[Camera click] Alright, let’s see here… I was working on the Life Coaches video? Yeah, see, I remember entire sections of this
script were pointless… and singling out life coaches was a bit unfair… Yeah, let’s just make this about self-help
in general. On this channel, I’ve made videos about
religions, political philosophies, multi-level marketing schemes, and sex cults. Today I’d like to talk about something that
combines all of those things… Wait, have I made the sex cults video yet? Oh god! I haven’t even made…? Oh no I went back way too far! If it was going to be after the Mormon video
it might as well have been after… Now I have to remake all of my best videos? Fine, I guess this is also the sex cults video. Self-help and sex cults… I’m sure I can connect those topics. [Intro music] This video was brought to you by CuriosityStream and Nebula. [Obnoxiously upbeat yet bland instrumental
music] Life Coaching as a concept has always existed
in some form. Whether you’re talking about a mentoring
relationship like Plato and Aristotle or just your cousin giving you dating advice, people
have been coaching each other on how to live since basically the beginning. But paying someone to do it professionally
is a relatively recent phenomenon. Life Coaching is the most recent addition
to the wider Self-Help industry, which got its start in literature. There are hundreds of thousands of self-improvement
books on the market today. But the genre didn’t really exist until
1859, when Samuel Smiles published the first self-help book. Rather conveniently, it was literally titled
Self-Help. Though the book is rather light on providing
any practical advice, it seems much more interested in identifying the cause of your trouble. Which hey, that’s the first step, right? According to Smiles, most of society’s problems
stem from poverty and poverty is the result of irresponsible decisions, both economic
and moral. Because of that, his book is sometimes referred
to as the bible of Victorian Liberalism. This individualistic narrative was somewhat
new at the time and became quite popular; if you live in poverty, it must be because
you made bad decisions. All of society would be improved if everyone
just helped themselves and made good decisions. This emphasis on taking personal responsibility
for one’s own economic situation will become a running theme in the Self-Help industry. It’s empowering to think that as long as
you are in control of your life, you can improve it. Before we move on, I think it’s important
to note that before writing his book, Samuel Smiles was a failed doctor and journalist
who lost all of his money on bad investments. Then he published Self-Help, which quickly
became a best-seller. Within a few years, he was basically the first
celebrity consultant, people wrote to him asking for his advice on everything from business
to politics. Just keep in mind, this is how the industry
started. Almost a century later, people began to realize
that just improving your economic situation didn’t necessarily lead to a happier life. It helps, but you also have to work on your
spiritual and psychological situation. So, in 1952, Norman Vincent Peale published
his book, The Power of Positive Thinking. You see, people are just as happy as they
make up their minds to be. According to Peale, many of us manufacture
our own unhappiness by thinking unhappy thoughts. So, we just have to change our inner monologue. He suggests that a lack of self-confidence
is the greatest problem facing individuals, which can be treated by repeating several
affirmations to oneself every day. And now it’s time for Better Affirmations I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens
me. This is the day which the Lord hath made,
I will rejoice and be glad in it. God is with me, God is helping me, God is
guiding me. Because I’m good enough, I’m smart enough,
and doggone it, people like me. Okay, I’m not sure where that last one came
from but the rest of it, as you probably guessed, is derived from the Bible. The main takeaway from The Power of Positive
Thinking is to put yourself in God’s hands. The first step to living a happy life is to
pray – but when you’re praying, don’t ask for anything, just assume it will be answered
and thank. Those who assume success often already have
it. Step two is to always picture success in your
mind; never mention the worst, in fact, don’t even think about it. Never take counsel of your fears. Minimize obstacles in your mind – the rough
patches ahead are only a problem if you decide they are. Step three is to profit… or as Peale put
it, Actualize. Heaven helps those who help themselves, so
as long as you repeat your affirmations and think positively, things will happen for you. During the Fourth Great Awakening, a lot of
Americans took to that message. This book spawned an entire subgenre of Christian
Self-Help which continues to give that same advice; meditate on the scriptures and pray. And if that works for you, great! But some people were hoping for a more secular
approach to self-improvement, which led to the Human Potential Movement. When people were trying just about anything
to expand their minds. Along with drugs, new religious movements,
and various New Age pseudosciences, people were trying all sorts of new methods to lead
a more fulfilling life. Do you remember Maslow’s hierarchy of needs? He came up with it in the 1940s and that top
piece is called “self-actualization,” when one achieves their full potential – that’s
the goal, that’s what everyone wants, how do I get that? By meeting all of the other higher-order needs
in this pyramid. The bottom ones are basic – food, water,
and shelter – but the middle ones are a little trickier, like having friends, relationships,
and self-esteem. You can’t just go to the store and buy those. While there were plenty of books on self-confidence,
none of them worked quite as well as face-to-face practice. So, the Leadership Dynamics institute began
holding seminars in 1967. For $1000 you could attend a four-day personal
development workshop where you’ll be pushed out of your comfort zone. And possibly even tortured or sexually degraded. The methods they employed were not scientifically
or ethically sound and after multiple lawsuits, the seminars ended in 1973. They were just a front for an MLM known as
Holiday Magic, which was shut down a year later. Borrowing that idea, in 1971, Werner Erhard
began Erhard Seminars Training, or est; they did basically the same thing, but over the
course of two weekends. The program promised to free people from their
past so they could live more fully in the present. Erhard stopped giving seminars in the 80s,
but several of his students bought the rights to his program and founded Landmark Education
in 1991. They continue to give seminars to this day,
along with hundreds of other copy-cats. [Obnoxiously upbeat yet bland instrumental
music] At this point, the books, and even the tapes
and CDs, were just marketing materials to get people interested in the seminars. Where the real money was made. Nobody exemplified that strategy better than
Tony Robbins, who burst onto the scene in 1983 with the Fire Walk Experience. During this seminar, people would walk over
2000-degree coals in order to show themselves that with the right mindset, they can accomplish
anything. Several science programs, including the Mythbusters,
