Uncover - S1 "Escaping NXIVM" E2: The Epiphany

Episode Date: September 17, 2018

Sarah takes us inside her journey with NXIVM, from signing up for a personal growth workshop to becoming a star recruiter for the group she now calls a cult. For transcripts of this series, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/uncover/uncover-season-1-escaping-nxivm-transcripts-listen-1.4675949

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Last time on Escaping NXIVM. I want to introduce you to your sisters. You can take your blindfold off. which is, I want to introduce you to your sisters. You can take your blindfold off. Dr. Roberts takes out this, like a pen that has a laser tip to it, and I find out that it's a cauterizing iron. She takes the cauterizing iron and just touches her skin, and she screams. And now she has this little hole of burnt flesh

where the tip of the cauterizing iron has cut her. And you try to lay as still as possible and just fucking do it. And I did. I did it. I'm Josh Bloch. This is Escaping NXIVM, from CBC Podcasts Uncover. Chapter 2. The Epiphany. You have one new message. First new message.

Oh my gosh, Josh. I had a really funny dream just now before I woke up, that I was back at the center. Sarah Edmondson is an old friend of mine. We went to the same Jewish summer camp. We hadn't seen each other for years, until last summer, when she told me she had just left a self-help group called Nexium. She'd been running the Vancouver branch of their Executive Success Program, or ESP. She was part of the group for 12 years, but now she says it's a cult. Its leader, Keith Raniieri, is facing numerous charges,

including sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy. Other senior members of the organization are also facing charges. They've all pleaded not guilty. And then everyone bows and goes, thank you, Proctor, thank you, Prefect, thank you, Van Dyke. Everyone claps and it's like, rah, rah, kumbaya. And you clap. And I was like, Josh, I'm actually the highest person,

I'm the highest rank here, so can you do that again, please? This dream is only strange because I'm in it. The rest of it, sashes, proctors, prefect, vanguard, were all part of Sarah's life in NXIVM. They're key to understanding how Sarah was drawn into this group, why she missed so many red flags, and why she didn't run from that home in Albany, New York, before being branded with a cauterizing iron.

Oh, I don't know what to tell you about my psychology, but I cheer. How does someone join a self-help group and end up in an alleged sex cult? I want to understand the bait-and-switch. I want to try and step inside Sarah's brain and see how she experienced it. Why she kept saying yes to stranger and stranger things. And why she kept pulling in others. And why it took 12 years before there was a breaking point. Can you hear me? point. Sarah and I talk frequently, and I've been recording our conversations as I investigate how this group pulls in celebrities and millionaires and people like Sarah. Josh, my phone is blowing up. It is so crazy.

Sarah grew up in Vancouver. She's an only child. Her parents divorced when she was young. They're both former hippies who always encouraged her to be open-minded. Her love of yoga and smoothies and organic salads makes her a bit of a West Coast stereotype. She's always been into acting. She was a drama dork in high school, and she studied

theater at Concordia University. After graduating, she returned to Vancouver to try to make a go of it. Her first encounter with NXIVM goes back to 2005. She's living in a basement apartment in Vancouver and feeling unfulfilled.

Carl! How dare you? Carmen! You broke my heel, and feeling unfulfilled. Carl! How dare you? Carmen! You broke my heel, and how could you kill me in my prom dress? Blood on my taffeta, Carl, blood! Yeah, like, you know, doing vampire TV shows and doing beer commercials, and, like, it just doesn't really fill the soul, you know? But then, her boyfriend Tony's film is accepted into a spiritual cruise film festival in Florida,

which is exactly what it sounds like. I was really into setting intentions at that time. And we stayed at this shitty Howard Johnson in Fort Lauderdale, and we had the worst night's sleep, and I was sick, and I was like, I'm going to get on this cruise, and I'm going to figure out my true purpose, and I'm going to meet all these incredible spiritual people, and I'm going to get my life on track. On the first night, Sarah and her boyfriend are assigned to sit at a table with a filmmaker named Mark Vicente. His film, What the Bleep Do We Know, is a big hit in the spiritual film world. I had like a seal bark cough, like the worst offensive cough. Like I

shouldn't be out in public probably, but here I am. And I remember Mark saying something to the extent of what would you lose if you stopped coughing? Which is a very ESP question. Like what's the downside if you stop doing the behavior? Whatever it is. And I was like, I just had this awareness. Like I was trying to get Tony's attention to take care of me. And I don't know exactly what he said or how I figured it out, but I realized that I'd linked love and sickness. I remember thinking, wow, whatever Mark Vicente, from what the belief is up to, I want to do.

Mark has just completed Nexium's 16-day executive success program. He's really impressed with the group's leader, Keith Raniere. Yeah, he's this guy. He's like really high IQ. Really high IQ. He's a concert pianist, blah, blah, blah, blah. But really, like, we're really working to change the world. And it was totally not a hard sell. It was not a hard sell at all. Sarah wants to feel that same sense of purpose.

