Life Uncut - PART 2 - Walk down memory lane : Inside sex cult NXIVM with India Oxenberg

Episode Date: July 7, 2021

Lifers, This is Part 2 and one from the archives. For anyone who has not listened to India Oxenberg's full interview we cannot recommend this episode enough. This episode was originally published on the 20th of January 2021. PART 1: Is a a new interview recorded on the 6th of July 2021 discussing Allison Mack's recent conviction and sentencing.This podcast episode discusses sexual assault, coercive control and living in a cult, This may be triggering to victim survivors. If you need help or someone to talk to, you can call 1800 RESPECT or visit respect.gov.au.“My name is India Oxenberg. I was in a cult for seven years. I didn't want to be saved,"This is the harrowing opening line to Stan's four-part docuseries that explores the NXIVM cult. The cult started as a US-based self-improvement group, led by Keith Raniere, but in the end the group was exposed for the dark and disturbing cult that it was.For 20 years from 1998 and 2018, Raniere recruited thousands of people under the guise of personal development seminars and self improvement sessions even luring in several celebrities and socialites with the most prolific being Smallville star Allison Mack.Over a long period of time, NXIVM faced a multitude of accusations of systemic sexual abuse of female members by Raniere and members of his inner circle. India was a part of this cult, without knowledge that it was a cult, for 7 years.The last two of which she was a part of a secret sub group within the cult called DOS, which is a Latin phrase that translates to "Master over Slave Women," It was at this point India was expected to engage in sex acts with Keith Raniere, to act as a slave to Smallville star Allison Mack and to be a master to her own two slaves. It was also here that she was held down naked and branded with Keiths initials on her stomach without anaesthetic and while being filmed.We are so grateful to have India join us today to personally tell us her story. How she got involved with the group, what life was life inside, the perpetual yet slow grooming, the coercive control, the manipulation and brain washing, the things she was made to do, the collateral she was forced to put down to ensure her silence. She speaks candidly about when things turned sexual, her inhumane branding and eventually how she found her way out and her life after the cult.You can follow India @indiaoxenbergFollow us @lifeuncutpodcast @brittany_hockley @ladyandacatIf you're one of our scallywags that loves the podcast but hasn't left 5 stars or a review yet, well, we wont hold it against you but also, like, why you do us dirty.Please, subscribe and tell your friends, tell your mum, your cousin and your dog and share the love, because, well, we love love. xSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hello and welcome back to Life Uncut. I'm Laura and if you listened to part one of this interview and episode already, you would know that Britt is not here and you are stuck with just me. But if you haven't listened to part one, I'm going to give you guys a little bit of housekeeping around what these interviews are. So part two, what you're listening to right now, is an interview that we did with India Oxenberg back in January around the conviction of Keith Raniere and the sex cult in the united states so if you haven't listened to this episode already this is the full story and this is india sharing her lived experiences when we concluded this episode back in january one of the key figures of this story allison mack had not yet been sentenced

and she had not yet been convicted for the crimes that she had been charged for so part one of this little bonus episodes that we're dropping here is actually me sitting down with india now that Alison Mack has been convicted, discussing her sentencing and giving you the full story for anybody who has been invested in what has happened in India's life. I know that this is something that so many of you have been invested in because this episode was our most downloaded episode of all time. This interview does come with a big trigger warning. We touch on some very, very heavy topics. We touch on sexual assault, we touch on rape, and we do also touch on coercive control. So if any of these topics are triggering to you or too dark for you

to listen to then maybe this isn't the episode for you. However India is also incredibly positive so we really do think that regardless of whether you have watched the documentary or not you will get something really valuable out of this interview so we really hope that you enjoy. My name is India Oxenberg. I was in a cult for seven years. I did not want to be saved. This is the harrowing opening to Stan's four-part docuseries focused on the Nixxiom cult. The Nixxiom cult started as a US-based self-improvement group and it was led by a monster named Keith Ranieri.

for 20 years from around 1998 to 2018 Ranieri recruited thousands of people under the guise of these personal development seminars and improvement seminars and making yourself better seminars and there were actually several celebrities and socialites one of the most prolific being a Smallville actor Alison Mack now I watched Smallville growing up so I was so shocked to hear that someone like that and someone that I looked up to was basically a part of this cult and not only a part of the cult but she was was one of the masters of this sex cult I think that that was like one of the big um recruitment tactics is this fact that you know you would never suspect that someone who is a celebrity that someone who has such high social standing

could be involved in such a thing and this was part of the recruitment tactic of NXIVM there were a lot of high profile people like Alison Mack who lured in and recruited people such as India Oxenberg and India tells her story with such bravery and she really has gotten to a place where she has a lot of resolution and resolve around this experience and what she has been through she does definitely use humor as a way of deflecting which I think we can all be guilty of from time to time when something is serious and when we've been through a great trauma I think humor is definitely a coping mechanism and India really has taken this opportunity to rewrite her story and to tell it in a way that empowers her and also empowers other people who

have been victims of coercive control as a little bit of a backstory for anyone who hasn't seen the the docuseries or hasn't necessarily heard of seduced you will still get so much out of this episode and we just want to give you a bit more information to kind of arm you with what we're talking about so nexium and the members of nexium keith ranieri who is the the main head of nexium the master the master has faced multiple accusations of systemic sexual abuse of female members and members of his inner circle india was part of this cult without really any acknowledgement that it was a cult at the time and she was a part of the cult for seven years the last two of which she was part of a secret subgroup within nexium which was called dos now dos is a latin phrase

that translates to master over slave women it was at this point that india was expected to engage in sexual acts with keith ranieri she was expected to act as a slave to smallville star alison mack and she was also a master to her own two slaves and it was here that she was held down naked and branded with Keith's initials on her stomach without any anesthetic and also while being filmed she was also expected to perform sex acts on Keith and this was all done under the disguise of self-help and self-development with all that said guys we are so grateful to bring you this today so let's just jump straight in India thank you so much for making time today to come on the podcast. I watched your docuseries Seduced with my partner Matt and we consumed the whole thing