have done experiments debunking the “mind over matter” aspect of this stunt. It’s actually pretty safe as long as you
keep moving. But here’s the thing… if a simple party
trick is all it takes to give you the self-confidence necessary to change your life by asking for
a raise or filing for divorce… great! You’re telling me I can get that without
medication? More party tricks please. Thankfully, in his 1986 book Unlimited Power,
Tony gives us a number of different methods we can use to break through our fears and
limitations. Changing what you believe you’re capable
of. The book focuses on a communication technique
known as Neuro-Linguistic Programming, or NLP, developed during the Human Potential
Movement. Tony was a student of one of NLP’s founders,
John Grinder. He describes Neuro-Linguistic Programming
as the science of how language, both verbal and non-verbal, affects the nervous system. It’s a tool you can use to define human
needs. NLP combines several communication techniques
like body language reading, hypnosis, suggestion, and manipulation. Nowadays, it’s viewed as pseudoscience or
just good, old-fashioned gaslighting. But in the 80s, this was all the rage; everyone
from business executives to pick-up artists wanted to learn how to manipulate people and
get them to do what they want. I mean, they wanted to develop their communications
skills so they could lead a happier life. According to Tony, if you want to duplicate
any form of human excellence, you should model the behavior of successful people in three
ways. You should start by adopting their belief
systems. This doesn’t necessarily mean religion,
but if they believe that heaven helps those who help themselves… You should believe heaven helps those who
help themselves. If they believe that positive thinking has
the power to alter reality or that poverty is the result of irresponsible behavior… You get the idea, find out what successful
people believe and start believing it yourself. Beliefs are a filter, they’re a range of
possibilities, whether you believe you can or you can’t – you’re right. And this will help you break out of your limiting
beliefs. Second, you should duplicate their mental
syntax, which is the order in which they communicate with themselves. How are you supposed to figure that out? By watching their eye movements. According to Neuro-Linguistic Programming,
when someone stops to think of an answer, the direction they look will tell you what
they’re thinking. Most importantly, whether they are retrieving
information or simply making it up. NLP says that your eyes have to move to a
specific spot in order to activate certain parts of the brain, like memory or creativity. Hopefully you understand why this is now considered
pseudoscience. But Tony says you can use that information
to figure out how successful people think, especially about themselves and others. And finally, you should model their physiology. I’ve talked about this before, because there
is some actual science behind this; try your best to mimic their posture, their facial
expressions, their breathing pattern, and even the tone of their voice. Every time they brush their hair out of their
face, you should brush your hair out of your face. If you do this right, over the course of a
conversation, the person you’re talking to will subconsciously like you more. If they start mimicking your behavior back
to you, you’ve got ‘em. In the beginning, Tony described his seminars
as communications workshops, because the quality of your life is the quality of your personal
communication. How you communicate with yourself will determine
how you feel and behave. This is different from the Power of Positive
Thinking, affirmations without discipline are the foundations of a delusion. Behind your faith, there must be works. So, at the end of the seminar, you make a
public commitment to do something beyond your present ability. And most importantly, you make that deal with
someone who will hold you accountable. Over the years, Tony has refined and updated
his seminars, including removing any reference to Neuro-Linguistic Programming. He still uses the techniques, he just doesn’t
call them NLP. In 2006, he began the Date with Destiny seminar,
designed to give people the tools to empower themselves. For just $4995, you can spend six days not
only solving your problems but dealing with the things that caused them in the first place. Here we can see old techniques like making
personal deals with audience members… So you and I are going to make a deal… The use of hand signs, chants, and audience
repetition. Who knows what I’m talking about here, say
“aye!” Aye! Say “aye!” Aye! Good. How many came- because that’s a
major outcome, say “aye!” Aye! And a few new techniques to push people out
of their comfort zone, like standing way too close to people and the use of taboo language. When you hear a fuckin’ swear word, especially
if it’s unexpected, it breaks you out of your thought pattern, all of the background
noise melts away and suddenly, you are completely focused on the speaker. That was the first uncensored f-bomb on the
channel, how’d you feel about that? I kind of admire his use of swearing because
it’s pointed and intentional; it isn’t excessive, it’s just rare enough to get
your attention. He uses these techniques to perform live interventions
with people in the audience. He seems to have the uncanny ability to figure
out what someone’s problem really is – they might raise their hand to complain about their
diet only to end up forgiving their father. While it’s tempting to think that Tony is
an amazing cold reader, the reality is that there is some production magic going on behind
the scenes. Sit down and write down, what has prevented
you from crushing it? What has prevented you from living what you
dream? What belief? What behavior? What emotional habit? What’s prevented you? So, while it may seem like he’s randomly
picking someone out of the audience, that someone has already self-identified what they
want to work on. He isn’t pulling it out of thin air – at
least, not completely. And that’s why I don’t have any issues
with what Tony Robbins is doing; he’s just using a bit of showmanship to help people
solve the problems they’ve already identified. He isn’t inventing new ones to keep people
coming back for more. Due to the popularity of Tony Robbins’ books
and seminars, thousands of people decided to model and duplicate that success during
the 80s and 90s. There was an explosion of self-empowerment
and professional development seminars, motivational speakers, and life coaches. The International Coaching Federation was
founded in 1995 and is currently the largest organization of life coaches, with over 40,000
members. All told, there are around 71,000 life coaches
in the world. The industry is completely unregulated, just
about anybody can decide to become a life coach and start dispensing advice. Without any credentials or even a certificate. Because of that, the ICF has taken it upon
itself to establish their own certification standards. The lowest level they recognize is the Associate
Certified Coach, where you need sixty hours of training and a hundred hours of experience. 33,000 of their members hold one of these
certifications. You could try to get these hours on your own,
