This was posted in the comments section of the Times Union series on Raniere and NXIVM and, after re-reading recently, I felt it was worth posting here:
Anonymous:
I was involved for some time: 6 years. I left. I went in with a purpose. The tool was useful in uncovering issues. While I was there, I saw a lot. I learned a lot. I saw red flags all the time and all over the place.
I took note…
Fortunately for me, I kept myself very busy so that I wasn’t too involved with the social aspect of the organization. I had other friends.
I did, however, get the opportunity to see all the people in their OCD underwear. People are psychologically cut open when in an intensive. I saw how Keith pulled all the strings and how Nancy was just a pawn, as with her daughters (one is part leader, one is too afraid to leave mommy) Then I saw the exploiting of the women and people.
It was obvious but hard to believe that you are being deceived in such a way. You just have to keep rubbing your eyes until the vision is clear. What happens to those that are in is that there is the sixth sense that is very apparent, but you just don’t want to believe that you’re in this shit storm of deception, because some of the things are really good.
What Keith proposes and the organization espouses is that this is all for a better world and a better ethical humanity.
Who doesn’t want to believe that? What they forgot is that there is the rest of the world and people have their own experiences.
The tools show one their biggest fears and greatest virtue… Psychological YO-YO… How can I stroke thee to keep you in my grasp? It is amazing and disgusting. I am still grappling with the fact that I was ever involved and it is embarrassing for me.
But, I did find what I was looking for. So, am I any better? If you can be a tool for them, you are invited in…. I was a tool & I did exchange… I certainly didn’t have $, (I had a support team on the outside of NX)
It was a conscious choice as I had something I needed to uncover. This I did. It was work. They called me defiant many many many times and said I was fighting them.
Yay happy ending! For those who haven’t yet arrived at their own happy ending, here’s some food for thought:
Dr. Margaret T. Singer’s 6 Conditions for Thought Reform:
1. Keep the person unaware of what is going on and how she or he is being changed a step at a time. Potential new members are led, step by step, through a behavioral-change program without being aware of the final agenda or full content of the group. The goal may be to make them deployable agents for the leadership, to get them to buy more courses, or get them to make a deeper commitment, depending on the leader’s aim and desires.
2. Control the person’s social and/or physical environment; especially control the person’s time. Through various methods, newer members are kept busy and led to think about the group and its content during as much of their waking time as possible.
3. Systematically create a sense of powerlessness in the person. This is accomplished by getting members away from the normal social support group for a period of time and into an environment where the majority of people are already group members. The members serve as models of the attitudes and behaviors of the group and speak an in-group language.
4. Manipulate a system of rewards, punishments and experiences in such a way as to inhibit behavior that reflects the person’s former social identity. Manipulation of experiences can be accomplished through various methods of trance induction, including leaders using such techniques as paced speaking patterns, guided imagery, chanting, long prayer sessions or lectures, and lengthy meditation sessions.
5. Manipulate a system of rewards, punishments, and experiences in order to promote learning the group’s ideology or belief system and group-approved behaviors. Good behavior, demonstrating an understanding and acceptance of the group’s beliefs, and compliance are rewarded while questioning, expressing doubts or criticizing are met with disapproval, redress and possible rejection. If one expresses a question, he or she is made to feel that there is something inherently wrong with them to be questioning.
6. Put forth a closed system of logic and an authoritarian structure that permits no feedback and refuses to be modified except by leadership approval or executive order. The group has a top-down, pyramid structure. The leaders must have verbal ways of never losing.
This group/cult – whatever you want to call it – was such a waste of money and time.