Kim Snyder, the sister of Kristin Snyder, has been pushing hard to find out what really happened to her sister.
Kristin was ejected from a Nxivm class in Anchorage, Alaska, on Feb. 6, 2003, almost 17 years ago, after making the extraordinary claim that she was pregnant with Nxivm leader Keith Raniere’s child.
She was never seen again.
At the time, all of his followers [except the dozen or so women he was having sex with] believed he was a celibate, when in reality he was a crazed sex addict and a psychopath.
Thanks to Kim’s help, and the help of Susan Dones, I have been able to ascertain that Kristin Snyder was in Albany from on or about January 18 to on or about January 25, 2003.
Within 12 days from the time she left Albany, she would disappear forever.
Susan Dones met with Kristin when she first came to Albany which would have been on or about Jan. 18. It is important to note that Susan saw a cheerful and friendly Kristin Snyder. She had met her at their last intensive the previous November and got to know her well.
Susan said Kristin was bright, cheerful and stable. Like Susan, Kristin is a lesbian. So in a sense they bonded and understood each other perhaps a little better than others in the Nxivm classes.
When Susan saw her in Albany, she was surprised to see Kristin there but definitely noted there was nothing evidently wrong with her. She had just come from a visit to her parents and sister in Dillon and came to Albany, she said, to see the headquarters of Nxivm – which was then known as Executive Success Programs.
Kristin called the headquarters in Albany, “the mother ship.”
She had not yet met Keith Alan Raniere, the leader of Nxivm, it would seem, having just got into Albany that day. Susan left Albany the same day Kristin arrived. They would never meet again.
What happened during the next few days is not definitely known. What is known is that Kristin, instead of renting a hotel room, chose to rent a room in the house of Esther Carlson Chiappione in Clifton Park.
Esther was from Alaska, and had moved with her four children to Albany to have a relationship, she thought, with Keith Raniere. She thought Keith was going to be her boyfriend.
He lied to her. And after she left her husband and relocated to Albany to become a full time Nxivm recruiter and teacher, she found out that Raniere was anything but monogamous. To her credit, Esther refused to join his harem but she did tell Susan Dones that she had sex with Raniere and she was very unhappy about his lying to her.
But evidently Esther finally saw it Keith’s way. Esther began lying for Keith too.
And while Kristin was in Albany that fateful week in January, 2003, Esther hosted Kristin.
We also know that Kristin attended some classes called Ethos, which are rather like introductory ESP classes.
We know that somehow shortly after Kristin got there, she disappeared during the days – and people began to wonder where she took off to all day. A number of people wondered.
There are those who believe, including her sister, Kim, that Kristin went to be privately mentored by Keith Raniere, who would have heard about her being lesbian, about her being slender, and attractive, and possibly planned to have sex with her.
If Keith Raniere wanted to meet Kristin Snyder when she was in Albany, you can rest assured that Nancy Salzman, Karen Abney and Esther Chiappione Carlson would have arranged it.
What did Keith do to her that would later prompt Kristin to claim she was pregnant with his child?
We know that Clare Bronfman, years later, told a source of mine that Keith did get Kristin pregnant. But at the time, Clare and her sister Sara were just getting indoctrinated into the cult and thought Keith was a celibate.
Kim Snyder has provided so much meaningful insight into her sister that it is hard to ignore her thoughts about her sister. Kim said she was fine, though perhaps a little too exuberant about Nxivm, when she visited her home in Dillon for the last time, just prior to going to Albany. Kim recalls that she overheard her sister during her last visit to the family in Dillon talking on the phone to two women. One she later identified as the voice of Nancy Salzman and the other she believes is Karen Abney, Kristin’s coach.
And Kristin seemed fine when she first got to Albany, according to Susan Dones.
We don’t know what happened during the next few days when she may have been exposed to the monster.
Thanks to Kim, we have a look at some writings of Kristin, written on Jan, 26, the day she started her second 16 day intensive in Anchorage at the Westmark Hotel.
Esther Chiappone and her soon to be boyfriend Ed Kinum were teaching the class. Kristin’s spouse Heidi Clifford and her mother were also in attendance. So was [Name Redacted].
For the first time ever, we are publishing Kristin’s last known writings [other than the “suicide note” – of which we are not sure she is the author] and as importantly we are publishing Kim’s comments on this.