or you could take an ICF-approved course which will guarantee that you meet the requirements. Some programs take a year to complete and
cost as much as $18,000. Many people see life coaching as a cheaper
alternative to mental health treatment or traditional therapy. And it very much is not. Life coaches cannot prescribe medication and
they’re not equipped to handle histories of abuse or treat actual disorders like depression
or anxiety. They also cost an average of $244 an hour,
so they aren’t cheaper either. But not everybody needs to see a psychiatrist,
if you want the confidence to ask that girl out, work on your career goals, or just tidy
up around the house… Maybe a life coach is for you. Just make sure you go into it having identified
the fear or obstacle you want to overcome and define what successfully reaching that
goal physically looks like to you. Don’t let them tell you what is wrong with
you. When beginning with a life coach, make sure
that you sign a contract for a predetermined amount of time, preferably a few months. You don’t want an open-ended contract that
could last forever. A common trap with life coaches – and self-help
more generally – is that they keep inventing new problems for you to work on or provide
vague goals that you can never really reach. “More confidence” isn’t a goal, you
want the confidence to ask for a promotion or change careers. Or perhaps you’ll want to become a life
coach yourself, it is extremely common for the clients of life coaches to become life
coaches. I started working with my coach in November
of 2020. It’s vital for coaches to have coaches,
because, who’s checking my thinking? Who’s asking me incisive questions that
are making me a little uncomfortable and who’s holding me accountable? It’s vital for coaches to have coaches? That almost makes it sound like a pyramid
scheme… Here in my garage, haven’t bought my Lamborghini
yet, but you know what I like a lot more than materialistic things? Knowledge. In fact, I’m a lot more proud of these new
notebooks I had to buy to fit all of the notes I’ll be taking while watching documentaries
on CuriosityStream. CuriosityStream is a subscription streaming
service that offers thousands of documentaries and non-fiction titles which you can access
across multiple platforms. Want to see how the Human Potential Movement
is getting along in modern times? Check out The Human Limits, a documentary
showcasing people with extraordinary abilities. A blind concert pianist. A human lie detector. And a math savant who is as accurate as a
calculator. Break through your limiting beliefs by going
to curiositystream.com/knowingbetter, where you can get an annual subscription for only
$14.79, while also getting access to Nebula. Nebula is a streaming service built by fellow
youtubers to give us the confidence to overcome our fears of the algorithm. Along with seeing all of my content ad-free,
you can also check out originals like Better Elevation, where different youtubers talk
about the tricks and techniques they use to make better videos. Guess I know what I’ll be watching this
weekend, as Warren Buffet says, the more you learn, the more you earn. So, head on over to curiositystream.com/knowingbetter
to get a 26% discount on both CuriosityStream and Nebula. You’ll also be supporting the channel when
you do. [Obnoxiously upbeat yet bland instrumental
music] Alright, so this is the part you’ve all
been waiting for, I’m going to talk about the sex trafficking network known as NXIVM. A self-help MLM which turned into a sex cult. They’ve been in the news a lot in recent
years, with dozens of books and documentaries being made by the survivors. Where they often say things like “anybody
could fall for this.” Lived here for 12 years, was part of an organization
that turned out to be a very dangerous cult. Blew the whistle on human trafficking and
sex trafficking, and now there’s a massive federal investigation underway. The umbrella company is NXIVM, N-X-I-V-M. No way! That’s the one. Oh my gosh, I actually had a meeting with
them once accidentally. But at that moment, I was like “I could’ve
been in a cult!” And that’s how easy it could’ve been. Just like, one split second of me being like,
“Alright!” It starts off, it feels like real answers. I think the experience you had was weird.
But there are different ways, that like... For us, we came in because we had real, legitimate,
good experiences with people. Anyone can make the decisions that I made. Anyone can be Jane. I personally disagree with that sentiment
and to understand why, we have to understand the story of NXIVM’s founder. Keith Raniere was born in 1960 and was raised
in a suburb of Albany in Upstate New York. But his story doesn’t begin until 1988. That year, the Albany Times Union printed
a rather flattering profile of him, listing all of his achievements. He was fluent in three languages before he
could read. He learned quantum physics by age four and
was a judo champion by eleven. He taught himself college math when he was
thirteen. He finished high school when he was sixteen
and graduated from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute with three degrees, in math, physics,
and biology. He could unicycle, juggle, and was tied for
the record in the 100-yard dash. He only requires two to four hours of sleep
and has mastered seven musical instruments, he’s even a concert level pianist. But most impressive of all, he had an IQ of
240. The standard IQ test only goes up to 200,
but he took the Hoeflin Mega test, and that score got him into the 1989 Guinness Book
of World Records for having the highest IQ. He was described as one of the top three problem
solvers in the world. This is basically the foundational myth for
all of his future businesses, so it would be really embarrassing if it ever came out
that he cheated. Or that he failed quantum physics and graduated
with a 2.26 GPA. 1989 was the last year Guinness ever printed
the highest IQ record, because the test he took was widely discredited. On top of the fact that IQ is a bullshit made-up
concept. But back in the 80s and 90s, respectable people
still believed in it and this gave Keith Raniere a lot of credibility. Especially among the wealthy businesspeople
who cared about that sort of thing. So, when he founded Consumers’ Buyline Inc,
or CBI, in May of 1990, he had no trouble finding early investors. CBI was basically a carbon copy of Amway. Keith had worked for a number of MLMs during
the 80s, selling prepaid legal services and health supplements, but he was particularly
impressed by Amway’s ability to turn customers into recruiters. So, he decided to duplicate that model of
success. It was essentially an at-home Costco, you
would pay for a monthly membership and get a discount on household goods purchased through
the company. You also got a share of the profits whenever
someone you recruited bought anything. He developed a human motivation and behavior
model to help bring in top sellers and specifically targeted the wives of southern ministers. Because if you can get her, her entire social
network will follow – MLMs still do this and it’s very effective. Because of that, in 1993, the attorney general
of Arkansas opened an investigation into CBI as a pyramid scheme, though nothing would
come from that for a few years. By that time, they had over 300,000 members
nationwide. It’s around this time that Toni Natalie
