Former Nxian: Probing Analysis of Keith Raniere – By Someone Who Knew Him and Took the Courses

By EM Tech

A former Nxian

There are a few key elements of Keith Raniere’s hypothesized psychology that can be identified:.

1. Bad intention vs. Good intention
2. Collateral and Surety and the premise behind giving and receiving them
3. The premise of conscience-driven people – Keith’s version of conscience as related to cold and warm empathy
4. The nature of a secret – good and bad, legal and illegal
5. Observations on Keith’s business and social constructs (inner circles etc) and how he facilitated his cult of personality

Bad intention vs Good intention.

Keith’s own definition of bad is anything anti-humanity or destroying of value. Keith set up a premise that time with him, as the creator of the EM Tech and the philosophical founder of all of these “movements”, was that his time was infinitely valuable, and, therefore, any direction coming with Keith must either

1) uphold humanity and create value, or

2) if you don’t see that, you need to work your issue.

By positioning the community of people that followed him in this way, this premise was the foundation of everything that followed. If you question this premise and evaluate intention with Keith’s own definitions, without that premise in place, reality sinks in: Keith’s actions were measurably bad, and measurably anti-humanity.

Through Clare Bronfman and others, Keith was able to demean and disrespect hard-working members of his community, rarely through himself but often through others, all the while remaining immune himself from scrutiny.

Giving and Receiving Collateral and Surety

Surety is a guarantee that someone will behave as you want them to, even if they change their mind later. Surety for a mother standing at the ladder of the diving board ensuring her daughter, who wants to take her first dive but is scared, is a loving act – the mother ensures the daughter keeps at it in the face of fear and achieves her goal.

Surety as a collection of trashy photos and letters as a life-ruining threat if you decide not to have intimate relations with someone is not the same thing, and is a crime Keith is guilty of.

Some hypothesize that because Keith is incapable of feeling regular emotions or the consequences of his actions, Keith is unable to see the difference between these two examples, and he sees both the emotional blackmail and first dive examples I have used here as indistinguishable.

Collateral is a simple term for value placed in safekeeping in exchange for a loan of greater value in hopes the collateral may be used in case of default. In a trusting friendship or loving relationship, such collateral is unnecessary – how many of us would act against a best friend or beloved family member? None of us would, because we have a conscience. Because some hypothesize Keith has no conscience, it makes sense then that Keith would lean so heavily on the idea of collateral and extend it — ineffectively, inappropriately, disrespectfully, and illegally — into sexual acts, and be guilty of crimes.

This is a concept that Keith’s “supporters” are failing to think through effectively.

The Premise of Conscience and Keith’s Version of Existence

Because some hypothesize Keith has no conscience or inner moral compass, he is forced to act it out.

To a conscience-barren person like some hypothesize Keith to be, warm empathy consciousness — what most of us have in that when we do something wrong or bad, our body doesn’t lie — is replaced by pantomime.

Keith’s body does not lie to him — it literally says nothing. He feels no love or hate or anything in between, some hypothesize, but rather exists to satisfy body cravings he cannot explain, in his case, sexual impulses. If true, Keith is sick, and is in need of help. It is unfortunate, given the many positive experiences he has given so many people, that the negative and illegal choices he has made will overshadow the positive for likely the rest of his life.

Keith has cold empathy – he knows when to pantomime laughing, thoughtfulness, urgency, sadness. He is brilliant and has an amazing memory — this has been factually verified — but it is tragic how he chose to apply his gifts, and tragic further that he was unable to be diagnosed at an earlier age for his emotional struggle and eroding of his sense of self and how important other people are, and what it means to be respectful and loving. It is all a tragedy.

The Nature of Secrets

A good secret is undivulged information leading to profit or gain as a result of well-placed bets and intelligence gathering. A bad secret is the oppression of another through threat or blackmail.

When discussing honesty and transparency, Keith misses these ideas, because a person’s body tells them when a secret is a product of a productive economy (often legal) or a product of lies and deception (often illegal).

When lies and deception are widespread, the word “gaslit” or “gaslighting” is used to reflect the broad scope of untruths, and so I think that word is appropriate given the tens of thousands of people that believed Keith was a renunciate and monk-like person constantly striving to improve the world and patent inventions.

He was constantly scheduling sex and sexual encounters – the inventions and patents were lies. Sex and sexual encounters are not bad – it is not the morality of sex in question, it is the widespread lying about being the person he said he was. This is what Nicki Clyne and the prison dancer movement miss completely, and it is sad they cannot see deeper than the surface beliefs they have about Keith.

Keith’s Construction of his Cult of Personality

If you look back with informed eyes over the past few years of data and what has been divulged, Keith seems to follow a pretty simple pattern in how he created a following.

1. Find a devotee to speak for him. Keith found quick devotees in Barb Jeske and Pam Cafritz. They were both loving, caring individuals, and truly (I believe) believed Keith was what he described. So Pam and Barb went out and recruited and people loved Pam and Barb and a community quickly grew that all believed Keith was this great monk-like humanist.

2. If the devotees disappear, replace them with a new devotee or a structure. When Pam and Barb both died from cancer, Keith found himself in trouble because his model had broken down. He created DOS, some hypothesize, to replace Pam and Barb (before them, DOS was not necessary.) Keith framed it as he frames all things: How dedicated to personal growth are you? The premise being, Keith was the most gifted and treasured expert on personal growth, and he could help you become anything, as he had for countless millionaires and world leaders (who are those people, exactly? — don’t ask that, go work your issues on trust.)

So, because Keith couldn’t understand why Pam and Barb were drawn to him — again, some hypothesize he has no conscience — he set up DOS as a blackmail based organization to serve him sexually and evolve what Pam and Barb gave him as a secret moon to a Death Star version of secret admiration and dedication.

This was done, again, through lies and deception to each woman, beginning with the idea that Keith was not involved in DOS, which we all know to be a manufactured truth propelled by the first line DOS slaves.

This is the structure Keith puts in place to build up a following, and this is why Keith invents “movements” over and over. It mirrors the dedication and the unquestionable nature of Keith at the center of something.

SOP was a men’s group focusing on building an understanding of character and commitment. Each man set goals and if they failed, they were helped to understand what they were feeling about their choice and to help them build inner honesty with that choice point so they could see reality and push themselves.

This was the surface activity.

I don’t know anything about anything deeper, like the secret men’s society based on elevating only certain members of SoP (I obviously wasn’t chosen and I am not surprised.)

While it is delightful for most to draw parallels between DOS and SOP, SOP was really quite tame and honest in comparison to what we know now.

Correspondent