in literally two days. We were absolutely hooked. We thought it was such a harrowing but also such an incredibly empowering story and I was so excited after I slid into your DMs and you got back to me and said that you wanted to do this interview. So welcome to Life Uncut. Thank you. I'm so excited to be here with you guys. And I heard a rumor that it's your first Australian podcast so super flattered about that the rumor is true but it's not my first Australian love I have a love of Australia like a huge one and I have many friends that I grew up with that live in Sydney one that lives in Tasmania one in Melbourne so I feel like a strong affinity to Australia well you just got a whole new bunch of Australian fans so well played I love it you know

there are so many parts of this story that we we didn't even know how we were going to cover it all and be able to really do this story justice in the limited time that we have with you but I really wanted to ask you the question first off is how did you know or how did you get to a time where you felt ready to share this story that's a really good question because for a while I was not ready at all and I couldn't even talk about it in the beginning and so I actually just started with writing and that was the thing that helped me the most was just to be able to write and get it out of my body onto paper in a private space where no one was going to judge me and that was how I started and then a couple months into writing I was approached by Cecilia Pack and Imbal Lesner

my two co-producers on Seduced and they had an idea of exploring coercion in a way that no one had really discussed with me yet and it was deep and it was women focused and it really dove into the systematic problem of coercion that exists in our culture and in our lives and sadly sometimes in work environments and more so in relationships and high control groups so when they came to me with that I thought holy shit this there's no other better way for me to share my story given the opportunities that I had seen because I had said no to a lot of people because it just didn't feel right and that was like the first step for me is just listening to my gut and being like what do I want like how do I learn to take care of myself primarily so that I can actually talk

about this because that was not my goal like my goal was to run away to the mountains with my now fiance then boyfriend and never talk about NXIVM again and be like fuck all of you and sadly that doesn't work you can't hide from these things there there's the internet there is a lot of documentation of this so I realized for me I had to go all in and that that was part of the docuseries was part of that for me. I also think like we've interviewed quite a few women now and one woman in particular which was Dr. Angela Jay and we had a lot of conversation in that episode around coercive control and I still think that there is a lot of victim blaming that's attached to it like we're so quick to think like how the hell did you get yourself into that situation

right that is kind of like the first thought that comes to mind but then after watching your docuseries, it really made me start to unpack it. And my perception of this has really been challenged. Whereas once again, I really had this moment where I thought, no, this could really happen to anyone. This isn't just an isolated case. And I'm really sure that there was a time in your life where you thought like, oh, there's no fucking way that I'm ever going to end up in a sex cult. Or even just simple. There was no way I thought I would let myself be abused. and I think that's that's the thing that was so difficult for me to accept once I had left was that I had been fooled I was not a fool and so and I think that I wanted that level of compassion

for anyone who's left a high control group or anyone that's left domestic violence or abuse in general to know that that was not their fault they didn't ask for that they went into this thinking that there it was one thing and then it was led you were led astray and that's really in essence the definition of coercion before we do move on i just want to talk about something you just touched on and that is just the fact that you know you said you started to write this down in a book for yourself purely for you and then when the time was right you sort of jumped into this docuseries i guess what i want to know is did you find that whole process cathartic and therapeutic did you get the series out and just watch it and be like whoa i didn't realize how

much i needed that because obviously you felt like you were doing it for other people no i thought i was doing it for myself too it was not it was not entirely self selfless it was also me taking my life into my hands again because the media had you know ran with it branded sex slave cult girl you name it i've they've called me that in the on the interwebs but i i i felt like this was my opportunity to shine a light on a topic that I think is very uncomfortable for people uh sexual abuse and coercion in general it's like a big no-no and I also thought this is an opportunity to take my life in the direction that I want it again and to not let this be the thing that stops me from moving forward because I felt like this was going to be the thing that ruined me I mean I

could talk to you for hours but I've realized we're on a time frame so let's just get into it no you like you're not going yeah if we need if we need a part two I'm not opposed I really like you guys so I want to make it work no I'm like no be my best friend move to Australia and let's talk forever no but seriously let's just start from the beginning literally the very beginning how did you find NXIVM so my mother and I were introduced to NXIVM through a friend and this was the friend that I think everybody has a version of this but the one that tells you what movies to watch where to eat what to wear and they always have an opinion or a suggestion we all have them they're always right and they're really intense she was that for personal growth and so she was

like you have to go to this intro presentation it's going to change your life it's an amazing curriculum and so the trust was already there we didn't really question much beyond that so my mom and i were like all right we'll go we'll go to this amazing intro presentation so we went it was given by mark vicente and sarah edmondson um and there was just something about the way that they spoke and the way that they shared what they were offering that was like exactly what i felt i needed in my life at that point it was like they were giving me the formula to become unfucked or unlost which is what I felt like like that's what I felt like I was 19 years old just came back from university had a year there it didn't go so well I'm super dyslexic so traditional education has

always been an area of insecurity for me and so when they told me that they could get rid of past trauma or past fears that were holding you back from moving forward I was like that's me that's me I'm I'm stuck and so there was a part of me that was very open and also vulnerable because I was in that state of desperation I was looking for something no I don't know anyone who doesn't want to be unfucked like who doesn't want to be unfucked I think you're okay with that thank you and I I was also 19 like I look at my little sister who's 19 now and I'm like oh my god you're a baby like how would you know to make a decision that was like very good for your future you've barely been around on the planet so I was in that place well I also think like the whole

self-help industry it's such a huge industry and it's so highly on what's the word I'm looking for it's unregulated yeah that's for sure regulated that's exactly the word I'm looking for it's such a hugely unregulated industry and I mean I have been to self-help workshops I've been to Tony Robbins workshops I've been to lots of different things because for a period of time I get something out of them and then usually after a little while I forget everything I've been taught but anyway but I have been to so many of these different events because in essence I want to improve myself and I want to unfuck myself also and I can imagine that when you're 18 and 19 you look at these people and think has these keys to success and we can work through this together exactly

