Speaking as the man who first revealed DOS collateral to the world, I think Neil Glazer is onto something in his civil complaint.
And I think he is going to fight hard to prevail.
Two things unhinged Raniere.
One was illegal and one unethical.
The illegal was collateral. The unethical was branding women on their pubic area with Raniere’s initials.
If he hadn’t branded where he branded, and if it wasn’t his initials, and if he didn’t take collateral, he’d be walking the streets in Clifton Park, hand-in-hand with his slaves.
Today, you would be able to drive down tree-lined streets in Knox Woods and see him walking at any hour, strolling about, entering into some home for a Mexican, or, as the case may be, an American quickie.
As an example of Keith’s hubris, which is what got the fool in trouble, he sent this message to one of his grand-slaves, I believe it was Souki, about the brand.
She read in the Frank Report that it was his initials.
He admitted it was true and texted: “Not intended initially as my initials but they rearranged it slightly for tribute (if it were Abraham Lincoln’s or Bill Gate’s initials no one would care). The primary meaning and design of the brand symbol has nothing to do with my initials.” (The New York Times)
***
What is collateral?
In the affidavit of FBI Special Agent Michael Lever, he wrote, “Collateral consisted of material or information that the prospective slave would not want revealed because it would be ruinous to the prospective slave herself and/or someone close to her. Collateral provided by prospective slaves included sexually explicit photographs; videos made to look candid in which the prospective slaves told damning stories (true or untrue) about themselves, close friends and/or family members; and letters making damaging accusations (true or untrue) against friends and family members.”
Here’s what Glazer alleges in his First Amended Complaint:
“After supplying collateral, which had to be approved by the First Line Masters and Raniere, DOS was revealed to the recruits. But to their surprise and dismay, they were told that now, before they could learn about the structure and nature of this sisterhood, they had to provide additional humiliating and damaging collateral. Thus, before knowing anything about the internal workings of DOS, they were trapped, fearful that if they did not do precisely as instructed, the collateral that they had already provided would be released.”
“Once that second collateral had been given and approved, the recruiter/master revealed a little more about DOS: that it was a pyramid of “master/slave” relationships, explained as no different from a guru and disciple or a mentor-mentee relationship, which would strengthen women by testing and challenging their boundaries but would require absolute trust and obedience by “slaves” to their “masters.” Shortly after being admitted into the group, slaves were commanded to provide additional collateral every month”
What kind of organization would fail to tell people, until they’ve given collateral, that they’re going to be on the hook for more and more, for their whole lives?
I don’t condemn Raniere for the viciousness. I condemn him for stupidity, thinking this could possibly work.
In interviews with Nicole and others in DOS, one of the common complaints was that they couldn’t keep up with the collateral. Slaves wanted to quit not because they were afraid of collateral being released but because they could not keep coming up with ideas about what new collateral to give.
For the world’s smartest man, next to myself and a few others, to have cooked up this collateral idea was stupid but, as Glazer and others allege, it was criminal too, and it buried Raniere.
And Glazer is right to go after the Bronfmans.
But for the Bronfmans, Raniere would have been nothing but a small time grifter.
But with Bronfman money and a zany idea to brand women on their pubis with his initials, but not tell them it was his initials, and take collateral – blackmail-worthy material – launched him to a primary place among America’s criminals.
Documentaries, books, podcasts, hundreds of news and magazine articles quickly followed. He became famous.
Thank the Bronfmans for that.
The transcripts of the trial, the testimony of Sylvie, Lauren Salzman, Nicole and Jaye reveal the coercive nature of collateral.
On top of that, I have more evidence to offer. I interviewed more than a dozen women, including Nicole, just as they were leaving DOS, before Raniere’s arrest, before any had attorneys, before the civil suit was born. Their interviews – fresh out of DOS – tell the raw, true, unvarnished story of why they left.
These interviews tell a gripping tale, and I believe a more accurate story than anything told to date.
In the meantime, when we think of Raniere in prison for 120 years and when we think of DOS women collecting millions from the Bronfmans, none of it would have been possible but for branding and the insane notion of keeping women silent by taking collateral.
The idea of collateral forcing women to keep the sorority a secret reminds me of Ben Franklin’s quip, “Three can keep a secret if two of them are dead.”
This was bound to get out. It was foolish for Raniere to think he could have a thousand, or ten thousand women keeping a secret, with him secretly at the head, all coerced into keeping DOS secret by blackmail-worthy material he called collateral.
