Raniere in 'double bind' in dealing with me

The writer points out a 'mistake' in judgment the 'perfected' Keith Raniere made and how that places him - in his own jargon- in a 'double bind.'

Facebook X Reddit LinkedIn

Readers of the frankreport seem to be steadily increasing.

I suspect that some of the readers are regulars who come daily to read new postings.

While most are from the USA, some are from Mexico, India and the Fiji Islands and, of course, Canada.

Today we had visits from Sweden, Thailand and Brazil as well.

Here is a comment from a reader:

“The reason that I think your narrative will be so effective in raising doubts in the faithful is that you were close enough to have seen things, but weren’t actually a member.”

I would like to expand on this point for it raises an issue of conflict between NIXVM leader Keith Raniere and myself.

The Non Disclosure Agreement which NXIVM students have to sign (But which I did not) and the general secrecy make it hard for outsiders to know enough to criticize the program.

I’m sure that is by design.

Raniere knows that cult experts would point out how he uses all the standard psychological pressures and hypnotic tricks on students.

(See the studies Morris Sutton commissioned and Rick Ross published at https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/NXIVM/ )

The training contains “pre-emptive” defenses against insiders who leave NXIVM then try to persuade others to leave. Those who have taken the courses and left are said to have “taken the fall” (a rather childish reference to Lucifer/Satan in Paradise Lost). In NXIVM jargon, that means that they have inverted values, meaning they try to destroy things BECAUSE they know they are good.

Since NXIVM is by self-definition perfect, if someone who is a member leaves NXIVM, it is, by NXIVM standards, Prima facia evidence that one has inverted values, and have thus “taken the fall”.

The logical conclusion is that an ex-member’s criticisms of NXIVM are lies.

But in my case it is different.

I have an unique combination of inside knowledge of the top, and yet I did not leave NXIVM since I never joined it.

It’s not so easy to paint me as having inverted values based on leaving NXIVM.

Consider, Raniere had ample opportunity to use his ‘infallible insight’ into human emotions and must have found me to be ‘ethical’ since he did indeed trust me with significant projects.

Raniere claims to be ‘totally integrated’ (and no one else is, although he will allow that Nancy Salzman is getting close.)

By integrated, he means there is no discrepancy between reality and his perception of reality. Discrepancies between reality and perceptions are ‘dis-integrations’ in NXIVM-speak.

So it is not possible (in NXIVM -logic) for him to have been wrong when he judged me to be ethical, as evidenced by trusting me with public relations and real estate consulting.

This puts him in a ‘double-bind’ (more NXIVM-speak, stolen from neurolinguistic programming, which stole it from Milton Erickson).

One could argue, “either I am ethical, or Raniere is not actually ‘integrated.'”

I would argue that, more likely, both are true.