of my nicknames like Suck Master or Bojangle’s Ball Washer. https://www.timesunion.com/news/article/Secrets-of- NXIVM-2880885.php

(4) Patents:

Keith’s bogus “technology” also played a huge role in convincing new members that they were doing the right thing by joining NXIVM. Keith was always talking a lot about his “patents.”

This patent shit is so weird to me. He never invented anything fucking useful.

He submitted a patent a simple “find my iPhone”-type device that no one bought. He submitted a patent for a sleep- guidance system that no one gave a shit about.

He submitted so many patents because it made him LOOK cool. He’s a genius! And geniuses patent shit!

To quote Vanity Fair, “Keith Raniere exploited a common misconception about a tedious bureaucratic process to spread the gospel of his genius.” https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2018/06/keith-raniere- nxivm-patents-luciferian

And by this they mean, you don’t have to be a genius to submit a patent for anything. You just have to fill out some paperwork.

Rational Inquiry, the behavioral therapy at the center of NXIVM’s public-facing work, is almost always described as a “patent-pending technology” in company literature.

Raniere [ruh near ee] ’s bio says he has “147 international patents, including 47 in the United States, in a variety of technical fields.” This claim is debatable and probably not true.

A 2017 Vanity Fair investigation only found about 40 U.S. Patent applications he’d filed.

One former member said that patents were “always a conversational piece” among members. They “were touted all the time as, not just what is he working on, but why is he great and why is he so amazing. He’s so humanitarian that he’s building all of these things to help the world.”

“Patent pending” was a phrase used by those in NXIVM’s highest ranks, and the former follower recalled that it was placed at the bottom of many of the E.S.P. curriculum sheets.

The anonymous former member explained, “We took [it] to mean that patent is in effect, he has been proven, this is his invention, you know?”

But that’s really not what “patent pending means.”

The phrase simply means the patent is in review. Anyone with some know-how of the system can file an application that’s deemed “patent pending.”

And a lot of his pending patents were straight-up fucking bullshit.

One example, the “Method Apparatus for Improving Performance,” is apparently a way of increasing performance on a treadmill by increasing speed over time. Laymen might recognize this approach as “exercise.” Dude tried to patent walking on a fucking treadmill!

I should submit a patent for “Method Apparatus for Improving Performance Through Stationary Respite,” as in SLEEP!

Sometimes, the delusional Raniere [ruh near ee] thought he really did invent something, and tried to make money going after companies who used technology that he claimed to have patented.

He went big, going after Microsoft and AT&T with a claim that he invented a type of teleconferencing tech. He lost in 2015 when he couldn’t prove that he owned the patent. And he couldn’t prove he owned the patent because he didn’t really invent anything. He’s a delusional lunatic. It was all smoke and mirrors.

His many patents were always a big talking point at Vanguard Week, NXIVM’s weeklong celebration of Keith’s birthday.

Yup. By the time this dude’s cult fell apart, this motherfucker was making his followers celebrate his birthday for an entire week. Over a week actually. https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2018/06/keith-Raniere [ruh near ee] -nxivm-patents-luciferian

(5) Vanguard Week:

The event began as a single day to honor the birthday of Raniere [ruh near ee] . It eventually expanded to 11 days.

Members of NXIVM would come from all across the country, Canada and Europe to worship their idiot king.

Hail the Good God, Amway! Maker of Quality Multipurpose and Affordable Laundry Detergent!

Keith’s celebration was held on various campgrounds and resorts, sometimes on the west coast, sometimes near Albany.

Attendees would pay $1,400 to $3,500 to stay at a resort and attend V-Week. According to one former member, “There was always sort of entertainment or different kind of tribute ceremonies to Keith from the different centers, or there would be like performances of singers. It was kind of all centered around the idea of a tribute to Keith and celebrating Keith's work.”

During one V Week, one member testified, an attorney stood on stage with Raniere [ruh near ee] , who held large plaques engraved with five to six patents that Raniere [ruh near ee] had recently filed.

Always with his patent talk.

V Week included areas of interest called "objectives" for members to work on, like singing, dancing, and drumming.

V Week was a sort of summer camp for adults, featuring included forums featuring Raniere [ruh near ee] on stage, plays that were worked on all week and performances.

https://www.timesunion.com/news/article/NXIVM-turned- Lake-George-resort-into-annual-13836853.php

10. October 2003:

October, 2003.

In a Forbes piece on NXIVM, Edgar Bronfman Sr. - Canadian- American billionaire businessman - tells reporters that he believes that NXIVM is a cult. It seems that he was first to do so, publicly.

Bronfman's daughters, Sara and Clare, were in the group, and Clare gave Keith a two million dollar “loan” that would never be paid back, to help fund it. This is the first widely-reported instance of someone in the media labeling NXIVM a cult.

Michael Freedman, the author of the Forbes piece, wrote that Keith’s followers described him as “one of the smartest and most ethical people alive.”

HAHA! Smartest AND MOST ethical. A pedophile. A lying pedophile.

The Forbes piece goes on to say: “They describe him as a soft- spoken, humble genius who can diagnose societal ills with remarkable clarity. They say his teachings as an inspirational executive coach can empower some of the most successful people in the world to attain ever higher levels of status and money. Why, his program can even cure ailments like diabetes and scoliosis.”

Oh boy. The dude who never went to medical school is curing scoliosis, now. He probably submitted some nonsensical spine- straightening patent. Some series of pictures of someone laying on some sort of table and then a medieval rack-type- contraption that pulls their feet and hands in the exact opposite direction until POP! That spine is STRAIGHT, BAY-BEEEE!

By this time, Keith was amassing quite the following, including celebrities.

Prompted by a word-of-mouth network, they included Sheila Johnson, cofounder of Black Entertainment Television; Antonia C. Novello, a former U.S. surgeon general; Stephen Cooper, acting chief executive of Enron; the Seagram fortune’s Edgar Bronfman Sr. and two of his daughters; and Ana Cristina Fox, daughter of the Mexican president.

Dude was straight hypnotizing all these motherfuckers.

Intelligent people. Successful people. Ambitious people desperate to become even more intelligent and successful.

11. 2005: In 2005, Keith sunk his NXIVM hooks in Sarah Edmonson. Let’s see how he did it as a personal example of how this Cult sucked in members.

Sarah decides to attend a spirituality-themed film festival with her husband.

Great place to recruit cult members! People likely open to new spiritual ideas.

Sarah felt like her life was at a stand-still - as an actress, she was barely getting enough work to keep herself in a basement apartment. She’d done some beer commercials but felt like the work was meaningless, nothing like the artistic career she’d once imagined for herself.

At the film festival, she met a man named Mark Vincente, who’d made a movie called What The Bleep Do We Know? A movie that looks fucking TERRIBLE by the way. Super wackadoodle - 34% approval on Rotten Tomatoes.

Peter Howell from the Toronto Star gave it the following review: “The film with the year's most unfortunate title also happens to be a candidate for the year's worst film.” Lou Lumenick from the New York Post was more succinct, saying, “Two hours of New Age hooey.” Jack Matthews from the New York Daily News gave my favorite review: “Quantum Bull-Bleep would be a more apt title for the conclusions that the movie draws.”

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/what_the__do_we_know/ reviews?type=top_critics

Haha! Wackadoodle nonsense! The movie describes itself as a film that “takes viewers on a journey to unlock the secrets of life.” https://whatthebleep.com/

How very ambitious! Here’s a snippet from this pile-of-shit movie’s trailer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QlZ5O8_bGk PLAY FROM :50 to 1:00.

Ponder that for awhile motherfucker!

Ponder that statement that sounds intelligent but means absolutely nothing! Fucking pretentious assholes.

Sounds like the shit someone says when they’re three days into their first philosophy class and they desperately want to sound deep.

Sarah, of course, loves this shit movie, and tells Mark so. He replies that if she liked the movie, she might like this sixteen-day program he took.

Of course he does. (Mario) Here we gooooooooo! CULT! CULT! CULT!

A group of people, including Mark, Sarah, and Sarah’s husband, go out for dinner after the film festival, and I’m guessing, have an incredibly punchable conversation that would make me want to take my salad fork and slam it into either one their mouths or one of my ears.

Sarah was coughing badly at dinner, trying to hide a cold she’d had for weeks.