what was it after that first meeting after your first introduction to Nixxiom that really made you want to join you know and and you signed up for quite a few of the courses which were very very expensive courses at the time as well yes and on top of it you're surrounded by people who are seemingly credible and seemingly successful so who was I at 19 to question these people who seem to have it all together it wasn't until I started to take the courses as a student that I felt like it just resonated with me like it just kind of worked for me because it wasn't so rigid like I had just experienced in university it was more about you learning about you so that really spoke to me and that was kind of what helped well what helped me stay was not

only the community and the people that I was meeting, but what I thought that I was getting from the courses. And what were the courses tailored to at this time? What were you getting out of them? I think I was learning about myself. And it's not to say that everything that they taught was bullshit. They just stole it from other modalities. So it was nothing original, but it was interesting because it was introspective. And so who doesn't like to learn about themselves especially someone who's already kind of interested in self-improvement so the foundations of nexium is esp or the executive success program are these the core courses that you're talking about now so is esp literally the foundation and these are these the courses that

you learn every single day when you go there or is this like another sub segment like dos right we will get to soon so how it works is nexium is the overarching company and then they have all these other sub companies underneath it one of those companies was ESP executive success programs so that was like their consumer front product and that was sold as an executive course but that it could relate to anybody you could be an executive mother you could be an executive in your business you could just want better communication skills so they really left it very open so that you could in essence recruit anybody who had the means so what do you think the percentage of people are just out of curiosity because it seems like you got sucked in straight

away and I don't want to say sucked in sorry but you were sold on the product I guess what is the percentage of people that are sold on this straight away the ones that are just frothing being like yes this is just straight up for me compared to the percentage of people that are like oh I'm questioning this a little bit this is a little bit dodgy you know that's a good question I think probably about 25 percent of people who came in okay so that's not a huge number I mean it's definitely a large number but that's not a huge more but it's not because the way that they do it is so slick and strategic that you could take a course for five days as a student and be you know happy as a clam on your way home and you could not think of it or they could target you

which is what they do to be a coach if they think that you're going to be valuable for the company and that's what happened with me and I wasn't sucked in right away it was like years of this compounding indoctrination or grooming if you will that got me to be where I was to say yes to something like DOS so it takes a while. So do you think that they targeted you from day one because in the docuseries in the first episode you make a big point of saying they separated you from your mum Catherine like almost immediately do you think that you walk in the door and they're scouting straight away thinking yes let's just start this process right now because that seems really premeditated like they have thought about this from the very beginning. Yes and you're right

because it is and I think that they even do it before you enter the room they're doing it when they're recruiting you they're doing it through other recruiters they're like tell me about this person where do they come from who do they know how can they that's what I learned once I became a coach how they recruit from the inside and it was a very aggressive recruiting strategy that was pretty inhumane it was not about people which goes against everything that you at this at the time had signed up for and it really goes against what you were sold was the ethos of this company exactly and I also think the thing that really struck me about this whole situation and about Nixxiom in general is that it was never posed as a religion and I think for anybody who hasn't seen

the documentary this is something I really want to get across and I think is a really important point it was posed as a company and posed as a self-help development course and so the fact that it then went down this very very dark path which we will get into I think for anyone it's really startling because we we do sometimes attribute it to religion and we do attribute cults to spirituality but this is something that was very very different one of the things that I found really interesting was this idea of brainwashing that was used within NXIVM and Nancy Salzman who was one of the leaders of NXIVM was also a hypnotherapist and you talked a lot about these things called EMs, which were performed on members. And you talked a lot about how they

were performed on people who weren't able to overcome some sort of blockage. Could you talk us through what an EM is and what was the purpose of having an EM? Yes. So the EM, which is exploration of meaning, is a tool or a technique that they used in ESP, like what you said, in order to get rid of problems or fears or limitations that you were experiencing that were stopping you from getting your perceived goals and really ultimately serving NXIVM was the goal at that point and so the EM is also a technique that they stole from other modalities that I've realized after I left at the time I thought it was totally proprietary and like it was just theirs and I was like, this magical pill, like, oh, wow.

Yeah, these geniuses that are going to bestow this amazing thing on me. What I learned after the fact is that the EM doesn't just disconnect you from the stimulus response pattern. What it does is it actually numbs you emotionally. And it numbs your connection to your intuition and to your feelings in general. so you might think that you're less reactive but really you're actually less receptive you're more numb to the stimulus so i actually think that the em is one of the most dangerous things that they did in axiom because they were able to impose their beliefs onto you when you were in a very fragile and vulnerable state psychologically because you you were open to the information

that they were presenting to you because they were removing another whole set of beliefs. And I know that sounds super weird and sci-fi, but it's actually a real thing. And it is a tool that is used in high control groups. Can you talk us through an example of something? So for example, something that didn't sit right with you and you were like, I don't feel comfortable with this.

This is wrong. And you were told that you needed an EM to get over it because you needed to get over it because this was your issue, just for anyone who hasn't watched the docuseries and doesn't understand, I'd really love an example of how incongruent some of their teachings are with what is acceptable in society or a societal norm. Because there were so many things that I EM'd over, like while I was there, there were so many things that I was told to EM. A majority of the EMs that I had were about my mom and were things that they were telling me I had issues about with

my mom and things that i felt like i had issues because we're like who doesn't have an issue with their mother please so there there was baggage that i had that i brought to them and i was like here's my problems and they're like give me all your problems and i'll make them worse until you have nobody except for us to rely on and that's that's one of the ways that they used the em was to make you dependent on them for your sense of well-being so not only for the personal problems that you are having for example with your mom there is one part in the docuseries that I am going to mention and it is very heavy and I'm only going to mention it because it is touched on in the series and I think it's really really important there is one part that makes me feel

sick to even say where Keith is addressing the audience and he's talking about why isn't it okay to have sexual relations with children why isn't it okay to sleep with minors and he even goes on to say that there are examples of them wanting it and liking it and the fact that the only reason that it is unacceptable in society is because we have said it is unacceptable that to me i mean i want to kill the man i literally want to kill the man are these the moments where you guys start to question it and are these things that they will take you to these ems over because you think well I don't think it's okay to sleep with a child because I mean obviously it's not but is this an example of something you would go and say I'm uncomfortable with and then they would take you to

