DOS Lesson #10: Your Master, the First Greatest Best Most Perfect Is… You

Welcome to Lesson #10 of the DOS Manual.

DOS Manual. Lesson #10

What does MASTER mean?

What is the nature of a Master?

What is the nature of a Master relationship?

Why is self-awareness important?

There’s the external form of your Master who is the person, but ultimately how you embody that within you.

When you are in a guru-disciple relationship in the east, you meditate on the guru.

You meditate on every detail of the guru. You have them initially adorned with whatever earrings they wear, or robes, or this or that.

Every detail of their face, every detail of their hair, you meditate on that, and eventually you start to strip those things away until you are meditating on the form of the guru without the physical form, the actual essence.

You see what is called beyond attributes to the nature, the pure nature, of that thing.

Now, anything that you can see, you are, and that’s the beauty of it. When you see beyond the earrings, you see beyond the robe, you see beyond the hair, you see beyond all those things, and you come to the nature of something, and you come to the purity of something.

You come to the purity of all things. You come to the purity of yourself.

And that is the whole nature of yoga, the whole nature of what this sort of a relationship is.

In eastern philosophy, there’s one type of yoga called Bhakti yoga, which this is a form of, which is the yoga of worship.

Where someone can go and worship a guru that is a fool, a guru that is an asshole, a murderer, whatever it is, and still reach enlightenment. Because you are reaching yourself through something in the outside world.

But everything in the outside world is just a play of consciousness.

We are tricking ourselves that something external is important to
us. The thing itself isn’t important to us. It’s something on the inside that’s important to us, that we are making the external thing be.

This type of true pursuit of the Master, the true pursuit of, not only, total submission and obedience to the Master and surrender, but embodiment of the Master, understanding the Master, that brings self awareness, brings a sense of self.

It’s the nature of what this thing is.

Men have more trouble doing Bhakti yoga, and it is not as beneficial.

Bhakti yoga is in some ways more the worship of women. Women, in some ways, can surrender – they’re taught to surrender – better than men because men are taught it’s a competitive world and they have
the impulse to compete.

Women have the impulse to embrace. You have something called “not-yoga,” which is the English translation of it, where you look at everything and you say, “This is not me, this is not me, this is not me, this is not me… ”

That is more the male version. It’s a very intellectual yoga. It is understanding the nature of how we compete with reality when we are actually of reality.

PRACTICE
• Do one act of self-denial every day in honor of your Master. Consider how you are building the space within yourself to be your own Master, and Master your experience of life.

The DOS lesson #10 as it appears in the DOS Manual is now over.

The following is my commentary.

My Commentary.

Here is my shortened version of lesson #10 – for those in a hurry.

There’s the external person who is your Master, but ultimately you embody him within you.

You meditate on every detail of his face, hair, other parts of his body, and eventually you strip those away until you meditate on him without form and see the pure nature.

Anything you see, you are. You see beyond the master’s nose, the smile, the hair, and come to yourself.

Someone can worship a master who is a fool, an asshole, a murderer, and still reach enlightenment because you are reaching yourself inside through something in the outside world.

The outside world is a play of consciousness. We trick ourselves that something external is important. The inside is important that we are making the external thing be.

Now here comes the clincher:

This type of true total submission and obedience to the Master and surrender, and embodiment of the Master, understanding the Master, brings self awareness.

The more you obey and not think for yourself the more you become self aware – that is the secret of this lesson.

Now a little gender persuasion:

Men have more trouble doing this. This is for women. Women can surrender better than men. Women have the impulse to embrace.

Yes that is the second hook – women can do it better. By being better slaves.

But if everything in the outside world is a mere play of consciousness, and we are tricking ourselves that something external is important, then why do the slaves need the play of collateral and trick themselves that something like external like branding is important?

Is this a legit exercise or subtle bullshit meant to indoctrinate women into slavery?

MK10ART

DOS Recipes…

So now for a few recipes from my best selling, “Eat Like a Master, Be Skinny as a Slave.”

Housemade Soyboy Real Soy Muffins with a side of Tamarind Noodles

Stuffed Peanut Beverage with Psychoactive Cambozola and 100 Percent Vegan Seaweed Chutney

Raw Shitaki Tarts atop Fetid Almond Paste

Forbidden Kale Sticks on a bed of Sprouted Tortilla and Low Cal Oatmeal Slices

Room Temperature Pineapple in a mélange of Watery Oyster Mushroom and Vegan Spam

Parmesan Jam with a wisp of Parisian Hazelnut

Arby’s Vegan Roast Beef hidden under Indulgent Pumpkin and Grapefruit Biscuits

You can be a DOS master and have a pleasant time on the DOS diet.

About the author

Frank Parlato

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  • Frank
    Do you or have you figured out who I am yet ? Have you figured out that I am family to a deceased party of NXIVM ? Have you figured out who I belong to ? Who am I ? I have a dead sister and one who’s death has been shrouded in mystery, accusations and definite homocide- and NO one seems to care, it is all about an arrogant monster, that YOU especially worship. YOU think it is fantastic that he needs to get out of prison, I don’t !!!!!!
    Have you figured out, that there was going to be a part 2 documentary? YOU assured us if that – it has NEVER taken place. Why? NO way to accomplish it ?
    What is your real goal ? To get the monster out of prison? To start NXIVM back up again ? What ?

    • Obviously, I don’t want Keith out of prison if I want to start up Nxivm again. For I would be the new Vanguard. And I will let all Zebras take hypnotic induction courses at half price.

      • And I’m first line under the top of the new NXIVM pyramid and put in charge of the tool scam division. Right, new Vanguard Sir????