She tells Mark she wouldn't mind checking it out. And what do you know? There's an NXIVM representative waiting in the wings. So if it wasn't for her, I might not have even signed up. And she was like, I heard you're going to do the five-day. Like, here's some paperwork. But by the time she gets home, Sarah changes her mind. The course is $2,000 U.S. dollars. That's six months' rent. So she calls the company, explains that she's an out-of-work actor, and she asks for her $500 deposit back. She said, you know, you're 27 and you don't have any money? Like, do you want to change that?

I said, of course I want to change it. She said, well, how are you going to change it unless you work on your underlying beliefs around money? Otherwise you're never going to have any. I was like, okay, that's a good point. And then I said, but also, like, I'm an actor, and I've got to be available. I need to be available for acting because my agent might call. And she said, do you want to be the master of your own ship,

or do you want to be waiting around for your agent to call you for the rest of your life? And I was like, good point. I want to be the master of my own ship. And she totally sold me. I was like, and truthfully, I also didn't, I didn't want to waste my 500 bucks. This five day course is the entry point for most people into the world of NXIVM. Five full days from 8am to 9pm, vegetarian meals are provided. And Sarah takes hers at a cheap chain hotel in Burnaby, B.C. I mean, I walked into a conference room. I literally thought I was walking into like a Tony Robbins type of arena, you know, like a change your life. There was nine people in my training

and probably more staff than there were trained, like actual students. I was so skeptical. I was just like super judgy and I hated their power suits and like it was just super budged like this is supposed to be executive success. Sarah is not impressed. I've spoken with two dozen people who have taken this workshop and almost everyone says the same thing about the first day. It is very strange. The module is called Rules and Rituals. Oh my god, they would kill me for this. Sarah shows me how one of those ceremonies works. Showing outsiders these rituals is a big NXIVM no-no.

It's like so sacrilegious in the ESP world. It's part of your healing. The strangeness begins with the introduction of the sash system. During class, everyone is required to wear a colored sash, worn like a scarf hanging around their neck. It's based on their rank, similar to the belt system in karate. Josh, I want to promote you to the rank of senior proctor. You get white first.

New students have white sashes. Then there's yellow, orange, green, then blue, and then purple. Keith Raniere wears an extra long white sash because he is a perpetual student. Put his hand like this. That's how you shake Keith's hand. You also learn a special secret handshake to reinforce hierarchy. We have to rotate our hands 90 degrees. Sarah's hand is on top of mine. Where the higher-ranked member places their hand on top of the lower ranked member.

Whereas if Josh were the higher rank, it'd be like this. You're told you need to bow when you enter or leave a class. And isn't there a clap or something? You learn about the special clap at the beginning of each class. Yeah, so I clap as the, if I'm the highest rank, I clap, and then the highest ranking student would clap. And everyone recites the 12 point mission statement. Yeah, it's about five minutes to do the whole thing. Success is an internal state of clear, honest knowledge of what I am, my value in the world, and my responsibility for the way I react to all things.

You learn NXIVM as a whole language of jargon and acronyms. You've learned that the two large photos on every ESP classroom wall are of Keith Raniere, who you must call Vanguard, and his second-in-command, Nancy Salzman, who you must call prefect. And at the end of every class, you must thank them. Sarah says it's designed to weed out the people who have no tolerance for discomfort. People who might not be open to challenging the way they see the world.

I called Mark Vicente and said, what the fuck do you get me involved with? And he was very compassionate, very patient. He was like, I totally get it. I went through that whole thing too. So just give it a chance and go through the next few days and see how you feel. He said by day three, there's a module in the middle of day three, and by the end of day three, most people are like, wow, this is incredible. By day three, you learn two of ESP's most important ideas.

The first is, everything in your life is your responsibility. They call this being at cause. Whatever your life circumstance, you are responsible for it. Hello? Hi, it's Josh calling from the CBC. Hey, Josh. Many people we reached out to didn't want to talk on the record. There's some things that I don't want to talk on the record.

This former member was willing to describe some of ESP's teachings. But he was worried being connected to NXIVM would affect his livelihood. So we've altered his voice. So most people go around the world blaming their feelings on other people and saying things like, well, you made me feel this way. You know, you did this and then you made me feel this way. The company takes a complete reverse stance on that. There may have been that stimulus, there may have been that trigger, but you created the feeling. There may have been that stimulus, there may have been that trigger, but you created the feeling.

Right? You gave it meaning. It's an empowering idea. If you're a struggling actor, for example, you are told it's entirely within your power to change your life. There are valuable things that exist within the group, and if the company is going to be destroyed, I still want to see some of that stuff preserved. And I don't want to see the baby go out with the bathwater.

Keith has recorded hundreds of hours of videos outlining his teachings, including the second important thing you learn, which is that your belief system is full of errors. The thing that stands in the way the most of our reproducibility are people's own issues and their own beliefs. This is Keith in one of his online conversations with students, explaining the NXIVM philosophy. You know, if I believe I can't run a mile in a certain time, I can almost always prove myself correct. Most of us can prove our limiting beliefs correct. Keith says he can help with this kind of thing. He calls his method rational inquiry.

It makes me think of a self-help system created by a car mechanic. All you have to do is open the hood, change some wiring, tighten the screw, and you're good to go. You know, the methodologies, the procedures, things like that are created based on certain understandings. You might say those understandings are innovations within the human psychology. There's patents that support around this and that are being pursued around this. And that uniqueness makes the results.

