Uncover - S1 "Escaping NXIVM" E3: Sex, Money and Nazis

Episode Date: September 16, 2018

Those who knew Keith Raniere intimately reveal his early life, how he started NXIVM and ended up being accused by the FBI of running a criminal enterprise. 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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New episodes every night, seven days a week. Find us wherever you get your podcasts. This is a CBC Podcast. Previously on Escaping NXIVM. I was like, there's an A&M in here. She's like, oh my God. And then she turned her head to the side and she saw the K. And then the R.

And now I'm just like, what the fuck? I'm being, I have Keith's initials beside my vagina. Sarah Edmondson connects the dots. K-R. Keith Raniere. A-M. Allison Mack. Everyoneaniere A.M. Allison Mack Sarah has Keith Raniere's initials burned onto her body.

She gave devastating collateral to be part of what she thought was a women's only group in NXIVM. Now Sarah is pretty sure that group, DOS, is run by Keith. What is he up to? What kind of person would do this? To try to answer this, I'm going to cover a lot of ground, what may feel like a wild ride. But stick with me. It's worth it. But stick with me. It's worth it.

I'm Josh Bloch. This is Escaping NXIVM from CBC Podcasts Uncover. Chapter 3. Sex, Money, happy birthday. Thank you for giving us the opportunity to build this, not just this great team, this amazing family. This is V-Week. Thank you very much. We love you. I mean, the whole thing that V-Week was pitched as very much. We love you. I mean, the whole thing

that V-Week was pitched as is that originally it was Keith's birthday. Let's create that day. Then it turned into a weekend and then it turned into a week. My last V-Week was 12 days. That's almost half a fucking month.

V-Week is the big annual celebration of Vanguard's birthday. Vanguard Week was summer camp. Picture, you know, the Catskills in the Dirty Dancing movie. Held in the Catskills in upstate New York. You know, the bus would pull up from the airport and, like, you'd get out and people would be there welcoming you.

We're taking a baby now. We're getting shot. There was, like, Latin music playing and top 40 hits and, like, people leaving, like, dance parties, like parties on the lawn. Hundreds of Keith's followers gathered here each year. At night, they would congregate in an auditorium

and take turns paying tribute to him, sometimes in song, sometimes dance. V-Week is lying in the grass looking at the stars and holding hands. Or V-Week could be... Friendship. holding hands. Or V-Week could be... Friendship. Friendship. Or V-Week could be the people. Sarah loved V-Week.

She went to 12 of them. It was all the best parts about NXIVM. She was surrounded by people who felt the same commitment to personal growth. They were in the presence of Keith, someone who they admired and loved, someone they were sure was leading them on a path to better themselves and the world.

It was just like, it was so great and so fun. I mean, honestly, Josh, like, I learned to just assume that he, because all of these things that were weird were based on the foundation that he's the most ethical humanitarian man in the world, and he wouldn't do anything that wasn't within that framework. The FBI claims that Keith was using a self-improvement organization

for darker purposes. Keith has pleaded not guilty to the charges against him. And his lawyers say they have evidence that will exonerate him. Keith rarely does interviews, nor do those who remain loyal to him. But I've tracked down former girlfriends, business partners, and followers who are willing to speak. Most of them are women. And through their perspectives, you can start to see that there was more to Keith than the person Sarah used to celebrate.

Oh, is that the right way? Check, check, check. 1-2, 1-2, 1-2. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, standing outside the Roxy Hotel in New York. Let's go in. Hi. How's go in. Hi. How's it going? So I didn't understand.

You want to sit in my hotel room? Or just a quiet place. If you can't do it in your room, then... Can you take us back to that first time you met him? Tell me about your first meeting with Keith. He said to me, you must be Barbara Boucher. And I'm like, yep, I am.

He said, and you? And he said, I'm Keith Raniere. And, you know, when you meet Keith, there is this boyish charm about him and this quiet intensity. When Barbara Boucher joined NXIVM back in 2000, Keith told her she was special, that he had visions about her arrival. And he dropped the classic pickup line,

here's a copy of my favorite Ayn Rand book. I want you to read it. Can you start reading it? He said, because you're Dagny. You're the heroine. You're Dagny. And the atlas shrugged. And you have finally come here. And I knew you were coming. He said, you're my Dagny. You're my heroine. You're Dagny. And the atlas shrugged. And you have finally come here.

And I knew you were coming. He said, you're my Dagny. And I'm the book's hero, John Galt. It worked. Part of me felt flattered and complimented. Barbara moved to Knoxwoods, the neighborhood where Keith lived near Albany, New York, near where NXIVM has its headquarters.

And she became Keith's girlfriend. Keith would, over the years, reveal to me things himself about his childhood. Barbara is tall and imposing, and she can talk about Keith for hours without coming up for air. And then he told me that his parents divorced when he was young and that he moved in with his mother, and his mother was a severe alcoholic. Keith's dad, James, was an advertising exec in the Mad Men era. His mom, Vera, was a dance teacher. They lived in Suffern, New York, a couple hours down the highway from Albany.