        • I was also thinking of putting you in charge of marketing for our Amway-inspired low cal Premium Slave Biscuits.

  • Frank
    You know exactly what MY thoughts and deeds about YOU are. YOU have NOT told the truth, so we stepped to the next best person to get you to-
    Why did YOU NOT tell the truth about my sister ? Why not do the documentary ? Part 2 ?
    Why not tell what really happened ? What really got told and took place ?

    • No Zebra, I have it featured in a whole post about you. Thanks for asking. I want a full airing of your thoughts and deeds and your allegations.

      • A “zebra” and a Ronnie article have now been promised! This is gonna be awesome!!! Let’s go for the trifecta by letting Niceguy write an article about his introspective thoughts as he closed up his cottage for the winter..

        • I would love that, but I think one story on that would not be enough. A regular series by Nice Guy is indicated.

          By the way, Ronnie still feels suspicious of your interest in Nancy.

      • Don’t feel bad Frank also censored my lengthy comment about how the defense never called Camilla. What’s up with that frank?

        • The maturing of a woman who has continued to grow is a beautiful thing to behold. But in Zebra’s case that hasn’t happened.

  • I think the Lesson 10 message is explicit and implicit….

    ….You, dirty hoes need to service my every desire without question.

    “If I want to shit in your mouth – you’ll beg me to do it.”
    -Kieth Raniere

    Total character building stuff! I bet Alonzo is filling out an application to DOS at this very moment.

    • Someone involved with Amway products has a wife who ran away with a fellow named Nice Guy. They’re here in San Francisco. Alanzo has an appointment with Nice Guy tonight. Maybe he’ll bring the wife. The chances are he won’t. The Amway cuckold wants Alanzo and I to find the wife, get her away from Nice Guy and back home. Now it’s simply a matter of having a man at the hotel tonight to shadow Nice Guy when he leads us to our client’s wife. If, after we’ve found her, she still won’t leave Nice Guy… well, we have ways of managing that.

  • What do the strange characters or symbols in the photo mean. Is it just decoration or a secret writing? Maybe there’s nothing mysterious behind it and it’s probably just cult nonsense and just faking something meaningful.

  • That is so clearly written from the perspective of a man and his opinion about women as opposed to a women’s opinion on women. It’s interesting that if it’s a women’s Empowerment Group that they’re still bringing up women only in comparison to men. Why is anything about men even relevant to this? If you joined a men’s Empowerment Group and they only wrote out all of their credos and lessons and manuals constantly bringing up comparisons to women it would be equally as weird. It seems like if you weren’t indoctrinated as soon as you read this kind of missive you would absolutely know that it was being driven by a male agenda. Specifically an agenda of a man seeking power and influence and unwavering loyalty and submission and ultimately sex from women. Seems so obvious.

    It very clearly and consistently lays out that women’s role is only in relationAnd comparison and comparison to men’s role. It also makes many sweeping and very incorrect statements. None of which are based in any kind of facts or science as ESP claim to Value so highly. The generalities are so lazy. The writing is laxidasical at best. Consistently one of the most offensive things about these manual lessons is how poorly written they are hahaha

  • “Men have more trouble doing Bhakti yoga, and it is not as beneficial.

    Bhakti yoga is in some ways more the worship of women. Women, in some ways, can surrender – they’re taught to surrender – better than men because men are taught it’s a competitive world and they have the impulse to compete.”

    Stereotypes 101. Women are taught to surrender and it’s a bad thing … but when your master teaches you to surrender to him (a master who is a fool, an asshole, a murderer … and ugly to boot – at least KR had some self-awareness) unconditionally, then it is a recipe for enlightment.

    Maybe KR can be invited on that other narcissist’s Spotify show to discuss stereotypes/archetypes? The combined word salads, sloppy thinking, me, me, me, fridge-magnet platitudes would be entertaining. ‘Women are not competitive’ would be a great subject for discussion with a female narcissist.

  • Holidays and Observances for April the 20th: (My arbitrary selection.)
    [meant ironically]

    Allison Mack’s arrest
    420 (cannabis culture)
    UN Chinese Language Day (United Nations)
    1889 – Adolf Hitler, Austrian-born German politician, Führer of Nazi Germany (d. 1945)

  • Frank Report

    Allison Mack arrested and handcuffed
    April 20, 2018

    Allison Mack, the “Smallville” actress has been arrested according to court sources.

    Brooklyn federal prosecutors have charged Raniere with sex trafficking.

    She is expected to be charged today with sex trafficking.

    Mack, best known for the TV show “Smallville,” is due to appear in federal court in Brooklyn today.

    Sources say Mack paid $150,000 retainer to her attorneys.

    Allison Mack:
    • Born: Jul 29, 1982 (age 35) · Preetz, Germany
    • Height: 5′ 5″ (1.65 m)
    • Once had a net worth of $7 million USD (2017) before she joined the sex cult NXIVM
    • She is married to actress Nicki Clyne
    • Siblings: Robyn Mack (Sister) · Shannon Mack (Brother)
    • Parents: Jonathan Mack (Father) · Mindy Mack (Mother)
    ***

    https://frankreport.com/2018/04/20/allison-mack-arrested-and-handcuffed/

  • ET

    ‘The Vow’: Nicki Clyne Details Ex-Wife Allison Mack’s Arrest in NXIVM Docuseries
    By Stacy Lambe‍ 7:00 PM PDT, October 17, 2022

    As season 2 of HBO’s true-crime docuseries, The Vow, continues to pull the curtain back on NXIVM founder Keith Raniere’s wellness group revealed to be a Ponzi scheme and sex cult, it also details the arrest of former high-ranking leader Allison Mack, the Smallville actress who made headlines for her devotion to the organization and allegations of abuse made against her by other members.