At times we get results where other tools don't get results. The main tool they use to fix your belief system is called exploration of meaning, or EM. When getting an EM, you take an issue in your life that you have an emotional reaction to, and an instructor asks you a whole bunch of questions. My first one was my ex leaving dishes in the sink, like crusty dishes in the sink and not putting them in the dishwasher. And I'd come home and I'd get really angry, and that was consistent. Like I'd just freak out if there was like dirty dishes. Sarah is a neat freak.

I could imagine this driving her up the wall. Oftentimes there's a memory, and the memory that popped up when I'm discussing it with my facilitator is my parents fighting over dishes before they divorced. My parents divorced when I was two and a half or separated. So what I make dishes mean in my deep structure is divorce. Like dishes cause divorce, right? What a good facilitator would say is something like,

do you see how the dishes didn't cause your parents' divorce? So when you unhook the dishes from just whatever was going on, they're just dishes. The dishes don't have that meaning in reality. Does that make sense? So, you know, I had a laugh, I had a cry. Months went by and I realized, you know, he was still leaving dishes in the sink and I hadn't, it doesn't trigger me. Here's the thing. Almost everyone I've talked to who's taken these entry level courses say they got a lot out of them. I felt like a cloud of veil had been lifted after my five day and I could function in the world with better grace and ease. And I wanted that for everybody. They tell me about their aha moments. NXIVM calls them integrations.

A cult expert I spoke with calls them engineered epiphanies. Whatever you want to call it, the one that hooks Sarah on NXIVM happens while she's watching a video of Nancy Salzman. Nancy's talking about her daughter, Lauren Salzman, who would later become Sarah's friend, and how she always quit extracurricular activities whenever she found them hard. And Sarah's like, that's me.

That's what I do. That's why my life is not on track. That's why I feel this way. And that's when I was like, oh my God, that's why I've never really, because I've never really pushed through anything. When the course is over, the facilitators give her a chance to fix this problem.

They say if you're really committed to your personal growth, you can work your way up the NXIVM ladder on what they call the stripe path. The stripe path is where you can earn those different colored sashes by taking courses and recruiting new members. Sarah sees this path as a chance to really commit to something. She puts down her credit card card and she goes all in. And so the Stripe Path was like my own adult, you know, swim class going from red to silver to gold or whatever. And to be honest, there is an aspect of that that was really good for me

because I stuck through it. Nexium is a multi-level marketing company. You earn commissions off the people you recruit and the courses they take. I think the first level two after that that I did was 2A, Anatomy of Mind and Body. I did the Ethicist Weekend 1 and 2. I also did the Ethicist Complete. The number of courses that Sarah took is insane. Because, like, let's play on being at cause. I did Mobius.

They have names like Mobius, Family Values, Human Pain. And then trained the Genest Weekend like 11 times or something. And then I just Genest Track 1, 2, 3. And then I did 4, 5, 6. There's a $10,000 acting program called The Source, a movement-based program called XOSO, and you can enroll in NXIVM University, which basically teaches you all these classes for a lot of money.

There's a women's group called Jeunesse and a men's program called Society of Protectors. Once you're in the company, you're assigned a personal coach. They become your mentor. They track your progress. They learn everything about you. They can even punish you if you don't meet a goal. So that became very normal.

Like, you know, I'd go to someone's house and they're sleeping on the floor for the week because they didn't do their goals. Once you become a coach, you're required to work. For free. You work as a personal coach for free. You facilitate classes for free. You set up chairs and tables and food and then clean up all for free. Many people left throughout the time that I was in.

Lots of people decided not to keep going up the straight path. The thought was always, well, they didn't work through their issues. So yes, if you have that moment of I'm not going to do this anymore, it's like I'm giving up. I'm not pushing and I'm weak. Sarah loves it. She's part of an exclusive group with an impressive roster. Claire and Sara Bronfman, heirs to the Seagram liquor fortune.

Emiliano Salinas, the son of a former Mexican president. She was told Richard Branson had taken a course, as well as the founder of BET, and even a former U.S. Surgeon General. And then later, attractive young actors join, including Allison Mack and Kristen Kruk from Smallville, and Grace Park from Hawaii Five-0. And the inner circle of NXIVM, who mostly live in Clifton Park near Albany, embraces her.

Like, so much of my upbringing, and Josh can attest to this, although we've never talked about it, is, like, wanting to be liked and wanting to fit in or, like, to be popular or, like, feel included or to feel special, you know? And they, like, brought me into the fold. Like, lots of things happen like that. Like, you know, they came to pick me up once in the Bronfman jet in Vancouver on the way up to Alaska. That's the only time I've ever flown in a jet. That was very exciting.

At the age of 30, flying in a private jet to Alaska. Beautiful. But that was very, like, it was very exciting. NXIVM's leaders prepare her to open their ESP center in Vancouver. It's the only one in Canada. Out of 10 qualified people, you have two people that will buy pretty much no matter what. I'm just going to see what else is... Because I know in here somewhere, which I haven't watched since then,

is a moment where he kind of put us up in front of all of our peers and had us practice the things we just were learning. But I'd love to show you that because I felt like he kind of humiliated me. This is safe. We've just done. Okay. So we've all agreed we're going to have fun. And to make sure no one loses an eye, we're going to sit down.