Kristin wrote, on Jan 26th, 2003:
I am looking for the exception (children) because I fear change. I am detracting from ESP because I have failure in my thought level.
The worst thing of ESP is correct in that I have the choice to change and I choose not to. I am so vested in my disintegration that I choose not to be integrated even though I say I want to be integrated.
I want more not to be than I want to be, so therefore I can either choose to want to be more than not wanting to be or I can’t change because I don’t know how to use the tools that I now have or I have a disintegration that keeps me from being able to even know how to use the tools.
What would embracing ESP as true and right look like?
-Not detracting- affirming ESP
-pleasure (no pain) -no sadness-happiness
This is where I am having trouble because if I think if I do embrace it I should be having no pain or sadness-
but I do, so I think I should not be embracing it- so I push it away even though I want to have pleasure and happiness.
I think I do that in all areas of my life — I want no pain (fear is pain) all I actually tell myself I want pain (I like pain) so that no one gives it to me. (If I ask you for something you won’t give it to me). That is the ultimate in superstitions. If I see a black cat I think something bad is going to happen. If I think something bad is going to happen– I am going to create a black cat (fear) so that it doesn’t happen, which means it’s happening because I just saw the cat!
I need help. Ask for help. OK, ESP, I need help, please help me. What’s wrong asking that?
Maybe they can’t help me. I am a hopeless case, perhaps. Wouldn’t you want to know that – then you could just stay there and not ever worry again?
This is the way I am. What if I am more afraid of not knowing whether I am a hopeless case (or not)? That would be lack of data.
What is the worst thing about not knowing whether I am a hopeless case or not? If I choose not to know then I don’t find out that I am a hopeless case (I am lost. I might as well kill myself now). AND I don’t find out that I’m not a hopeless case- [which makes me a hopeless case.]
So it’s my subdued – dominated beat up self – tired victim
Ask for help Don’t ask for help
Can Cant Don’t know I’m a hopeless case-
help help I’m not a hopeless case – i.e. there is hope
So I have to know I am a hopeless case before I ask for help.
Maybe I am wrong there in that assumption.
OK- so maybe ESP can help even though I think I am a hopeless case. What’s the worst thing about that?
I will change.
Maybe change is like the pain thing because I really don’t want it. I say I do because I know if I ask for something I get the exact opposite which is the familiar- The world the way I want it to be (sense). NOT .
If someone takes care of me, they make me feel better (sick/want to feel better, feel bad/ want to feel good). But if I feel better then I won’t need them to take care of me- so I make myself feel bad, so they will take care of me.
If I take care of me, I make myself feel better. If I am sick, I want to feel better. If I feel bad I want to feel good, but if I feel better/good, then I want need myself to take care of me. So I make myself feel bad/ feed bad, so I will take care of me. Thumb sucking?
Kim’s comment on Kristin’s last writings:
Kim said, “Kristin never spoke like this before. I think this is the result of spending time with Keith Raniere and with her mind being bent by him and my sister probably having been tricked into sex with him or possibly raped.
“This confused talk is something he may have led her to, deliberately playing with her head. She mentions ‘children’ at the top and ‘suicide’ in the middle. This is possibly his suggestions.
“I also think that at this point she does not know or think she is pregnant. My speculation is that Kris is just getting her head around the sex part of his teachings.
“She is confused but not dangerously confused. There is a certain coherence to what she is saying and Keith might have put these question into her head to increase her doubts – that she must embrace and fully accept ESP [and Keith’s sex too?] and she is confused about it. But she is being sincere.
“Kristin speaks about being a hopeless case. Is that something Keith threatened her with? Being hopeless – and if she was hopeless than why should she continue to live?
“Kristin never thought of herself as hopeless, She was always filled with ambition, and hope, and confidence. By the way, Kristin did suck her thumb, but only when she was sleepy.”
***
So this was Kristin on her first day back, away from Raniere, but taking the ESP class that he devised and in which the students thank him aloud every day.
Thank you Vanguard.
As we shall see in our next post, Kristin’s behavior began to deteriorate over the next few days. Heidi suspects it was when she missed her period that she then believed Raniere got her pregnant.
What we don’t know is the content of the near endless phone calls Kristin made to Albany and what Keith, Esther, [Name Redacted], Ed Kinum, Karen Abney and the monster-enabler Nancy Salzman conspired to do behind the scenes.
