So this is probably my 10th client who is the smartest man in the world.
October 21, 2018 6:54 AM   Subscribe

 
Just finished this! I think it was an overall good show, and certainly eyeopening (and should come with a set of content warnings for sure).

I've lost friends to Landmark Forums, of which NXIVM seems to be the next logical step toward taking people who desperately crave an authority figure to tell them how to think and behave, bottled as "self-improvement," so a lot of this resonated very strongly with me. It's fairly easy to understand Trumpland and mega-churches through this lens... people who crave easy answers and strong leader figures, being told how to think and how to act but in a wrapper of "...because you're independent thinkers and believe in personal responsibility, you'll think like this and act like that." It's a terrifyingly effective way to exploit how we're wired.

Frankly, I think Bloch's closeness to his subject was a two-edged sword: that access probably made this possible, but at the same time, the podcast is in aggregate very soft-gloved toward somebody who was in essence a cult-recruiter-for-profit for years, and had to have been turning a profoundly blind eye toward what she was doing to do so well at it.

I also kind of went through the second half of the show in a bit of a miasma around "at the end of the day, I'm spending a lot of time and emotion on well-educated and reasonably wealthy white people who are getting gulled by a more manipulative well-educated and wealthy white person."

I wish we could figure out a way to engage imaginations and make people care this much, and pay this much attention to, the people who would never be a target of these schemes in the first place. Can we create a #1 podcast about the struggles of non-white people working three jobs just to get food on the table? It's probably not possible to do that. "Sex cult" sells better than most things. But I dare do dream.
posted by Shepherd at 7:35 AM on October 21, 2018 [24 favorites]


"at the end of the day, I'm spending a lot of time and emotion on well-educated and reasonably wealthy white people who are getting gulled by a more manipulative well-educated and wealthy white person."

My dad has been Sarah Edmondson's lawyer since she escaped, and has also worked with Landmark and Scientology recoverees, so while I don't know her, I guess I'm not unbiased here. At the end of the day, you're spending a lot of time and emotion on people who have been victimised by a predator, and victimised horrendously. If you feel like most of these people are white, educated and wealthy people with choices and they should have known better, I can only say that this is exactly the same argument Keith Raniere's defense lawyer makes in E6 and that would make me deeply uncomfortable were I you.
posted by DarlingBri at 8:14 AM on October 21, 2018 [44 favorites]


Having just read the NXIVM article in Wikipedia, I’m finding it is pinging strangely similar neurons as when I was reading about Jordan Peterson.

I’m not saying Peterson is involved in NXIVM. But the whole deal with self-help, self-actualization psychoplatitudes masking a self-serving worldview that has misogyny at its center, and so forth? It just seems like another really good example of the usefulness of intersectionality theory.
posted by darkstar at 8:50 AM on October 21, 2018 [15 favorites]


At the end of the day, you're spending a lot of time and emotion on people who have been victimised by a predator, and victimised horrendously. If you feel like most of these people are white, educated and wealthy people with choices and they should have known better

I was being a lot more glib than I should have been, and apologize for being flip. On the other hand, I didn't say they "should have known better". They were clearly gulled; deceived by a terrible person who has done terrible things and blaming the victims is the wrong approach. I was definitely shading into that, which was wrong of me.

But I think it's possible to both acknowledge this situation is absolutely awful, and at the same time wish that we were collectively spending more time publicly talking about and paying attention to the people who don't get this kind of attention when they're victimized.

NXIVM shouldn't happen to anybody, and what Raniere did is absolutely horrible, but I doubt we'd be getting a prestige multi-part podcast about it if it didn't involve TV stars and large number of wealthy photogenic white people. I think that's problematic, and if I'm mangling this by being clumsy about it, that's on me, but I'm trying to find a space where I'm not blaming the victims for being victimized, but also saying that there are lots of other victims that never seem to get this kind of attention, and should.
posted by Shepherd at 9:09 AM on October 21, 2018 [18 favorites]


Can we create a #1 podcast about the struggles of non-white people working three jobs just to get food on the table? It's probably not possible to do that. "Sex cult" sells better than most things. But I dare do dream.--Shepherd

It is naive to think these self-help 'cults' are a wealthy white people problem. Jim Jones's People's Temple went after the exact people you are talking about: African American, often poor and working multiple jobs, and in the end they were all killed.

On the other hand, I'm glad for your comment because there's nothing more daunting than a wall of links with no explanation as to what it is all about. Someone who's invested in a subject often doesn't realize that many others have no clue what you are talking about and aren't going to click on any of your numerous links without some introductory explanation.
posted by eye of newt at 9:37 AM on October 21, 2018 [7 favorites]


Shepherd - why not both? Attention to one does not obliterate the space for coverage of the other. I never understand that argument and see it allll the time online.

Full disclosure - a late relative of mine pressured me into doing the Landmark Forum and a few other seminars like that. I came out from them exactly the same as I went in. This relative died still trusting in fake gurus and giving money to charlatans and snake oil peddlers. It was really sad.
posted by 41swans at 9:39 AM on October 21, 2018 [8 favorites]



a late relative of mine pressured me into doing the Landmark Forum and a few other seminars like that. I came out from them exactly the same as I went in.