To make sure no one. Loses an eye. Oh, interesting. The ground rules for the playground. You're being very formal. Okay. I'm trying to like... You're telling us.

This is Keith, or the so-called vanguard, in his natural habitat, perched on the edge of a couch in a polo shirt and jeans. He's holding court in a living room full of eager students who have flown in from across the continent. Use your body more with more flow. You're standing a lot like a preacher teacher. Vanguard seems more multi-level marketing salesman than self-help guru. He teaches the group how to build rapport and lift a room.

Keith has Sarah up at the front practicing her pitch. He is relentless. So we're all going to have fun. Do you believe that? Yes., we're all gonna have fun. Do you believe that? Yes. We're all gonna have fun! So you guys wanna have fun tonight?

Are you gonna have fun? You're gonna have fun? Yeah. No, you don't sound, you look like you're not sure if you wanna have fun. I'm not sure yet. Dull? Dull? She can barely get a few words out before he stops her. And he makes her do it again and again.

Not fun enough. If I said, for example, who here is here to have fun? Fun? Come on. Fun? Yeah, okay. Now. It was the only time that Keith gave me a good job. If you do like the Richard Nixon, the famous incongruent speech. If he's hard on her, it works. Sarah becomes a star salesperson, responsible for bringing in 2,000 students. She has the highest closing rate in the company.

Let me take you through Sarah's rise through NXIVM. Sarah taking thousands of hours of personal growth training, recruiting new students, Flying to Albany Meeting Vanguard and the other higher-ups Making new friends Earning her sashes and climbing the ranks Recruiting, recruiting, recruiting You see her becoming a coach and teaching ESP classes

Pages of a calendar fly by 2006, 2007, 2008 More recruiting Newer, better sashes. Yellow, orange, then green. In 2009, you see Sarah and Mark Vicente cutting the ribbon on a brand new ESP training center on Georgia Street in Vancouver. You see Sarah training coaches, conducting EMs, and confidently pitching a room full of people interested in signing up. In 2013, you see Sarah and her husband Nippy get married. You see Sarah at the bank, depositing her first check from NXIVM.

And then you see her walk in again with a bigger check. And then, an even bigger one. She had an amazing way of delivering the information. Jen Colbelt attends one of Sarah's pitch sessions. This is 2010. She was like, okay, everybody, raise your hand high up in the air. And everybody puts their hand up, you know, everybody complies. Jen's life is upside down.

She's a struggling actor, just like Sarah was when she joined ESP five years earlier. Jen has also just broken up with her boyfriend, who she says was emotionally abusive. She is looking for help. And then she says, can you stretch a little further? Like, can you reach your hand a few more inches up? And everybody can.

You know, everybody gets at least another few inches. And then she says, why didn't you stand up? Why didn't you stand up in order to get your hand up, you know, as high as you can? I had one person get on the chair and put their hand through the tiles in the ceiling. So why didn't you? Well, it's because you have your own limiting beliefs. You have a limiting belief that when someone says to put up your hand, that you have to do it in the way that you think is socially acceptable or whatever the belief is, you chose not to take it to the real full edge that you could have achieved. And I remember sitting there going like, that's so true.

Wow. I never even thought about standing up in the chair. Why? Oh, because nobody said I could. Well, why do I have to only do what people say I can do? Maybe that's, maybe that's what's holding me back is I keep waiting for permission rather than just deciding this is my life and I'm going to take it by the, you know, I'm going to go for it. I'll be totally honest with you. Every single thing that I did had a filter of potential enrollment. Everything. Like if I was going to decorate, the person who decorated this home,

I really, really liked. And also in the back of my mind, I was like, would she be interested in ESP? Like every person I met was a potential for, could they take training? Would they be interested in training? Can I ask you, like, we happened, like, I think I saw you a couple of times in Toronto. But like, if I ran into you six months earlier than I did, or a year earlier, would you have,

like you said, you saw things through potential recruitment. Would you try to recruit me? Probably. I mean, probably not even so much like hey Josh don't come to this training I'd probably it was always it was more like I'd want to just check in with you and see if you needed it not not like even you wouldn't even have known that it was like I would just want to know how you are in your life and see if I could see if there was something that you were looking for and then I would talk to you about it so you had kind of like probing questions or things that might have just sounded like

you were interested in my life? Yeah. Yeah. In 2017, it felt like drugs were everywhere in the news. So I started a podcast called On Drugs. We covered a lot of ground over two seasons, but there are still so many more stories to tell. I'm Jeff Turner, and I'm back with

season three of On Drugs. And this time, it's going to get personal. I don't know who Sober Jeff is. I don't even know if I like that guy. On Drugs is available now wherever you get your podcasts. This is a common theme I hear from people who are inside NXIVM. It doesn't take long for a new recruit to start seeing the world in the same way. Yeah, I lost some friends from trying to enroll them. I lost other friends for feeling like I didn't want to associate with them anymore. Jen Kobelt immerses herself in ESP. She quits her office job, joins the Stripe Path,

and Sarah hires her as a personal assistant. Sarah was under a lot of stress and a lot of pressure, and if I was in her place, I don't know if I would have done as well as she did at being a boss. That being said, she was still the worst boss I ever had. She was demanding and pushy and no was never an option. Even telling her like, hey, I don't like it when you text me and you put a swear word in it.