an EM yes you nailed it and that's one of the scarier things that they did as well I was not in that room that was archival footage but I do remember moments while I was there over the seven years that I was there where things would be said in a forum or in a intensive that I would be like oh I don't like that but what we were taught was to discredit any of those sort of impulses that you had in your body they called them impulses or feelings that were uncomfortable because that meant that you were on the cusp of a breakthrough that you were going to and that that's so twisted because if you know anything about self-help they always say lean into the fear do the thing that's scary, push against your boundaries, because that's logical for most things. It's just not

in the context of Keith's world. Well, it's so interesting that you say that as well, because we are such big advocates in regards to trusting your intuition so that when you have that feeling, it's your literal internal warning system saying something is wrong. And so to say that you're in this situation where you're being taught the complete opposite of that, and you're being taught that this is a construct of society and we should be pushing against this and we're creating something new is so fucking dangerous and it's so scary because it's so easy for people to do and that's the thing that i don't think i real i mean i know i didn't realize at the time was just how delicate the human mind is um and how malleable it is especially in times when you're sleep

deprived you're food deprived you're stressed you're surrounded by people who might not be good for you I mean there's so many areas of our lives that I think we can go astray that most people can relate to that feeling of kind of flailing and letting other people lead because there's a part of that that that feels good to like have other people kind of control the direction of your life and to remove some of those decisions. So for me, I was really open to them guiding me because I trusted them as superiors. Well, because it feels like a family and half the battle with these things is you love the community so much. You love the idea of everyone being together, looking after each other, loving each other. But I think it's really important to

highlight that a lot of the members of NXIVM were in this sex cult without actually knowing they in a sex cult because the whole of NXIVM wasn't a sex cult was it it was just this one sub-segment called DOS no no it was so unsexy I even like it was so unsexy I did not have like I mean that's the weird part it was it was I was so compartmentalized in my mind when I thought about NXIVM and Albany and my experiences there because I didn't even see what was happening to me from keith as sexual because it was so uncomfortable and clinical that to me i laugh about it now but it really was like such an unsexy time because i didn't feel any arousal i didn't feel any desire because i was also starving so the last thing that you're thinking about is sex

you're right most people did not know that they were in a sex cult and it wasn't until I moved to well I was made to move to Albany and was living with Alison Mack that I was even introduced to Keith in that way and it wasn't even done directly it was done through a freaking seduction assignment so like all of it was coercive I think it's really important as well for people to understand the time frame over which this happened so this wasn't like oh hey I signed up phoenixium and now I'm in a sex cult wow life is crazy it was over quite a considerable amount of years yeah and you and you started within this community when you were 19 and then it was five years down the path where you were approached by Alison Mack to join DOS yep so can you explain to

everyone what what DOS was and also how were you recruited into that yes um well there's what DOS was and there was what we were told dos was and those were two entirely different things so what dos was was a recruiting mechanism for keith to enslave and use women for his own benefit whatever it was financially sexually for power whatever that's really the basis of what dos was what we believe DOS was was a women's empowerment group that was going to be one-on-one coaching and that was going to help us grow and become stronger empowered women using using a sort of sisterhood to achieve that and that it was going to be a secret because there were going to be things that we were going to do that was uncomfortable and kind of fringe that I was okay with because I was

open to it, but I was also riding on the tail of five years of grooming to get me to that place of saying yes to something so vague and so nefarious ultimately. I never knew anything about the details of the brand when I was recruited. I was told that there would be a brand or a tattoo and that it would be small. And I was okay with that. I have a couple tattoos myself. There were so many things that were concealed from us in the recruiting process that it was difficult to actually make an informed decision. And we were also made to give collateral in order to receive more information about the secret group. So you're already compromised before you've said yes. I think it's important for us to highlight that if you haven't watched it yet,

we do mention the name Alison Mack a few times. So Alison Mack was an actress, someone that I watched growing up. She was in Smallville. I knew her. I loved her. But I guess she was this person that introduced you to the secret society dots. And she was your master. She was under Keith Raniere. She was ultimately the one that was grooming you and putting these restrictions on you. And I guess, did you ever hold any resentment towards Alison Mack? Or did you just see her as a loving guiding friend like a mother figure someone that looked after you or was there a part of you that was like why are you doing this to me bit of both um I was definitely afraid of her punishment and her disapproval and because I'm an empath that really was an easy way to

manipulate me like her being upset or unhappy was terrifying to me because i was in this in this dos construct her slave she was my master she was ultimately in charge and in control of anything that i could do i didn't understand the gravity of that until later on but there were moments where I thought she was my friend. It was not a natural relationship. We were forced, well, I was forced to live with her. And then from there I became her friend, but really out of necessity. There were things that we bonded over, but I look at it now and I have a lot less judgment for myself because I was surviving that. And I was trying to make the best of an unpleasant situation and trying to cherry pick and make you know make those even more better than they really were

I was really trying to make it better than it was I think as well like you know it just seems so completely unfathomable that this is a celebrity this is someone who we watch in tv this is someone who majority of females would look at and think that she is aspirational and inspirational and so it's so easy to be misled by that and I think that there is such a mismatch in the power dynamic because you know when someone like this comes to you and says hey I have a secret that I want you to be a part of I think you're going to be amazing in this community anyone's natural curiosity is going to go what does that mean like what is this and that was a really big part of how they managed to suck you in and recruit you into this DOS group absolutely so how did things change for

you once you had joined DOS? Well, I felt like I had just been given this amazing secret and I admired Alison because she was excelling so quickly within NXIVM and I was kind of stagnant. I wasn't moving as a coach. So once I joined DOS, I started to see things change in my life. And I thought that it was because of DOS. I didn't realize that it was pretty much arbitrary and that it was being decided by Keith and Alison was just the one you know doing the orders to to me from him I didn't really understand the connection early on but I thought that I was growing and I thought that I was improving and I actually believed that it was because of DOS so it was it was hard to to make the distinction so when you enter DOS you are asked to put down

