Festinger: Understanding how people blindly followed KAR into ruin

By Leon Festinger

It’s hard for people with confidence and the strength of their own convictions to imagine doing what these people have allegedly done. I think the ESP courses was the entry level and the methods used in those courses could pinpoint those who are most likely to fit into his plan.

If you have listened to Sarah Edmondson’s interviews on CBC, she talks of starting ESP in search of bettering her life and she felt she had found a home there. She rose up the ranks and was made to feel important. She has said she liked the NXIVM handshake that showed she ranked higher than others. She was being groomed over a long period of time and she trusted Lauren Salzman when she was ‘invited’ to join DOS and began being a slave to her mistress; doing as Heidi outlines, such as being always ready for that call in the middle of the night and having her day-to-day ruled by another.

Who allows that to happen? Why submit yourself to someone else if you don’t believe there is going to be something in it for you? They must have bought into it and must all have similar personalities that allow them to want power over others but are also willing to give up their own power to someone higher up the food chain.

And KAR was at the very top with the others who will be sitting at the defendants table when the case goes to trial. These people created the system and chose the people to recruit and then started pulling the strings for their own financial gain and entertainment.

Heidi could be right that he was creating some kind of army willing to do whatever he asked; whenever he asked.