Because for me, that feels like you're really mad. It's just text. I can't understand what you're meaning when you put that in there. And her reply was, oh, well, really, like, do you want me to change or do you want to work on your own internal issues, Jen? Those who have left the group have a name for what Sarah just did there, turning an issue back on its author. It's called the NXIVM flip.

If you have an emotional response to something, ESP tells you that it's your issue. You have to work on it. So when Jen complains to Sarah that she's overworked and she can't spend time with her boyfriend, Her response was, well, what is quality time? You know, if you could change your internal representation of quality time, then you two could sit by each other and you could work and

you could get things done and it would feel like quality because you're together. And I was like, I wanted to hit her so hard. I was so, I was like, it didn't, anything I came to her with, it was a problem. This is one of the ways the ESP tools can be used to coerce people. If you have an issue with venerating a leader, or the fact that he's sleeping with his students, or with being branded on your pelvis, you might be told you need to do an exploration of meaning to figure out why you are having a negative reaction. Sarah has been on both sides of the NXIVM flip.

Sarah says it's how Lauren Salzman, who led the branding ceremony, turned Sarah's discomfort against her. Hey, Lauren, I don't want that on my body. Salzman, who led the branding ceremony, turned Sarah's discomfort against her. Hey, Lauren, I don't want that on my body. And she goes, but what do you make it mean? Well, it's a scar. It's ugly. It's, it's, it's a, what does it even mean? Like, I don't want, I don't have a tattoo for a reason. What if it means your commitment to your growth? And changes the meaning it sounds but it sounds like they also took away right from the beginning that part of you that says i don't want to do this anymore this is not my thing another part of your brain now is supposed to kick in and say wait a

second this is your issue this is your pattern you can't you're just trying to avoid it so now your gut instinct around it is is gone right yeah absolutely i'm like when i think about it i was taught that that gut instinct is linked with all this right? Yeah, absolutely. When I think about it, I was taught that that gut instinct is linked with all this bad programming we've got from childhood. But I still have a hard time understanding. There were so many warning signs. A Google search yields some pretty unsettling results that Sarah must have been aware of, as far back as 2003.

That's when Forbes magazine writes a profile of Keith Raniere, alleging he uses manipulative, cult-like tactics. A few years later, the New York Post writes a series of unflattering articles. In 2010, Vanity Fair publishes an article about the billionaire Edgar Bronfman Sr. and his attempt to rescue his daughters, Claire and Sarah, from the group he calls a cult.

And in 2012, the Albany Times Union publishes a series called The Secrets of NXIVM that includes allegations that Keith Raniere had sex with girls as young as 12 years old. How did you deal with red flags like that? We were just really, you know, encouraged to not read that stuff because it would change, quote, our internal representation of Keith, unquote. Because what was written, and now keep in mind, all of the stuff that was said about him that was negative,

it was just instantly erased by this brilliant setup that Keith put in place for us, which was that really believing that, if you really believe that Keith is, you know, the next Messiah, Jesus type of Buddha type of guru that's really intelligent and kind and humanitarian and trying to teach the world how to think critically and bringing ethics to an unethical world. If that's really the case, then there's going to be pushback. And anything that was written about him was pushback. It was all part of a smear campaign. It was all part of a conspiracy against Keith and this little group of humanitarians trying to change the world and that they could write whatever they wanted online.

It's like Sarah is living in a bubble. But by 2017, things start to change. Sarah's earnings are in decline. She needs new recruits, and she needs them to stick around and keep taking courses and keep bringing in more people. So everything kind of dried up. It's a pyramid scheme. You have to have a constant inflow of people,

and you have to retain them. And Keith even talked about that. And he's a pyramid schemer guru king. He's always been doing it during his whole life. He would say there's this thing called the money pump, where, like, once you find the pump, like, you just keep pumping. It was at this point that Lauren Salzman approaches her to join DOS, the secretive women's group.

And it's all these aspects of NXIVM. The idea of being responsible for your life circumstance, the manic self-improvement, being trained not to question ESP teachings, the total confidence in Keith Ranieri, plus her financial issues, which begin to explain why Sarah agreed to join DOS. But there's something more subtle, more disturbing going on just under the surface. It's something I start to understand when I sit down to interview Sarah with her husband Nippy. Hello.

How you doing? Hi. Good to see you, man. Sarah shifts over to make room on the couch. You know, you were dating someone, I was dating someone. We were friends for like three years, right? Yeah, I wasn't dating anyone then.

