Uncover - S1 E8 Bonus: The Fright Experiments

Episode Date: October 17, 2018

Jennifer Kobelt - Sarah Edmondson's former assistant in NXIVM - tells her story of joining NXIVM at a moment of crisis in her life and being involved in the group's so-called "fright study."

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So Brandon starts hooking me up and I'm like, I'm not worried. It was very obvious that this was not educational forum material. This was a film. And it opened on a dark street and I just heard someone screaming at someone, bite the curb, bite the curb. And someone screaming, daddy, no. And this little boy standing there in the dark. And then I heard some sirens, and I'm just like, what the hell is going on? Jennifer Kobelt is a former member of NXIVM, who participated in what has come to be known

as the Fright Studies. It's a part of NXIVM that has received less attention than the secret women's group DOS and the branding. It's part of NXIVM that has received less attention than the secret women's group DOS and the branding. In this bonus episode, I want to tell you more about Jen. I first interviewed Jen as I was investigating Sarah Edmondson's story. But Jen's story is harrowing in its own right, including being involved in this strange experiment that sounds like something out of a clockwork orange. Just a warning, this episode includes descriptions of graphic violence. I'm Josh Bloch.

This is a bonus episode of Uncover Escaping NXIVM. Jen was Sarah's assistant. She was the worst boss I ever had. She joined NXIVM after attending one of Sarah's pitch sessions, that one where Sarah told everyone to raise their hands as high as they could and then admonish them for not standing on their chairs. I remember her saying, we have something that gets to the root cause. And instead of taking years and years of therapy, it takes 45 minutes.

And I think my jaw probably dropped open. If you really think that this can do what you're saying it's going to do, then yes, I'll give you all my savings. There are some parallels between Jen and Sarah's story. They were both struggling actors in Vancouver who signed up for self-help courses and ended up getting involved in harmful activities in NXIVM. Jen says when she attended that pitch session, she was desperate for help. She had just left what she describes as an abusive relationship. My producer Kathleen sat down with Jen for a detailed interview.

My producer Kathleen sat down with Jen for a detailed interview. He woke me up at like 2 or 3 in the morning one night and told me he couldn't sleep because all he could think about was, you know, how I didn't deserve him. And he went on to like berate me for like an hour and I just, I just eventually just was a crying puddle. I was so sad. I felt like such a horrible piece of trash. Like Sarah, she quickly immersed herself in NXIVM, and she found great comfort in it. It becomes every part of my life. You know, at first, as a student, I was there Tuesday night,

Wednesday night, Saturday morning, and Saturday afternoon. So I gave up my office job, started working as Sarah's personal assistant. Meanwhile, I was becoming a coach and a lead sister in Jeunesse. I didn't really have time to see anybody outside of my work and my ESP community. Jen took a wide range of courses, including a special program run by the men's group in NXIVM, Society of Protectors. Jen says it was a week of humiliation.

They try to make it seem like this is how boys are, and we're giving women an experience of what it's like to be a man in a man's world, and the kind of struggle that men have, and why men are unemotional and stuff. The most humiliating thing to me, the most degrading thing was the men secretly took pictures of the women throughout the first few days any time that, you know, maybe their underwear was showing out the back of their pants

or maybe like they would go over your head and take a picture down your shirt so you can see your cleavage and they took all these pictures and then they built a slideshow and they said you know not all of you are from here but we've got a lot of cow pastors around here we wanted to show you some of the best in show. And they play this slideshow. And it's literally pictures of cows. You know, there's a cow. There's a cow. Oh, there's Desiree's boobs. There's another cow.

Oh, look. Sahajo's thong. Creeping out the back of her pants. And they were just calling us cows. To what end? I think they just wanted us to walk out of there revering men and feeling like we were worthless we're lacking all of the things that men respect most and here we are flaunting our bodies because we think that will get us what we want when really it just makes

men disrespect us more and did you believe that at the time? Fully and completely. Jen says during her time in NXIVM, she had other even more intense and negative experiences, all in the name of science. According to charges filed by the New York State Board of Professional Medical Conduct, Dr. Brandon Porter, a member of NXIVium, directed a number of problematic behavioral studies. It appears the group wanted to understand the effects of Keith's teachings on the brain. My name is Mark Elliott, and I lived with Tourette syndrome for about 20 years of my life. And they claim, in fact, to have discovered a way to treat Tourette syndrome. They posted testimonials online, like this one by Mark Elliott.

But as soon as I experienced these tools, I found that I was able to change something and now I live a life without Tourette's. I have never seen anything in my life as effective as these tools. Jen says it was common to see students with sensors attached to their heads during ESP classes, so Dr. Porter could monitor brain activity while people were listening to Keith's lectures. She says it wasn't weird. It fit with the scientific approach that NXIVM claimed to be taking.