entered the picture, when she attended a CBI seminar and was immediately drawn to Keith. Which is understandable, he is the smartest
man in the world, after all. When they finally met one-on-one, he cured
her of her cigarette habit by having her squeeze a pressure point on her hand whenever she
got the urge to smoke. This is a bit of pop-psychology known as anchoring. When she left the room, she realized that
what she thought was just a few minutes was actually several hours. She now believes that he hypnotized her during
that meeting. It didn’t take long before Toni became Keith’s
girlfriend… the only problem was that she was at least his fourth concurrent girlfriend. Keith was not polyamorous, he was just a cheater,
each girlfriend thought they were the only girlfriend. He founded Consumers’ Buyline with his college
girlfriend, Karen Unterreiner, who was the corporate actuary. The primary financier was Pam Cafritz, another
girlfriend from the 80s. But his longest running relationship was with
a girl named Gina Hutchinson, who became sexually involved with Keith in 1984… when she was
only fifteen. Keith was a twenty-four-year-old college student
at the time. Gina was interested in New Age concepts like
shamanism, eastern philosophy, energy healing, and martial arts. And wouldn’t you know it, Keith was an expert
in all of those things. Every one of those childhood accomplishments
that were listed in that Albany Times-Union article was the result of a pickup-artist
strategy. He became a judo master specifically to get
unsupervised contact with Gina. He also learned about energy healing because
of her, which convinced him that he needed to frequently vent off his Kundalini energy
by having sex with multiple women. That seems to be a common trait among spiritual
gurus for some reason. Over the years, his strategy for picking up
women shifted from becoming an expert in their hobbies to finding their pain point and using
it against them. Toni’s was her lack of education. They had to keep their relationship a secret,
because what would people think if the smartest man in the world was dating a high school
dropout? So, they came up with a plan to get her some
business experience. In 1994, Keith helped Toni found the National
Health Network, an MLM which sold vitamins and supplements. She was also a top seller of skincare products
at CBI. By 1996, at least twenty-five different states
had opened investigations into CBI as a pyramid scheme. Consumers Buyline was forced to shut down
that same year. Keith Raniere didn’t have to admit to any
wrongdoing, but he signed an agreement banning him from ever promoting a chain distribution
scheme again. Luckily his girlfriend Toni was still the
president of her very own MLM. While he wasn’t the founder or even an employee,
Keith was still heavily involved and frequently held sales seminars where he taught NLP techniques. This is when he began the shift towards developing
a self-help program to change the world. By 1998, Toni was becoming disillusioned with
her relationship to Keith and sought the advice of a therapist. But not just any therapist – a hypnotherapist. Nancy Salzman was a registered nurse with
her own therapy practice, she was also an expert in hypnosis and Neuro-Linguistic Programming. Like Tony Robbins, she was also a student
of NLP’s founders. After hearing about Keith’s insane work
schedule and grandiose claims, she decided that she had to meet him in person. I mean, he is the smartest guy in the world
and a fellow NLP practitioner. During that first meeting, she realized that
he was much more of an expert on the topic than she was and decided that she had to work
with him. She signed a mentoring contract which included
a lifetime non-compete clause. As a condition of this agreement, she could
never take what she learned to work for anyone else or open her own self-help or therapy
practice. In July of 1998, the two of them founded Executive
Success Programs, or ESP. Though, because of that CBI agreement, Keith
was just the spiritual guide, while Nancy was the actual founder and president. And, as it turns out, another one of Keith’s
girlfriends. Initially, the program was geared towards
business executives, thus the name, but a quick glance at the news made any potential
corporate client wary of anything having to do with Keith. So, they changed it to focus on the average,
middle-class worker. The program blended elements of Neuro-Linguistic
Programming with philosophies like Objectivism and Scientology. Keith read all of Ayn Rand and L Ron Hubbard’s
work. We’ll get to the actual content in the next
module, but the similarities are so striking that it’s best to think of this program
as a direct sequel to Scientology. Without the Evil Lord Xenu and his alien spirits. To help get the company off the ground, Nancy
shut down her hypnotherapy practice and pushed her clients into Executive Success Programs. Not exactly the most ethical decision she
could’ve made. But it pales in comparison to the fact that
she also recruited her daughter Lauren, who then also became one of Keith’s girlfriends. The most consequential former client to be
brought in was Barbara Bouchey. She was a financial planner and quickly distinguished
herself as ESP’s top recruiter… and Keith’s top girlfriend. That position came with a special nickname
– “Dagny.” Former Dagnies included Toni Natalie, who
shut down the National Health Network and left in 1999, and Gina Hutchinson, who died
by suicide in 2002. Still completely devoted to Keith. At this point, Keith’s NLP pick-up artistry
had advanced to a level where if he couldn’t find a pain point to use against you, he would
invent one and convince you that it’s real. Barbara Bouchey was told that she was a Nazi
in a past life and needed to make up for it. Another ESP student named Kristin Snyder had
become convinced that she was personally responsible for the Columbia space shuttle disaster and
killed herself in 2003. Her suicide note specifically mentions Executive
Success Programs as the cause. In the year 2000, they patented the first
twenty modules of ESP, which they referred to as “tech,” by 2003 they had hundreds
more. By that time, just under 4000 people had taken
a course. Keith was determined to recruit celebrities
and the people who “ran the motor of the world,” specifically targeting generational
wealth. Because if you can’t get the billionaires,
you can at least get their children. Thanks to Barbara Bouchey’s marketing efforts,
people like the former first family of Mexico and the CEO of Seagram’s, Edgar Bronfman,
had taken courses, but didn’t really join the program. You know who did though? Their kids. Emiliano Salinas would go on to found ESP
Mexico, which won’t become important to the story until way later. For now, let’s focus on the Bronfman sisters
– Sara and Clare. Clare Bronfman was on her way to becoming
an Olympic equestrian showjumper when Keith decided to insert himself into the situation
as her coach. Because having an Olympian in the program
would be good marketing. Her father noticed what was happening and
went to the press, resulting in this 2003 Forbes article where he accuses ESP of being
a cult. Cult is a functionally meaningless word. It’s more of a value judgment, in common
usage we just apply that label to any new religious movement we personally disagree