something called collateral which is essentially something that is compromising something that you don't ever want to get out essentially they hold it over you and it's blackmail so what did you put down and can you give us an example of something that they asked you to put down something that you did put down or something that others put down as collateral yeah I mean the amount of collateral that I had to put down is enormous because it wasn't just the initial collateral that that Allison asked for. And we go into that, uh, in the docu series, but they were, they were asking me for compromising information about my family, financial information, damaging photographs or videos, recordings of you saying things that were both true or untrue. And a majority of the

collateral that we were made to give was made up because we didn't have that many secrets. I mean, you only have so many and I'm like I'm 19 from university right I mean like and at that point I think I was probably what 24 25 but I didn't have that much thing to give them that that was substantial so at one point I just ended up making it up and that was even worse because it was things that about people that I loved and that I cared for and so the whole experience of collateral was really twisted because what they taught us was that the collateral was there for us so that we wouldn't back out on our word so we really at first thought the collateral was a positive thing that it was for us I didn't even think about it as blackmail it wasn't until later

on that I resisted a couple times that I was even reminded subtly that the collateral was there that I realized holy shit just for people who haven't seen the documentary or don't know the story when you say that some of this collateral material was compromising photos you were expected to hand over nude photos you were you're expected to hand over sexually explicit photos things that I had never done even with a boyfriend knowing that this was going to Keith Raniere and thinking that this was just going to be held by Alison as a way to push yourself outside of your boundaries I guess and because I trusted Alison I would give her and I trusted her and the whole ethos of this collateral was essentially so that you cannot leave it was entrapment it was the most black

and white form of coercion that once you were in that you were so far in and there was no escape from it but there's also a testament to how well they did at brainwashing you that you actually didn't even register that it was blackmail you looked at it as a positive exactly they knew they knew exactly what they were doing because they did not because that didn't always work on people who were kind of newly introduced to DOS they would be a little bit more hesitant and not to say that I wasn't hesitant because right before I said yes to Allison I had a moment where I was like I don't know if this is this is a good idea I don't know this woman can I trust her like that was that intuition that instinct that was still slightly intact and after that I feel like it was

a very definitive moment for me that I just ignored myself I did not listen to the warning signs I didn't know what to look for first of all and I also suppressed them but you're right they were so good at brainwashing and getting us to believe certain things I mean this whole thing was grooming you to eventually be a sex slave and a slave for keith and allison you do touch on some of the things they used to make you do for control like limiting your diet to only 500 calories a day like if you have a muffin and a coffee you're over 500 calories so it was an incredibly restricted diet i did have to ask permission for the amount of calories and i was required to calculate that throughout the day. So there was very little time to think about anything else besides what I can

eat, how much I can eat, when I'm going to eat. My whole life was consumed with this cult-induced eating disorder. But also I think it's like what you mentioned earlier on when you said that when you have someone who's sleep deprived and they're starving and they're vulnerable, they're very malleable and they'll do whatever they need to do because they just don't have the energy to put up a fight either or I didn't know or even to question you're in such a brain fog at that point in time as Britt said it did come to a point where you were groomed to have sex with Keith Raniere how did things progress to that point well it started with the seduction assignment and we uh use animation in order to depict how that looked in the series because we didn't want

to subjugate me or anybody else to to something like that so we use the animation for that purpose and it uh it was that assignment was given to me by alice and mac and i didn't really know what it meant it was very vague i was punished because i didn't want to complete it and i was forced to stay in albany until i completed this assignment which i was like what is what do you mean seduce Keith like what does that even mean and she wouldn't give me any answers and so the more questions I asked the more angry she got with me so I just figured okay I just need to figure this out and I was really nervous because I'm not really that forward of a woman I don't really go after guys all that often I usually I'm like I'm usually like oh he whistled or oh he likes me

like I'm the girl that doesn't understand like like doesn't get those those hints so I was a little lost but also so clever in that you know they say you need to seduce him and it makes you the person who's made that action and him the one who's receiving it he's he's obviously set this up he's orchestrated it but he and he's created this environment but he has forced you into doing something that you don't want to do but by making you the seducer he becomes the innocent bystander in this it's so malicious but also so clever in the way that they have constructed this i know and it makes me sick because that was one of the things that I didn't realize until I started working with the FBI because they were able to show me things and I worked for them as a

cooperating witness for nine months and they were able to show me things in such a linear way that it was it was so obvious that that's exactly what he was doing so how did the original seduction come about so that was I'm thinking February I can't remember the year right now but it was winter and it was during a period where I was being forced to stay in Albany because I didn't complete the assignment initially um and we were exchanging emails and all of a sudden he told me that he was going to come and pick me up in the middle of the night so I stayed up all night and I didn't sleep because I was so nervous that I was going to miss it and then get in trouble and he picked me up at Allison's townhouse drove me across the street to a townhouse that he that

he owned which he had several in that community of Knox Woods and I was so nervous I just remember feeling like really jittery and really anxious and I just wanted to get it over with and he took me into this room upstairs and I just blurted it out I was like okay I have this assignment I need you to take a picture and I need to be vulnerable like as if that meant anything to him but I had no idea that he was involved and so I was really innocent innocently like just getting it out like please let's just get it done and I'm like and I need you to take it and so he I he asked me I think I remember it was something like well what's the most vulnerable for you and I was like well I'm kind of uncomfortable with my body and I feel a little shame there and so being naked is already

vulnerable for me so I took off all of my clothes and I leaned back on the bed and I handed him a cell well I think it was my cell phone no I made him take it on his cell phone so that he could send it to Allison so it didn't look manufactured I was already thinking about all the ways that I could get in trouble and how to avoid it um so he sends her that photograph and I'm like sweating on this bed and I wrap myself in a blanket and he comes over and sits next to me and he asked me like how what can I do for you and I remember being kind of perplexed by that question but also thinking like that was kind of nice and and he was very gentle with me and how he spoke and how he his demeanor and he wasn't pushy or forward like I mean anyone who's