And so he learned to become a nocturnal person because of his mother. And that in his teenage years, that he would kind of like need to watch or care for her in the evening because she would sometimes take medicine and drugs and drink and and so so he had this kind of precarious relationship with his mom that was unsupervised. Keith also told me that when he was 13 years old he believes that's when he had what he deems this transformation of himself. That's when he believed that he, quote, became enlightened. And his last, quote, attachment to the outside world disappeared. Keese built up a mythology around his childhood.

There's those claims he was speaking in full sentences by age one and reading by two. He sells himself as someone who mastered college-level math at age 12. There's those claims he was speaking in full sentences by age one and reading by two. He sells himself as someone who mastered college-level math at age 12. He says he was an East Coast judo champion at 11, and that he was a piano prodigy who turned down a scholarship to Juilliard. And this is what his father said. He said, Barb, when he was seven or eight, we had him tested, and he was so intelligent. This was around the time Barbara and Keith's relationship was falling apart.

And he said, what we did is we told Keith about how gifted and how intelligent he was. And he said it was almost like a switch went off. And suddenly, overnight, he turned into like Jesus Christ. And that he was superior and better than everybody, like he was a deity. He said it was that dramatic and that profound. He said it went right to his head. His dad told Barbara that when Keith was 13, his mom called him in a panic.

Because dozens of young girls were calling the house, and she was overhearing his conversations with them where he was telling every single woman, every single girl the same thing. I love you. You're the special one. You're the important. You're the one in my life and I love you. And she says, and he's saying this to different girls. He's clearly lying because they're all not special. I did not expect to uncover such obvious links between this man portrayed as a womanizing guru and his childhood. But there it is. We haven't been

able to verify Barbara's accounts. Keith's mom is no longer alive. She died when he was 18. We reached out to his dad. He hasn't responded. But what's fascinating is that if these stories are true, at an early age, Keith was already experimenting with being a guru and a playboy. with being a guru and a playboy. I literally, my first sight of Keith was his rear end either going through or coming into my sister's bedroom window. Heidi Hutchinson and her younger sister Gina hung out with Keith in the 1980s. At this point, Keith is in his early 20s.

On Christmas Eve in 1984. Heidi says he wasn't like other guys they knew. He was a nonconformist, and that was attractive. Gina was dating him. Gina was very young. She was 15, about to be 16. He was stuck in the window, butt towards the bedroom door. And, you know, ho, ho, ho.

It's Santa Claus, you know. They had some explaining to do. So Keith tried to play it to me and to our family as if he did have serious intentions for Gina. And he did, you know, see her as his romantic interest, possibly future wife. So a long-term committed relationship. Heidi says even their mother bought it, but it wasn't true. Gina eventually found out that there were others, and she was heartbroken.

It was usury. It was, you know, not right. Heidi and Gina would learn that Keith had multiple partners, including a polyamorous relationship with three women who became known as his spiritual wives and would remain with him for decades. Years later, polyamory became part of Keith's teachings, like when he told Sarah and Nippy

that men are inclined to have multiple partners. But Keith does not sound like your typical Casanova. One of his friends at that time described him as pretty nerdy. We did math puzzles and stuff together for fun. We were good friends. We hung out all day, every day. Lounching around in sweatpants and our hair messy. We hadn't had a shower. Eric Rude is now a computer programmer in Philadelphia. But for nearly 10 years, he was one of Keith's closest friends.

in Philadelphia. But for nearly 10 years, he was one of Keith's closest friends. He has always wanted to have some sort of money-generating machine going on where he could focus on non-business things, eventually do some

good with, do something constructive with. He was in Amway. Keith worked briefly for the multi-level marketing company Amway. Something about the structure of it captured his imagination. He dreamed of starting a company like it. Keith was fresh out of college. He was into yoga and Eastern philosophies.

And his house became a kind of hippie hangout. There always seemed to be a group of people hanging around him. Like Gina and Heidi, they were mostly young women. And Eric says there was something about the way the women were acting around Keith. I don't know. Some people just seemed to have stars in their eyes. And a lot of these young women who were interested in this sort of thing were very attracted to him and they bedazzled with him or infatuated. One way Keith drew people to him was with talk of the human potential movement,

the idea of unlocking people's untapped abilities and how it can bring about positive change in the world. I hate to use the word empower, but he would motivate them to fulfill whatever their gifts and talents might be to pursue those, but to pursue them in a way that Keith benefited from their successes

and their pursuits. This is an idea I've heard again and again. Keith listens very carefully. It's part of his charm. He makes you feel like you're the only person in the room, that you can accomplish anything, but that he also uses people around him for his own ends, that he wanted his own money-making machine.