What we will get a glimpse of is what Kristin was seen to be doing on the outside and how Esther and Ed worked together to enlarge her feelings of doubt and prevent her from going to the hospital to get medical treatment.
Perhaps they were afraid of a pregnancy test.
Kristin Snyder’s descent is rapid and horrifying. We are studying this to try to find out what happened to her.
Did she commit suicide? Was she driven to her insanity by something Keith Raniere and his coconspirators did?
Did he drug her, or poison her? Did he rape her?
We know she claimed she had sex with Keith and that he got her pregnant. We know that two people who had sex with Keith – Esther and Nancy – told Kristin that she was imagining having sex with Keith since he was a celibate, a despicable lie to tell a confused and frightened woman trying to get her head around what he had done to her.
We know Kristin told the entire class that Keith got her pregnant several times and each time she did she was removed from class. And we know that the last time she cried out that she was pregnant, Esther Chiappone forcibly removed her from class and she was never seen again.
Her sister, Kim thinks it is homicide and she and I will present more evidence [or shall we call it data?] in our next post.
Stay tuned.
Frank Parlato 
Janine Morrison 
J.J. O'Hara 
Richard Luthmann 
Marie White 
Paul Serran
Please leave a comment: Your opinion is important to us!
Maybe Mexican prisons should be checked out for a female gringo.
Truly bazaar. So, let’s assume she suffered from some type of mental frailty. This is all opinion. There’s these options:
1. She was depressed and took her life;
2. She was depressed, and the curriculum pushed her over the edge;
3. She was depressed and coaxed into suicide to cover something up;
4. She was murdered.
So, just my opinion–
Yes, depressed;
Yes, her ramblings sound like vanguard bullshit (easy to prove);
Assume pregnant, if she so stated.
You must have a) prior medicals; b) knowledge of the curriculum; c) an expert witness to pull it together.
With no corpus, you won’t get murder. But you might get negligent homicide with the prior meds, curriculum, and expert.
Ed Kinum was already in a relationship with Esther when they were at the intensive.
Esther was f***k*** Ed to piss of Raniere. Ed and Esther made people’s head turn sideways. Like a golden retriever looking at something odd.
Esther, back then was a looker and could have had the pick of many men in NXIVM, some very wealthy. Ed was odd, overweight and broke.
Ed Kinum was kind hearted but the perfect revenge man for Esther to sleep with to get back at Raniere for lying to her.
Personally, I’d pick the wealthy, jacked, hunk if I wanted to make someone jealous. But you might be on to something. How sweet does Ed’s semen taste?
This all cries out for an INVESTIGATION by impartial (if there is such an animal) Federal and State, trained investigators.
My two cents worth: when and if Kris was repeating “I don’t know if I can go through with it” to Elaine, the coach who drove her home, allegedly, Kris may have been talking about suicide not abortion or having Keith’s baby.
I believe she and Gina and possibly others were being deliberately hypnotized or brainwashed or “triggered” into what NXIVM taught was the “noble” act (under certain circumstances) of taking their own lives.
That fits with all the evidence I’ve seen.
Why is that so far fetched when we know terrorist groups use similar methods to train suicide bombers all over the world? When we know NXIVM leaders sought that level of manipulation and domination? What does 3 attempts to start a revolution in Libya backed by Bronfman bucks tell you?
2-4-6-8 New York must INVESTIGATE! (Who knows how many others are walking around with “emotional triggers” planted in them by NXIVM?!).
Heidi you have some good points.
First off, Ellen was not a coach, she was a student in Kristin first intensive. She was not in the second intensive. Esther called her because she wasn’t in the intensive and available to come pick Kristin up and take her home.
If people are being found guilty of helping their boyfriends commit suicide by texting them when they are suicidal, a group of NXIVM goons could certainly help push someone over the edge to commit suicide.
It is also possible Kristin Snyder didn’t commit suicide. It’s possible she was murdered because she would not shut her mouth about what Raniere did to her and wouldn’t have an abortion.
Raniere and his goons would not have wanted that information to have been publicly disclosed.
Raniere has admitted he has had people killed for his beliefs.
Kristin was fighting internally for her mind and had an internal struggle going on. Her not wanting to change, could be, her not wanting to bend her mind into what NXIVM leadership wanted her to believe was the best way to live life ~ Raniere’s style.