Between hacking fits, Vicente took her aside and asked her a bizarre question she’d never heard before: What would you lose if you stopped coughing? As in: What would be the “downside” if she wasn’t always so sick? This is the kind of counter-intuitive question is the kind NXIVM members used to spark epiphanies, and it prompted a burst of self-reflection in Sarah.

She realized her coughs were an attempt to get her husband’s attention - she had subconsciously believed that sickness would earn her the care and love she craved. “I remember thinking wow, whatever Mark from What the Bleep is up to, I want to do,” Edmondson told CBC.

Sounds like Mark got really lucky. I feel like the first 99 times he asked that question to other people, they said or at least thought stuff like, “What are you talking about asshole, I have a cold.”

AND - Sarah had a cold! She just let him trick into thinking it was some other bullshit. Ugh. People HEARING WHAT THEY WANT TO HEAR!

Sarah decided to take the intensive but was skeptical.

Her parents were therapists, so she thought there was nothing that these people could teach her about her emotions that she didn’t know already.

The group was strange.

At the end of the meeting, they bowed and said, “Thank you, Vanguard.” She thought it was strange, but the facilitators explained that everyone had titles - doctors have titles - a sensei has a title. “We refer to people based on what they've earned,” they told her. “Vanguard's earned this title, and it means leader of a philosophical movement.”

And HOW did he EARN it? Through the triple P method of guru- ship. Philosophy… patents… and Pedophilia.

Sarah also noticed that the people wore sashes, but she figured that people in martial arts wore sashes. Everything that she had an issue with was easily explained away.

But she was still a little weirded out. After the first day, she googled the company and called Mark. “What did you get me into?” she asked.

And then Mark said, “Don’t think, ‘what did you get me IN-to?’, think, ‘what did you get me OUT-to? Ponder THAT for awhile!”

And then he hung up, adjusted his man bun, transitioned into a new yoga pose, and mumbled to the air around himself, “I’m the wisest of them all.”

No, he didn’t say that. But it feels like the kind of douche-y thing he would say.

He actually said, "Anyone can write anything about anyone online. Of course there are smear campaigns and haters and stuff like that."

Classic defense anyone can use to defend anything.

Sarah decided to go back. On the third day, she had some profound realizations, what the Executive Success Program called “integrations.”

Sarah would later write that by the end of the fifth day, “I had more clarity, I was making better decisions, I understood people better, I thought this was the key to success and happiness. But there was also this nugget that they left you with—that there was this problem with you that you had to resolve, and of course, that required more trainings… There's a momentum to being committed to a group that you think is good, and there's a certain amount of cognitive dissonance to make your choice a good choice. When you spend $3,000 on a five-day training, you want to make it good. You want to make it a good choice—yeah, I got something out of it. Yeah, it was amazing, really good. Same thing, a psychological phenomenon, you stick to it, and I think there was part of me wanting to be right that it was good.”

When you spend $3,000 on a five-day training - you want to make it good. You sure do! No one wants to feel like they threw away their money. Doubling down!

So crazy, I’ve watched recent interviews with Sarah, and she seems nice, but she does NOT seem like someone who has their shit together. She spent ALL THAT MONEY, and she STILL seems like someone unsure how life works on a basic level. Those classes didn’t teach her shit. Probably just made her more insecure than ever.

From 2005 to 2009, Sarah travels from New York to Seattle, where there was a NXIVM center, to take lessons. Every three months or so, the center did a five-day training program where people flew from New York to teach the training. Sarah took on a new role, managing these five-day programs after paying for several of them. By her own admission, she was good at it, especially at bringing new people in.

She’s working for free AND also paying for other classes. And feeling like she’s getting a deal!

Sarah noticed that NXIVM was much more than classes - it was its own community. People who were in NXIVM had friends outside, but increasingly people found themselves getting closer and closer to people inside the group, obsessed with discussing NXIVM techniques.

CULT! CULT! CULT!

Having a dinner party with NXIVM friends meant constantly dissecting your fears and insecurities.

If somebody said they didn’t like sharing the food on their plate, for example, other group members would chime in with probing questions in an effort to overcome the block. What would you lose if you stopped the behavior? Is refusing to share holding you back?

Dear God. I would’ve never lasted a day with these annoying lunatics.

“HANGER is holding me back you greedy dick weeds! If you wanted some spaghetti and meat balls, you should’ve ordered that shit YOURSELF!”

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/xwaaxd/why-i-joined-a-secret- society-that-branded-me

12. 2006: In 2006, Raniere [ruh near ee] takes his cult a step further and creates “Jness” - a group focused on female members.

Some of its teachings initially seemed reasonable enough: In the beginning of the course titled Raw, men and women were encouraged to talk about their gender’s genuine experience of life, and sex, and how the other sex often made them feel repressed, denigrated and ashamed. By voicing these feelings, which can be taboo to speak out loud, men supposedly developed compassion for women, and vice versa.

Jness was priced at $5,000 for each eight-day workshop, of which there were 11. A smooth $55k to become a Jness aficionado! What a DEAL! THANK YOU LORD AMWAY! GREAT GOD OF QUALITY, REASONABLY PRICED COOKWARE!

As the workshops progressed, Raniere [ruh near ee] told followers that they must accept that women and men are wired differently. Men are repressed and do not enjoy the same rich experience of existence as women, but they have an understanding of right and wrong; women can be disloyal, have tantrums and get away with whatever they prefer.

Raniere [ruh near ee] then introduced a theory about ancient men that he called “the primitive hypothesis,” emphasizing that men are naturally promiscuous, and women are naturally monogamous.

And so the grooming begins! I’d bet my life he was paying REAL close attention to which attractive women accepted that men got to fuck around and women didn’t.

Starting to pick out his harem right here.

For men only, Nxivm offered a club named the Society of Protectors.

In this group, Raniere [ruh near ee] introduced a concept called “collateral,” or “collateralizing your word,” which members understood to be “adding extra leverage to your conscience.” If a man didn’t “uphold” his word about running, for example, perhaps the whole group would be punished and have to forgo the next morning’s coffee.

As we’ll see later, collateral took a different approach for women.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DDcMirG7og https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2018/04/a-running-list-of-the- women-allison-mack-attempted-to-recruit-to-nxivm

13. 2006: In 2006, actress Allison Mack attends her first NXIVM meeting. She will become a main figure in all of the ensuing insanity.

Born July 29th, 1982, in West Germany, Mack lived the first two years of her life in Germany before her family moved to California. Mack's first acting job was for a German chocolate company in a series of print ads and commercials. She went on to appear in dozens of television movies and shows, including the direct-to-video “Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves.”

“She was just this great kid who seemed happy, mature for her age and very responsible,” said her childhood manager, Diane Hardin.

But as she moved into her teens, she was poised but lacked sophistication, needing help with her makeup and style, recalled her former agent, Judy Savage.

She also had a touch of naiveté [ nah-ee-vuh-tey], said a former friend. “The only thing I can think of is she so badly wanted to connect to something that she didn’t see the rational side of things. The person that I knew way back when was very curious about the world and relationships. I think she was just constantly searching for something that was missing in her life.”

Mack was eighteen when she was cast as Clark Kent’s sidekick, Chloe Sullivan, on “Smallville,” an addictive TV series about young Superman, which ran for ten seasons. On “Smallville,” Chloe was the clever-but-grating best friend next to the ethereal dream girl, Lana Lang, played by Kristin Kreuk [krewk]. Fans were cruel when contrasting the two young women’s looks, and it was not lost on Mack, who was sensitive to the criticism.

After high school, Ms. Mack moved from her family’s home in Los Alamitos, Calif., to North Hollywood and had a group of industry friends, including her costar, Kristin Kreuk[krewk]. And Kreuk [krewk] brought Mack to to her first meeting of Jness, the women’s group under the umbrella of NXIVM.

The weekend seminar was held in a Vancouver hotel.

One Saturday morning in late 2006, several dozen people filed into an unremarkable hotel conference room for the two-day introduction to Jness.

Mack seemed to bask in the attention from co-founder Nancy Salzman.

Mr. Salzman was teaching a workshop speaking about how men are genetically polyamorous, said Susan Dones, the owner of a Nxivm center who was there that day.

By the end of the seminar, Allison had grown close to Ms. Salzman and her daughter, Lauren. She was excited when Sara Bronfman, an heir to the Seagram’s liquor fortune, offered her a ride on her private jet to meet Keith Raniere [ruh near ee] back in Albany.

