Allison Mack jogs, make E! News, provokes Tweet storm and NXIVM.com shuts down

http://vancouversun.com/news/b-c-actress-tells-of-her-descent-into-a-bizarre-group-and-ultimate-escape

Edmondson attended her first Executive Success Program — weeklong workshops that scrambled elements of personal growth and psychology in a success coaching curriculum — in 2005. There were some hokey elements to ESP: recruits wear sashes, move up the “striped path,” and are instructed to refer to the program’s mysterious guru-like leader, Keith Raniere, as “Vanguard.”

“It was cheesy,” says Edmondson of that first workshop held at the Burnaby Holiday Inn. But there was enough to it that somehow, “transformation” happened through a process called “rational inquiry.” She broke through some personal issues. “My experience was really helpful. I just thought it was great.”

Edmondson was doing what she loved: “Building community.”

And there were seductive perks: private jets. “Think of me, an aspiring actress, getting flown on a private jet to Alaska. It was exciting.”

Edmondson was invited into the Nxivm community by Mark Vicente, cinematographer and director of the 2004 hit What the Bleep Do We Know!?

In an interview from his home in Los Angeles, Vicente, who left the organization in May, said he was originally invited to attend a five-day ESP intensive in 2005.

It was a heady time for Vicente, who was flying on the tailwinds of the life-changing success of What the Bleep. Opportunities were everywhere and ESP appeared to be a good one. “They were good people involved, who yearned to do good things.”

They courted him. Love-bombed him. “They were inviting me to things, flying me on private jets. I was thinking, Hey, I can make movies with these guys. I was very excited.”

He met Edmondson at a film festival, and invited her to a training session. “She was in! She said can we bring this to Vancouver? Sarah and I partnered up, and we were a great team.”

The Vancouver-Hollywood connection was crucial to the company’s public image. “It added enormous credibility. We had TV stars, movie stars coming in. Star power gets used.”

Now, says Vicente, he and Edmondson feel a responsibility to get their friends out.

Slowly, almost imperceptibly, as Vicente was drawn in more deeply, he separated from what he loved: filmmaking. “People said to me later, you were at the peak of something and then you just disappeared.”

…

Vicente began to notice changes in the last year or two — the women around Raniere were very skinny. They looked vacant, he said. “It was like Handmaid’s Tale,” says Vicente. “Something weird was going on.”

He heard rumours that there was a secret underground society within the organization. He began to investigate.

He talked to Edmondson. Finally, the pressure broke. She told him everything. The branding. The holding people down. The damaging material. The change in her relationship with her coach to a master-slave relationship.

She showed him the brand. Raniere hadn’t been present at the branding ritual, but Vicente says they both saw that the brand seemed to include his initials: KR.

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He advised her to get out — and he lauds her courage. Although he can’t comment on what actions she has taken, he says, “What was done morally to protect people is very good.”

What horrifies Vicente is this: “For years I thought I was this noble soldier standing guard outside the Star Trek Federation — a symbol of goodness and ethics. It’s tragic to me, and it’s tragic to Sarah that there are so many people who did this because they trusted us.”

4Chan Thread:

http://boards.4chan.org/pol/thread/148802230