with. I’m much more fond of the term “high control
group.” Unfortunately, Clare didn’t qualify for
the Olympics and quit the sport to devote herself to Executive Success Programs. She became the primary financier going forward. She also predictably became one of Keith’s
girlfriends, with the bad press from her father being the ethical breach she needs to make
up for. At this point, Keith had at least a dozen
girlfriends filling various roles in his company. [Obnoxiously upbeat yet bland instrumental
music] In 2003, NXIVM was founded as an umbrella
corporation for Executive Success Programs. ESP was just one of hundreds of companies
within NXIVM. There was Exo/Eso for yoga and fitness, Ultima
for performing arts, and Rainbow Cultural Garden, which was an immersive language program
for children. Executive Success Programs was by far the
largest and the most common entry point into NXIVM. ESP gave one-off courses in hotel conference
rooms promising to enhance human performance in order to recruit people into the much more
lucrative multi-day seminars. It cost $2700 to attend a five-day intensive. These intensives went from 8am to 10pm every
day and each module was built around watching a video presentation followed by a group discussion. As boring as that might sound, it was actually
quite high energy. The first module on the first day is known
as Rules and Rituals, which introduces you to the program, the terms you’ll need to
know, and your teachers. Keith Raniere was given the title Vanguard. He claimed that the word means he’s the
leader of a spiritual movement, but in truth, it was just the name of his favorite arcade
game. Nancy Salzman was known as Prefect, meaning
the leader of a school. You had to refer to them by their titles,
you had to take your shoes off at the door and bow every time you entered or exited the
room. This should sound familiar to anyone who has
taken any form of martial arts. You also had to wear one of these little sashes,
which indicated your rank within NXIVM. White was a Student; this is what everybody
wore when they first started out. Next was yellow, known as a Coach; at this
rank you were allowed to perform EMs, which we’ll get to in a moment. Going from white to yellow was actually quite
fast, much like a mobile game, they wanted you to feel like you were making progress
quickly. The transition to the next rank, known as
a Proctor, could take years since you had to earn four stripes before advancing. That’s why this rank system is known as
the Stripe Path. Proctors wore orange and were the first rank
that could actually make any money within the program. Senior Proctors wore green and could open
their own centers, where intensives and other courses could be offered. Next up were blue and purple, known as Counselor
and Senior Counselor – the only people to ever achieve these ranks were Keith’s girlfriends. Nancy Salzman, or ahem, Prefect, was the only
person allowed to wear a gold sash. Again, this should look extremely familiar
to anyone who has taken martial arts, this has the same color order as karate belts. Vanguard wore a white sash because he considered
himself to be a permanent student of life, but his wasn’t short and awkward like this. If you think this is goofy – that’s the
entire point. We have a higher percentage of independent
thinkers that come here and that’s what we want. We put rules and rituals up front to be the
guardian at the gate. We want some people to say “I don’t want
anything to do with this.” Walk out the door. Great. So, let’s circle back to my original question:
could anybody fall for this? Keith just told you that the answer is intentionally
no. Anybody could wander into a conference room
and listen to a lecture, anybody could sign up for a five-day self-help intensive, but
not everybody is willing to call someone Vanguard and wear a dorky sash. And that is just the first filter. During Abuse, Rights, and Injury, the teacher
led a group discussion meant to define the word “abuse.” What does it mean to be abused? Keith was very fond of using the example of
age of consent – I can’t imagine why. In some states, it’s- there’re ages. There’s the age of consent, some states
it’s seventeen, some parts of the world it’s twelve, some parts of the world it’s-
right? So, what’s abuse in one area is not abuse
in another. But what is it really? Abuse is, does the person, is the person a
child, or is the person adult-like? Some little children are perfectly happy with
it. So abuse is a made-up human construct. And a lot of times, the screaming of abuse
is abuse in itself. How we illustrate human nobility, how we are
noble, is to get rid of the concept of victim like that. There are things that are terribly wrongful. But the person receiving it only decides they’re
a victim if they accept that. These discussions are designed to be divisive
so that you begin to feel that you don’t understand these concepts as well as you previously
thought. Then the teacher can implant their own twisted
definition of abuse. During the module on Honesty and Disclosure,
students are directed to answer questions like, what is honesty? Can you ever be 100% honest? Are there any situations where being completely
honest might actually be harmful? They’re taught that having shared secrets
with someone is a great way to build relationships and they’re encouraged to disclose their
deepest secrets with people in the class. Some people apparently confessed to murder
during this exercise. In some of the Level 2 modules, they’re
taught how to properly make a vow and back it up with collateral and penance. Your word is worth nothing to people you don’t
know, you have to back it up with something. So, if you promise to go to the gym with somebody,
you should put up collateral to prove that you mean it – say a hundred bucks. If you fail to do so, you lose the money and
also owe penance. These are usually physical, like push-ups,
wall-sits, planks, cold showers, or even standing in the snow in the middle of the night. The whole idea is to motivate you not to have
to do the punishment. If you are not uncomfortable, you are not
working on anything, all of this is meant to test your boundaries. How can you overcome your limiting beliefs
if you don’t push yourself? Obstacles and fears are referred to as “disintegrations”
and they can be cured during a pseudo-therapy session known as an Exploration of Meaning,
or an EM. Where your coach would ask you a series of
questions about a past trauma to decrease its effect on your present, like exposure
therapy. If an EM is done well, you won’t remember
having the integration and they can fix everything from fears to allergies, to stuttering and
even Tourette’s. Does that sound familiar? It’s basically auditing from Scientology
without the e-meter. As I said before, this is basically a sequel
to Scientology without the aliens; disintegrations are just rebranded body thetans. The goal of the program is to become fully
integrated, which is just clear. NXIVM was trying to create ethicists, which
is funny, because the doctrine and rules of both NXIVM and Scientology were referred to
as ethics. Breaking the rules is known as an “ethical
breach.” The charity front founded by Clare Bronfman
for NXIVM was called the World Ethical Foundations Consortium. Ethics is a NXIVM dog-whistle – to them