So yeah, we hit it off. She's like the bad boy. I was like, what kind of fucking name is Nippy? Nippy is an American expat who looks like a quintessential quarterback. Tall, handsome, broad-shouldered. Every time I went to Albany, I'd stay at this place who had rooms to rent. Most people who lived in Albany rented rooms to people coming for like $25, $50 a night. So I stayed in the upstairs across the way from Nip,

and he would walk out in his towel and say, Hey, lady, I'm going to take a shower. Sarah and Nippy met, taking NXIVM courses in Albany. Nippy was in NXIVM for as long as Sarah. He was one of the leaders of the men's group, Society of Protectors, or SOP. If I were to talk to you, I would say something to the effect of, Josh, if you look out into the world, wouldn't you agree that our leadership is lacking a certain moral fiber, lacking, you know, our leaders lack character.

They lack the certain things that are necessary to move our society forward. And the concept of SOP was getting a group of men that saw that as a problem and wanting to restore that. While the men were supposedly doing the protecting, women had their own group, called Jeunesse. And it turns out, this is kind of a stepping stone to DOS. In both SOP and Jeunesse, you spend a lot of time talking about the differences between men and women, and you watch videos of Keith explaining those differences. How many men in here have had orgasm?

How many men in here had orgasm by the time they were 14? Now, if I asked a group of women, how many do you think would say, a lot of them wouldn't. A lot of them don't know. What the hell? Could you guys go without having orgasm? We have it in our dreams. We do it with anything that will accept it. That's the nature of men. We have it in our dreams. We do it with anything that will accept it. We have it in our dreams.

We have it in our dreams. We have it in our dreams. We have it in our dreams. We have it in our dreams. We have it in our dreams. We have it in our dreams. We have it in our dreams. We have it in our dreams.

We have it in our dreams. We have it in our dreams. We have it in our dreams. We have it in our dreams. We have it in our dreams. We have it in our dreams. We have it in our dreams. We have it in our dreams. We do it with anything that'll accept it. That's the nature of fucking. Women don't have to be driven to have sex. They never had to be driven to have sex. It was bountiful.

They were taken care of like sheep. They can get fucked to their capacity. Men are more physical and cut off from their emotions. Women are the opposite. Men need to spread their seed. Women need to be loyal to one man. Men are disciplined. Women are indulgent.

Keith says it goes back to when we were hunters and gatherers and living in caves. The primitive parts of us are hungry fucking beasties. I mean, that's what we want to do. I want to fuck it. Fuck it. Fuck, fuck, fuck. I feel like fucking something today.

God, I'm pissed I want to fuck something. You know? When you're pissed, then fuck feels good. You know, all this sort of stuff. If we conquer a woman, if we grab the thing we want to fuck, whatever it is, and fuck it,

that's a type of acceptance. And you know what's a better acceptance? That in our most angry thing, that they enjoy it. I mean, ultimately, the curriculum is presented in a way where we live in a patriarchal society. Male-dominated, female-influenced. we live in a patriarchal society male dominated female influenced and if you subscribe to the notion that your behavior is somewhat linked to your genetics understanding your own physics can lend to why we have a lot of the problems in the world you know as a guy you have he's he's talking about thoughts that you have.

And that's when guys are going, okay, this is a safe place for me to go, okay, you got this too? When a girl walks by, a guy goes, what's the first thing to look at? Oh, yeah, she's hot. I'd love to. And that's a male thing that maybe needs to be uprooted in our society and change, but this is where we are. That's how he's presenting it. This is where we are. And that's how he's presenting. And having the dialogue and having the conversations about is the first step. But then what else is he saying about how women are? I mean, you mentioned complaining is a female trait. I think he has a commentary on women that he got women to agree to.

commentary on women that he got women to agree to. A large part of it was under the guise of trying to understand each other, looking at the differences. What's the difference between the most male male and most female female? When you think of like a very, the negative parts of being female, and I could relate to certain things like being princessy, you know, for example, being like, like being princessy, you know, for example, being like, you know, not wanting to take out the garbage because that's dirty or weak, not following through. You don't hear a man generally saying, oh, I have cramps. I'm not going to be there. You know? And I think that's something that women can do sometimes, you know, is use that as an excuse to not show up. And I don't like that in women. I don't like that in myself. But like, even as I'm saying this to you, why am I making that distinction that that's a female thing? It's eroding my love for my

sisterhood. Do you know what I mean? And it's the foundation of everything that happened later with DOS that i feel shitty about myself ultimately and i see this across the board of women in genesis that they began to feel shittier and shittier about themselves you know and and a number of things sort of came towards the end like women need to be more obedient like a good wife is an obedient wife and that's something i never saw that that was in the last training that was in the last that you can ask one in one in here and not the other because i didn't see that it's such an obedient wife right that's right sure um what i did see is women enforcing this kind of stuff on each other in a very mean way there was like i started to not like like he used to talk about oblivious

women and how like women aren't as aware of their surroundings as men and this is like and i think this is really indicative of how much keith just like hates women and is annoyed by women but then i started to notice it and i'd see like a woman you know like walking slowly on the sidewalk while someone's trying to get by in a wheelchair or something and I'd be like fucking oblivious women like fucking move you know and I'd never had that with women before My head is spinning This is the first time I hear just how fundamental