By the end of the weekend, Mack had a new best friend, Lauren Salzman, and the prospect of meeting with the guru who had taught everyone at the seminar.

She said yes to Albany. And that decision led to other decisions that have her now home on bond, awaiting a judge to sentence to up to 40 years in prison.

https://www.bustle.com/entertainment/wheres-allison-mack- now-nxivm

After that weekend, Mack returned home to her boyfriend, Chad Krowchuk, who could immediately tell that she was thrilled about something. Krowchuk and Mack had been living together for about three years and had seen a couple of their actor friends get involved with NXIVM.

Mack told him she wanted to share this powerful experience with him, and even though Krowchuk was a little uncomfortable, he agreed to go to Albany to meet the NXIVM inner circle.

“That was the part that scared me the most,” Krowchuk later said of his girlfriend’s sudden shift in perspective. “Before we had conversations about it, and we both thought it seemed kind of weird and creepy. I don’t necessarily know if she thought it was creepy, but we agreed it seemed a little messed up.” NOW, Mack was 110 percent on board, but he still had reservations. Krowchuk wondered to himself, if the tools were really so powerful and the leaders were committed humanitarians, then why weren’t they giving away the teachings for free?

Exactly! Because they were running an MLM sex cult!

Mack was invited into NXIVM’s inner circle very quickly, and Krowchuk tagged along in the beginning. But he soon realized that he didn’t have the money to go much further with the coursework.

So Mack paid for his courses and he slowly tried to pay her back, eventually spending between twenty and thirty thousand dollars on his NXIVM courses.

Ugh.

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/a38dzj/how-nxivm-ripped- through-this-group-of-canadian-actors

14. December 1, 2007: Mack hosts A Capella Innovations in Albany on December 1st, 2007. She’d then judge an A Cappella Innovations competition that took place from April 4th to 6th, 2008.

NXVIM attempted to attract college-age recruits with A Cappella Innovations, a festival for college a cappella groups.

I bet Keith was using this as a way to scope out some young, potential future sex slaves.

15. 2009: In 2009, Mark “Ponder THAT for awhile” Vincente and Sarah Edmonson open a NXIVM center in Vancouver, Canada.

16. 2009: Also, in 2009, Barbara Bouchey, a financial planner, confronts Keith about his secret sexual relationships with both clients and board members, as well as other improper business practices.

Barbara had been Keith’s girlfriend until about ten months before the confrontation.

According to Barbara, who we met earlier when talking about Keith’s dad, Keith pursued her from day one, and Nancy, and his inner circle, continually sang his praises and tried to encourage Barbara to date him. Six months after they met in 1998, they finally started a relationship.

And then about a year after their relationship started, Barbara began to suspect that Keith was seeing multiple women, at least three of them. She found out later he was seeing at least NINE other women while she was dating him, before she left NXIVM.

When Keith would disappear for days at a time and Barbara openly wondered where he had gone, first Raniere [ruh near ee] and then high-ranked NXIVM women pointed to her abandonment issues as the daughter of an alcoholic father.

HER issues were the problem, not Raniere [ruh near ee] . Perhaps he was absent because he was trying to teach her a great and wonderful lesson about one’s expectations of another being.

Nice! “Baby! If you want to look at it like I’m fucking around on you, and betraying YOUR trust, and possibly giving YOU some STDs - that’s on YOU! That’s YOUR shit - that’s YOUR perspective.

From MY perspective, I’m taking MY dick and using it to teach YOU to be more forgiving of others! Every time I put my lesson- cock inside another teachable-moment-puss - YOU should be thanking ME!

THANK YOU Keith by helping me evolve by fucking other women, oh benevolent leader! Now BOW before the good God AMWAY! Omnipotent GOD of environmentally-friendly dish soap and knock-off energy drinks!

Barbara ended their relationship a year before she left NXIVM and says that Keith gave her the silent treatment and told anyone who asked that Barbara had committed an “ethical breach” that was so bad that he couldn’t talk to her.

Totally. How DARE she try and take his philandering, and use it against HIM!

After Barbara confronts him, eight other women leave with her, which effectively closes down multiple training centers including the one in Seattle.

So instead of Vancouverites commuting south of the border for coursework like they did in the early 2000s, American clients start coming to Edmondson’s thriving new center.

By the time Barbara left, she’d given Keith $1.6 million dollars of her savings.

So much money.

Money that was given as a loan.

Money Barbara gave Keith to cover some bad investments genius Keith had made using all the money he was getting from his bullshit courses.

Eventually, Barbara asked to get the money back, and Keith refused. He encouraged her to think of it as a humanitarian donation - that she was upholding his great mission, and to take it back would be incredibly selfish.

And she never did get that money back. She filed a lawsuit but Keith was using to dragging those out in court.

https://frankreport.com/2019/10/21/barbara-bouchey-breaks-long- silence-and-speaks-out-about-commodities-losses-and-other- Raniere [ruh near ee] -bronfman-matters/

17. 2011/2012: Human Pain, a new class, is offered at NXIVM centers beginning in 2011 or 2012. The curriculum was an eight-day level-two training and started with the concepts of collateral and penance.

Cult! Cult! Cult!

People were encouraged to put down collateral as weight to their word for their commitments. If you didn't complete your goals or something you said you were going to do, people were encouraged to sleep on the floor or take cold showers.

For women, penance was largely about calories.

According to Sarah Edmonson, one woman was once on a 300- calorie diet, because of some breach she had done.

She was only eating mashed frozen zucchini and tomato stew.

And this calorie punishment had nothing to do with self-help, and had everything to do with Keith liking his women to be exceptionally thin.

By this time, he was sleeping with god knows how many of his female followers. 18. February 2012:

In February of 2012, some cult experts publicly state that NXIVM is for sure a cult, and not just some MLM bullshit.

In a Times Union piece, some pointed out that the terms and rituals in NXIVM were very cult-like. One cult expert even likened Raniere [ruh near ee] to David Koresh, claiming the leader directed one of the most extreme cults he had ever studied.

https://www.timesunion.com/local/article/Secrets-of- NXIVM-2880885.php

19. 2015: In 2015, Keith Raniere [ruh near ee] takes his cult even further and forms DOS, the secret group within the group that would lead to his downfall.

DOS stood for Dominus Obsequious Sororium, a Latin phrase which roughly translates as “Master of the Obedient Sisterhood.”

The group was designed so that women would recruit other women and give them ‘assignments’ as their “masters,” all framed as an exercise in mentorship.

What the group was REALLY about, was providing Keith with an endless supply of young women trained to do whatever they were told.

He now starts keeping a rotating group of around fifteen women for sex, forcing them to eat highly restricted diets because he liked his women to be “exceptionally thin.”

Women were assigned periods of celibacy while they waited for their turn for Keith to fuck them. When it wasn’t their turn, they weren’t even allowed to masturbate.

According to an FBI complaint, “masters” would give “slaves” assignments that either directly or implicitly required them to have sex with Raniere [ruh near ee], which they then did. Other assignments appeared designed to groom slaves sexually for Raniere [ruh near ee] down the road.

Shit is getting crazier!

How is all this rationalized? How can they still think of him as some benevolent, ethical leader?

Keith convinces these women he’s sexually healing them by literally fucking them. That’s how brainwashed they are now.

He’s pushing them past sexual trauma and empowering them sexually by demanding that they perform sexual acts they’re not comfortable with. Women in interviews I watched wouldn’t say what these acts were, other than that they were exceptionally degrading.

20. 2017: In 2017, NXIVM continues to spiral downwards into further insanity.

One member later recalled that when she was diagnosed with breast cancer, NXIVM associates told her that she had given HERSELF the disease. Why? A desperate attempt to to get her husband’s attention.

AND - they told her that instead of spending the money she had raised online for her own treatment, she should give NXIVM the money and make the ethical decision to die.

CULT! CULT! CULT! Give us that cancer money.

PLEASE the GOOD GOD, AMWAY! LORD of affordable anti- wrinkle cream and Multi-Action Fluoride Toothpastes!

I know, by the way, that NXIVM has nothing to do with Amway at this point. It just cracks me up to call their god Amway, even though they didn’t have a god.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/29/nyregion/nxivm-lawsuit-keith- Raniere [ruh near ee] .html

21. January 2017: Also in 2017, Lauren Salzman travels to Vancouver to visit Sarah Edmonson to catch up and visit.

Though the women had previously been very close— Lauren had been the maid of honor at Sarah’s wedding and was Sarah’s son’s godmother— lately they’d drifted apart a bit, and Sarah was hopeful that the visit would bring them back together.