Heidi was there when he was working on the first part of this plan. Paint me a picture of what it was like to go over there. Everyone's lounging around, and Keith has got a notebook or he's got a Rubik's Cube. And there was planning and plotting and packaging of Keith as this guru. As part of his packaging, Keith took something called the mega test. If he did well, it would prove he had a super high IQ. It was a take-home exam.

I was kind of shocked that the IQ test was an open book test. Keith scored 46 out of 48. In 1989, the Guinness Book of World Records listed Keith Murnieri as one of the smartest people in the world. This became a huge selling point. And he milked it. From the beginning, America had what the whole world wanted. Opportunity.

Opportunity to do more, to have more, to be more. This promotional video is from 1992. The venture Keith and his clan landed on was called Consumers Byline. It was a club that gave you access to discounted prices on everything from household appliances to spa vacations. And like Amway, it was a multi-level marketing company, so members could also earn money by recruiting other members. It's fascinating, the opportunities available in this country. I don't mean fancy investments. recruiting other members.

This video features the actor Eddie Albert of the popular 1960s sitcom Green Acres and a cherub-faced Keith Raniere. The central message? Keith is one of the smartest men in the world, and he's inviting you to realize your dreams by becoming a partner in his company. Keith, happy to see you again. Yes, happy to see you too. It's an amazing idea.

Yes, well, sometimes it even amazes me. But Consumer's Byline is wonderful, and it's working. This is the version of Keith Tony Natale fell in love with. Oh yeah, I did. I did love him. I mean, he was funny and he was smart. The first time they met, she was skeptical. God gifted you with all this brilliance. Why aren't you curing cancer?

Why aren't you doing something magnificent? And he said, Oh, I will be. I'm going to change the world. Don't you want to come along? She did. So she left her husband to be with Keith. They traveled the country, pitching consumers byline. Keith spoke to packed auditoriums, sometimes as many as 5,000 people. He would light up, I mean, I think that need for that admiration of all those people,

you know, chanting his name and waiting for him to come on stage. And he was good. He was engaging and people loved him and he would do Q&A till exhaustion. And he would go all night if he needed to, just answering their questions. Tony has a theory about Keith, that he uses women to prop himself up. He has systematically replaced each of the key women with someone with more connections, more accolades, more money. I say that he just keeps improving the last model. When consumers' byline was shut down after authorities said it was a pyramid scheme, I say that he just keeps improving the last model. When consumers' byline was shut down after authorities said it was a pyramid scheme,

Keith started looking for his next project. And the next woman who entered his life with more accolades and more connections was Nancy Salzman, Lauren Salzman's mom. Tony was the one who introduced them. I think that Keith saw Nancy's ability to be able to manipulate people. He waited his whole life for her. And that if she just listens to him and follows him, they will create something better than the world has ever seen. Nancy was a personal development coach,

a believer in the human potential movement, and trained in hypnotherapy. He was moved by not only her ability to hypnotize, but how well she could handle Rome. The way Tony tells it, Nancy and Keith have an epic meeting. This is in 1998. It spans four days, and when it's over, the Executive Success Program is born.

A few years later, it would be rebranded as Nexium. We found this video of Keith talking about it online. When Nancy Salzman first met me and I was demonstrating the technology, she's very well versed in many human performance technologies. Like consumers byline, it will have a multi-level marketing structure but selling personal growth instead of dishwashers. Nancy Salzman and myself, we wanted to do these results without talent, like a machine. Keith will be the resident guru and be called Vanguard. Nancy is named president and will get the decidedly less sexy title of prefect. Talent on top, we can do some

things that are pretty fancy. In 1998, as Keith Bernieri takes on the role of vanguard, Sarah is training to be an actor at Concordia University in Montreal. She is seven years away from meeting Keith. And in those years,

he will work on his new persona. He will not only promote himself as one of the smartest people in the world, but that he's enlightened. He's not just an entrepreneur. He's now a guru. He claims to be a renunciate, someone who has given up his attachment

to all material things. He doesn't own a cell phone, and he's driven around by members of his inner circle. He sleeps most of the day and is up late into the night. He spends a lot of time filing patents for everything from rational inquiry in the sash system to a Find My Phone app. He greets women in NXIVM with a kiss on the lips. He crafts hundreds of personal growth workshops. He hires PR consultants and people with political connections. He wants a global reach, though he's seen remarkably little of the world.

He spends most of his time within a few kilometers of his home. But he's able to bring the rich and powerful to him. One of his biggest successes in the early days of NXIVM is enrolling Claire and Sara Bronfman, heiresses to the billion-dollar Seagram Liquor Fortune. The Bronfman, can I say sisters? Yeah, sure. Do you mind? Do either of you two mind that? The Bronfmans rarely talk to the press,

but in 2009, Sarah and Claire spoke with Paul Vandenberg of 1300 Talk Radio, a private radio station in Albany. Sarah described her love of NXIVM. The Bronfmans were a huge get for the organization. They brought money and prestige. And some of their ambitions dovetailed nicely with Keith. I always had this calling or this vision to find people who were humanitarian figures in the world and work with them.