    In the premiere, “Tests of Loyalty,” former member and continued Raniere supporter Nicki Clyne speaks out on camera for the first time, sharing details about her involvement in NXIVM while also revealing what happened the last day she saw her then-wife, who was arrested in April of 2018 on charges related to sex trafficking and conspiracy.

    “We were moving when they came to arrest Allison,” Clyne recalls in The Vow. “This guy came up to me and shows me his badge and he’s like, ‘Is Allison Mack in there?’ And when she saw [them], I was like, ‘Allison, they are here to arrest you.’ And she just started shaking.”

    Clyne then helped her wife, whom she married in 2017, get ready to be taken away by the authorities. “I was like, ‘What do you need?’ And they were like, ‘She needs shoes without lace. She needed to take off her jewelry,'” she says.

    “I thought I was going to see her later that day. I don’t even think I gave her a hug. I was just like, ‘I’ll see ya in a little bit.’ And that was it,” the Battlestar Galactica actress continues, adding that “it’s been a very isolating experience without Allison and also without Keith.”

    As ET previously reported, Mack initially pleaded not guilty to the charges against her. But soon after she was taken in, other high-ranking members, including co-founder Nancy Salzman and her daughter, Lauren, were also arrested for their respective involvement in the cult. Lauren eventually admitted to enslaving women and pleaded guilty to charges of racketeering.

    A year later, in April of 2019, Mack entered a plea deal to racketeering charges, saying in court that she “must take full responsibility for my conduct,” which allegedly included recruiting sex slaves for DOS and branding female members with Raniere’s initials. One former member, India Oxenberg, also claims that she was forced to lose weight and maintain a strict diet, and if she did not meet her master’s demands, she suffered “severe” punishments.

    In December of 2020, Mack filed for divorce from Clyne. And the following year, in June of 2021, she was sentenced to three years in prison and ordered to pay a $20,000 fine and complete 1,000 hours of community service. A few months later, she reported to federal prison and is now an inmate at FCI Dublin, a low-security federal prison in the East Bay area outside San Francisco, California.

    Later in the episode, Clyne revisits the home where Raniere lived in Albany, New York, and talks about why she joined NIXVM, after first being recruited by former member and whistleblower Sarah Edmondson. “Even though I was having success on TV, I felt like I wasn’t getting traction,” she says, explaining that she “didn’t feel fulfilled” until participating in one of NXIVM’s programs.

    “[Keith] helped me learn to trust and learn to love. It’s important to be a part of a community that supports each other. I had come to rely on that support,” she continues, noting that since Raniere’s arrest, “I don’t have that anymore.”

    After becoming a devoted member and even reportedly quittingBattlestar Galactica to “follow Raniere,” Clyne reveals in the docuseries that she was “in a physical relationship with Keith for many years.” She adds, “I kept it a secret. A lot of people in the community didn’t know who Keith’s partners were or if he had any. I felt very clear on what I was signing up for.”

    Clyne, who was also a member of DOS, explains that the secret group has “been misunderstood because I helped create it.v In fact, despite having an intimate relationship with Raniere, she says “sex was not the focus of anything. Like, people are so obsessed with sex. It was also a walking group. It was also a go-for-coffee group. We were people who had relationships that were incredibly important and meaningful to us that we planned to have for the rest of our lives.”

    Although Raniere has been found guilty on counts of sex trafficking, racketeering and conspiracy charges in 2019 and then sentenced to 120 years in jail, she maintains her support of him and the organization. In September of 2020, she spoke out in his defense, claiming that he had been wrongfully convicted.

    In The Vow, Clyne says, “I feel proud of my decisions and I stand by them. And I know how hard that must be for people to understand considering the lens through which this situation is being portrayed.”

    The Vow Part II airs Mondays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on HBO and HBO Max.

    https://www.etonline.com/the-vow-nicki-clyne-details-ex-wife-allison-macks-arrest-in-nxivm-docuseries-192785

    • I haven’t watched the Vow. Nor will I. I have no interest in dramatizations when I can get the same information from news articles and books (Sarah Berman’s “Don’t Call It a Cult” is excellent)

      Second, The Vow seems to be giving the Leftovers a forum. I don’t believe in presenting their misinformation as “another way of looking at things”.

      I have the same problem with the FR uncritically presenting Chakravorty’s disinformation campaign. Neither Chakravorty nor Clyne are interested in the truth. They’re interested solely in advancing racketeer Raniere’s cause. They’re propagandists for a felon.

      These two have nothing to lose by mouthing off and lying for the cause. The public does have something to lose when exposed to their rhetoric.

      Clyne’s Tweets are a case in point. She’s busy cultivating an online audience among right-wing antigovernment types. Catching the ear of some of Scott Adams’ minions. She’s pretty good at rhetoric too, and at playing fast and loose with the truth. I don’t believe in giving her any more of a forum.

      From that snippet she seems rather a cold and horrible person. I wonder if the narrator or interviewer challenged her on any of her baloney though.

      She talks about what a wonderful “community” Raniere built, how it was incredibly important and meaningful to “us”, this wonderful connection. Right after saying she was screwing Raniere and it was kept secret from this wonderful close-knit community. Does anybody call her on this?

      Does anyone point out how cold and unfeeling it is that Clyne didn’t so much as give her supposed “wife” Allison Mack a hug before she was cuffed and bundled off to jail? Just a “hey Allison they’re here to arrest you” and a “see ya.”