After a few days on the trip, Lauren took Sarah aside and told her that she wanted to invite her to do something really amazing - something that would change Sarah’s life.

Lauren said it had changed her life completely, but before she could tell Sarah about it, Sarah had to give something to Lauren to prove that she wouldn’t talk about it with anyone else.

“Like what?” Sarah asked.

Lauren said it could be anything— a nude photo, a family secret. Anything that would keep Sarah from talking about it. When Sarah said she felt uncomfortable, Lauren told her that that was a good sign - she SHOULD feel uncomfortable, so that she remained true to her word.

Giving Lauren a nude blackmail photo would OBVIOUSLY be a GOOD THING! Wake up and smell the spread eagle crotch shot, Sarah! This is for YOUR OWN GOOD!

Sarah agreed and wrote down a list of bad things that she and members of her family had done, but Lauren said it wasn’t good enough. So Sarah wrote the list again, lying about things— that her husband beat their child, that he was unfaithful, none of which was true. She gave Lauren some nude photos.

Lauren then told Sarah what the big secret was: an international women’s group that didn’t have anything to do with Executive Success Programs or NXIVM or even Keith. Which of course were lies. This had EVERYTHING to do with Keith.

It was a worldwide group of women, a “badass bitch camp,” as she described it.

Some women called the group the Vow, and others referred to by the solemn name Dominus Obsequious Sororium, - DOS.

Lauren described it as “a sorority.”

The first step was a commitment to Lauren, a lifetime commitment. Sarah - as deep as she was with all this bullshit - still found this concerning, but she figured that she’d already made a lifetime commitment to Lauren by being her best friend.

The second thing was a vow of obedience to her. Sarah would be the slave, and Lauren would be her master. The concept, especially how it was worded, creeped Sarah out, but Lauren explained that it was just an exercise.

Masters would help slaves count calories to save them from the trap of emotional eating, according to other women in the group. Masters would dictate an act of “self-denial,” like cold showers or rousing yourself from bed at 4 a.m. and standing stock still for a time.

Slaves were told to do “acts of care” for masters, perhaps bringing them coffee. Slaves might be told to abstain from orgasms for a period of time, ostensibly to heal their negative sexual patterns.

Such weird shit

She told her that each master was supposed to bring in slaves, and then, to become masters, those slaves would recruit slaves of their own; an estimated 150 women would ultimately join. Some slaves called each other “sisters.”

And Sarah agreed to become Lauren’s slave.

22. March 2017: In March of 2017, the infamous NXIVM branding goes down.

Sarah flies to Albany.

Lauren told her she’d be having a special initiation including a tattooing ceremony.

This worried Sarah. It should have. All of this is insane.

She didn’t have any tattoos, didn’t have any piercings besides her earlobes, and it wasn’t something she wanted on her body. When she told Lauren, Lauren said that they’d work through Sarah’s fears together. The tattoo was meaningful, Lauren said - mountains and water to symbolize inner strength.

Lauren brought Sarah to her guest room and told her to get naked and put on a blindfold. Sarah did so and thought she heard movement in the house - Lauren’s other slaves. They would all be gathering together for the first time, and Sarah had actually been excited about it. It would sort of be like a family reunion, she thought.

She was brought to the living room and took off her blindfold, finding herself sitting with four other women, all of whom she knew from NXIVM. They were all naked. All of the women were shy, trying to cover themselves up, but Lauren told them to get over it, to get over their body issues because they were a sisterhood.

As with the rest of NXIVM, anytime anyone had a concern, it was immediately pinned on “THEIR fears” and something they had to conquer.

Dr. Danielle Roberts entered the room and Lauren told one of the women to get on the table.

The women took turns holding each other down as Dr. Roberts used a cauterizing device to sear a two-inch-square symbol below each woman’s hip, a procedure that took 20 to 30 minutes per person.

The women were crying and shaking.

At one point, they put on surgical masks because the smell of burning flesh was so strong in the room.

Each time a new woman got on the table, Lauren instructed her to say, “Master, please brand me, it would be an honor.”

Sarah wanted to run, but she couldn’t think of what to do.

She was naked, in a house in Albany, couldn’t contact anyone without telling them about the group and giving up her collateral - the nude pictures. The video testimonials trash-talking her family.

She listened to two women receive brands and then got on the table herself.

Later, Sarah would realize that the brand wasn’t a mountain and river like she’d been told. If she turned it on its side, it looked like KR — Keith Raniere [ruh near ee] ’s initials. https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/xwaaxd/why-i-joined-a-secret- society-that-branded-me

After realizing that she been branded for Keith, Sarah FINALLY leaves NXIVM, turning over control of the Vancouver center to other NXIVM members. She urges Mark “Ponder” Vincente to leave with her, which he does, and the two spend the next several months cold-calling NXVIM members and their families, urging them to sever ties with the organization.

One of the people that they contact is actress Catherine Oxenberg, mother of India Oxenberg, who joined NXIVM when she was just nineteen, in 2011. Catherine had actually introduced her daughter India to the group, figuring that it could help her daughter develop some leadership skills. https://www.oxygen.com/martinis-murder/nxivm-lifetime-movie- who-are-catherine-india-oxenberg

A few years later, at Raniere [ruh near ee] 's trial, an ex-NXIVIM member, known only as "Nicole," would testify that Mack forced India into a starvation diet, allowing her to eat only 500 calories a day to get her to 107 pounds.

India also received a brand and became part of Keith’s harem before she left the group in 2018.

23. October 17, 2017: On October 17th, 2017, The New York Times publishes a major exposé about the organization and its branding ritual.

Keith had finally pushed shit too far. Having these women branded - turns out that THIS was the line he’d cross that would FINALLY lead to his arrest.

Sarah Edmondson speaks out about her experience in NXIVM, and in DOS and in being branded. She poses for a picture in which she shows the brand on her pelvic bone, shocking readers.

24. Late 2017: Shortly after the NYT article appears, Raniere [ruh near ee] flees to Mexico, where he’s spotted several times walking through a secure gated community in a suburb of Monterrey, the industrial hub of the country.

Many of his rich Mexican donors lived nearby. Rumors start to swirl about an FBI investigation, and Raniere [ruh near ee] disappears again.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/30/magazine/sex-cult- empowerment-nxivm-keith-Raniere [ruh near ee] .html https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/05/nxivm-mexico-keith- Raniere [ruh near ee] -cult-emiliano-salinas.html

25. March 26, 2018: On March 26th, 2018, the FBI arrests Keith Raniere [ruh near ee] in Mexico and charges him with sex trafficking and forced labor crimes.

https://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/news/politics/ albany/2018/03/26/leader-secretive-nxivm-group-arrested-fbi/ 460128002/

Finding Raniere [ruh near ee] was difficult because he "began using end-to-end encrypted email and stopped using his phone."

He also wasn’t using his own money. Federal authorities said that Raniere [ruh near ee] did not hold bank accounts in his name, had no driver's license, and for more than a year had used a credit card account associated with a "dead lover" to make purchases.

As a benevolent Guru does!

Prosecutors wrote,”In the past year and a half, the defendant and the mother of his child have accessed hundreds of thousands of dollars from a bank account in the same dead lover's name, which contains over $8 million.”

The account belonged to Pamela Anne Cafritz, a NXIVM member who’d died in November 2016.

Raniere [ruh near ee] was taken into custody after Mexican immigration officials helped FBI agents track him to a luxury, $10,000-a-week villa near Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, where he was staying with several of his sex slaves.

Just one day after the FBI caught Raniere [ruh near ee] , news outlets start to speculate about what other people were involved in NXIVM’s suspected criminal activities.

26. April 2018: The New York State licensing board charges Brandon Porter, an Albany-based doctor in April of 2018 for moral unfitness to practice medicine, negligence, gross incompetence, and more.

27. April 20, 2018: Also that April, Smallville actress Allison Mack was arrested and charged with sex trafficking and forced labor. In Brooklyn court, assistant U.S. Attorney Moira Penza says, “Ms. Mack was one of the top members of a highly organized scheme which was designed to provide sex to Raniere [ruh near ee] ]. Under the guise of female empowerment, she starved women until they fit her co-defendant’s sexual feminine ideal.”

https://www.thecut.com/2018/04/allison-mack-praises-alleged-sex- cult-in-resurfaced-video.html

28. May 30, 2018: On May 30th, Mack claims she came up the infamous branding ritual.

In a Times interview, Mack explains the inner workings of DOS.

