Neil Glazer: Clare Bronfman and Keith Raniere: The Institutionalization of Sexual Abuse of Women

The following is from the Nxivm civil lawsuit  It was written by Neil Glazer and is another example of the cold cruel world of Bronfman-Raniere.

By Neil Glazer [from the lawsuit]

In or around 2014, [Nxivm] Defendants created yet another set of new programs. Partly as a way to keep existing members on the hamster wheel of endless curriculum, and partly to induce certain members or new recruits to join supposedly exciting new business ventures,  Defendants established the Ultima companies – businesses tailored to appeal to a particular audience.

Among the Ultima companies were The Source and exo/eso.

The most insidious aspect of these two new programs was known only to Keith Raniere and his Inner Circle: that they would be used to recruit and groom suitable female candidates for sexual servitude to Raniere.

Raniere and Clare Bronfman personally oversaw all aspects of the development and operation of exo/eso, NXIVM’s bodywork program that was marketed to athletes, fitness enthusiasts, yoga practitioners, and others with an interest in physical health and well-being.

To staff exo/eso, Raniere selected six people who fit his criteria: female, young, attractive, thin, and interested in devoting their time to a career within NXIVM.

Among these six were Jane Doe 16, Jane Doe 17, and Jane Doe 18. All were honored to have been selected by the Vanguard to work closely with him on this program and were excited by the prospect of earning thousands of dollars monthly and substantially more over the first few years.

To work closely with Raniere, exo/eso members had to meet with him when and where he commanded. Often this would be in the middle of the night – 3 a.m. meetings were not unusual – which resulted in perpetual sleep-deprivation.

Exo/eso participants were, therefore, physically weak and easy to manipulate in accordance with Raniere’s needs and desires.

During often hours-long meetings, Raniere would dictate the supposed exo/eso curriculum to these women. While there was some physical component, it was not particularly challenging or innovative, though the women were told it was a work in progress that Raniere would continue to develop, even as students were recruited and the first trainings were held.

Exo/eso allowed Raniere to captivate and manipulate an audience predisposed to searching for meaning in his every word. But he was making the whole thing up as he went along.

Still, members of the NXIVM community signed up, and the prospect of this radically new and transformative bodywork system attracted new recruits, who were told that once properly trained, they would be among the first to go out and open their own exo/eso centers around the U.S. and the world.

In fact, this business was a farce, never intended by Defendants to be a viable company. People paid substantial sums for a program that they thought would change their lives and careers for the better.

To keep the women motivated, Raniere and Clare Bronfman created a costly event where wealthy NXIVM supporters traveled to Clare Bronfman’s private island resort in Fiji for a week-long exo/eso intensive.

Although, as in all things NXIVM, the women were never paid what they were promised, this event generated revenues that were in part used to compensate the women just enough to keep them on the hook, believing better days were just around the corner.

Back in Albany, the early exo/eso seminars were well-attended, filled with members of the community dutifully taking yet another addition to the curriculum.

Once the initial interest waned, however, the company slowed and then stalled. No exo/eso centers were ever opened. Nobody graduated or obtained a certification to own, operate, or teach in such centers. No resources were made available to promote and market the company and its services.

Exo/eso was starved of resources, as Defendants through self-dealing caused the company to become indebted to the Defendants’ many other entities, as well as to Defendants themselves, including most prominently Clare Bronfman.

Exo/eso was ultimately a means for Clare Bronfman to assist Raniere with recruiting women whom Raniere considered desirable. Clare Bronfman helped Raniere groom these women, going so far as to manipulate foreign nationals into positions where their immigration status was compromised, they were completely broke, and thus completely dependent on Clare Bronfman and Raniere.

When exo/eso women complained about the lack of compensation, Raniere and Clare Bronfman told them that they did not deserve to be paid.

Defendant Lauren Salzman also became involved. Salzman scolded the women for having a sense of “entitlement,” claiming that they had “ethical breaches,” and that until those breaches were “healed,” they had no right to be compensated.

The women were required to attend a private teaching of NXIVM’s “tribute” module, where they were told that they needed to learn how to work for free willingly.

To generate interest in these programs, Raniere announced that The Source – an Ultima program for actors and other public speakers – would also include exo/eso training as an integral component.

This kept the women trying to build exo/eso busy with more teaching but added nothing to their revenues or incomes, because they had no “ethical” claim to The Source revenues.

Over time, as Raniere worked closely with the women whom he and Clare Bronfman had selected and recruited to “own” exo/eso, Raniere and Clare Bronfman used his position of authority – the tremendous power differential he had built into NXIVM – to identify which women would be most susceptible to his grooming methods and sexual advances.

The experience was traumatic for all of the women Bronfman and Raniere “worked with” in developing exo/eso.