      Kinda unfeeling, that. Anyone mention that in The Vow? Because it sure seems significant to me.

      It’s a problem giving these people a forum. They sincerely believe in their nonsense and their fabrications and their lies. So they can be pretty convincing. And an actress has expertise in making fictional nonsense believable.

      I’ve read two books and yards of press coverage on Raniere and his cult, and I can weed out the bullshit. Not everyone watching The Vow comes that prepared.

      Propaganda is insidious. It shouldn’t be presented at face value.

      • Agreed – Clyne didn’t give a fuck about Allison; only ‘married’ her because Raniere wanted her US residency sorted. She was probably pissed when Raniere took Allison instead of her on his attempted escape to Mexico, Hell hath no fury and all that – no doubt in my mind she shopped him to the Feds and later regretted it because she “missed him” so much, the only ‘love’ of her pathetic life.

        Not sure she’s acting though. Her brain’s been on a 90 degree 1500 spin wash for the last 20 years, and there’s no doubt such people just end up believing their own BS. Dangerous though. For some crazy reason up to 40% of the population are similarly deluded by alt-right garbage. God help us all!

        • I think youre right, RATB, but I dont believe Nicki “misses’ Keith, I think she misses the lifestyle and is still being maintained in a style to which she has become accustomed, by Clare Bronfman- who often used her as a Maid-of-all-parts during the high days of the old racket, so big improvement for the Clyne gal in so many ways, to be, as she is, a cult widow – with the fates of her masters in her hands.

    • Nicki Clyne only talks about being in a relationship with Keith Raniere for many years.

      No such loving talk about Nicki’s “wife”. It’s as if Allison Mack were merely Nicki Clyne’s roommate.

      Who wouldn’t hug their spouse if they were about to be taken to jail? In fact most would give them a kiss a long lingering passionate kiss probably.

      Nicki Clyne is so obvious. Sniffing Keith’s dirty old jacket and barely feigning any care about her “wife” Allison

      Nicki iClyne s a liar, fraudster, immigration cheat and should have her criminal was deported.

    • Did Nicki Clyne keep her many years long physical relationship with Keith “secret” from her “wife” Allison Mack too?

      Nicki Clyne let Nxivm recruits and their “community” in ESP believe the myth that Keith Raniere was celibate.

      That’s a big lie.

      Nicki Clyne actively built this cult leader’s fictional persona. She put others in harm’s way from this sexual predator. And liar. Not ethical at all, girl.

      Can’t blame Sarah Edmonson for that shit.

  • Sorry – I have to ask:

    Which is your commentary, and which are the words of Keith Raniere?

    I can’t tell.

    That’s not right.

    • The end of the DOS lesson is right below my logo where I wrote – “The DOS lesson #10 as it appears in the DOS Manual is now over. The following is my commentary.”

    • ‘I can’t tell.

      That’s not right.’

      You may have a Dyslexia condition? There’s much that can be done – get a test.

  • From DOS lesson 10:
    “ Where someone can go and worship a guru that is a fool, a guru that is an asshole,…”
    ….. like Vanguard Keith……

  • What’s mi$$ing from the second season of the cult documentary ‘The Vow’
    October 17, 20225:01 AM ET
    Linda Holmes
    LINDA HOLMES

    Nancy Salzman, known within NXIVM as “Prefect,” is the subject of much of the new series The Vow Part 2.
    HBO
    Cult leaders know it, pyramid scheme operators know it, and you undoubtedly know it, too: Nothing complicates a narrative like half a million dollars in cash.

    But let’s step back.

    The group NXIVM, once promoted as a system of self-help seminars, became infamous after its leader, Keith Raniere, was charged with and ultimately convicted of a raft of offenses including sex trafficking. He was sentenced to more than 100 years in prison. Others in his inner circle also pleaded guilty to various charges. They included Allison Mack, an actress who had seen some success in Hollywood, and who admitted to a prominent role in a sub-group of NXIVM called DOS. The revelation that women in DOS were literally branded gave the case its most indelible image, and the regrettable phrase “sex cult” gave the story its queasy combination of genuine tragedy and sensationalism.

    NXIVM has been the subject of a few examinations. There was the Starz series Seduced, which focused on the experiences of India Oxenberg, a member whose powerful mother, the actress Catherine Oxenberg, worked to extract her. There was a CBC documentary podcast series called Uncover, which focused on the experiences of group member Sarah Edmondson. Edmondson had gone from a high-profile recruiter for Raniere to a high-profile whistleblower of sorts — it was her branded skin that was shown in a photo in an exposé in The New York Times in 2017.

    But no presentation of NXIVM hit the zeitgeist quite as hard as HBO’s nine-part documentary series The Vow, which landed in the late summer of 2020, when restless viewers still waiting out the first stages of COVID fastened onto the story’s combination of gnarly, upsetting details (women known as “slaves” said they were blackmailed and ordered to do everything from sex acts to calorie restriction) and genuine exploration of the abuses that a lot of members of the group had suffered. Some combination of true crime and trauma, this story, too, relied heavily on the participation and the point of view of Sarah Edmondson, as well as that of Mark Vicente, another of Raniere’s close associates who ultimately turned against the leadership of NXIVM and presented himself as newly enlightened regarding its wrongs.

    NATIONAL
    Understanding NXIVM, Group Critics Call A ‘Cult’
    A second season with a new point of view
    When HBO announced a second season of The Vow, the business imperative was easy to understand; the journalistic or creative imperative less so. Having followed the group from its founding through Raniere’s arrest, would director Jehane Noujaim (one of the two directors of the first season; the other seems to have stepped away) find another entire season’s worth of material that wouldn’t just be rehashing the ugliness? Nevertheless, the second season has arrived, and with it, a new point of view. Now, although it follows a few narrative threads, the series examines the story largely through the eyes of Raniere’s second in command, Nancy Salzman, who ultimately pleaded guilty to racketeering conspiracy.