In order to join the alleged slave-master sorority, she says members are ordered to adhere to low-calorie diets, subject themselves to humiliation, and undergo the branding ritual, which Mack claims she instituted herself.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/30/magazine/sex-cult- empowerment-nxivm-keith-Raniere [ruh near ee] .html

29. July 24, 2018: On July 24th, Clare Bronfman, Nancy Salzman, Lauren Salzman, and Kathy Russell are arrested and charged with racketeering conspiracy for their alleged involvement in NXIVM.

Prosecutors allege that the four defendants recruited and groomed sexual partners for Raniere [ruh near ee] , and used “harassment, coercion and abusive litigation to intimidate and attack perceived enemies and critics.”

https://time.com/5568135/nxivm-allison-mack-Raniere [ruh near ee] /

30. March 13, 2019: On March 13th, 2019, Nancy Salzman pleads guilty, confessing that she tracked and monitored women within NXIVM.

Nancy Salzman becomes the first person to take a guilty plea, saying in court that she closely monitored suspected moles within NXIVM, and ordered people to “destroy video tapes” that documented some of Raniere [ruh near ee] ’s shadier “teachings.”

“I want you to know I am pleading guilty because I am, in fact, guilty,” she said through sobs. “I accept that some of the things I did were not just wrong, but criminal.” 31. March 14, 2019: On March 14h, 2019, Raniere [ruh near ee] is hit with additional child pornography charges.

Federal prosecutors say that Raniere had sex with a 15-year-old girl — who later became his first “sex slave” — and that he documented the encounters. He’s also accused of possessing child pornography from 2005 and 2018.

Damn.

During Raniere’s trial, it will come out that he had more than 100 “slaves”, and that they were as young as 15.

And in messages shared with one young slave, he requested the follower “find other virgins” on Tinder, saying “younger is fine.”

As in, younger than 15.

It was also be alleged that if his slaves didn’t do as he asked, he would punish them by putting them in a cage, and sometimes even make them hit each other with leather straps.

Why would he do that? Because it was what THE GOOD GOD AMWAY DECREED! WISE LORD OF WATER PURIFIERS AND EMPOWERED DRINKING WATER!

https://www.thecut.com/2019/03/nxivm-founder-keith-Raniere [ruh near ee] -charged-with-child-pornography.html

32. April 2, 2019: On April 2nd, Lauren Salzman confesses to helping enslave a woman for two years as she pleads guilty.

When the woman “did not complete a request,” Salzman confessed that she threatened to deport her back to Mexico.

https://www.thecut.com/2019/04/nxivm-enslaved-woman-locked- room-lauren-salzman.html

33. April 8, 2019: On April 18th, Allison Mack pleads guilty to one count of racketeering conspiracy and one count of racketeering.

“I have come to the conclusion that I must take full responsibility for my conduct and that’s why I am pleading guilty today,” Mack says in court.

https://www.thecut.com/2019/04/allison-mack-pleads-guilty-in- nxivm-sex-cult-case.html

34. April 19, 2019: The next day, on April 19th, Clare Bronfman pleads guilty to conspiracy to conceal and harbor an illegal alien for financial gain, as well as fraudulent use of identification.

https://www.thecut.com/2018/07/nxivm-sex-cult-arrest-clare- bronfman-heiress.html

35. June 2019: On June 19th, 2019, after a nearly six-week trial, Raniere [ruh near ee] is found guilty of seven charges including sex trafficking, sex trafficking conspiracy, racketeering, and conspiracy to commit forced labor.

Dozens of women testified as his trial about the abuses they suffered at his hands. It began for ALL of them by taking courses with NXVIM.

One young woman, Daniela, originally from a small town in Mexico, testified that she was so inspired by NXIVM, she decided to move to Albany for one year to be mentored by Raniere [ruh near ee] .

While there, Raniere [ruh near ee] “punished” Daniela by forcing her to stay in a room for nearly two years, unable to see anyone from her family. Daniela said she had a sexual relationship with Raniere [ruh near ee] , as did her two sisters, and they were forced to have abortions when they became pregnant.

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/michaelblackmon/nxivm- sex-cult-abortion-keith-Raniere [ruh near ee] -sisters

Nicole, an actor who became involved in the group after taking courses, testified that she was blindfolded, tied to a table, and sexually assaulted by an unknown person while Raniere [ruh near ee] stood nearby and asked her invasive questions about her sex life.

After the incident was over, she was told by Raniere [ruh near ee] that she was “brave” and that nothing bad had happened. He claimed the “exercise” was helping her become sexually empowered.

Interesting way to rationalize rape.

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/michaelblackmon/nxivm- keith-Raniere [ruh near ee] -allegedly-blindfolded-woman.

Jay, an actor and model, told the court that the reason she joined DOS was because it was described to her as a program where women pushed one another to be better. Jay testified that she had confided in other DOS members about her experience being abused as a child. She testified she was stunned when Mack instructed her to seduce Raniere [ruh near ee] , telling her it would “heal” her previous sexual abuse trauma.

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/michaelblackmon/keith- Raniere [ruh near ee] -nxivm-guilty

36. January 2020:

January 2020.

NXIVM faces a lawsuit. A big one.

Plaintiffs - some 80 individuals - alleged that they'd been lured in by false scientific claims before paying thousands of dollars for classes, becoming victims of a pyramid scheme.

In painstaking detail, the lawsuit explained how people with college degrees and white-collar jobs got trapped in NXIVM.

Membership in Nxivm was by invitation only, and before the first class, recruits were required to fill out long questionnaires about their views on wealth, religion, children and other topics.

The goal, according to the lawsuit, was to pinpoint their insecurities and weed out skeptics. One former participant said that NXIVM’s recruiters looked for “trust fund babies” and Hollywood actors, and that many NXIVM members had been survivors of sexual assault. Their fears and abuse confessions would later be used against them if they tried to leave NXIVM.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/29/nyregion/nxivm-lawsuit-keith- Raniere [ruh near ee] .html

How evil.

And speaking of lawsuits, I almost forgot about our final sponsor.

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PUSH PLAY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ruYws4bjNQ

(Infomercial lawyer voice) “Have you been branded by a fake genius? Has you mind been melted by never ending patent talk? Have you paid thousands of dollars for months of useless psycho-babble? Have you been tricked into bowing before the Good God, Amway?

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Huh. Weird. That was a really weird sponsor.

1. July 2020:

July 2020. Winding down this timeline. This cult is still alive! Barely. But still alive.

Beginning in July 2020, just a few months ago, at least six NXIVM loyalists were organizing dance protests outside the detention center which houses Raniere [ruh near ee] as he awaits his sentencing.

Operating under the name "We Are As You", dancers include Canadian actress Nicki Clyne, who played Cally Henderson Tyrol on the Sci-Fi Channel television series Battlestar Galactica, and branding doctor Danielle Roberts.

Nicki just revealed a few days ago that she was in a sexual relationship with Keith for a decade. Nicki is also married to Allison Mack.

Federal prosecutors have claimed that Mack and Clyne were wed “at the behest of … Keith Raniere.”

More sex slave shit.

https://www.timesunion.com/news/article/NXIVM-members- dancing-for-Raniere [ruh near ee] -outside-federal-15400460.php

2. October 18th, 2020: Just DAYS ago, on October 18th, 56 NXIVM members wrote letters to the judge that will be sentencing Keith soon, defending this pedophile.

They’re STILL in.

He was originally supposed to be sentenced back in September of 2019, but defense motions delayed it, and then Covid delayed his sentencing further.

His sentencing hearing, as I record this, is set for October 27th, the hearing is to begin at 10AM.

He’s being held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, New York. And U.S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis will hand down his sentence.

He’s expected to receive a life sentence.

NXIVM’s website is no longer in operation, and as far as I can tell, none of its centers are currently open.

Odds are, with his sentencing, the cult will be, for all intents and purposes, dead in the water. Co-founder Nance is awaiting a date for her sentencing, which was postponed due to the pandemic. She faces up to 20 years in prison.