misogyny is to the NXIVM philosophy It's troubling to hear Nippy and Sarah participated in this kind of group and perpetuated some of these ideas. Nippy and Sarah were leaders in SOP and Jeunesse. It's hard for me to accept that these were ideas they taught. Did they learn this in NXIVM or was it part of the attraction? hot. Did they learn this in NXIVM, or was it part of the attraction? I'm starting now to understand the internal logic of Sarah's story. She was singularly focused on personal development. She bought into Keith Raniere's definition of what that meant. She believed there was something wrong with her, in no small part because she is a woman. And she was told that her questions and doubts

were part of her deficiency. But of all the things Sarah did in NXIVM, what I hear next is one of the most difficult things to wrap my head around. It happened right here in Sarah's apartment, when Lauren Salzman, Sarah's best friend and mentor, travels from her home in Clifton Park to Vancouver back in January of 2017. The time when she sits down with Sarah at her dining room table and says, I want to invite you to something that's so cool. It's a little bit strange, but it's something that completely has changed my life more than anything I've ever done at ESP.

What I'm now beginning to understand is that even to find out what it is, Sarah has to provide collateral. Like what? She's like, I don't know, like a nude photo or, you know, some sort of secret or something that I'll hold forever. Not to be released, but just so that I'll hold so that you know that you have given your word that you'll never speak about it. Women aren't good at keeping their word. We're gossipy, and we tell secrets, and we're indulgent. These are Jeunesse foundational points. The idea of collateral was not entirely new in NXIVM. In some of the courses, people would put their own money on the line, and they would lose it if they didn't achieve a personal goal. So she asked for collateral from me. At first I said, let me think about it.

And truthfully, I don't have a lot of secrets. I think it took me like at least a day to come up with something. And I wrote it on a piece of paper and she took a picture and she sent it to somebody that she said she couldn't tell me who it was. And she wrote back and said, it's not damaging enough. Do it again. So I elaborated on what I'd said and made it worse. Because my secrets, I guess, weren't that bad. So I lied in my collateral. It passes the test. And Lauren tells her about DOS and how it works. She says it's a top-secret international women's group. Sarah will be Lauren's slave.

And Lauren, Sarah's master. The thing that really drew me in is it was Lauren offering to take me on. Lauren offering to mentor me. It would be a lifetime commitment. It was run by women for women. Sarah took this to mean that Keith had nothing to do with it. Lauren promises that it will not only help Sarah achieve her personal goals, they will operate like a powerful sleeper cell that can change the world, though it's not exactly clear how. Okay, so, and I'm going to read you something. A text that she sent me.

But to join, Sarah would have to give over more collateral, this time even more potentially damaging. Hold on, here it is. Okay, so collaterals should be taken into consideration work, family, social credibility, important people, assets, wealth, rights, possessions. Sarah decides to record four videos, one about Nippy, her mom, her dad, and her stepbrother. What she did is she set up her phone, we were driving in the car, she set up the phone like this in her lap to look like I couldn't see that there was a camera. Like she was taping a conversation without me knowing it, but I didn't

know it. And it was just me and her talking like, oh yeah, my dad, blah, blah, blah, blah. He's such a blah, blah, blah. Like things are totally not true. Like I love my family, you know, so she would say like, we would extrapolate on that so the things that weren't totally out of left field like Nippy's get so angry sometimes he's violent and abusive and and me sharing that with her as if it was true he's never hit me he's never done anything remotely like that I mean he raises his voice and, you know, we have fights. But yeah, I said on camera that he's abusive. That would ruin him and ruin our relationship. I'll be honest, I don't have a clear sense of why the potential consequences of these videos weren't bad enough to make Sarah reconsider joining DOS. She told me she trusted they would never be released.

But if they were, she thought that it would be clear that she was lying. But she said I wasn't done yet because I still needed to collateralize my home. And she said you need to go to a lawyer and figure out how to get a document that signs over this home, the deed to this home, in her name. For her to hold. Like, I, Sarah, like, give this home to Lauren. Sarah stalls and says it would take some time to arrange. But despite Sarah's misgivings, she keeps going.

So, it started off really good. Like, it started off with her giving me some assignments that were to help me in my relationship with Nip. And it was like coaching and checking in every day with Lauren that was totally normal, except I was calling her master. DOS slaves have to abide by a daily act of denial, like not eating sugar or only taking cold showers. They also had to do an hour of work for their master each week.

So it's learning to put other first. And that wasn't just me. I think a lot of actors and a lot of people in ESP are quite narcissistic. I'm not going to deny that. But it was across the board something they really wanted women to be less self-involved, to learn to be more thinking of other. Which, again, in and of itself is a good trait, but you have to call somebody master to do it. But also, after a week of doing that, were you like, oh, this is going to be the rest of my life, is texting

master to someone? All of these things were incredibly uncomfortable, but again, committed to being uncomfortable, that's how you grow. Sarah finds the readiness drills one of the most demanding parts of DOS. When Lauren texts her slaves with the word ready,

they all have to respond within one minute, I'm ready. If anyone in the group fails to respond, everyone is punished. It could happen any time, and most of them happened at night, like between three and 6 in the morning, which, as you know, with having a young child, is very precious time.

So I was already sleep-deprived anyway. If Sarah was unavailable even for a few minutes, she had to notify Lauren. They called it going dark. So every time I got into my elevator, I had to report. Like, I'd say, dark elevator, undark. So every time I got in and out of a car, I'd have to say, like, dark driving. It was very time-consuming and crazy-making. To be clear, the DOS slaves aren't getting ready for anything in particular.