    Salzman, who was trained as a nurse and then entered what she calls “the field of human potential,” was the person who took Raniere’s philosophical ideas and turned them into a curriculum that could be taught to his adherents via very expensive classes. He went by the title “Vanguard,” and she went by the title “Prefect.”

    Sarah Edmondson, who was central to The Vow, takes a reduced role in its follow-up series.
    HBO
    Much as Edmondson was in the first series, Salzman is presented as a heartbroken woman experiencing what the filmmakers called in Edmondson’s case “a crisis of faith.” One of her first lines from the extensive interviews with her in these six episodes is this hypothetical, which Salzman delivers with gusto: “Imagine you spent 22 years trying to build something that you fully believed in and thought was good, and everybody thinks it’s the devil’s work.”

    What unfolds is a version of the story in which Salzman, too, was taken in by Raniere — by his charm, by his attention, by her own need for something meaningful in her life. When it comes to the very worst revelations, including the horrifying story of a young woman named Daniela who testified she was largely confined to a single room for more than two years, Salzman pleads a kind of sympathetic shrug of sadness but not any particular sense of responsibility: “I can’t tell you how sad I feel for Dani and what she went through.” She is insistent that she believed until very late in the game that she was involved in an above-board, if unconventional, self-help group.

    Show us the money
    But here’s something it’s rather puzzling that they don’t explore in the series: When the FBI searched Nancy Salzman’s house pursuant to a search warrant, they found more than half a million dollars in cash. More than $390,000 of it was stuffed into a single shoebox.

    Early in the introduction of Salzman’s interviews, Noujaim shows the audience photos of what seem to be fruits of the search as Salzman talks about how thorough it was: we see boxes of files and a laptop with an evidence mark beside it. But the Albany Times Union published another photo back in 2019: a photo of the money, packed in bundles.

    Money. Money has been missing from too much of The Vow’s story of NXIVM all along. Recruiters made big money, the organization made big money — the story is awash in money. And for these people who are in the gray area where they are both victims and perpetrators (an area that exists in any similar organization), money affects their behavior, their accountability, and their attempts to make amends or “move on.”

    Actor Allison Mack Sentenced To 3 Years In Prison For NXIVM Case
    It’s one of the things that Edmondson is asked about in the CBC podcast far more than she ever was in The Vow. Journalist Josh Bloch asks her: Didn’t she make an awful lot of money recruiting other people into NXIVM? Does she feel right about keeping it, now that she says she’s seen the light about Raniere? Edmondson has two basic responses: she worked really hard for the organization, and anyway, her money isn’t really liquid these days, or she’d gladly hand it out to the people she took it from. It is a heck of a response. He also asks her whether she might have ignored certain red flags about abuses because of all the money she was making. She says the reasons she ignored the red flags were other things — the training she had received, the professed NXIVM principle of helping others improve their lives, and the belief that she was doing something worthwhile and meaningful. But neither the podcast nor the TV series has gotten much of an answer from Edmondson about wealth or its temptations.

    Money peeks out now and then in the new episodes of The Vow, just not in the places you might expect. Here’s Salzman talking about her anger at Edmondson: “Sarah went home and disenrolled everybody she enrolled, and gave them refunds out of our money. She didn’t have a right to do that.” For both women, this allegation raises interesting questions about the entitlement to keep what they earned from NXIVM. For both women, it raises the question of whether their “crisis of faith” has been accompanied by a willingness to compensate others from their own funds.

    Salzman, despite her extensive participation in the series, may have been hesitant to discuss money and specifics because of some continuing legal jeopardy. But it winds up seeming like a gaping hole in the series that it avoids money with such rigor. Whose money was in her house? Did she know how much was there? What did she think it was for? Did that amount of cash, if she knew about it, spark no curiosity about whether something was wrong? When Salzman’s sentence is explained near the end of the last episode, her incarceration is mentioned; the fact that she was fined $150,000 and ordered to surrender more than $500,000 in cash plus some properties — and a Steinway — is not.

    It’s not the only gap
    The filmmaking approach here, which is to avoid outside expertise via talking heads or voiceover in favor of using the voices of the participants in the events (here including both the prosecutor and Raniere’s lawyer), is ultimately ill-suited to this story. The series cries out for someone with expertise in cults to explain the dynamics and whether they affect people near the top the same way they do people near the bottom, and the influence of money, and the role of a neutral-seeming figure like Salzman in legitimizing a leader like Raniere. An episode that dives into Raniere’s claims that his program could work magic on symptoms of Tourette syndrome desperately needs an informed, detailed medical perspective.

    More generally, when your main subject brags about her ability to put on any affect she wants at any time as part of her work with self-hypnosis and “human potential,” can you let her story go unchecked? (Salzman, for instance, discusses her expertise in “neuro-linguistic programming,” and that’s accompanied by a little illustrative drawing of the brain, but not by any discussion of the fact that there is considerable controversy over whether that is a real field or pseudoscience.)

    Approaching a documentary subject with humanity and nuance makes sense; again, the line between victim and perpetrator is very fine here. No one is all good or all bad, and no one is all guilt or all innocence. It may well be that Salzman — and her daughter, and Sarah Edmondson, and Mark Vicente, and the other people to whom grace is extended in these hours of television — believed earnestly that NXIVM was helping people. But here’s the rub: It’s possible that Raniere did too. What if Raniere really believed that he was doing good things for the world by developing this world oriented around himself and his self-defined genius? Would it make him any less culpable? Do we assign responsibility only to people who do things for no reason at all?