Jen says on two occasions, she took part. And he would tell me, hey, when you think you've had, like, some new awareness, you know, put up one finger so that I can see what that looks like on your brain waves. And then if you think you have what we call an integration, which is like a big awareness, it's sort of like a perceptual shift, put up two fingers or something like that. So in 2016, when Jen was in Albany taking courses, she didn't find it strange when her roommate said, Oh, hey, we're doing a study, and I was asked to get participants together. Would you do it? And I was like, okay, yeah. No idea what it is.

Partially I didn't ask because it's like if you ask too many questions about things, then, again, they use it against you, and they're like, well, why are you so controlling? Why do you need to know? Like, do you want to participate in helping us further our knowledge? If the answer is yes, then you should be willing to do anything. I shouldn't have to give you all the details. So I said, yes. And then a couple of days passed and then she came home one night, then a couple days passed and then she came home one night just a total mess like a zombie and I was like are you okay honey what's going on and I'm like what's happened honey are you okay and she's like just crying and she's like yeah yeah it was just so intense I just the study was just so intense and I'm just feeling a lot I just feel really bad I don't feel intense. I just, the study was just so intense and I'm just feeling a lot. I just feel really bad. I don't feel good. I just, I just, at first I'm just focused on her, but then I was like,

wait, hold on. I'm, I'm signed up to do this study. If it's made you like this, then I don't think I want to do it. And she was like, immediately it was like something switched. She was like, well, no, like, no, no, no, no. It's not you. It's not you it's it's me i i it just brought up my stuff like like you need to do it please do it like you said you do it and i was supposed to get 100 participants and if you don't do it then we don't have that number and then you know like i was just like confused by what could have been so intense confused by what could have been so intense that could have made her cry like this, but also trusted her word. Like, this is still another, you know, best friend of mine.

I don't imagine for a moment that she would steer me wrong. So a few days later, Dr. Porter picked her up in his car. Brandon is a medical doctor, and even beyond that, I felt like he was a really good friend. I had spent time with his family, I knew his kids, I knew his wife. This is a man who I absolutely trusted. They drove to Apropos, that old Italian restaurant where NXIVM used to run classes. So yeah, we drive in, nobody's really around.

He, I just remember, he's like turning on the lights and he gets me to, he's like, oh, hey, we'll be set up here. And I see this brain cap attached to a bunch of like wires that attach to a machine. And I'm like, oh, I know this thing. I've worn it before. Yeah, cool. So Brandon starts hooking me machine and I'm like oh I know this thing I've worn it before yeah cool so Brandon starts hooking me up and I'm like I'm not worried as soon as he pressed play it was very obvious that this was not educational forum material this was a film and it opened

on a dark street and I just heard someone screaming at someone, bite the curb, bite the curb. And someone screaming, daddy, no. And this little boy standing there in the dark. And then I heard some sirens and I'm just like, what the hell is going on? The New York Board of Professional Medical Conduct describes the scene of a male African American being viciously stomped by a Nazi. It's from the movie American History X. And eventually the man does bite the curb and the man who was screaming stomps on the back of the man's head and he dies instantly.

Now, I mean, I know it's just a film, but it was very unexpected and I just burst out crying and was like what is what is what is why what is this you know he stops the clip and I just cried and he's like you know how like what's going on for you like how was that and I was like that was horrific that's horrific so I stopped crying eventually and he puts on the next clip and again it's like okay this is a film it's a woman there's a few women in a bar but it's mostly guys it's kind of like a dingy dirty bar and um then this you know young sexy woman enters a man, and it's Jodie Foster. Dr. Porter was showing Jen a controversial scene of a brutal gang rape from the 1988 movie The Accused. I'm trying to cover my eyes, close them as tight as I can, cover my ears.

I don't want to hear this, this woman be gang raped. And yeah, eventually he stops it, and I just, I'm just like shaking and crying and like rocking back and forth and just like similar response you know you know what's going on for you Jen and then at some point he says okay like this is the last clip you know um you know, I'm a little nervous to show this to you because you've had some really intense reactions, more so than anybody else that I've had here. So I'm worried to show this to you because it's a very intense scene. And I just looked up at him and was just like, fucking do it. In my mind, I'm like, I'm not going to be shown to be weak. I'm not going to be, you know, like I'm not going to be weaker

than every other woman you've had in here. I am a strong woman. I have character. I have discipline. And I don't remember if I actually said this to him but I'm pretty sure I said just fucking do it and so he did he pressed play and immediately I was like oh we're done with movies this isn't a movie this is very obviously um like, real footage. It was a bunch of men with, like, a lot of them had bandanas on their, like, mouths, holding guns in, like, some kind of a cornfield or something, and four women on their knees,

most of them with their breasts exposed. The man starts speaking in Spanish and I can't understand what he's saying. I have no idea what's going on. I just see these four women on their knees. I think their arms are behind their backs. They're just... And eventually he stops talking and I think he gave a signal or something They're just, and eventually he stops talking.