In a way, this proves it was coercive because he expected an army of women silenced and muted, based on blackmail.
Collateral and branding were the brainchild of Keith Raniere.
Viva Executive Success!
You know, Frank, I was sitting here re watching The Vow documentary and I noticed when they arrested Keith Raniere he was put on a bus from Oklahoma to where he was extradited to Bronx I started laughing because those bus rides I hear are hell, with convicts chained begging to stop for a restroom, many just lose control on themselves. It is truly the bus ride from hell.
Couldn’t agree with you more, Frank.
Bit sad to consider that keith received a life sentence over such stupid ideas. Pretty sure he was thinking with the head below his shoulders instead of the one on top of them.
Nevertheless, the ideas were bad enough that he’s lost the right to freely participate in society and I believe it’s for the best.
This guy ruined many people’s lives (including stealing people’s money at consumers buy line, terrorizing people in the courts and the rape of no less than 3 teenaged girls) and was promoting slavery.
I would so much rather be a so-called slave to the media, my profession, the government or whatever else he thinks I am than to be catalogued and branded with his initials and living in peonage to his little army.
The guy is clearly anti social and mentally deranged.
Good news for him, the renunciate who never needed to worry about where his next shirt or meal was coming from, is that it will continue to be provided for him.
It’s a sad state of affairs for all mentally ill people in the world but good to know that under serious enough conditions, they can be taken care of and provided for.
I truly do mean this with the best of intent. It actually makes me feel sad to see his so-called friends torturing this poor man with unrealistic hopes. If they really were his friend, they’d be helping him to see where he went wrong. Not just egging him on.
I think it was smart to do the collateral
It was smart-ish if you’re Keith. It’s also very telling that no matter how exalted Keith Raniere was in his own backwoods suburban community, he still knew that it would take weighty blackmail to get the majority of these women anywhere near his limp dick.
At the end of the day, if Keith truly believed in his own magnificence, he would have just had women told straight up that he was the head slave master. And believed that they would still join DOS.
But Keith knows he’s a con artist cross-eyed dump truck of a human. Additionally, Keith wanted only an inequitable relationship with all the “slaves”. What does that say about a human?
Keith WOULD have been confident that women still wanted to be involved and work for him for free and make porn for him on demand and everything else DOS required.
But Keith was just smart enough to realize that there was no way in hell most of these women would join if they knew they were spreading their legs for Keith’s spank bank and being branded with his initials and everything else DOS demanded ALL for Vanguard the impotent and loathsome.
Just like Nicki Clyne knew she had to lie to her friends in order to get her boyfriend’s initials branded near their vagina.
Very telling!
He did not need branding for his moral downfall. There is nothing you can fall off when you rape a 15 year old girl. All this ethicist stuff was a sham after all and the alarm bells were ringing for more than a decade.
Keith Raniere probably doesn’t even mind prison too much. That’s another layer to the tragedy of the loyalists. Prancing about in fealty.
And Keith “dead-inside” Raniere is like, “Meh. I feel nothing no matter where I live”. It’s really pretty much the same insular, ritualized life Keith was already living. Yes, the sex slaves are gone but Keith couldn’t get it up anymore.
Even remaining loyalist turned plaintiff-threatener Michele Hatchette told authorities in one of her 2 proffers that she only had sexual contact with Raniere because of the collateral.
“I condemn him for stupidity, thinking this could possibly work.”
Completely agree. It also shows me something about his mind. Keith almost always played the long game with his women and with his business. He didn’t care how long it took, as long as he had a chance to eventually reach his goal.
But Keith did not play the long game with DOS. He went all-in. Fast and furiously.
This makes me believe that DOS was either the goal, or the first big step in a larger goal. Keith wasn’t going to play DOS slowly when it was right in front of him for the taking. (In his mind, the slow play was the years of tricking people into thinking collateral and pain were good for them.) It also shows me that he didn’t care about getting stopped and didn’t care about negative ramifications.
This leads to more questions that I do not understand. What was his desired outcome with this army of women he was trying to build? Was it as simple as power and sex (and maybe some pleasure from inflicting pain on others)? I don’t know – but I’m pretty sure there is something that we are all missing.