    And moreover, do we grant this searching examination of the factors that may have led people to commit wrongful acts to offenders broadly? Do we ask what influences, what mistaken understandings of the world, what pain and pressure leads a person to commit armed robbery? Or to sell heroin? Is it simply because Salzman, and Edmondson, and so many of the other people who enabled Keith Raniere are affluent white women that they are given this space to reposition themselves relative to their motivations and intentions rather than their actions?

    There are some fascinating moments in this series, as there were in the first installment. But ultimately, it leaves an unpleasant aftertaste, a sense that the need to make more episodes and the need for someone to focus them on made this project vulnerable to becoming part of a rehabilitation campaign that is unearned.

    https://www.npr.org/2022/10/17/1128808224/the-vow-part-2-cult-nxivm-keith-raniere-nancy-salzman

    • Hey Sarah? I think I just heard the toilet flush on your civil lawsuit.

      If the women of NPR are calling you a privileged, entitled, money-hungry little shit who has no business pointing fingers since, you know, you fucking had an ownership stake in the company, it means the party is about to end. It took five years, but better late than never.

      I hope HBO compensated you with more than a mug for the new season of your bullshit propaganda campaign. You might need the money if the women you’ve been picking on for the better part of five years countersue for your role in the organization, for things you actually did to them.

      I pray for every person associated with this to be at peace, and to be living happy, healthy, productive lives.

      For Sarah and Mark, I see them getting involved with another organization with a similar structure. And who will they blame when that one falls apart too?

      • Sarah doesn’t give a fuck what you think. You evil stalker.

        Sarah IS living a happy, healthy, successful life and not obsessing on a total stranger’s children and finances on a blog like you are, creepy ass “Kevin”.

        Go memorize some more dick pics sent to other women.

        • If Sarah didn’t care what people thought of her, she wouldn’t have a book, podcasts, an HBO show and public speaking appearances telling everyone how awesome she is, and how she isn’t to blame for anything bad that happened under her leadership, while pointing fingers at customers and low ranking members who had no authority and were never in leadership positions.

          Do you know what stalking is? Stalking is tracking someone’s location, their address and new employer, and doxixng that person and leaving negative reviews about their work when you were never their client, customer or patient. Things that Sarah and her friends have done to the women you people regularly insult in this forum.

          I have never met Sarah, I don’t know her contact information, and I have no interest in ever contacting her. But if she wants to continue smearing people who I care about and using their images and likenesses to promote herself and her own agenda, then she’s fair game for criticism. Too bad if you don’t like it.

          I love how being in a “cult” disqualifies some of the former members from employment and from being left alone in their personal lives, but one of it’s most prominent members who made money off of it for years is off limits for criticism and introspection. Life doesn’t work that way just because you want it to.

          And again, relax. The pictures you sent to the girls 20 years ago are long gone.

          • Those dick pictures are not gone they live lovingly in your memory forever so much so that you can recount them here on a Frank’s blog in great detail 20 years later. So weird and creepy.

            “Kevin” you have no integrity. You’ve lied multiple times. Been called out.

            “People you care about”? But that you don’t know right? That’s a stalker, lol.

            These people you (allegedly) don’t know and that you are so deeply passionate about and ideeply nvested in, don’t care about you.

            Because they don’t know you exist. Weirdo. Stalker.

            Stop talking about the children of people (that you state that you’ve never met.) That’s hateful and really low down behavior.

            And you want people to believe that you’re a casual observer who worked tangentially with a woman or two involved in this mess 20 years ago? But are that fired up about Sarah Edmonson? Bullshit.

            That’s not normal behavior. No one else is taking cheap shots at kids. Or even mentioning specific children.

            That’s really fucked up.

            Now go put on your Sarah Edmonson costume. You want it to be just perfect for Halloween.

            Weirdo.

          • PS.

            Don’t forget the HBO mug you have said that you want to shit in Kevin.

            It’s an important part of your Sarah Edmonson costume for Halloween!

            And remind us? How is it demeaning for Sarah Edmonson for you to shit in a free HBO mug?

            Aren’t you the fucking weirdo saving up feces to balance over a specific logo mug and shit in it?

            You’re the one with mug shitting desires and proclivities in your dream scenario, correct Kevin?

            You are the mug shitter in your fecal fantasy.

            How does that specific creepiness reflect poorly on Sarah Edmondon?

            Sarah is a married mother who knows not that you exist, living a happy life and you Kevin, are a total stranger to Darah, commenting on a blog fantasizing about shitting in a drinking vessel Sarah got as a gift.

            Ooooooo. Burn on Sarah!

            You showed Sarah Edmonson, Kevin

            Showed her that you are a fucking kook.

            So creepy.

      • Kevin
        Which “women on NPR” called Sarah Edmonson “a money-hungry little shit”? Could you link that audio please? Can’t find any such thing…

        Or is this another one of your lies?

        • I was reading in between the lines for context. That Sarah has gotten a huge break based on who she is, and hasn’t earned the right to consider herself a victim, is easy to pick up on in the article.

          Please pass on the message to your anonymous friend that sarcasm and humor are also real things. Thirty years of whole language-based reading has really done a number on us.

          You hold Sarah to the same standards as the lower ranking people who have been disparaged and have had lives and careers destroyed, and people can’t handle it.

          Anonymous, is Sarah working on making her assets liquid so she can share her NXIVM/ESP profits with her former recruits? If her mug goes up for sale on ebay, let me know and I’ll bid 30 cents.