And I think he gave a signal or something. And the men standing behind the women, each of the women had a man grab her hair, pull her head back, and pull at a machete and chop her head off. And I was just in shock. And one of them didn't die right away. One of them was like writhing on the ground, still alive. And then the men just start chopping off their limbs. It's not something you forget. And it's haunting.

And I just remember it was like sort of a dissociative moment. It was horrific. I think I had tears and snot dripping down my face, but mostly I was just in shock. I just sat there. And again, after a while, Brandon said, you know, what's going on for you? Or whatever he said. And then he said, well, you know, anything that you've had like a big reaction to tonight,

those are the kinds of things that you could work on. You know, you could go and get an exploration of meaning on that and resolve that reaction. An exploration of meaning is that process in NXIVM where students dig into their psyche to get at the root cause of an emotional reaction. And even in that moment, I remember sitting there and being like, I don't know if this is something I want to resolve. I don't know that I ever want to be okay with gang rape or, you know, murder by machete. And then another voice came in my head and said, Jen, you're fighting. Stop fighting. You need to just take the feedback. Strong women take

the feedback. Just take the feedback. If you're fighting it, it's probably true. So I just said, okay. And he, you know, untangled me from all of the cable-y stuff and drove me back, went and had a shower to get all the goopy stuff out of my hair from the brainwave cap and texted my coach and said, hey, I really need an exploration of meaning. I really need one. Jen says she's not sure what exactly the point of these experiments was. But a patent filed by Keith Raniere in 2007 could offer a clue.

It describes the fright studies almost exactly as Jen explained them. The patent is titled Determination of Whether a Luciferian Can Be Rehabilitated. A Luciferian, in an axiom, is someone who takes pleasure in other people's pain. It's not clear to me how this experiment would rehabilitate such a person. It's also not clear why Jen was chosen to participate. After it was over, she says she tried to forget about the experiment, though she says she was haunted by those violent scenes that she was made to watch. It wasn't until she left NXIVM a year later,

when she learned about DOS and the branding from Sarah Edmondson, that she really took stock of what had happened to her. Jen filed a complaint against Dr. Porter with the New York Department of Health in August of 2017. Since leaving NXIVM, Jen's tried to move on. She's engaged and she runs a business with her fiancé, who was also a former member. But she says she still struggles with what she learned in NXIVM. The teachings that kept her sitting in that chair, while watching those horrific images,

that led her to believe that it was not only good for her, but for all of humanity. I'm always second-guessing myself now. You know, I don't feel like I have a solid grasp of what is me and true, true. I don't know. I don't, I wish, I wish I could, I wish I had a wonderful success story that could just be like, oh yeah, everything's peaches and rainbows now. But I don't, it's, it's still, um, a lot of deprogramming work is left to do. When the FBI started its investigation into Nexium,

after Sarah came forward with her story, another investigation, this one by the New York Department of Health, began looking into the research Dr. Porter was doing. Dr. Porter is now facing numerous charges by the New York State Oversight Board, including moral unfitness, gross negligence, and gross incompetence. The charges are linked to several studies overseen by Dr. Porter,

and allege 16 violations of state and federal law, as well as violations of medical guidelines. We wanted to know how many people participated in this study. A spokesperson with the State Oversight Board said that information is not public. We do know that a number of other participants will be testifying against Dr. Porter this fall. Dr. Porter is defending himself against these allegations. His medical license is still active, but he's resigned from his practice at St. Peter's Hospital in Albany. We tried several times to contact Dr. Porter and his lawyer, but we have not received a response. Thank you. Editing support on this episode by Mitchell Stewart. Heather Evans is our senior producer, and Arif Noorani is our executive producer.

Our digital producer is Eunice Kim. Evan Agard is our video producer. Christian Jebsen and Shemhan Buyan did our transcriptions. I'll be back with another bonus episode, talking to an expert who helps people who have left cults. And at the end of the month, a special episode for a couple reasons. I'll be answering your questions. Let us know what you want answered. Head over to our Facebook group Uncover or Twitter at Uncover CBC.

You'll also get to meet the host of Uncover Season 2 and get a sneak peek of that case. And when the court case against Keith Raniere and Alison Mack and the other NXIVM leaders unfolds, I'll be back with updates. To hear about all of this first, subscribe for free at Uncover on Apple Podcasts or Google Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash originalpodcasts.