Saying to myself, I want to meet the Dalai Lama and going on, pursuing that goal and making it happen. I mean, that really, the tools of NXIVM is a goal setting program. And that's really, that's my goal. That year, in 2009, the Dalai Lama accepted an invitation to speak in Albany. I'm so happy to accept that invitation and come and meet some new people. Sarah and Claire were key to making this happen. Watching the video of the event, you can see Sarah and Claire sitting on stage with His Holiness. They are beaming.

And making new friends, have opportunity to share. Vanguard and Prefect sit in the front row, also beaming. Here is one of the most famous and respected spiritual leaders in the world acknowledging Keith. That's all. The next time there would be this much attention on Claire Bronfman was when she was

arrested by the FBI in July of 2018 on charges including racketeering conspiracy. She is pleaded not guilty. Her lawyer says Claire was charged because the government doesn't agree with her beliefs. To learn more about Keith, I've traveled to Clifton Park, where NXIVM is headquartered. Is there any weird wires sticking out of me? I've been trying to get in touch with anyone from Nexium for months, but no one's responded.

So my plan is to go undercover, walk in the front door, and sign up for some Nexium courses. I hide a digital recorder in my breast pocket, and I leave my producers in the car. recorder in my breast pocket, and I leave my producers in the car. The offices are a one-storey brick building with a cheap-looking NXIVM sign screwed to a bulletin board out front. There's a few reserved parking spots, one for Lauren Salzman and another for Nancy. I knock on a glass door. No one answers. I try a second door, and it's unlocked.

So I enter. Inside, there's a large portrait of Vanguard and another of Prefect on the wall. There's a central meeting area with a number of adjoining offices. And there's a woman who seems very surprised to see me. Hi. Yeah, I'm here. Is this the Executive Success Program? Who are you? My name's Josh. I just wanted to find out about some programs.

A friend of mine had taken some courses. Who are you here to meet? This is not how I envisioned things going. I just wanted anyone that could tell me about some of the programs that are here. Well, you would need to be meeting somebody. How did you get in? That door was just open, but I knocked on that door, but then that door was open. Oh, okay. Well, I don't know who you're meeting. There's nobody here. I had heard new recruits were love-bombed, showered with warmth and affection when they signed up.

There's supposed to be all kinds of excitement about bringing a new member into the NXIVM family. This woman is not particularly enthused by my presence. I'm sorry, I'm just in the middle of a call, in the middle of a business call. I'm just leaving. There's no one else around? No, there's not. Oh no. Who do I contact? Well, I think you would need to contact your friend, whoever referred you, and that they would give you a contact. And they would give me a contact? I don't... Someone here, do you mean? Yeah.

It turns out NXIVM does not take walk-ins. Okay. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Are we good to drive in your car? Sure. It really was always like,

your salvation is right around the corner with the next class. Like, what if the next, I don't know how many times I heard, what if the next class is the one that resolves this issue for you? It was not just the rich and powerful who gravitated to Keith. Scott Starr was one of the people who fell so hard for the NXIVM promise, he moved his whole family to the area.

He still lives close by, but he's no longer a member of NXIVM. We moved most recently from North Carolina up here to be a part of the community and to do more classes and to invest in personal development and really to be more humanitarian, do something like that in the world. Scott and his wife spent over $150,000 on NXIVM courses. So where we'll go is what they call the sports bar. Scott is taking me and my producer Kathleen on a drive. I mentioned it was one of the weirdest parts.

Scott's a triathlete. He's wearing a perfectly fitted gingham button-up shirt as well as a vest. He looks like he just stepped out of an L.L. Bean catalog. I finally get the geography. We're in the suburb of Clifton Park, which is just outside Albany. And within Clifton Park, there's a little neighborhood called Knoxwoods,

where most people in NXIVM live. Scott drives us to a spot just 10 minutes from Knoxwoods. And we stop outside what looks like a barn. It's a single-story, red building made of wood and surrounded by farmer's fields. Scott doesn't want to get out of the car. He's nervous about being spotted. He held, as I call it, like held court there. Like, no pun intended, because it was literally on the volleyball court. If Scott wanted one-on-one guidance, he would come here, at midnight, to watch Keith play volleyball. Every Tuesday and Thursday, this is how Keith made himself available to his followers.

So people would come to see him. And when I went, it was always a little awkward. I'm trying to picture this still, so it's like it's 15, 16 in the volleyball game. And then suddenly someone comes up and is like, my inner deficiency is this and I can't get through it. And so you pause the game and he starts talking to them. You know, in my experience, more like, okay, you know, there's 10 people on the court.