been in a bad sexual experience knows the difference and so for me it was very confusing because I couldn't realize or register what was going on because I felt uncomfortable and I felt like this was weird but I didn't register it as rape at that moment because there was no sexual engagement that happened at that time that happened months later after I had already completed the assignment and given substantial collateral. So I'm sitting there with him on the bed and I just turned to him and I, I started to get emotional and a little bit teary. And I just said, I just want to know how to love myself. Like, I just want to learn how to love myself. And he said, well, have you taken any of my courses? I was like, yeah, like all of them

multiple times i was like i've been here for like five years i've taken them multiple times and i still am a little bit lost here and he's like well i would really recommend mobius and i was like really this is the suggestion you're telling me to take another one of your courses and so i i took it i was like okay thank you i was trying to be gracious because at that point he reveals to me that he's my grand master and i'm like what the fuck does that even mean and so there's a bunch going on in that moment and then he asked me is there anything else i can do for you and i'm kind of shaken up but i'm riding a hot you know an adrenaline high at this point and i said you know can you just put your hand on my chest just like that like not sexually just like i wanted to be

comforted i think and he did and i remember just kind of feeling at ease like oh it's over like like that was going to be a one-time thing little did i know that that was just my entry point to a continuous sexual abuse that got progressively more invasive and i remember telling this story to the fbi when i was with them in brooklyn and they said you know i think in that moment he might have humanized you a little bit because he then went and told allison that I had a pure and sweet soul and so there was something kind and I've never told that part of the story I wrote about it in my book a little bit but it didn't make it into seduced just for the sheer lack of time but it was just such a strange incident and everybody's experiences

of the seduction assignment were different but with similarities so because we weren't allowed to share anything that happened with Keith nobody really knew that he was doing this to multiple women at the same time that was one of the big things that hugely stood out to me was that this this secrecy even within DOS and how you had this community and you became friends but you weren't sharing with each other what was happening to you and that secrecy allowed Keith to sexually exploit each individual female and do this without any of you having any idea of what you were actually being a part of that this was happening on mass but also that this sexual abuse was happening for such a long time and that that's how he was able to get away with it totally and it's what it's how

it works with most people in sexual abuse whether it's from a family member or a teacher or a male or a female it's that sense that you're alone with this secret that allows the perpetrator to continue because you feel shame because I didn't understand what had happened to me or what was happening to me because I wasn't able to talk to anybody about it first of all and I was freaked out by it like it was never really comfortable but I had to convince myself that I was okay with what was happening to me but it was very clinical so difficult to identify it as abuse right away and I do just want to say from the bottom of my heart that India I am so sorry that this ever happened to you and I'm so emotional even listening to you talk about it

but I love listening to you talk about it because you have obviously gotten to a place where you're so happy to talk about it and we just want to thank you so much for being able to share your story I guess something I do want to ask is that you did say that the sexual abuse didn't happen again for months after that once it did start happening again how did that come about how did he pose that to you was it like an order where he said you have to come here now or was it a loving relationship or did you get to choose when you wanted to come so literally how did these encounters start happening so for me it was different it was different with every woman that he was manipulating because we're all unique as people and psychology works differently on different

people and for me he really took the time to build what I believed was a friendship so I trusted him as a friend and I would open up to him about my past sexual experiences or you know things that I wanted to achieve in my life like as if I was just speaking to someone who was trying to help me out or who I could trust so there was that first of all and he built that and it was artificial because he obviously had intentions that I didn't know about then you have Allison Mack telling me that he is going to help me heal my issues with intimacy and vulnerability and those were two things that I was really hung up on and I was thinking well how is he going to help me do that and she said well he's helped me get through a lot of my shame about this she was abused as a child

and by a relative and i remember her sharing that and making the connection like keith was going to help me get through my blocks by doing the same thing but it was never explicitly said he you need to have sex with him so that was another thing that they did that was very clever is they kept it kind of ambiguous so that the relationship would develop in the way that keith wanted it to be and that this was going to be kind of like a guru and a teacher and you know a lot of there's a lot of yoga cults out there that that many women are sexually abused with the same type of dynamic consent is fluid and consent is something that you can retract at any time but when you've offered up collateral and when you've offered up something that binds you to

this commitment and something that makes you vulnerable to that person then that consent has been completely taken away from you something that you did touch on earlier which I really want to flesh on a little bit more which is this idea and indoctrination through branding at the time you thought that you were being branded and I'm talking like with a hot eye and how you were brand an animal which is how you were branded in DOS yeah with a cauterizing pen so I mean not as archaic as maybe you've seen with a cow but no anesthesia no nothing so the pain is still the same let's not take away from the fact that whether it's a modern day cauterizing pen or yeah an iron that we brand animals with i know essentially they have branded you and put

their mark on you which you thought symbolized nature correct yeah i did i believe that it was a symbol of the elements and what was it actually that you were branded with it was actually keith Ranieri's monogram it was K-A-R which is stands for Keith Allen Ranieri yeah it wasn't Alice it wasn't Alison Mack and I know that there was a lot there were a lot of rumors about the fact that it was also her initial within the monogram but I don't believe that now that I know what I know and you were one of the first under Alison to be branded I was what was that like did they I mean is it what we think where they literally hold you down naked they're chanting and you had to literally request because I know that Keith he sort of made you request it didn't he so that

it takes essentially all responsibility off of him and puts that onto you yes it was one of it was another example of him trying to make it look consensual um when it wasn't and the branding was kind of an out-of-body experience I didn't have anything to reference it to so I was the first woman that Dr. Danielle Roberts branded of my my group the first line DOS slaves whom were under Keith were already branded by another like a tattoo artist that they had found and so now they were trying to practice in-house so they could have everything done by DOS members um it my brand it took about 30 minutes to do the whole thing that's when I realized that this was much larger than I had been told and I just remember like watching myself go through this