Her partner Heidi Clifford was no help to Kristin. Heidi Clifford mother wasn’t any help to Kristin. Both these women were in the intensive and at home with her in the evening. How can two people not see Kristin need professional help? Heidi Clifford is an Occupational therapist and has training on patients falling apart. WTF!
Is it the power of NXIVM mind bending technology working on all three women? Was the staff from Ed Kinum, Esther on down brainwashing everyone via Nancy Salzman that no one could see that Kristin Snyder was in need of professional help outside of what the staff could offer?
This seems like a case for the FBI because it crosses state lines. Kristen Snyder was in Alaska but the main players all lived in Albany NY.
With how much Kristin was talking with the NXIVM coaches and higher-ups, I’m sure she would have shared the info if she missed her period. And if there was a pregnancy test done, the results certainly would have been immediately shared.
For those who attented the Alaska intensive, please help. Call Frank and anonymously tell him everything that you remember.
It’s very obvious that Raniere decided to ‘break’ her.
No doubt, he did his very best to do so.
With Nancy’s assistance, of course.
Was Kristin involved for only three or four months of executive success programs before her disappearance? How extreme her involvement became, and it ended so swiftly. She must have been excessively pressured. This was a disgusting commercial hard sell. Invasive.
Not a lot of young women would’ve been able to take that much time off, all crammed together, from their own careers or work. Everything took place from sometime in November, 2002 until February 6, 2003. Plus, Kristin had to travel so far.
This was all so exhaustive, jam-packed, and lots of $$$ being spent. It feels out-of-hand and, again, too extreme. It is as if Kristin took no time to think things over and was never given time, either. Her family visit was already being crazily monitored, manipulated by people she had only just met. No wonder her father asked her some challenging questions. He must have been concerned and alarmed, to have seen it as too much.
Why her? Nancy Salzman, one of Raniere’s major commandants, taught the first week of Kristin’s initial Executive Success group, yes? Probably she told Raniere something like, ” I have a gem for you, and she is a lesbian and very cute.” Then Kristin was set up quickly to meet him, etc.
What did these freaks want? It seems cut and dried. Then Kristin was in that Anchorage program immediately after Keith, Nancy and Esther deceived her in New York. He got his way with her, Kristin said.
But it sounds from her diary that also, he tormented her emotions, told her that she was “all wrong” and pushed her psychologically to doubt every aspect of her life. This was his and his miscreants’ idea of fun? Raniere was a psycho. So what the hell were Nacy Salzman and Esther, one sociopath and one confused, recently-embittered stooge?
We get the idea who reeled her up to Clifton Park, and who had advertised her to Raniere, leading Kristin to be in his clutches from approximately Jan. 18th, 2003 for 7 or 8 days, until Jan. 25th. And then, the Anchorage 16 day intensive started on January 26th. What did Kristin do, fly from Albany back to Anchorage, I guess? And she might have gotten Heidi C. and Heidi’s mother to lined up to join her for the intensive, and somehow that was arranged?
What did Heidi Clifford and her mother witness? Heidi wanted to help Kristin to get medical help and was prevented by Raniere’s/Salzman’s entire intensive staff. This is a living nightmare, not only too fast, too hard. It is bonechilling.
It’s complete abnormality and malintent, run by at least Nancy Salzman from her phones. For how long did the disguises of executive success, of authoritative, new-age drenched benevolence
Then all three were in the Anchorage intensive, at least from Jan. 26th until Feb. 6th, 12 of 16 scheduled days. So when during the Anchorage group, did Kristin start to tell her truths about Raniere and sex and get pulled out and put back into the group? This sequence happened at least three times.
Kristin might very well have missed her period. She might have said more when she was sequestered by staff. Who? Did Heidi see the gaslighting and what about her mom?
It feels terrible to witness the depths of struggling Kristin expressed from her diary entry, less than 2 weeks before she was told, by (at least some) of her final intensive’s staff who knew better about Raniere, that she was seeking attention by saying that Raniere had impregnated her. That is outrageous behavior. Executive Criminals.
Has law enforcement in Alaska been ignoring all of this? How can it be re-opened, or is it now? Again. Who was at the Westmark location and at Millers Landing? [Name Redacted], who then got paid big, via Nancy Salzman.