it means something special, to you it’s just a charity with a normal-sounding name. Continuing to borrow from Scientology, the
people who leave are known as Suppressives and NXIVM was rather litigious towards former
members. I’m kind of surprised that Scientology didn’t
sue them for copyright infringement – I’ve been dinged for way less. Even the strategy of going after the normal,
well-functioning member of society was a stolen idea. People keep trying to tell me it’s because
you’re deficient, and you’re weird, and you’re damaged and you’re vulnerable,
no, they go for people who are successful, easy people to get along with. Capable of doing things. That’s who they want to run their cult. Scientology is for an able guy like you or
like me, able to function in life, able to make his own way, does his work and so forth. Alright, that’s the man that should be helped. These intensives employ a lot of the same
strategies as Werner Erhard, Tony Robbins, and even Evangelical preachers from the post-World
War 2 era. They’re not presentations, they’re high-energy
events. You’re pulling fourteen-hour days, so you’re
exhausted, you can barely think straight, meanwhile you’re being asked to ponder deep
questions about honesty and the nature of emotions. All the while being influenced by the group. They cheer for you every time you have an
integration, you’re learning secret handshakes and your presenter is using repetition and
having you participate in chants… and before you know it, this is all you want to do with
your life. The people who really wanted to advance in
NXIVM would often move to Albany, New York so they could be closer to Keith. They started buying up houses in Clifton Park
and formed their own little neighborhood. Though Keith himself never actually owned
anything, his houses and businesses were all under his girlfriends’ names and he never
even had a driver’s license. He was basically a sovereign citizen living
off the grid. The best time to talk to Keith was during
midnight volleyball sessions or by going on a walk with him. Keith was a big fan of making business deals
while walking. He called it “building rapport” and if
you remember Tony Robbins’ advice on duplicating someone’s physiology, this is a very easy
way to make sure you’re matching someone’s breathing pattern and tone of voice. It also makes it feel like a shared journey,
you’re working towards something together. The big yearly event in NXIVM was called Vanguard
Week, which began in 2003 as an annual celebration of Keith’s birthday. Every August they would spend a week at the
Silver Bay YMCA. It was basically a summer camp for adults,
they would attend discussions, play flag football, and of course, party. These are the true believers, so it’s worth
asking, how many people attended this event? Over the entire history of NXIVM, around seventeen
thousand people had taken an ESP course, and of that, at its peak, only 629 people went
to Vanguard Week. Less than 5% of the people who took a course
became “permanent members.” While you could describe Neuro-Linguistic
Programming as a form of hypnosis, it’s much more of a selection and manipulation
tool. And just like hypnosis, NLP doesn’t work
on everybody. It doesn’t help you trick people into doing
things, it helps you identify people who are already open to suggestion. If it helps, think of NXIVM as a suggestibility
filtration system. Anybody could take a self-improvement course,
but only some people would be willing to refer to a teacher as Vanguard, and even fewer people
are willing to move across the country to meet him. And those were the people who advanced in
NXIVM. In 2004, Barbara Bouchey was able to recruit
Mark Vicente, a documentary filmmaker who had just released a movie called “What the
Bleep Do We Know?” All of this really is just a great illusion. Are people affecting the world of reality
that they see? You betcha they are. What does reality- What is reality? It’s basically ancient aliens meets quantum
physics, it’s a bunch of nonsense. The point of showing you that was… he was
primed to believe that our thoughts alter reality years before he ever took an ESP course. He became Keith’s personal documentarian
and filmed everything. Keith had a serious messiah complex, he thought
all of these videos and recordings would be studied as devoutly as the Bible someday. But this wasn’t a religious cult, it was
a science-based self-help group. We didn’t join a cult. Nobody joins a cult. Nobody. They join a good thing and then they realize
they were fucked. Would it surprise you to hear that this was
actually Mark’s second cult? What the Bleep Do We Know was actually financed
by Ramtha’s School of Enlightenment, a New Age cult based out of Washington state. It’s sadly common for cult or MLM victims
to end up in another cult or MLM. Everyone involved here seems to have a history
with pseudoscience, cults, or MLMs. This is Keith’s fifth MLM that I can name. Both Toni Natalie and Barbara Bouchey regularly
saw a hypnotherapist before meeting Keith; Nancy Salzman was a hypnotherapist. But you know, when it starts off, it feels
like real answers. How many of you are staring at this picture
trying to figure out where you recognize her from? This is Mark’s wife, Bonnie Piesse, famous
for her role as Beru in the Star Wars prequels. Through Mark, NXIVM gained access to the Vancouver
acting community, he first recruited Sarah Edmondson, who would then go on to recruit
Kristen Kreuk and Nicki Clyne. Who had roles on Smallville and Battlestar
Galactica respectively. In 2006, Keith unveiled his latest tech – Jness,
the first women’s movement to be founded by a man… that should set off some red flags
for you right away. The course wasn’t really about female empowerment,
it just reinforced old gender stereotypes about Disney princesses. The princesses look to the princes to go slay
the dragons and the princes look at the princesses to be kept in a bubble and to look pretty
but never to really achieve anything much. That women aren’t inherently reliable, women
aren’t inherently loyal, women aren’t- they don’t keep secrets, they talk among
themselves or whatever. You women, you can’t hold your emotions
in check, can’t keep your emotions out of your decisions, do what you feel as opposed
to do what is right – from our perspective. You can’t keep your feelings out of it. [Ding] And there’s the person most of you
were waiting for. Allison Mack was a Vancouver-based actress
who played Chloe Sullivan on Smallville and attended a Jness Weekend Retreat in 2006. And despite everything you just heard, she
then took a five-day intensive and was hooked. When I went into the Jness Tracks, I carried
with me, years and years and years and years and years wrought with insecurity and confusion,
covered up by a whole heck of a lot of ego and pride. The sad part about hearing that is that we
don’t know if that was something she legitimately dealt with or if that’s something Keith
invented and convinced her of. Allison Mack broke up with her boyfriend and
became the new Dagny in 2009. Around that same time, Barbara Bouchey and
eight other women resigned in protest over how the business was being run. All of the top positions were filled by women
Keith was sleeping with. Along with being unethical, this gave Keith
an unusual amount of control and forgiveness. Especially since they weren’t considered
equal partners. As with most high control groups, this mass