like I was above my body and looking over at Allison and looking over at the other women in the room and feeling like an incredible amount of adrenaline but also like proud because I thought that what we were doing was a bonding experience for our group like a pledge to this sorority and that we were going to go through an incredibly painful thing to prove how loyal we were and that felt good because it would feel good if it wasn't in this bastardized construct like oftentimes people go and get tattoos together because it bonds them or they go jump off a cliff and hold hands and it's like woo we're doing this but that's like the way that we were taught to look at it and that was the way that I was looking at it at the time I was definitely scared and nervous

and I remember holding the hands of the other women in my group really tightly and just like tears coming out of my eyes from pain but also I didn't feel the pain in that moment I felt it after the fact I only learned after I left that this is a common practice with prostitution and pimps often brand or disfigure or mark their prostitutes and that was just like another layer of disturbing news when I realized what the brand was when I really let myself accept what the brand was I was like wow I don't know how I'm gonna live with this look we have seen and you guys can see it in the docuseries but we have seen that you have managed to transform your branding into a really beautiful tattoo so that's amazing that you don't have to stare at that

every day anymore but your mom Catherine Oxenberg she was so instrumental in bringing down NXIVM it warms my heart to see that she just stopped at absolutely nothing to save you even though she knew it was going to put a rift between you she's the one that broke the story about DOS to the New York Times it's absolutely incredible but I want to know how does that feel looking back because when she started to fight for you and when she started to extract you from this cult you were like mom what are you doing I'm so embarrassed stop this you were mortified and that's what started to cause this rift between you so can you talk to us about your relationship with your mom and how that all played out totally I was so embarrassed and felt so shameful like I was

gonna have to hide from this for the rest of my life and that I would never have a relationship with my mom because of it and I I thought that that that it was going to break us and I think just being able to look back and and see what my mom did as entirely an act of love has just changed my whole life because she saw a future for me that I did not see for myself at the time and she knew she knew that that there was more for me and that's love like that's that's what a mother is capable of and I think I was just so severely confused given the fact that I was there for years and I was being told that she was a psychopath and that she was going to try to hurt me and that she was trying to destroy my friends and to see her as the true like powerful woman

that she is and get to work with her now and I just feel so freaking grateful for that because she didn't stop and she wouldn't. Seeing her make call after call after call and no one would listen and she was trying to go to the police and she was calling Navy SEALs and it just blows my mind and I was literally blown away at the extent she went to and then when she was told that if she went to Mexico to try and out him that she could possibly be hurt and murdered but still she was like I'm just not going to stop until I get my daughter back and I just don't even know what to say it's just a mother's and daughter's love and it's incredible and I'm so emotional watching you talk about it and it was so emotional watching it we've been able to one do this crazy press

tour with seduce together which was remarkable I had no idea it was going to get so much traction and so my mom and I were doing just interview after interview and just like falling it sounds weird to say but I just I got to re-fall in love with my mom and so I that was just like so I just feel so lucky that I got to do that I got to do that with stars and on this forum and we work together on a foundation now so that we can have enough resources for people who leave high control groups or abusive dynamics and that they can recover and they can heal and they can have their lives back because that was the gift that she gave to me. And I want to be able to give that to other people. One of the big things as well about when your mom did break the story with

New York Times and when she was really advocating for you to free yourself from Nixxiom and to try and bring the whole organization down was the fact that that was completely flipping your reality on its head and you weren't ready to accept at that time that you were part of something that was as dark or as corrupt as what it was so there was a really big period there where you resisted and you were still aligned with DOS and you were still aligned with NXIVM and you really thought your mom was crazy almost a year of that time period where I was in that place where I was super confused my life was total chaos I thought my mom was trying to ruin it and that I would never recover from it so yeah there was that that was a really really difficult time so then what was the turning point

then what happened when you woke up one day and you realized holy fucking shit this is what I'm involved in this is what my life is I am in a sex cult holy shit literally that's gonna be a meme no um holy shit i'm in a sex cult no i i wish that it was as simple as what you just said and that there was a day where i woke up and i was like oh my god my life what what did i just do it was not that way unfortunately it was layers and layers of accepting the truth and reality and working vigorously with a deprogrammer and i know that sounds weird but it's a she her name is diane Ben Scooter. She helped me tremendously. She helped me re-engage my critical thinking so that I could actually look at NXIVM objectively and look at DOS objectively outside of the closed loop

of thinking that they had me in. And so that was a turning point was when I started working with her and my mom and I began mediating with each other and using Diane as the mediator so that we were almost speaking two different languages at one point it was so difficult to communicate with each other but we were really desperate because we wanted to connect and we wanted to make it work but we were scared that it wasn't because it had been so shaky for so long and then also my work i was working at a cafe i was managing a restaurant in the east village i met my that my my now fiance there who is also a chef at the neighboring restaurant and it was kind of me re-entering the world began to open my eyes to reality a little bit more because I had really

been in a bubble for many years. Yeah and you really did stay true to NXIVM until the very end even when people started to retreat from NXIVM you were there to the end and you did start actually working with the FBI for nine months to convict Keith and Allison but there was a moment in the series where you have seen something on this USB and something has changed for you where you've thought okay I'm gonna go and speak to the FBI this isn't right so I guess what we want to know is what was on that that was so life-changing for you I had taken those flash drives when I moved out of Alice and Mac's apartment in Brooklyn I didn't look at them until I moved back to California from New York and I was living with my mum and I went I just sometime in September and I

decided to unpack that day and so i'm busily unpacking my duffel bags and i pull out these flash drives and i decide why not fuck it i'm plugging them into my computer and my mouth just dropped to the floor because what i realized was that i had numerous recordings of keith describing the brand and the branding ceremony and how he wanted it to look consensual and how people were going to be branded with his initials and all of that was in his voice so i couldn't go back i could not go back to thinking the way that i thought although i had made a lot of progress up until that point it was only a couple months that i had been out um so for me hearing the flash drives was a huge moment where i thought i have to give these to the i have to give these to the