          That’s sarcasm, by the way.

          • Reading betwern the lines it is clear that Kevin is an unhinged person who lies about a stranger’s young children on a blog and publicly dreams of shitting in a woman’s gifted HBO mug.

            Sarah Edmonson. Please be aware of this obsessed freak. Take care of that beautiful family and yourself.

          • Don’t mansplain what we wrote “Kevin”.

            We aren’t talking or writing about shit. It’s not language we use here at NPR.

            That’s your personal scatological obsession.

            Kevin, you see everything through a shit smeared lense. Seek help

            Please do not shit in our free pledge drive tote bags or stalk us too.

            We appreciate your support of NPR!

    • “But here’s the rub: It’s possible that Raniere did too. What if Raniere really believed that he was doing good things for the world by developing this world oriented around himself and his self-defined genius? Would it make him any less culpable?”

      Exactly. The people who aided Raniere, who did the work for him, got off far too lightly. They’re grasping, selfish, mercenary people who were involved up to their necks in running a criminal racket. And profited from it. I mean c’mon, Salzman had half a million dollars in cash stuffed in shoeboxes hidden around her home. Victim my ass.

      Vicente did Raniere’s dirty work for years. He knew exactly what kind of man Raniere was, he testified to it in court. He squealed on his former boss and flipped sides, and now he’s profiting from that too. As is Edmondson, who boasted in her book what a top job she did recruiting for Nxivm.

      Mack weeping in court, all self-pity, claiming she was “misled”. What, for years? She’d have us believe she lied, extorted blackmail, recruiting women into DOS, to master Raniere’s bed, and genuinely believed she was empowering women?Bullshit. She was sex trafficking alongside Raniere.

      These people are despicable. No conscience, no morality. Their prison sentences should be for decades. Instead they’re on TV selling “their side” of the story.

      This is why I won’t watch The Vow.

  • When I was a child I watched a British TV show titled “The Prisoner” starring Patrick McGoohan.
    McGoohan is a secret agent who tried to retire but is instead taken away to an isolated village where ie is given a new name. Number 6.
    Who is number 1?
    You are Number 1. You are only a prisoner if you allow yourself to be a prisoner.
    Go to Youtube and watch a full playlist of the Prisoner and you will receive an antidote to some turning you into a prisoner/

    • I am not a number. I am a free man! Derisory laughter ensues.
      Perhaps the most important freedom we have is the freedom to choose our own government, and that freedom is what certain people are trying to take away.

  • Yes. Men like Keith are so competitive compared to all women.

    Who can eat the most pizza with hot cause? Who can work the least? Who can sit on their couch getting the most blowhobs? Who can sleep all day the longest? Who makes the best oinking noises when the emaciated mother of your child moves toward the fridge? Who can not every have a job the best? Who can sponge off women the most? Who can sit in their condo and demand the most porn? Who can shower the least?

  • “Where someone can go and worship a guru that is a fool, a guru that is an asshole, a murderer, whatever it is, and still reach enlightenment. Because you are reaching yourself through something in the outside world…The thing itself isn’t important to us. It’s something on the inside that’s important to us, that we are making the external thing be.”

    Not exactly subtle is it? Of course Raniere’s inner realization had always been that he was an asshole and unattractive to women, and that knowledge prompted him to steal bits of Eastern mysticism that he knew he could use to convince his gullible goldfish to see him beyond his warts as the true Master, their own conquest of self-actualization – their Nirvana.

    And for him it was just about having complete control over women, primarily manifested through sexual sacrifice, which in turn enabled him to keep his inner realization buried deep under his outer narcissism.

    So for all the guys out there who aren’t getting it enough, maybe open up you own women-only Bhakti yoga studio, mix it up with a bit of Bikram for a steamier experience, and remember – no collateral required.

  • Here is something I found that is off topic, but might find use elsewhere, even if it is not the Frank Report.
    This study shows how deep the political divide in American society goes.

    IFS Institute for Family Studies

    NOVEMBER 3, 2020
    Marriages Between Democrats and Republicans Are Extremely Rare
    by Wendy Wang, @WENDYRWANG

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    Category: MARRIAGE,POLITICS,RESEARCH BRIEF
    Marriage has always been a marker of both social solidarity and division in America. Marriages between people of different races were once prohibited, but they are now on the rise – one indication of growing solidarity across racial lines in America. Tolerance toward interfaith marriages has also grown over the years, and Americans are more likely to marry a spouse of a different religion now. But the same cannot be said for politics.

    Marriages across political lines appear to be falling. In 2016, when Eitan Hersh and Yair Ghitza counted married couples among registered voters, they found that 30% of couples were politically mixed, meaning they did not share the same party identification. Most of these marriages were between partisans and Independents, and 9% of all marriages were between Democrats and Republicans. Today, only 21% of marriages are politically mixed, and nearly 4% (3.6%) are between Democrats and Republicans, according to my analysis of the new American Family Survey.

    This is a sizable decline in just 4 years, albeit the two results cannot be directly compared because of different methods. Hersh and Ghitza’s finding was based on a database of voter registration records. They focused on voters in 30 states and did not have direct data to define married couples. In contrast, the American Family Survey was based on a national sample of 3,000 American adults, and I looked at currently-married adults and compared respondents’ party ID with their spouses.’

    Alternatively, it is possible to make a direct comparison between 2020 and 2017, the earliest year when the spouse’s party affiliation was available in the American Family Survey. My analysis suggests that in just three years, the share of politically-mixed marriages in the U.S. has declined from 23% to 21%, and the share of marriages between a Democrat and a Republican dropped from 4.5% to 3.6%. So, both sources suggest that the share of politically-mixed marriages has been trending down, at least in recent years.