They just finished their fifth game and they always play seven. So, hey, go, go ask your question real quick. Your coach or something might say, well, come to volleyball and ask Keith. I'll give him a heads up that you're going to come. It's probably going to be three minutes long and look for your opening. So it is, it does create this sense of, you know, 15 people on the sidelines sitting there waiting for their chance. Okay, yeah, now is my chance. An excitement or at least a tension, if you will, of doing that.

And I mean, the sports barn is like barely heated, you know, and people coming in all hours of the night, like the parking lot would be full at like, you know, 1am. So it just, again, it was a weird thing, but kind of cool in that way, you know? Cool at the time, until he learned about another side of the company. You feel duped? Yeah, duped and, like, what's the word? What's the opposite of naive?

Like, more cynical. I call Sarah and let her know I'm here in Knoxwoods. Hey guys. Hello. You're on speaker in the in-nip. Hey, I'm standing in Knoxwoods. Hi. Oh!

Sarah and Nippy rented an apartment close by and spent at least a few months here every year. By the time they left NXIVM, they were in the process of finalizing plans to move here. Like, this is so weird. You're in Knoxwoods finalizing plans to move here. I'm trying to see the place through Sarah's eyes and imagine how she saw Keith. On first glance, nothing unusual stands out here in Knoxwoods.

Homes that belong to NXIVM members are scattered around the neighborhood. It's quaint. Well, it's faux quaint, like any suburb. But this is definitely not your David Koresh hole-up-in-a-compound kind of group. So, are you doing, like, a series of podcasts? Lori Christina lives here. She's the self-appointed head of what she says is a neighborhood watch. And she's taking me on a tour.

Oh, there's a car in the driveway. That's Karen's house. Lori thinks she spotted Karen Unterweiner, one of Keith's longest-standing girlfriends, one of his spiritual wives. I have a million questions for Karen. Did Keith create DOS? If so, why?

Did she know women were being branded with Keith's initials? Sorry, and there's someone in the car right now? I think there's someone in the car. The lights are going on. Karen is about 100 meters away, and she gets into her car and starts to drive towards me. So I wave. She waves back, and she rolls down her window.

Hi, I'm with the CBC. Oh. What did she say? I got a wave. I got a legit wave. She's not somewhere else. Karen isn't the only member of NXIVM I was hoping to find here today.

Don't get, I can't give you Keef. Last time I got Keef. We've heard rumors Keef's left the area. People, when they see him watching, will text me and say, hey, you know, Kee Keith's walking. A week after we return home from this trip, he's arrested in Mexico. We're going to loop around this way. And that is apparently if what Sarah remembers is where the branding may have taken place. It's strange to be standing here. This is the home where Sarah says her and four other DOS slaves were led blindfolded.

This is where the branding took place. How the other units, if they were home, didn't hear any kind of noise or screaming, it's kind of crazy, right? This is where they all come home to roost. The mothership. The mothership is three drab gray row houses on a curved street. It's ground zero of Keith's harem. row houses on a curved street.

It's ground zero of Keith's harem. The library, I believe, is one of his man caves. The second floor of another townhouse is referred to by some as Keith's library, and others as his sex den. It's got a hot tub and a loft bed, and is a focus of the FBI's investigation. You can see there's cameras. See the camera? According to the FBI, Keith's harem extended beyond the women he lived with. Oh, the harem walk. I've seen the harem meetup happen right in front of my condo. One, the girl or the woman coming from one direction, Keith from the other.

The FBI claims Keith has a rotating group of 15 to 20 women with whom he maintains sexual relationships. And these women agreed to keep it secret and agreed to have sex with no one else but Keith. Many of these women held important positions in the company. Sarah says she did not know about this part of Keith's life. It wasn't until she left that she realized just how much she'd missed. 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. So what I now know is that of the 12 women, all of them but me knew about each other. I was the only one who didn't know about all of them, but all of them knew about each other and knew about me. Barbara Boucher says she also missed a lot.

She was Keith's girlfriend for eight of the nine years she was in NXIVM. She was the woman who Keith seduced by lending her his copy of Alice Shrugged. Barbara is a financial planner. She says she was making a million dollars a year when she moved to Knoxwoods in 2000 to dedicate herself to NXIVM. She eventually held a senior position in the company and joined the board of directors.

But when she found out she was not Keith's only girlfriend, she was upset. And over the next three days, Keith would not talk to me, but the whole army of his inner circle women are making visits. And now what they're doing is saying, you know, you came into this lifetime to do this. This is your calling. You're here to make a difference. You're the Dagny. You're his soulmate and you're his soul partner. Barbara was told she was the chosen one.

She was special. Keith was so sensitive to her moods that even her diet could affect him. Even if they weren't in the same place. It had an effect on him, almost like someone was having an argument in the room. It would drain him of his energy. And he was an important man with a powerful mission. If Keith was in a bad mood, Barbara would be blamed.