What solid proof is there of anything at all about Kristin, since she was “escorted” away from the Westmark parking lot in a vehicle? What happened to her purse or valise or intensive programs or notes, etc.? Everything is foggy except for the conjoined, cult-gang’s malevolence towards Kristin. What else is there, beyond their subsequent obstuctions and palm-greasings?
It sounds like at least Nancy Salzman and Esther Chiappone procured Kristin for Raniere so that he could get at her alone at his regular headquarters. They made sure he got her. What crazy greed and obtuseness made them send her right back, from Raniere into another of their 16 day intensives? He had sex with her after making her see her life as wrong, superimposing himself over her. Without his harem, Raniere could not have managed this consciousless violence. They had to procure Kristin first and fool her along.
Kristin would not have suspected any of Nancy or Esther’s real intentions. Why would she? Kristin was in her own loving relationship with Heidi Clifford. She hadn’t hidden her status. Raniere was presented to her as the greatest, smartest, guru-hero who practiced celibacy. This is sickening. I cannot imagine what Kristin was going through with these diabolical creeps.
How could she imagine that Raniere would turn on her, would use sadistic psycho-sexual
mumbo-jumbo on her, to tear down her personal life and her values, to enforce his ways and means onto her? This is violence. Yes. It is psychosexual terrorism. Who expects anything like that! Raniere had to play God and to try converting or messing with sexual orientations. He did every kind of boundaries-invasion he could push, ordering all kinds of sexual combos, for years. He was raping children, trafficking children and women, extorting from anyone plausible.
It was already nuts, before Kristin bought into the group’s sales pitches. I’m thankful for any new info at all. It gets more heartbreaking but the truth needs to be pursued and found. This has murder written all over it. The staff were absolutely vicious in Anchorage, Alaska while carrying out orders from Nancy Salzman, and very likely it was all produced for Keith Raniere, or at least co-produced by him.
“Vengeance is Mine,” sayeth the Lord. Yes, many of us strive with that conceptualization, like an inner self-discipline, come hell or high water. What about justice in Alaska? By now, something has got to give. Kristin disappeared. If not criminal justice, is it too late for civil suits? What if the basis is newly emerging evidence?
Clare Bronfman TOLD someone that Kristin wasn’t lying, about Kristin’s “sex with” or pregnancy from Raniere? When and where did Clare bleat, if no word can be said, as to whom Clare spoke? There is nothing ,ever, to get used to or to find acceptable about what happened to Kristin. Nothing.
Apologies for leaving 9th paragraph with an incomplete sentence intended to end with “…authoritative, new-age drenched benevolence satisfy Kristin or keep her seeming receptive to the group, or did she arrive in Anchorage upset or ready to speak out, or did she come to a slow or sudden boiling point while the program progressed?”
Maybe it would be a little easier to read now. The rest is just some alohas
This has been a long week or so at our house, good but a bit much busyness, plus 2 of us with surprise fevers and chills, one being me, the grandma. Things are getting easier. No bothers here now. Most of all please accept love and respect being sent, from me and our family to all who have been profoundly affected, have not given up and need more truth for Kristin. For Gina Hutchinson.
You are all ones for whom we’ve been lighting candles and letting silent prayers come, even moreso with Thanksgiving on the way and more holidays, birthdays. To the Snyder family and Heidi Clifford’s and to Susan Dones. Frank Parlato and Heidi Hutchinson? Well, even our cats see those lights of love and respect I feel for both. Trying not to be too emotional, but what’s the use.
How about a screen shot of this writing, and a comparison to the suicide note? Is law enforcement aware of all of this?
Raniere & Co. definitely got into her head, and it didn’t take them very long. However, a gay adult woman who sucks her thumb is already half-way down that track.
The calls to her “mentors” is MLM 101. When you get into a difficult situation, call your upline.
Law enforcement not being given this information in 2003 when this happened is a huge mistake.
Why did it take Dones so long to leave NXIVM after finding out about Raniere’s multiple sex partners?
“Esther was from Alaska, and had moved with her four children to Albany to have a relationship, she thought, with Keith Raniere. She thought Keith was going to be her boyfriend.
He lied to her. And after she left her husband and relocated to Albany to become a full time Nxivm recruiter and teacher, she found out that Raniere was anything but monogamous. To her credit, Esther refused to join his harem but she did tell Susan Dones that she had sex with Raniere and she was very unhappy about his lying to her.”