    Trends going back to earlier years are not available, but other sources indicate that we have become less tolerant toward interpolitical marriages. When Gallup asked in 1958, “If you had a daughter of marriageable age, would you prefer she marry a Democrat or Republican, all other things being equal?” The results: 18% of Americans said they would prefer their daughter to marry a Democrat, 10% preferred a Republican, and the majority didn’t care. However, in 2016, 28% of respondents said they preferred their child to marry a Democrat and 27% a Republican, and the share who didn’t care has shrunk significantly, according to Lynn Vavreck, a political scientist at UCLA.

    Who Is More Likely To Be In a Politically-mixed Marriage?

    Looking further into the pattern of interpolitical marriages by demographics such as education and age, we see that college-educated adults are slightly more likely than those without a college degree to marry someone of a different party identification (23% vs. 20%), and older adults are slightly less likely to be in politically-mixed marriages than those who are under 35 (20% vs. 23%). These are not big differences at all.

    A somewhat clearer pattern emerges when looking at the party ID of the respondents. Democrats are slightly more likely to marry someone who does not share the same party identification than are Republicans (16% vs. 12%), and Independents are most likely to be in a politically-mixed marriage. About one-third (32%) of Independents are married to someone who is not politically independent.

    Finally, what really separates couples is how big a role politics plays in their overall identity. Among married adults who say that their political party is either extremely or very important in their overall identity (36% all married adults), only 14% have a spouse who doesn’t share their political belief. On the other end of the spectrum, 29% of adults who believe their political identity is not important (39% of married adults) married a spouse with a different political belief.

    Politically-mixed Couples Are Less Happy

    Just like couples in interracial or interfaith relationships, politically-mixed couples also face unique challenges in their relationship, especially during an election year. In 2017, after Trump won the election, 1 in 10 Americans ended a romantic relationship because of different political views. And 1 in 5 Americans know a couple whose marriage or relationship was negatively affected due to President Trump’s election in 2016, according to a poll by Wakefield Research.

    In a comparison of family life satisfaction among couples of various political affiliations, politically-mixed couples do seem to be less happy about their family life. Less than half of these couples say they are completely satisfied with their family life (47%), compared with 61% of couples in which both spouses are Republicans and 55% are Democrats.

    Before we jump to the conclusion that marriages between Democrats and Republicans just aren’t going to work, it is important to point out that the Democrat-Republican couples are actually not the ones who are most unhappy: 58% say they are completely satisfied with their family life, which is slightly higher than the shares among couples who are both Democrats or both Independents. On the other hand, about 14% Democrat-Republican couples also say they are at least somewhat dissatisfied with their family life, which was the highest among all couples. Couples that consists of a Democrat and an Independent seem to be the least happy: only 35% say they are completely satisfied with their family life.

    If interracial marriages are a barometer for racial relations in the U.S., interpolitical marriages reflect how polarized we are in America today. Even though Trump’s election in 2016 and the current election season seem to push the two parties further apart, the polarization in the U.S. goes back a long way. In 2014, during Obama’s presidency, a Pew Research Center poll found that Democrats and Republicans were more divided than at any point in the past two decades. And the level of partisan antipathy had surged since 1994. The decline of interpolitical marriages is yet another telling and worrisome sign that balkanization is only deepening in America.

    Wendy Wang, Ph.D., is director of research for the Institute for Family Studies. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and many other venues.

    Editor’s Note: A shorter version of this IFS research brief appeared first at The Hill.

    https://ifstudies.org/blog/marriages-between-democrats-and-republicans-are-extremely-rare

  • That got unclear toward the end…is it saying “not yoga” is better-suited as yoga for men because it’s very intellectual?

    Also, saying that women are not competitive is bullshit. It must’ve been a man who wrote that.

About the Author

Frank Parlato is an investigative journalist.

His work has been cited in hundreds of news outlets, like The New York Times, The Daily Mail, VICE News, CBS News, Fox News, New York Post, New York Daily News, Oxygen, Rolling Stone, People Magazine, The Sun, The Times of London, CBS Inside Edition, among many others in all five continents.

His work to expose and take down NXIVM is featured in books like “Captive” by Catherine Oxenberg, “Scarred” by Sarah Edmonson, “The Program” by Toni Natalie, and “NXIVM. La Secta Que Sedujo al Poder en México” by Juan Alberto Vasquez.

Parlato has been prominently featured on HBO’s docuseries “The Vow” and was the lead investigator and coordinating producer for Investigation Discovery’s “The Lost Women of NXIVM.” Parlato was also credited in the Starz docuseries "Seduced" for saving 'slave' women from being branded and escaping the sex-slave cult known as DOS.

Additionally, Parlato’s coverage of the group OneTaste, starting in 2018, helped spark an FBI investigation, which led to indictments of two of its leaders in 2023.

Parlato appeared on the Nancy Grace Show, Beyond the Headlines with Gretchen Carlson, Dr. Oz, American Greed, Dateline NBC, and NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt, where Parlato conducted the first-ever interview with Keith Raniere after his arrest. This was ironic, as many credit Parlato as one of the primary architects of his arrest and the cratering of the cult he founded.

Parlato is a consulting producer and appears in TNT's The Heiress and the Sex Cult, which premiered on May 22, 2022. Most recently, he consulted and appeared on Tubi's "Branded and Brainwashed: Inside NXIVM," which aired January, 2023.

IMDb — Frank Parlato

Contact Frank with tips or for help.
Phone / Text: (305) 783-7083
Email: frankparlato@gmail.com

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