One of them would call and say, Keith told us that you're having an issue. And he's laid out flat on the couch. You just zap them of all of his energy. Don't you realize he's here to do bigger things? They also told her she needed to address her issues around jealousy because they had a more important mission and they needed her on board. Josh? Hello. Can you on board. Josh?

Hello. Can you hear me? Josh? Yes, I can. Okay, great. So, a couple things. Yeah. I came down with a really bad cold last night,

so my voice has... I have more questions for Barbara about what life was like inside this exclusive part of NXIVM. She tells me that this group of women had a special role in making a positive difference in the world. And that we found each other, as often souls do. And that's when she starts talking about Nazis. Also, he propagated that in our previous lifetime,

that many of us had been during the Nazi time, that we had lived previous past lives and, you know, we had reincarnated over the different centuries, you know, in different roles and for different reasons. And that, you know, we came into this lifetime to try to repair some of the damage that was done in the previous lifetime. Well, and when you say that the group was reincarnated from the Nazi era, was he suggesting that you were in fact Nazis? Well, you know, some of us he did and some of us he didn't. So, for example, with me, my name is Boucher, and the word Boucher in French means butcher. And a key leader in the Nazi time was Heydrich Reinhardt, and his nickname was the Butcher of Prague.

heart. And his nickname was the Butcher of Prague. And so they decided that I was him in a previous past lifetime. And is that something that you believed or continue to believe is true? That I do believe, personally, that I've lived other lifetimes. I'm one of those kind of people that subscribes to the philosophy that my soul has been reincarnated. There are things and places and times that are very familiar to me because I believe that I've been there before. I know it. And I do believe that our souls reincarnate. Let's just take a moment to absorb this. So Barbara was Heidrich Reinhardt, one of the architects of the Holocaust. And Nancy Salzman was Hitler. Keith was lucky enough to be the reincarnation of a leader of the partisans, fighting to save the Jews.

Part of their task was now to evolve their souls, and this would equip them to do the humanitarian work necessary to atone for past atrocities. One way to evolve their souls was to have sex with Keith. You know, I think this is studied in the Buddhist religion and different kind of gurus. You know, guru teachers who are of all beings believe that they can move an energy, the chakra energies within a person, both by their words, their energy, their teachings. And if you have sex, you can move the kundalini energy. I have to say, this ranks as one of the most creative ways to convince someone to have sex with you.

Barbara tells me there's another layer to Keith's harem. He said if a woman was in love with him, she'd be more loyal and committed. This extended beyond the inner circle to other women working in the company. Having intimacy with his key women gave him these extra degrees of freedom, control, influence, and the ability to manipulate. Because let's face it, when you're in love with someone, isn't there a famous saying that goes, what you won't do, you will do for love? I want to be clear again.

The vast majority of NXIVM members were not privy to this talk of reincarnated Nazis, nor Keith's harem. This was all kept under wraps as much as possible. Barbara says Keith wanted to be publicly known as a scientist. So when word got out that Keith was talking about reincarnated Nazis, he was furious. Are you aware that Keith had a commodities account in my name in the first year? Okay, I've told you about the sex and the Nazis.

Now I need to tell you about the money. So he says to me, he says, I have a formula to trade commodities, and I was wondering if you would experiment with me. Barbara says she'd only known Keith for five months when he made a proposal. And he says, if you put in $25,000 and I put in $25,000... They should both put in $25,000 to test out his formula to beat the commodities market. But I'm a conservative money manager, and I had to think about it for a while. Because I don't gamble. I never bought penny stocks.

Are you going to be surprised to hear she agreed? So once I agreed to that, then he said, well then, hey, can I borrow my $25,000 from you? So now she was in for $50,000. This is the method of the con artist. This is how they do it. They inch you along. A month later, Key showed up at Barbara's house at midnight. He's crying.

Beat red. And sweating. He said something happened today that he had never thought could happen. They had made a risky bet, and the broker said they now owe $600,000. And they needed it in 10 days. And like, now I'm having a heart attack.

Because the account's in my name. I don't know commodities, I don't know what's going on. And I'm confused in days, what do you mean 100? And so I had to cover the $600,000. It didn't come back. Two weeks later, they needed $300,000 more. Week later, they needed 300,000 more. Week later, another 150,000 more. It was like on a train that was barreling down the track, heading for a crash with a station, and you couldn't get off the train. And I was like, sell the account, close it. I don't care.

I'm going to lock in the loss. I don't want to have anything to do with this. I'm terrible. My life savings. I'm 40 years old. I had Ann Taylor suits. I had one pair of black shoes. I didn't have fur coats and diamonds. I saved my money. I worked my ass off for this. Like, and it's like evaporating through my fingers. through my fingers. Barbara says she lost $1.6 million. But like so many other women in Keith's life, she stuck around. And Keith didn't stop trading on the commodities market.