And with that being the latest info, let’s head on out of today’s Timesuck Timeline.

https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/ny-nxivm- keith-raniere-judge-letters-support- sentencing-20201020-6dt6jwqwajartcbvqnmbi7nm3y-story.html

https://www.forbes.com/sites/willyakowicz/2020/08/14/keith- raniere-convicted-leader-of-cult-like-group-nxivm-will-be- sentenced-in-october/#509c154457a8

PAUSE TIMESUCK TIMELINE OUTRO

VIII. ADDITIONAL INFO

A. Comparisons to Scientology:

Before we wrap up - let’s talk about how NXIVM relates to Scientology.

1. Fabricated Background and Scientific Claims: Like good ole L. Ron Hubbard, Raniere [ruh near ee] based a lot of his claims on him being SUCH A SMART MAN before he introduced members to the more spiritual side of NXIVM.

The two men both heavily fabricated their backgrounds.

Like most of Hubbard’s exaggerated bullshit claims - youngest-ever Eagle Scout, daredevil pilot, “blood brother” to the Blackfeet Native American tribe at age 4 - Raniere [ruh near ee]’s claims were ludicrous and easily disproven.

2. Nicknames and Worshop: Nicknames and worship. Raniere [ruh near ee] insisted that followers call him “Vanguard,” much as Hubbard wanted his minions to call him “Source.” This sort of naming serves a very important purpose in cult indoctrination: causing believers to see the founder as more-than-human and infallible.

Be wary of people who force nicknames on you, like Vanguard, or Sir Sucks a Lot, or Prophet of Nimrod, or the Master Sucker, the Sucker Master, or…. I’ll show myself out. 3. Litigation: Litigation! Raniere [ruh near ee] used the same scorched-earth litigation tactics against opponents that Scientology does. One critic web site suggests that Raniere [ruh near ee] may have spent $50 million in legal fees over the last 20 years, most of it on attacking his detractors, such as suing journalists who tried to expose him.

4. Tech and Secrecy: Tech and Secrecy! NXIVM and Scientology both claim to use revolutionary technology that helps people work out their trauma and live their best lives. And their claims are ludicrous.

And because they know their tech is ridiculous, they don’t let the outside world see it and expose it for how stupid it is.

NXIVM materials have been subject to extraordinary secrecy, just like Scientology’s, before Scientology’s teachings became widely available over the internet and now we know it’s a lot of dumb shit about fictitious aliens.

NXIVM students signed extensive non-disclosure agreements, and members of the inner circle gave leadership “collateral” intended to be used to keep them from either leaving or sharing secret teachings.

5. Ethics: Ethics! Raniere [ruh near ee] followed the same playbook as Scientology and many other cults, claiming that he and his fellow higher ups were “the most ethical people on the planet.”

This is a common cult technique for engendering feelings of superiority amongst members, and for redefining members’ sense of morality to enable leaders to get members to engage in highly amoral activities, following the leader’s dictates over their own consciences.

https://frankreport.com/2017/10/16/Raniere [ruh near ee] -litigation- history-shows-he-abuses-legal-system-with-impunity/ http://www.reasoned.life/2018/03/nxivm-parallels-to-scientology/ B. Future of These Cults

So what does NXIVM’s collapse mean for the future of other cults like Scientology.

Some have argued that NXIVM’s collapse is a sign that Scientology is doomed to fail sooner or later, but sadly, that isn’t necessarily true.

Scientology is so much bigger.

NXIVM claimed to have enrolled 16,000 people since 1998 in its training classes. Investigators have estimated that this number is probably less than 5% of the number of people who have actively pursued multiple training courses through Scientology.

AND - as far as we know, Scientology’s leader, David Miscaviage, while he seems like an ENORMOUS douche bag - he at least isn’t fucking kids and branding a harem.

Not that we know of.

One of the best ways for a Cult Leader to eventually incur a lot of backlash, as we’ve learned several times on past cult episodes, is for the leader to start fucking everyone.

But there’s still some hope for the demise of Scientology yet.

The more we expose these cults and denounce them, the greater the odds new recruits will think harder about joining them.

And what should you think about when approached by a group of people, or a person, claiming to have all the spiritual answers you’re looking for?

Look out for signs of coercive and manipulative behavior.

Do they claim to be able to improve your life practically overnight? Are their followers only devoted to THEIR group, instead of having a wide variety of interests?

Do followers give a lot of their money and time to the group, insisting that they’ll someday make it all back and more?

Does the leadership seem abusive?

If so, stay far the fuck away from them.

IX.Recap:

Now let’s wrap up!

We went over a lot today.

And I’m sure more info will come out going forward concerning NXIVM and its shady practices.

And I’m sure there will be other shady pyramid schemes and MLMS that will ruin more lives as time rolls forward as well. Maybe we’ll suck them.

The lure of the get rich quick scheme! Always so appealing. Gotta be careful with that! Don’t get sucked in and then let cognitive dissonance and the backfire effect pull you in further and destroy you.

Odds are, no one can change your finances overnight. There is no magic get rich pill. Sure, you COULD win the lottery, but, overwhelming odds are against that.

You CAN achieve personal empowerment and enlightenment - but you don’t need to pay thousands of dollars for stupid woo-woo mind fuck courses to do that.

Real, meaningful change requires a lot of hard work - like going to a good, licensed therapist and really working on your shit. Or going back to school and getting a better degree. Or working a fuck ton of hours to start a small and successful business to improve your financial lot in life.

At least that’s what I think.

What I’ve thought for a long time. I’ve HOPED to get rich quick MANY times in my life.

Never really worked out. Podcasting seems to be working out now. Very thankful. Just took over twenty years after starting on the path that led here.

At my lowest points, I never jumped on the get rich quick bandwagon.

Not because I’m some genius you know I’m not. I just watched too many others around me try that when I was younger. Never saw it work out.

I’m lucky. My grandparents showed me another way. The right way. Grandma Betty and Papa Ward! They don’t make meatsacks any finer than those two. Never have, and never well.

Papa Ward - working a job he hated - at a sawmill - for over twenty years. Grew up with nothing. Beat by an alcoholic father. Mom abandoned him. Dad stole from him. And he doesn’t complain about any of that.

He worked construction and other labor jobs he also didn’t like for around another twenty years when the sawmill shut down. Never made much in any given year. Not ever.

But he worked second jobs on the weekends. Bought cheap land. Slowly built rentals instead of watching TV or going to the bar.

My grandma never left Riggins, Idaho. Ever. Never want to college. Got a job at the post office. Taught herself how to invest. Bought a couple bucks worth of stocks a week. Didn’t blow her money at the bar or on any get rich quick bullshit. Slow and steady. Ate at home. Planted a vegetable garden and ate from it every year. Canned fruit. Checked out books from the library instead of buying them. Watched airwave tv instead of cable. Never ever lived about their means.

Never got rich. But made enough to be there and help take care of their families and that’s enough for them.

Many would look at their lives and consider it boring. No big fancy vacations. No fancy cars. No fancy clothes. Nothing fancy ever.

But they’re the blueprint for me.

Papa Ward and Grandma Betty - those two should’ve started a cult! A cult where no one got fucked and everyone was told to just put their heads down, not worry about what the Jone’s have and you don’t, complain less and work harder, and GRIND… THAT…SHIT… OUT.

So go grind you beautiful bastards. GRIND… GRIND…FUCKING… GRIND.

I preach that shit because I live it and I’d love nothing more than to see all of you listening get the most success you can out of life. And I think that’s the way to achieve it. Truly.

Fuck short cuts.

Hail Nimrod, fuck NXIVM, I hope Keith Raniere’s new nickname is Raw Dog buttfucked McGee, and hello Top Five Takeaways.

I hope it pleases the GOOD GOD, AMWAY! LORD OF DELICIOUS AND NUTRITIOUS WEIGHT MANAGEMENT MEAL REPLACEMENT BARS!

PAUSE TOP FIVE TAKEAWAYS INTRO

X.Top Five Takeaways

1.Number One: Number one! NXIVM used multi-level marketing to make millions and successful run for just under twenty years. Multi- level marketing, a “legal” tactic as ruled by the FTC, is when, instead of in a normal supply chain, where a product goes from a manufacture to a wholesaler to a retailer to a consumer, the product goes directly from the manufacturer to the distributor, usually one individual. That individual is also responsible for getting other people to sign up to sell for the manufacturer.