To her credit? In the context of the rest of this paragraph, Esther gets no credit. She’s just one more f*cked up NXIVM female. Think of a basketball player who touches the ball 5 times during a game and turns it over 4 times. “To his credit,” he didn’t turn it over 5 times. LOL
Esther is still in NXIVM.
I don’t care very much whether she’s still in or not, she’s f*cked up either way.
It might be helpful if one of the readers here who took the intensives could tell us what class may have brought this kind of thinking to the fore for Kristin. It would also be very informative to have someone such as Sarah Edmondson, who taught intensives for years, take a look at these writings and tell us what Kristin may have been trying to work through. I know the two women never met but the modules taught were the same. If Ms Edmondson does want to atone for the part she played in duping people out of their life savings it’s the least she could do.
Snyder was already damaged goods when NXIVM got ahold of her. Being gay in a Christian family, sucking your thumb as an adult, and living thousands of miles away all contributed. I don’t think any “analysis” of someone without these issues would be very meaningful.
Scott,
You are a wonderful person……
If you are drowning (hypothetically)and someone throws you a life preserver…
…..it’s a waste of a life preserver.
I know how to swim and float. You, on the other hand, can’t even pick up a phone and talk. LOL
Good points Leon Festinger
I’m anxiously waiting for a reply to Dr. Festinger on this question, too. C’mon, you can post Anonymously! …Use a public library computer if you’re shy.
Was it the “Good or Bad” module? That’d be my guess from the circular logic. Prove me wrong.
Festinger,
Excellent idea!
To the person/ persons involved in any way with the untimely demise of the beautiful Kristen, I highly suggest you take a note from your precious Prefect, Bananas Salzman, and get in on the 1st plea deal. Kim would rather you fry in a chair but if you’re brave, the way the law is these days you may get a bare minimum sentence and ultimately help yourself. That shiver down your back is real. A little truth will set you free. You’re not as clever as you thought. The problem with a group killing is someone always sings first. That first canary can sing so loud and so bright that Grace is still attainable. Ed? [Name Redacted]? Ester? Don’t tell me Hiedi may have a hand. Or what about Kenny? Nancy Bananas Salzman – will you get on first again? You did advise your lower subjects what to do about Kristen? Ed Kinnum, buddy come on, you’re a Christian. Confess your sins. Jesus will save you.
At last, a post that does not mention Toni Natalie. #lovemylady
To Toni’s Liege:
In my opinion Toni Natalie is Fugly!
Toni Natalie’s face is Fugly!
Toni Natalie’s body is Fugly!
Toni Natalie’s behavior is Fugly!
Toni Natalie’s mind is Fugly!
And opinions are not defamation.
Who is Toni Natalie?
“Who is Toni Natalie?”
Good Question.
To some, she was one of Raniere’s earliest girlfriends.
To herself, she is a hero.
To others, Toni Natalie is a Hot Mess who fabricates stories.
Obviously in distress. But I again say: did she have depression etc in her past?
If Snyder was writing “I am lost. I might as well kill myself now.” on the first day of her intensive, I’d say that points to her being in fairly bad shape mentally going into it.
The 2004 Times Union article described apparently disturbing changes observed by Snyder’s family before she went to New York:
‘The Snyders said they knew something had changed when Kristin Snyder visited the family’s 300-acre cotton farm a few weeks after her first intensive. They say they hardly recognized the tearful, angry woman.
When her parents challenged her about NXIVM, Kristin Snyder would cut off discussion and telephone her ESP “coach,” her mother said.
“She had this ‘We can do anything we want to do’ attitude,” Jonnie Snyder said. “She thought Keith was incredible.”
Kristin Snyder visited ESP headquarters in Halfmoon for several days in January 2003 to learn more about the group. When she returned to Anchorage, she was sleep-deprived and seemed irrational, but intent to start another $7,000, 16-day intensive, Clifford said.
“She went to Albany and said, ‘Vanguard doesn’t sleep, so I don’t need to sleep,’ ” Clifford said.
NXIVM’s customs made Clifford uncomfortable, but she said she signed up for an ESP intensive to support her partner.’
Just to clarify, Anony, if I’m not mistaken, Kristin wrote the “may as well kill myself now” after taking prior NXIVM intensives and some personal “mentoring” with Raniere.