If Barbara had a lot of money, Sarah and Claire had more. He turned to the Bronfmans. Barbara said he pitched them on a plan to expand the reach of the company by making a fortune on the commodities market. Barbara says Keith borrowed $65 million from the Bronfmans, and he lost it all. In an interview with the New York Times, Keith denied the amount was that high. Barbara says she doesn't know whether he ever paid it back,

but she was in the room when he explained it was Claire's fault he had lost the money. He said Claire committed an ethical breach when she spoke with a reporter from Forbes magazine about NXIVM. The 2003 article upset their dad, Edgar Bronfman Sr., and Keith claimed as punishment the billionaire manipulated the commodities market to ensure Keith would lose the money. What did you observe was Claire's response?

My impression was that they believed him. I, on the other hand, thought it was a crack of shit. And then there was this last allegation. It started very gradually. It started with a hug. Keith taught me how to hug. In 2012, the Albany Times Union alleged that Keith had sex with underage girls. This was something Sarah Edmondson said

members of NXIVM were told not to believe because the media can say anything. He pulled my pelvic area close to his and said the adults hugged like that. This woman spoke to the Albany Times Union newspaper in 2012. They agreed to withhold her name. She said she was 12 when she met Keith. He was 30.

This recording of her interview was posted online. I met Keith Ranieri shortly after moving to Clifton Park around 1991. The woman said her mom was involved with Consumers Byline. I was looking to make some extra money, so she got me a job stuffing envelopes, The woman said her mom was involved with Consumer's Byline. So I started going to their house to walk the dog, to pick him up and walk him in the morning before school and after school. During that time, I got to know Keith. He offered to tutor me in algebra and Latin. Shortly after the tutoring started, a sexual relationship began between Keith and myself. It happened at various locations, mostly in his office at Rome Plaza in the elevator,

in empty business offices in Rome Plaza, in a broom closet, janitor closet, and also at the house where Pam Gafritz, Kristen, and Karen lived with Keith. That relationship continued from the age of 12 until 13 when I ran away and was eventually placed. The woman told the Times Union she had around 60 sexual encounters with Keith. Two years later, she went to the police to file a complaint. The police did not pursue an investigation, and charges were never laid.

The FBI claims Keith had sex with several teenage girls in the 80s and 90s, though Keith is not facing any criminal charges related to those claims. When Heidi Hutchinson caught Keith climbing into her sister Gina's bedroom, Gina was not yet 17. Under New York state law, this was statutory rape. Gina didn't go to the police. There was never an investigation.

I have to rely on Heidi's accounts, because Gina died by suicide years later. Keith's lawyer says these allegations of sex with underage girls are not true, though Keith has not directly replied to or acknowledged our request to talk about any of this. It wasn't just the Albany Times Union that reported on these types of allegations, the losses on the commodities market, and rumors about his harem. Over the years, these stories eventually surfaced. And for the most part, Keith's followers stuck by him. Including Sarah.

including Sarah. It's hard to pin down the exact moment Sarah changed her view of Keith. I'd pictured there being a sudden awakening, where all the allegations about Keith snapped into focus, and she decided to leave. But it seems Sarah experienced it more like a slow burn over a couple months while she was in DOS. But it seems Sarah experienced it more like a slow burn over a couple months while she was in DOS. If there was a decisive moment, a final push out the door,

it came from Mark Vicente, the man who first recruited her, who had become her business partner and friend. Mark Vicente got me in and got me out. He had an important piece of the puzzle, and it caught Sarah off guard. He told her that women in DOS were being instructed to sleep with Keith. And that's when I was like, oh my God, what am I in? What is this? Then certain things started to click. Oh God, I was such a basket case. This is when I stopped sleeping

because the rug had just been pulled out from underneath me. And I think it was in the middle of... I was running the middle five-day. I was running a training in Vancouver at the center. I was in the middle of the training, going in and having to EM people. I had to get through the center. I was in the middle of the training going in and having to EM people. I had to just, I had to get through the training. I didn't know the magnitude of the situation. I just knew that I was, I was going to, I wasn't going to continue with anything. It's like I knew,

I already knew that I wanted a DOS. Now I recognized, now it made sense. Like Keith, you know, Keith created this faux woman's empowerment program within the structure of NXIVM to maintain loyalty and to feed his sex addiction you know like that's just so not what I thought I was a part of did you ever have sex with Keith oh god no no I've ever have sex with Keith? Oh God, no. No, I've never had sex with Keith. Oh, that makes me want to barf. No offense to the woman who did. It was actually one of the things that I said to people when they said, but like, what about these allegations of a harem? I said, if he had a harem, don't think I'd be in it.