And MLMs can end up operating a lot like cults. Instead of “empowering” you to start your own business, as they advertise, they often just take your money, make you feel like you aren’t doing enough when you don’t succeed in a business that literally almost no one succeeds in, and then they shut down your complaints - it’s your fault, not theirs - and they can even isolate you from your friends and family by being so immersive.

Most MLMs are bad news. Even if they’re not “illegal.”

2.Number Two: Number two! Keith Raniere [ruh near ee] told his followers that he had three degrees, was a child prodigy, an athlete, learned calculus in an afternoon, was the smartest man on Earth, and basically had all of humanity figured out.

In reality, he was a pedophile sex maniac who enjoyed manipulating people and writing really stupid patent claims — including one for “increasing heart rate over time,” AKA exercise. He was not a genius. He was someone with a complete lack of morals who wanted to have sex with a lot of women, many of them underage, and be worshipped.

3.Number Three: Number three! NXIVM borrowed from a lot of sources to develop its Executive Success Programs, a series of workshops that cost upwards of five thousand bucks a pop.

And while we don’t know to what extent Keith Raniere [ruh near ee] was inspired by Scientology, the two do have a lot in common.

Scientology pushes a supposed end goal of becoming “clear,” the scientology term for achieving a state of total psychological perfection. NXIVM’s term for this “unification.” Get enough Sashes, and you could achieve “unification.” 4.Number Four: Number four. NXIVM and its sister group, Jness, produced DOS, a secret sex cult led by actress Allison Mack under Keith Raniere [ruh near ee] ’s guidance, which told women that they would become empowered by agreeing to be slaves for other women. The slaves would in turn become masters to other slaves.

Slavery consisted of providing “collateral” to make sure they couldn’t tell anyone about the group, checking in with their masters multiple times a day, asking what food they could eat, and punishing themselves for disobedience.

It also included receiving a brand of Keith Raniere [ruh near ee] ’s initials. Sarah Edmonson, along with four other women, were branded in January 2017. Sarah’s description of the experience to the New York Times would be one of the catalysts for NXIVM’s end.

5.Number Five: Number five! New info! While in prison, Raniere [ruh near ee] instructed his followers to solicit the assistance of Alan Dershowitz, the attorney who successfully negotiated a non- prosecution agreement of Jeffrey Epstein.

So who is this Alan Dershowitz? Why have we seen him in the news so much?

Alan Dershowitz is an American lawyer and legal scholar known for his scholarship of US constitutional law and American criminal law. He taught at Harvard Law School from 1964 all the way up to 2013.

And he’s known for taking on some VERY unpopular clients.

In 1995, Dershowitz served as the appellate adviser on the O. J. Simpson murder trial, part of the legal "Dream Team", alongside Johnnie Cochran and F. Lee Bailey. Dershowitz was also a member of the defense team for nasty ass Harvey Weinstein in 2018. And then, famously, he secured that non-prosecution for Jeffrey Epstein.

Is he a terrible guy? Not necessarily. He’s said many times that he just supports the Constitution - not any particular person or party.

Or…… maybe he is terrible.

In a December 30th, 2014 Florida court filing, Virginia Giuffre alleged she was sexually trafficked by Jeffrey Epstein, who lent her to people for sex, including Dershowitz and Prince Andrew. The motion claimed that Dershowitz was also an eyewitness to the sexual abuse of other minors.

In the week that followed the release of Giuffre's affidavit, Dershowitz denied the allegations and sought disbarment of the lawyers filing the suit.

Dershowitz has also stated that he plans to sue Netflix over including this allegation in their recent documentary Jeffrey Epstein: Filthy Rich.

A complicated figure.

A dude who seems to have no moral qualms regarding defending dirtbags. But even HE chose NOT to defend Keith Raniere [ruh near ee].

Does that speak to how defenseless Keith was based on the evidence against him?

OR - does even Alan Dershowitz think, “Fuck that guy. I can’t represent that NXIVM dirtbag and still look myself in the mirror.”

PAUSE TOP FIVE TAKEAWAYS OUTRO

XI.Final Announcements

A.Episode has been sucked!:

The NXIVM Sex Cult has been SUCKED.

Very different type of cult, right? No doomsday predictions. No real compound. No messiah. No prophet.

Turns out you don’t need to talk about God to start a cult. And how weird to combine it with an MLM. Pulling from Amway instead of the Bible.

Also - never gonna be able to look at Amway or any other MLM the same way ever again.

B.Thank you to Timesuck Team:

Thank you to the Bad Magic Productions Team for all the help in making Timesuck! Queen of Bad Magic Lynze Cummins, Reverend Doctor Joe Paisley, the Script Keeper Zaq Flanary, Bit Elixir, Logan and Kate Keith running BadMagicMerch.com and the socials! Thanks to all of those who’ve joined the Cult of the Curious private Facebook group - over 22,000 members who continue to make Timesuck more than a podcast, they make it a community. Hail Nimrod to all of you! You make Bojangles wag his tail.

Thanks Liz Hernandez and her All Seeing Eyes running the Cult of the Curious Facebook page.

Thanks to all the wonderful weirdos having fun on our Discord Channel as well.

And thanks to all of your Space Lizards playing Timesuck Trivia on the app: Bodhi210 is currently in the lead with 4758 points. New round starts on November 2nd at 3PM PT.

C.Next Episode Preview: Next week on Timesuck, we will feature yet another waste of carbon; a wicked, entitled sociopath of a man from World War 2 era England named John Haigh.

I promise it’s not always gonna be a dirtbag. But - they are fascinating, are they not?

Besides being a monster, Haigh was a very intelligent dude who played piano and loved classical music. Great. Another smart dirt bag.

John also loved high living, but he definitely wasn’t about to work for it. That was so beneath him. Instead, like well adjusted meat-sacks do, he decided to murder people and simply make their assets HIS assets. He even appropriated one of his victim’s dogs!

Because of the odd, maybe clever, but certainly gruesome way he disposed of the multiple bodies he deprived of life, the tabloids gave him the nickname the Acid Bath Murderer. They also called him a vampire, as he had quite the inappropriate relationship with other people’s blood.

Despite growing up completely isolated by an extremely religious family, Haigh became an outgoing con man, who used his gift of manipulating people to increase his social status and his bank account, at least when he wasn’t being thrown in jail for his schemes.

He soon graduated from con-artistry to murder as he believed that as long as no bodies were found, he couldn’t be charged with any crimes. In this spirit, he filled 40 gallon drums with an acid and well, you’ll have to come back next week to hear where this all went.

Next Monday when we suck the Acid Bath Murderer on a very bloody bangers and mash edition of Timesuck.

D.Segue to Timesucker Updates: And now let’s yip, yip, yaw on over to this week’s Timesucker Updates!

PAUSE TIMESUCKER UPDATES INTRO

XII.Timesucker Updates

1.Our first Update is a collective one: It was brought to my attention via some social media and Youtube comments that Sergei is pronounced, “Sir GAY,” not “Sir Jay.” Apologies on pronouncing that Russian name wrong.

2. Now sharing a Boston Strangler update from Super Sucker Marc Vallin, just because it really put a smile on my face. Marc wrote:

Goddamn you Cummins! Firstly, I hope that you get to feeling better soon Suck Master Supreme! So, I’m outside cleaning up an old mower and I’ve got the Boston strangler episode on. Jesus fucking Christ fun Frank is a piece of shit...Anyway, when you described his dick as looking like a mangled snake on the road, I flat out snort laughed and fell back onto the ground. Dude that is the best laugh I’ve had in a long long time! Get well soon. Thank you for all the laughs and thank you for making me smarter on a daily basis.

Thanks for your nice message, Marc! So glad you fell down. Seriously, it makes me really happy to know this shit makes you happy.

