What is NXIVM?

What is NXIVM?

Several people have asked.

NXIVM (pronounced as ‘nex-i-em’) is a company offering courses in the development of human potential. Also known as Executive Success Programs. Its founder is Keith Raniere. Its president is Nancy Salzman. NXIVM followers refer to Ranier as ‘Vanguard’ and to Salzman as ‘Prefect’. The company headquarters are in Albany, New York.

NXIVM claims to be “a new ethical understanding that allows us to build an internal civilization and have it manifest in the external world. It allows us to explore our most fundamental nature and to begin to redirect our power of creation, a power that we all possess in a very human sense. It is a place where humanity can rise to its noble possibility.”

The NXIVM training system is administered through “Executive Success Programs,”.

Details of the programs are hidden from the public due to “licensing and copyright protections.” The training uses a technique called Rational Inquiry.

Here is what former Times Union reporter, James M. Odato wrote on Feb. 20, 2012:

Also known as Executive Success Programs, NXIVM is a company offering courses in the development of human potential.

It uses methods created by Keith Raniere, NXIVM’s founder, called “Rational Inquiry” technology which Raniere has been trying to patent since 2000.

He has said his program is a practice based on how the mind handles data with a goal of ethical behavior.

The program can by purchased like a health club membership to include weekly classes that run year-round, called Ethos, costing about $1,800 annually. Hundreds of modules are offered with names such as “Work and Value” or “Parasite Producing.”

Students must sign a confidentiality agreement to not share materials, methods and information.

Besides the Ethos program, NXIVM offers “intensives” of 16 days, costing about $7,500, where people attend from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m.; or for five days, costing about $2,700.

VIP intensives can run $10,000 for a five-day program.

Also, one-on-one “EMs”, or exploration of meaning, sessions are encouraged to concentrate on “issues” a person may be dealing with, such as relationships.

NXIVM promotional material describes its “school” as a place to help people develop consistent ways of approaching goals by changing the way students think, make decisions and react.

Students are instructed that all adults have “disintegrations” because they learned to understand the world from the perspective of a small child and NXIVM courses help people to re-examine beliefs.

Sashes of different colors are assigned to NXIVM participants to denote rank, similar to martial arts.

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So why has it received so much negative publicity? Why do people call it a cult? Why does the company initiate many lawsuits?

This is a question we will try to answer in future posts.

 

 

About the author

Frank Parlato

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About the Author

Frank Parlato is an investigative journalist.

His work has been cited in hundreds of news outlets, like The New York Times, The Daily Mail, VICE News, CBS News, Fox News, New York Post, New York Daily News, Oxygen, Rolling Stone, People Magazine, The Sun, The Times of London, CBS Inside Edition, among many others in all five continents.

His work to expose and take down NXIVM is featured in books like “Captive” by Catherine Oxenberg, “Scarred” by Sarah Edmonson, “The Program” by Toni Natalie, and “NXIVM. La Secta Que Sedujo al Poder en México” by Juan Alberto Vasquez.

Parlato has been prominently featured on HBO’s docuseries “The Vow” and was the lead investigator and coordinating producer for Investigation Discovery’s “The Lost Women of NXIVM.” Parlato was also credited in the Starz docuseries "Seduced" for saving 'slave' women from being branded and escaping the sex-slave cult known as DOS.

Additionally, Parlato’s coverage of the group OneTaste, starting in 2018, helped spark an FBI investigation, which led to indictments of two of its leaders in 2023.

Parlato appeared on the Nancy Grace Show, Beyond the Headlines with Gretchen Carlson, Dr. Oz, American Greed, Dateline NBC, and NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt, where Parlato conducted the first-ever interview with Keith Raniere after his arrest. This was ironic, as many credit Parlato as one of the primary architects of his arrest and the cratering of the cult he founded.

Parlato is a consulting producer and appears in TNT's The Heiress and the Sex Cult, which premiered on May 22, 2022. Most recently, he consulted and appeared on Tubi's "Branded and Brainwashed: Inside NXIVM," which aired January, 2023.

IMDb — Frank Parlato

Contact Frank with tips or for help.
Phone / Text: (305) 783-7083
Email: frankparlato@gmail.com

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