government. Like they need to know this. At first I thought maybe they had already had it. And so I was just like going to my mom, like give me their number so I can call them and give it to them. I didn't realize that that was going to be the entry point to me working with them as a cooperating witness for nine months, but it was. And I cannot tell you how grateful I am that that didn't burn in the fire because it could have. What has happened to Alison Mack and Keith Raniere now since all this has come to light and that all the investigation has been done i know that some of it is still going through court now well for allison yes and for keith actually so so i went to sentencing it was in october while i was doing this press tour it was really intense during

covid as well i flew in for probably it was about 24 hours and i spoke and then i came home and i went back on onto the the grind and so yeah I was really and I remember some report I was on a call with a woman from Vanity Fair that day after I had spoken and I was jumping on a plane to come home and she was like so what was it like and I was like I barely had time to process this I don't even really know what to tell you except for the snippets that just just happened anyway I um Keith was given a 120 year sentence oh I mean I just feel like I need to clap into the microphone I know so it was huge huge victory for us but initially he was given I think it was only 50 49 or 50 years and then after we all spoke and we gave our victim impact statements the judge

saw how little remorse and any emotion that he had and just his lack of empathy in general and he gave him 120 years after we all spoke so that was huge allison mack is still under house arrest she is here in long beach california and she has been under house arrest since she was arrested back in april um and so i don't know what her sentencing is going to be it's not even scheduled I guess the question is with Alison and one of the things that did come up and something that you mentioned with her prior history and her childhood as well is, is she a victim in this as well? At what point did she cross from being a victim to the perpetrator in this setup with NXIVM? Well, thank goodness I didn't need to make that decision, and that was left to the government to decide who was a victim and a perpetrator, because they did create a very distinct line, and they had a lot of evidence in order to do that. Allison did cross that line and there were many things that she did that I did not do that make us very distinct and so I think she is a victim I consider anybody who interacted with Keith

Ranieri a victim ultimately and I think Allison is that too because all these people went in with open hearts they were looking to improve themselves they were wanting to be better and they were led astray by a master manipulator and a predator and so they were victimized and a sociopath and they were victimized and for anyone who has left a cult or who has left a high control group it is really hard and so I have a lot of respect for anyone who has left and who has tried to restart their lives and those who are still loyal I feel really sad because they just don't have their lives back how do you even begin to heal from something like this India but you have found love you have found your happy ending you have moved on you're engaged and we're so

stoked to hear that but I guess how did you start the healing process and how did you get to the point where you could move on oh healing is so messy I won't sugarcoat it but it is challenging and I've just I have a lot of support and a lot of love in my life and I rely on that quite a bit but I've had to do my own soul searching too and that involves books and documentaries and therapy and lots of different types of therapy I rely heavily on exercise and physical activity to just process feelings and emotions and just stress and for me it's kind of finding that perfect formula and it's ever growing and ever changing as I do so I think I think it's just as much as it is difficult to approach healing and kind of go into it it's so worth it because what you get

on the other side is yourself and that's what I had to fight for and I never thought that I would have to fight for that but I really really felt lost and I felt like I had lost my soul for a long time and I am now kind of coming back to myself and I feel more me now than ever so I think healing is so nuanced and I also think shared experiences so doing things like this with you and getting to speak about it and getting to connect with other incredible people who also inspire me has has made the healing process a lot more tolerable so was it really really difficult for you when the time came to move on and be vulnerable in love and relationships and sex and engaging in that really intimate part with your partner it's I mean I'm lucky that I

have such a sweet man in my life and someone who really really deeply cares about me and so that made it easier but I was definitely scared like my first couple experiences just being intimate were really overwhelming because I hadn't felt those things in so long I hadn't felt like my body being turned on or anything like it was so I was so frozen in time when I was there so it has been difficult and I think the one thing that I would say has been most helpful is just open communication like anytime something comes up or I'm feeling something I don't hide it I just let them have it and and he's so tolerant of it and sometimes I really have difficult days and and he understands but but we have grown to have that understanding with each other where I'm

like okay like check the temperature because I'm feeling really wiggy inside it's not good over here and he's like okay should I stay away should I come close like we we've had to you know be able to poke fun but also to have respect for each other so India what do you think is probably the biggest lesson you've learned from this because I did hear you say a really powerful part at the end of the docuseries where you often reflected back on it and you thought to yourself what if this didn't happen what if this never happened to me what would I have done what would my life had looked like what would I have studied but then there's another part of you that thinks you know what maybe this was supposed to happen to me so that I can help other people maybe this

was part of my journey well I'm still learning a lot so I think the biggest lesson that I've learned so far is that I just didn't know what I was made of I didn't know what I was capable of or what I could tolerate or what I could create for myself in my life and I think part of my interest in NXIVM initially was to to get that and to learn that about myself and to know what I'm made of and and it's so ironic that the whole experience of NXIVM falling apart and all of all of that that came with it was actually the thing that showed me that I was a lot stronger than I thought and and I completely agree with you because if you don't go back and look at your experiences as a learning lesson you can become bitter and you can become resentful of

your life or other people and I don't want to live like that that's not my nature so for me a lot of what it this has been about is just realizing what I care about and what's important to me and using my voice appropriately for that reason. Andy, I just want to say thank you so much for making time today to sit down with us and to have this conversation. Honestly, I found your docuseries just so empowering and it's so incredible that you have been able to not only take control of your story, but also take control of the narrative that's been put out there in the media and be empowered by that.

And so thank you for sharing it with all of our listeners. and for anybody who hasn't seen the doggie series yet well I mean you're well behind the eight ball because we've been talking about on the last two episodes but it's seduced it's on stand and it's available now so we definitely recommend going back and having a listen to that you're so brave you are truly an inspiration and I don't know hashtag best friends Roma right back at you thank you for having me it's been such a pleasure I feel like I could have talked to you for days can you please tell everyone how they can find you and where they can find you if they want to find out more you can find me on instagram i'm under india oxenberg i

don't have any other social media because i can't handle it but you can find me there exclusively and it's just my name india oxenberg and you can also find me on audible's website i have a book there exclusively called still learning and also on stars for seduced one one other thing my mom and I have a foundation together and that's called the Catherine Oxenberg Foundation and for anybody who wants to donate to make sure that more people can have therapy or resources. We'll be right back.