3. Now - enough fluff - time for some great constructive criticism coming in from equality-minded Meatsack Leah Taylor. Leah writes:

Hi there, your podcast has been one of my favorites for years now. As a female-identifying meatsack, however, I was wondering if you could stop noting whether or not a woman in a story you tell is or isn't attractive? You always use descriptors like "an attractive woman" or "a pretty woman", or note if they aren't attractive by your standards whenever you talk about females. I realize this is cultural programming and likely you don't even realize you're doing it, but it would be really great if you could consider that you're helping perpetuate a cultural problem where the worth of a woman is based on her attractiveness. I say this as an "attractive woman" myself who for my entire life, was told I was pretty, or not pretty enough, thin and beautiful, or not thin enough, and my body is the constant subject of attention - men don't have to deal with this, and I'd love to see a world where women don't either. It takes nothing away from your stories if you just stop noting the attractiveness level of a woman in your story. We are more than just our looks, and your word choices matter in either perpetuating this, or leaving this moldy misogyny in the dustbin of history where it deserves to go. Thanks kindly for your consideration. Hail Lucifina! Leah

Thank you, Leah! I will work on this going forward. If someone’s attractiveness pertains to the story - male or female - I’ll comment on it. Because I am attracted to women, I will reference being attracted to certain women from time to time in a conversational way. I do realized women are much more than just sexual objects. That said - I do find women sexy. And I would feel like I was holding back if I didn’t let that out from time to time. BUT - I don’t need to reduce female characters to sexual objects when it doesn’t have shit to do with the narrative, because, you’re right, men DON’T have to deal with that like women do, and I don’t want to perpetuate that pressure.

Hail Nimrod and Hail Lucifina as well.

4. More constructive criticism coming in from now from Sucker not afraid to call me out on some shit, Jenny Taylor-Host. Jenny writes:

I'm a fan and have been listening since my bf turned me on to your shit during baby TimeSuck days. I think rather than talk shit about a bunch of poor ass oppressed Russians who believe in witchcraft because they probably have literally no other option to get medical care you should leave them out of it and shit talk the Asshole and government that exploited them. Shouldn't comedians punch up? That's a thing right? The whole "hahaha look at those stupid poors trying to survive" is low hanging fruit and lame. I know you're busy, because I listen to your other podcast. I'm just use to you being the good funny kind of dick not the d-bag kinda dick. Please feel free to school me and tell me how I'm wrong and that you didn't shit on a bunch of poor ass people under communist rule that they probably hate or reflect on your statments. I know you're good people. So you did your best. Sincerely, Jenny PS: I'm not Russian I'm a mixed Native Alaskan white lady and to my own detriment stand up for anyone if I think something is not cool cause I know what it is like to get shit on, like all the time. Letting you know because it gives context.

This message pissed me off at first, and I sent a defensive message back. And that message led to a great back and forth with Jenny. And I want to make it clear I don’t think Russians are stupid. I DO just find their occult fascination very amusing. But I don’t want to come across as picking on people for making terrible choices because they can’t afford to do anything else. I just wanted to point out how crazy these choices are and how they’re not helping anyone.

To me, the jokes were more about the wizard swindlers than the people seeking the Russian Sorcerers.

I try to punch at the exploiter and not the exploited.

Thanks for the convo we had Jenny!

5.Now for some nice words from hardworking military Sucker Shelly Miller. Shelly writes:

Hello all the great names that everyone gives you, Only been listening for short time Thanks to My Son Doug who said oh Mom you have to listen to this one...(Skin Walker Ranch) because I grew up in that area. And have been jumping around your past episodes ever since. Any way my reason for sending this is to thank you for getting me through the last event of my ACFT (Army Combate Fitness Test) the 2 mile run. After rounding the corner on my last lap all could hear in my head was your voice saying Good Job Soldier You made it back...and I laughed as I finished that MOTHER also in your voice! Thanks to your entire team for keeping my daily drive Fantastic. Shelly

Thank YOU Shelly! Love that you and your son listen to the same stuff sometimes. Hope you kicked ass on that run. Drive safe and keep on sucking and thank you for your service!

6.And now for a Granny Ripper Key Update from knowledgable Sack Brian Kraemer. Brian writes:

Dear Sir Suckmaster Mushmouth,

When you mentioned how funny it was that the Granny Ripper used the excuse that she didn't have the keys to the apartment when the social worker knocked on her door - as hilarious as your mocking her was - Granny's excuse is not as far-fetched as one would imagine.

Having lived in Germany for 7 years, I know how different the doors in Europe can be. For example.. I gave my best friend, also from America, the task of opening the front door upon his arrival of visiting me in Germany, and despite being an Engineer, he was NOT able to figure out the ''simple'' task of opening the front door. Crazy, right? Everything is different over there.. the windows, the toilets, the electrical outlets, the doors, everything. Basically, the doors over there do not have door knobs. On the outside of the door, there is a piece of stationary metal/handle that has a similar purpose to a doorknob, but it has no function other than for one to be able to open the door with ease. On the inside, there is a handle that one can push down in order to open the door. HOWEVER, the doors also feature a double-locking mechanism and if you use your key to double-lock your door, you can neither open the door from the outside NOR the inside, even if you push down on the inside handle. This may be an important detail in the case of the Granny Ripper. Theoretically, the Granny Ripper's roommate could have double- locked the door from the OUTSIDE and if Granny on the inside didn't have a key, she would be stuck in the apartment, literally unable to open the door. Also in theory, but also completely idiotic, the Granny Ripper could have double-locked the door from the INSIDE and then thrown the key out the window (or lost it somewhere, I suppose). Of course, all of these scenarios would still be suspicious to the social worker, but theoretically not impossible in comparison to how it would be with an American door that can always be opened from the inside no matter what.

There have been many occasions in which I double-locked the door to my apartment in Germany as a safety precaution, only to become worried when I couldn't immediately find my key in order to get out. For this reason, it is often customary to leave the key still hanging from the inside of the door at all times. Anywho.. I bet Granny the Ripper was bluffing either way.

P.S. I'm sorry to make this email longer than it already is, but I do have to mention how much your podcast means to me. I remember once you had mentioned how there's probably no one that agrees with you 100% on everything, but I do have to say that I agree with you at least 99% of the time, which is a big reason why I listen to your podcast. Listening to your podcast is NOT ONLY entertainment, but it is also a voice of reason in my earhole that speaks to me in logical terms, something that is desperately lacking in my surroundings, sad to say. I appreciate your opinions beyond words and I wish I were surrounded more by people who think like you.

P.P.S. If this email makes it in the timesucker updates, I'd like to give a shout out to my sister, Monica. I do not know if she listens to your podcast regularly or if she ever has, but she introduced me to you and your podcast. Her and I are no longer speaking due to a traumatic event that her and I experienced together for which we both give each other the blame, but she needs to know that I still love her very much and that I wish no negative things on her, and that I'm very grateful that she introduced me to the suck.

Your loyal space lizard in the fight against David Icke and whackadoodleness,

Brian Kraemer

Thank you, Brian! I really hope you and Monica patch things up soon. Sibling strife leads to a heavy heart. I hate it when there is tension between my sister and myself. It’s such a special relationship. Work that shit out!

And thanks for the key knowledge. And so glad I make you feel less alone. You all make me feel WAY less alone. Hail Nimrod!

7.Last one. Sweetest Sack Joey Dernetz wrote in with some kindness and I want to return the favor. Joey wrote:

Suckmaster and team sorry for the long message I love the all 3 podcasts Std and TS and IWD and also the Secret suck anyway I’m 24 and have autism and developmentally delayed and I bring this up because when I listen to your podcast I don’t feel like I have a low IQ but I feel average. I’m a janitor I listen your podcasts at work and during the I go to a Adult Day Services and I recommend TS to a couple of staff and one of them I joke around with the air banjo and I joke with him that he believes the earth is flat with other staff and everyone knows he doesn’t and another staff I recommend the Russian episodes because she is Russian and her father the owner the adult day services is from Russia anyway thank you hail nimrod

JOEY! I love you dude! I think whoever gave you that IQ test fucked up. I bet you have a much higher IQ than you think and you have a better heart AND a better brain than today’s cult leader, that’s for sure. I think you’re above average. You wrote a better email than most. No misspellings. No grammatical errors. You’re smart dude. Fuck anyone who tells you different. Thank you for the job you do. Cleaning related jobs more important than ever in 2020. You’re keeping people from getting sick! Be proud of that or Nimrod will kick your dick off.

And keep on sucking you beautiful bastard.

PAUSE TIMESUCKER UPDATES OUTRO

XIII.Goodbye!

A.Goodbye!:

1. That’s all for this week, Meatsacks.

More Bad Productions content coming the rest of the week.

Thanks for the ratings and reviews across all of our shows!

New spooks with Scared to Death Tuesday night. Pure silliness on Wednesday with Is We Dumb.

Please don’t launch an MLM, or a Pyramid scheme, or a Ponzi scheme this week, or brand any sex slaves, or fuck any kids…. do keep on sucking!

YOUTUBE ENDER - Watch more of Shatner. https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOCM8No1HAM PLAY FROM 2:42.