exodus didn’t really change that practice, it just allowed Keith to consolidate power. Anyone who didn’t like the way he ran things
was gone. Just a few weeks later, the Dalai Lama visited
Albany to give a speech to NXIVM members and lend some credibility to Keith’s teachings. He only did that after receiving a very large
donation from Clare Bronfman’s ethical charity. In 2011 they created a male counterpart to
Jness known as the Society of Protectors or SOP, which was arguably worse when it came
to reinforcing gender stereotypes. As men, we’re the ones who hold the doors,
who pick up the bags, and more seriously, we’re the ones who go to war and we’re
taught that we’re to leave the ship last. We are the doers, the providers, we’re the
protectors. The primitive parts of us are hungry, fucky
beasties. I mean, that’s what we want to do, there’s
– I want to fuck it. So there’s a very basic part of us that
just wants to fuck something to get that release. For us, fucking, sex, has nothing to do with
the other person per se. It’s what’s going to feel good. I’m going to stop it there, I think you
get the idea, but if you want to see more, check out the documentaries in the description
below – but just know that it gets way worse. A baby is just something that feels good,
what if it was just a lump of flesh? So, while the women were over here being told
that they’re overprotected princesses, the men were being told that sexual aggression
is just part of our nature. Both the men and the women were encouraged
to get into peak physical condition. The women began restricting calories to an
extreme degree while the men had to practice readiness drills, where they might be called
to go for a run at any moment. Someday, that call is going to come at four
in the morning and are you ready? Are you ready to push aside sleep, push aside
all your other concerns, organize what needs to be done and be there? Members would get a text that they had to
respond to in less than a minute, if they failed to do so, they owed penance. A concept most of them were familiar with
from ESP. This wouldn’t come out for years, but SOP
was being groomed as Keith’s personal army with hundreds of men willing to come to his
aid at any moment. Members of SOP and Jness paid $50 dollars
a month to be a member of the program. It only costs like $2 to be a Knowing Better
patron – and I won’t restrict your calories or make you answer a text at four in the morning. I mean, you could pay $50 a month if you want,
there is a tier for that… just sayin’. In 2012, the restructured Jness Tracks were
opened up to men, now they could hear the Disney princess schlock, which most of them
already believed anyway. But the next year, women were allowed into
the new SOP Complete program. This was basically a recreation of the Stanford
Prison Experiment where the men played the role of guards, and the women were subjected
to days of abuse. This served as yet another boundary testing
exercise. If a woman was asked to run face first into
a tree or strip naked in front of everybody and she refused… You’re so overprotective of your body, what
are you so afraid of? You should probably get an EM for that. Meanwhile, the rest of the women who took
the class were willing to wear tutus, lick puddles in the street, and be repeatedly humiliated
in front of the group. They’re probably willing to do just about
anything. Women, you have to learn to yield. When you’re a little boy, as a matter of
fact, you yield all the time. You yield to adults, you yield to women, and
you yield to all little girls. [Obnoxiously upbeat yet bland instrumental
music] In November of 2016, Keith’s long-time girlfriend
Pam Cafritz died of cancer. Along with being the financier of his first
MLM in the 90s, she was also his procurer – a word which only has one meaning. She was basically his Ghislaine Maxwell. You have to understand, people in NXIVM thought
Keith was a renunciate, he crafted an image of himself as a celibate spiritual guru. And with Pam gone, that image might become
reality. To preemptively fill that void in his life,
he and Allison Mack created a new group known as Dominus Obsequious Sororium, or just DOS. And they sold it as a women’s empowerment
group on steroids. There were eight founding members, all of
whom were Keith’s girlfriends, including Allison Mack, Nicki Clyne, and Lauren Salzman,
Nancy’s daughter. They each took a lifetime vow of obedience
to Keith. Then they all turned in collateral to back
up that vow and began wearing neck or belly chains to symbolize that bond. But Keith didn’t think that was profound
enough. He had learned that severe initiation rituals
resulted in a stronger commitment to the group, you feel like you’ve earned it. Think of fraternities, or to a lesser extent,
the military. So, he and the other founding members came
up with a brand, which they said symbolized the four elements – earth, wind, water,
and fire… no heart, apparently. But recordings of Keith himself would determine
that to be a lie. So I was sort of thinking of it, like this…. Yeah with the triangle and like a graph, like
it’s a cool, kinda alien- alien symbol. I mean, you could interpret it as a KR, but
you could say like, no it’s not. Or K- it’s actually K-A-R. All of the first-line DOS members were given
that brand by a professional. Everyone beneath them had to go through an
extreme branding ceremony where they were held down and given the brand with a cauterizing
pen and a stencil. So, I think the person should ask to be branded. So that could be something that they say initially,
they should say “Please brand me, it would be an honor,” or something like that. And they should probably say that before they’re
held down so it doesn’t seem like they’re being coerced. Dominus Obsequious Sororium doesn’t actually
mean anything, but you can sort of translate it as Master Over the Slave Women. DOS was a master-slave relationship. Keith was the master over Allison Mack and
Nicki Clyne, he could ask them to do anything he wanted – including the exact thing you’re
thinking of. Eventually, they had to start recruiting their
own slaves. As is the case with many “self-help” programs,
the initial victims of the scheme became victimizers as they became masters of their own pod of
slave women. New recruits were required to turn over collateral
every month. Nude photos weren’t enough, they had to
give over something much more valuable, like credit card numbers, the deeds to their house,
or even family secrets. If they ran out of those things, they could
just make stuff up. This is arguably worse than any actual secret,
since slaves confessed to crimes they didn’t commit or accused their parents of abuse that
never happened. So not only was their reputation on the line,
but their family’s. Masters regularly performed readiness drills
with their slaves and if anyone didn’t respond in a minute, the entire group would be punished,
often by a calorie restriction. Remember, most of these women were already
familiar with collateral and penance, these weren’t new concepts. Eventually, the second-line DOS slaves began
getting assignments to seduce Keith, who they still thought was a celibate monk. He pretended to resist while having secretly
ordered the assignment. At this point, you’re definitely asking