BTW, a point AnonyMaker often makes is that usually the correct answer is the most obvious answer. The dead-enders are probably saying the obvious answer is that DOS was a women’s empowerment group and Keith was simply trying to help women. Go back to Frank’s point – “I condemn him for stupidity, thinking this could possibly work.” Keith wasn’t stupid and he wasn’t going to risk everything on this female empowerment thing. The obvious answer is that there was more to this than the empowerment of women.
I appreciate your thoughtful and informed comment here, Nutjob.
I see Tibetan Buddhist influences all around NXIVM. The attempt to bring in the Dalai Lama is one. But there are others I see too.
The foundation surrounding DOS, I have come to suspect, comes from a Tibetan Buddhist practice called “Guru Worship”.
A lot of Buddhists consider Tibetan Buddhism it’s own form, with lots of good and bad practices contained within it. This practice of Guru Worship, as a student of Buddhism, made me run screaming from Tibetan Buddhism itself.
Guru Worship entails completely denying one’s self and turning over everything – all personal decisions and discernment – to one’s Guru. As I understand it, this is supposed to deny one’s own sense of, and clinging to, SELF – the primary obstacle to enlightenment in Buddhism.
Maybe I’m just trying to make sense of something that makes no sense. Maybe Keith was just a sex addict and he saw this as his ticket to getting more pussy. It has definitely been used that way by some in Tibetan Buddhism – for centuries.
But all Buddhists do believe that your own sense of SELF, even though it might be a temporary strategy for success in this lifetime, ultimately blocks you from understanding the selfless nature of you, and all phenomena. Seeing this, and deeply understanding it, is said to help you achieve enlightenment.
Don’t ask me how.
Alanzo
Like he used martial arts to rationalize making everyone bow to him, I’m sure you’re on to something with using Buddhist teachings to make DOS look beneficial.
Many of the actresses and other young women came to Nxivm having had experience following a leader in yoga. They were already open to another guru’s world salad and bs and were easy prey. Spead eagled on a bed for Keith’s tongue or on their knees for his dick were just more yoga positions.
downward facing pussy
http://cdn29.us1.fansshare.com/images/kristinkreuk/kristin-kreuk-latest-pictures-hot-bikini-291060150.jpg
Anyone who thinks Yoga is sexual is a moron. It’s an Eastern spiritual as well as physical discipline that has been sexualized in the West. Or it’s just a projection of the one who’s constantly obsessed with sex.
You must be conflating it with the Indian Kama Sutra which is sexual, but it’s also a manual between husband wife, not between a guru and his sex partners.
Yeah, there have always been gurus and other religious leaders (you don’t even need religion) who have abused a discipline for their boners. Doesn’t mean the intent of theses practices were sexual.
— Anyone who thinks Yoga is sexual is a moron. It’s a physical discipline that has been sexualized in the West.–
I’m in the West, and so are the actresses in Nxivm.
I’m just trying to understand it, Nutjob.
And I gotta say, ex-members could be much more helpful in that regard.
For instance, I seriously doubt that the proper context for the Master Slave relationship in DOS was the American southern practice of agrarian slavery. But that’s what you hear from people all over this blog.
They say that because it makes it sound pure evil, because that’s what they want.
But it doesn’t make any sense. Did Keith praise the agrarian practice of slavery in any other writings or lectures?
No. He went after the Dalai Lama. He talked about a past in martial arts. So I’m figuring these might be used as clues to get the proper context for understanding this “Master Slave” relationship in DOS.
Not everything has to be an over-the-top nightmare. In fact, almost nothing is in reality.
Alanzo
I agree with your point. The “slave” terminology thing seems like another stupid decision on his part to use the word.
Over-the-top spin takes the focus off the legit nightmares he directed.
But why were you having, “personal interactions” with Neil Glazer?
You brought it up. Can you please clarify? Thanks!
—Keith wasn’t stupid and he wasn’t going to risk everything on this female empowerment thing.
Umm…yes he is.
Keith is a moral imbecile. Anyone who lies, cheats, has no qualms about making false grandiose claims, grooms young girls to sleep with him, etc., is one.
Read the “Mask of Sanity”. It’s one of the first case studies on sociopathy. Many of them are are superficially charming, but they’re all destructive to others in some way and eventually self-defeating.
I do think there’s a good chance it’s as simple as “eventually self-defeating.” I’m curious what his endgame was.
“Mask of Sanity” That’s a good read!
And yup. The usually self-destruct. Often in cycles. Build something, blow it up. Get it together for a bit and then kaboom!
Wash, rinse, repeat.
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