I know that sounds crazy, but I was like, like, really, if he was going to hit on everybody, what do you think he would have hit on me? And he hasn't done that. He's been nothing but polite. What I didn't understand. I mean, I say that in a jokey way, like in a kind of narcissistic way, but I thought really, if he was such a douchebag, he would have put it out there. What I didn't understand. And I can't prove this, it's just caveat, my opinion, he doesn't put it out there in a traditional propositional way. He puts it out there by offering business

opportunities. And I've counted, Nippy and I just counted five different things that he offered to me over the years that I didn't take him up on. It wouldn't be like, you know, hey, Keith wants to have sex with you. It's come to Albany. You know, Keith is asking about you when you're in Albany. Come to volleyball. Are you coming to volleyball? So you think there was a moment he was testing you out? I do. I do believe that was on the table, and I missed it.

You know, authenticity and creativity are an interesting match. We don't like to think of ourselves as robots. match. We don't like to think of ourselves as robots. And if you are coming off as robotic, most people say that's somehow inauthentic. There has to be an inauthentic... There's a series of videos posted online

called Conversations with Keith. This one is with the actor Allison Mack. I can't be certain when this video was made, but according to the FBI timeline, when it's posted on YouTube, Allison Mack is Keith Raniere's slave in DOS. So when someone's being authentic, you get the feeling that not only that there's a person

there in the moment, but somehow you reach into their very essence and you meet a unique individual. Allison and Keith are sitting across from each other at what looks like a dining room table. She's enraptured and hangs on his every word. I don't know why. That makes me want to cry. It's beautiful. I think. Sorry. Among its claims, the FBI says

Keith was the one who created the secret women's group. The FBI says some DOS slaves believed their collateral would be released if they didn't follow instructions to seduce Keith. And it names Allison Mack as his co-conspirator. Her charges include sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy. And like Keith, she has pleaded not guilty. Her lawyer tells us she disputes the alleged facts of the case and that she expects she'll be vindicated. I think these are all things that we strive for. You know, we strive as individuals, we strive to break through a type of existential isolation. We want to touch someone. We want to know that other people have souls.

We want to experience this. We want to experience connection. Okay. So... But why do you think that's... So emotional for me? Yes. I don't know.

I think because it seems like it's something that I just... I feel like I want it. Authenticity. And I, in a silly way, it's like that's where love is. Like that's where like two souls can like come together without any sort of barrier or boundary. And somehow there's completion or not aloneness or transcendence in some way.

Our next performer has been a professional actress for 29 years. And although she always loved to sing, she just recently began taking the study of voice more seriously. She's been singing with Simply Human under the guidance of Mr. O'Neary for the last five years. And now, Allison Mack. This is for my Mexican sisters. I was thinking about how you went to 12 V-weeks. You celebrated his birthday 12 times. You were teaching his curriculum. You were making him a ton of money.

When things started to change, when you start to realize that the organization was not what it seemed to be. I felt hugely betrayed. It was like everything, you know, over the 12 years, there were so many allegations and, you know, media reports about who he was. And I went to bat for him and saying, that's not who he is. And the stupidest logic. I mean, I still, I say stupid because the people inside are still using this logic. My logic was I've never seen him do that. I've never seen him sleep with all these women. I've never seen him, you know, rape an underage girl. I've never seen him be anything but X, Y, and Z. And then now I'm like, you know, that is not, that is not a logical premise for understanding or knowing someone. I wasn't, I didn't live, I didn't live there. I

didn't see his daily life. I trusted the people around me that he was who he said he was. And I went to bat for him and put my face and my name out in the world as a stamp of approval for Nexium while he's doing this shit behind the scenes. It's a huge betrayal and incredibly embarrassing. For 12 years, Sarah got up on stage at V-Week and thanked Vanguard. She sang Happy Birthday to him. It is possible that women in NXIVM created DOS. That's the claim Keith makes in a court filing.

But if the FBI allegations are true, Sarah is implicated in a group that didn't empower women. It entrapped them. Suddenly, Vanguard isn't the smartest man in the world with a plan to save humanity. Vanguard is just Keith, a guy in Albany who likes to control women. And Sarah is trapped. Were you afraid of him? At that time, yeah. Yeah, at that time I was afraid of him.

On the next Escaping NXIVM. There's nothing you can really do to protect yourself against them coming after you other than giving them no reason to come after you. You were going to be lured into Mexico and when you got into Mexico they were going to put you in fucking prison. I've been shot at because of my beliefs. I've had to make choices. Should I have bodyguards?

Should I have them armed or not? You know, accidents happen. I'm armed or not. You know, accidents happen. I'm really careful. Escaping NXIVM is produced and written by Kathleen Goldhar, Anita Elash, me, Josh Block, 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. What the world needs now is love, sweet love. It's the only thing that there's just too little of. See, they know. So sweet. I don't know what that is. I have

no idea. It's fee week. Aww. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.