yourself how anybody could possibly join this… and I have to remind you that DOS was invite-only. Keith hand-picked the women that would be
recruited. Of the 17,000 people who had ever taken a
NXIVM course, only seven or eight hundred were members of Jness and SOP, and only a
hundred to a hundred and fifty women joined DOS. He picked people he knew would follow orders. How could he possibly know that? Because he spent the last two decades developing
a selection tool that would help him identify the people he could manipulate. So, no… not anybody could fall for this
– it was designed to be exclusive. A few weeks after the Harvey Weinstein story
and the MeToo movement were in full swing, the New York Times broke the NXIVM/DOS story
with this article featuring Sarah Edmondson and her brand. Sarah was a second-line DOS slave under Lauren
Salzman. So, here’s a scary thought, if Keith Raniere
had just been satisfied with the dozen or so actresses that had already made a lifetime
vow of obedience to him, he probably would’ve gotten away with all of this. It was the second- and third-line DOS members
that went to the press. The FBI opened up an investigation into Keith
and just a few weeks later, he fled to Mexico. Because he still had a lot of support there. ESP Mexico’s founder also created a charity
front known as In Lak’Ech, which had thousands of members who all used this secret handshake. Maybe don’t join anything that has a secret
handshake, that seems to be a red flag. But if the US government wants to get you,
they’re gonna get you, and while hiding in Mexico, Nicki Clyne posted a picture to
Instagram featuring a well-known landmark, giving away their location. He was arrested by Federales and extradited
to New York in March of 2018. But here’s the thing, almost none of the
charges against him had anything to do with NXIVM, DOS, or branding, because none of that
stuff is actually illegal. The United States is somewhat behind the times
when it comes to laws regarding coercive consent. I personally disagree with this interpretation,
but the fact that the women willingly handed over collateral and asked to be branded made
it consensual in the eyes of the law. So, what was he actually charged with? Racketeering, racketeering conspiracy, sex
trafficking, attempted sex trafficking, sex trafficking conspiracy, forced labor conspiracy,
and wire fraud conspiracy. Note that he wasn’t charged with a hundred
and fifty counts of sex trafficking, it was just one. ESP Mexico was almost as large as its American
counterpart, they had centers all over the country with hundreds of members. And a few Mexican families moved to Albany
to be closer to Keith. One of those families had three daughters,
whose names are protected by court order, their pseudonyms are Daniella, Camila, and
Marianna. And most of the charges against Keith are
related to what he did to them years before DOS. When the family moved to Albany, they were
told that NXIVM would help them with their work visas and immigration papers. That never happened, they forged them, thus,
racketeering. He used the fact that they were undocumented
immigrants, and the threat of deportation, to enter into a sexual relationship with each
of the three daughters. They got pregnant multiple times and were
pressured into having multiple abortions. In 2010, Daniela committed an ethical breach
by falling in love with someone who wasn’t Keith. As penance, he instructed her family to confine
her to her room with no human contact. This unlawful detention lasted 23 months. When she finally left the room in 2012, she
was dumped at the border without any identification or money and she had to illegally cross into
Mexico. She came back to testify at his trial seven
years later. Her sister Camila was the first person to
make a lifetime vow of obedience to Keith in 2014 and she became the first DOS slave
when she was branded in 2015. Which was well before Pam Cafritz died, he
was planning this at least two years before that happened. The forced labor and wire fraud conspiracies
were the only crimes related to DOS and a jury found him guilty on all charges in June
2019. Despite the trial taking over a month, they
deliberated for fewer than five hours. In October 2020, Keith Raniere was sentenced
to one hundred and twenty years in federal prison and a $1.75 million dollar fine. He still has about a dozen supporters, including
Nicki Clyne. They formed a group called We Are As You and
have been dancing under his prison window every week since he was arrested. Last I checked, they rebranded as The Forgotten
Ones and are still active. Before Keith’s trial even began, several
of his co-conspirators pled guilty to their various charges. Because despite being victims, they were also
perpetrators. Clare Bronfman pled guilty to identity fraud
and harboring an undocumented immigrant for financial gain, but not to the Mexican sisters,
she did that to someone else entirely. She was sentenced to six years and nine months
in federal prison, with a $500,000 fine. Allison Mack pled guilty to racketeering and
racketeering conspiracy and received three years in federal prison with a $20,000 fine. She cooperated with the prosecutors and received
a reduced sentence. Lauren Salzman also cooperated after pleading
guilty, her testimony and secret recordings of Keith are arguably the only reason he was
convicted. She only received five years of probation
and 300 hours of community service. Her mother, Nancy Salzman, pled guilty to
racketeering conspiracy and was just sentenced to three years in federal prison with a $150,000
fine Wait, if they’re all in prison, how could they possibly be a threat in the future? You better not have tricked me into doing
this! [Skype ringtone] Is this gonna be a regular thing now? Look, we have a major problem! When you assumed your past life in that last
video, you split off all of the possible you’s that could have been and… they exist now! There’s a postal worker, a sheriff, a Mormon,
uhh… And a motivational speaker? Yeah, how’d you know that? Bro those are characters… From our videos. I’ve never done characters, we’ve literally
always dressed like this. What? Are we even from the same future? I swear, if you tricked me into making this
video, I’m going to lose it. You mean like how you tricked that other guy
into doing a video about Jehovah’s Witnesses? I didn’t tell you to do that, you came up
with that one all on your own. Besides, I did you a favor, that original
Life Coaches video was a disaster in literally every timeline. Wait a second… I recognize the closet you’re in, it’s
that one right there. The lease for this apartment is almost up,
so if I just leave this place, it’ll collapse any possible future you’re from, erasing
you from existence. No, no, wait! Bye. Believe it or not, this was my attempt at
a “short” video. I had to cut out so much to keep this on-topic,
so if you want to hear more, make sure you check out the director’s commentary on twitch,
linked below. In the meantime, I’d like to give a shout
out to my newest Golden Fork patrons, Isaiah and Hantian. If you’d like to join this readiness pod,
head on over to patreon.com/knowingbetter, or for a one-time donation, paypal.me/knowingbetter. Don’t forget to integrate that subscribe
button, or the join button if you’re a senior proctor. Check out the merch at knowingbetter.tv, follow
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