The readiness drills are supposed to make you more disciplined and accountable. And after a couple weeks of sleep deprivation, of manically checking her phone, Sarah starts to have doubts. And this is the first fight I had with Lauren as my master. I was like, I'm not doing that. There's no way. I'll be on dark during the day, but at night I can't be looking at my phone on.

Sarah was also expected to recruit her own pod of six slaves. But I remember Lauren saying to me at one point when I was reluctant about enrolling in recruiting for DOSH, she's like, imagine having six people doing an hour of work a week for you, and how much money you'll save, and also how you're leveraging your time. It's an MLM. It's a multi-level marketing pyramid scheme with blackmail. Sarah becomes a master as well. She gets three slaves. She has them do readiness drills, acts of self-denial, and a weekly favor. How did it feel to have someone call you master? What's that feeling like?

It was totally bizarre. I mean, it was kind of like when someone calls you by your last name, and you're like, no, no, don't call me that. But it was just like a formality that didn't, like I don't really feel like I'm her master. I'm just somebody that she's accountable to, like a coach. That's what I had to make it mean, and I guess I didn't take it that seriously. It's like an exercise, you know?

It's not my real slave. Not my real slave. Having grown up with Sarah, this is not something I ever thought I would hear her say. On the one hand, Sarah says she's having doubts. On the other hand, she's perpetuating the same thing she claims to take issue with. And given the collateral hanging over the head of every DOS member, it's difficult to see this as just an exercise, something that can be brushed off. She keeps going. Sarah flies to Albany for a ceremony led by Lauren Salzman.

Where I'd be getting this beautiful design. Small little dime-sized tattoo. And I think she even said something like a mark like a tattoo. I'm almost positive she never said brand because that would have been a massive red, even more of a red flag. I just remember her saying it's a really pretty design

and it's very small. In an initiation that is just beautiful and life-changing. The branding ceremony takes place just over a month after Sarah first joins DOS. We've reached out to Lauren Salzman more than once to ask her about all of this. We're still waiting to hear back. Did you guys ever see it, by the way? Back at her condo in Vancouver, Sarah shows me and my producer Kathleen her scar from that initiation.

Months later, some lines are still red and swollen. Others are paper thin. Okay, there's also really close to my pubic line, but that's it now. But this line, see right here, that line, one of the other girls, every line is still like this. Like it's, just her skin doesn't heal as well. But I've also been putting like, I put crazy amounts of cream on like three times a day. Sarah is deeper into NXIVM than ever before.

They have devastating collateral on her. She's been at the ready 24 hours a day. And she has a horrible scar on her body. Now she's starting to regret joining DOS. But she knows what everyone would say if she tries to back out. What's happening with Sarah and what Sarah is doing is the very reason why we need things like DOS. Because she's complaining, she's having a tantrum

to get out of responsibility because she made a commitment and it got hard and she backed out. And she has no character and no honour and she made a commitment and she's not following through because she felt uncomfortable. Which is ultimately what the whole structure of Jeunesse teaches is that that's the worst structure of Jeunesse teaches, is that that's the worst part of being a woman.

And then it happens. Yeah, hold on one second. Hold on. Two months after she was branded, Sarah reaches her breaking point. And she calls Lauren in a panic. What is going on? It isn't years of allegations that Keith Raniere had had sex with underage girls. Big picture, what the fuck is going on here? Or allegations that the group is a destructive cult.

I'm not going to give you all the details. It's four letters that would make her leave. The job started by a bunch of women. They decided to do the branding, and that was a decision of the women. Right. I was like, there that was a decision of the women. Right. I was like, there's an A and an M in here. Sarah notices it in the symbol branded on her.

The symbol she was told was supposed to represent the four elements. All of a sudden, it's clear as day. She confides in her friend. I showed her the A and the M. I was like, there's an A and an M in here. A-M. Allison Mack. The actor from Smallville who gave up her career to be near Vanguard and Clifton Park.

She's like, oh my God. And then she turned her head to the side and she saw the K. And then the R. Four letters. K-R-A-M. So someone like drew it and made it up? Yes. Four letters. K-ping NXIVM. Yeah, but right now I have peace initials next to my vagina. I have peace initials beside my vagina. Everyone's freaking out.

Like, I should have been freaking out. How did I miss this? How did I miss this? This is fucked up. Yeah, I did. I did love him. I mean, he was funny and he was smart. When he was 13 years old, he believes that's when he had what he deems this transformation of himself. Well, and when you say that you were, the group was reincarnated from the Nazi era,

was he suggesting that you were in fact Nazis? Escaping NXIVM is produced and written by Kathleen Goldhar, Anita Elash, me, Josh Bloch, and Mika Anderson, who is also our audio producer. Heather Evans is our senior producer, and Arif Noorani is the executive producer. Get the series for free wherever you get your podcasts. We're at cbc.ca slash uncover.

If you want to discuss this story with others and get the latest updates, become part of our online community by joining the Uncover Escaping NXIVM Facebook group or following us on Twitter at Uncover CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.