I wonder if we're ultimately going to think of these things similarly to how we are maybe slowly beginning to think about drug addiction. That is, not everybody who does heroin once ends up hopelessly addicted. I think the stat is somewhere around 15-percent. So if 85-percent of people of people who try heroin do not succumb to addiction, maybe the problem isn't really the drug itself, but ... other factors, foremost among them the emotional well being of the person doing the drug. Flipping it back to NXIVM, the question then becomes, who's walking around with a hole inside of them that needs so desperately to be filled with ... bullshit?
posted by philip-random at 10:00 AM on October 21, 2018 [10 favorites]


I came away with it, honestly, feeling like maybe the "sex cult" part of it had indeed been overblown--it seemed at least like the consequences for not being available for that, as per Edmonson's life, were pretty minimal--but that they're making so much of that because it sounds like there isn't really another good legal strategy for getting him away from the public otherwise? Which is one of the things I find interesting about this whole thing, from a true crime kind of perspective--how he seems to have deliberately found ways to be monstrous while maintaining at least plausible deniability and possibly even the argument that nothing illegal even happened. Our system is really spectacularly bad at finding any way to punish people for ruining other people's lives unless there's sexual assault or gross bodily harm involved. (And obviously, clearly even then it's a challenge.)
posted by Sequence at 10:08 AM on October 21, 2018 [1 favorite]


It is naive to think these self-help 'cults' are a wealthy white people problem. Jim Jones's People's Temple went after the exact people you are talking about: African American, often poor and working multiple jobs

Also the Nuwaubian Nation
posted by thelonius at 10:20 AM on October 21, 2018 [1 favorite]


Jim Jones's People's Temple went after the exact people you are talking about: African American, often poor and working multiple jobs, and in the end they were all killed.


And if we expand this to MLMs (which are considered by some to be a form of cult, and there's a lot of crossover in both ideology and methods) then there's a lot of victimization of the already poor and marginalized. Herbalife preys primarily on Latinx people in the U.S., for example. (And also there is indeed a current podcast about MLMs called The Dream.)
posted by soren_lorensen at 10:47 AM on October 21, 2018 [10 favorites]




It is naive to think these self-help 'cults' are a wealthy white people problem. Jim Jones's People's Temple went after the exact people you are talking about: African American, often poor and working multiple jobs, and in the end they were all killed.


I don't think so. "Self-help" cults do seem to be more a wealthy white people problem. Regular, poor people get their cult fix going to plain old church. Once in a while, those plain old churches gain notoriety the way The People's Temple do. Wealthy white folks aren't usually found going for the snake handling or speaking in tongues at revivals. They tend to consider themselves too woke and refined for such lowbrow nonsense. But dangle some "spirituality" and world peace, and a dash of profitability, and you've got the springboard for attracting wealthy, white people. And some of the more beautiful people of color, with the material success and time to invest in the rabbit hole.
posted by 2N2222 at 11:18 AM on October 21, 2018 [3 favorites]


One of the appeals of the Peoples' Temple was a promise of a just society. That vision is utterly different from the self absorption that Landmark and it's ilk depend on.

Wealthy white folks aren't usually found going for the snake handling or speaking in tongues at revivals.

Except that that is exactly what Oprah adjacent new age bullshit is. Same spiel, same techniques but dressed up differently. Obviously new age woo does not necessarily imply a cult but it's a good first step.
posted by rdr at 11:27 AM on October 21, 2018 [9 favorites]


There is a podcast called Bigfoot Collectors Club where one of the hosts (Michael McMillian, aka that pastor guy from True Blood) talks about the time he was brought in to MC an event that was put on by Allison Mack and the rest of the NXIVM gang. I think it was Episode 21 and it's worth a listen for a glimpse on how the cult goes about recruiting.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 11:27 AM on October 21, 2018 [3 favorites]


Oh man... This story... I've been following this trainwreck and the damaged people it left in its wake for years. I live in Albany, and first met Keith Raniere at Consumers' Buyline , when a close friend was working on their computer system.

I literally had an allergic reaction meeting the guy for a moment.
posted by mikelieman at 11:56 AM on October 21, 2018 [3 favorites]


eye of newt wrote:
there's nothing more daunting than a wall of links with no explanation as to what it is all about.

My apologies; I usually post here with a couple of introductory sentences for topics that seem new on the blue. NXIVM, on the other hand, had already been addressed by three posts and multiple comments elsewhere, so it didn't seem that new. (I linked to those posts in my own.) Is Keith Raniere's cult less widely known than I calculated?
posted by doctornemo at 12:21 PM on October 21, 2018


No problem--my complaint came out stronger than I had intended. This is the first I had ever heard of NXIVM. I must have missed the previous posts.
posted by eye of newt at 12:30 PM on October 21, 2018 [1 favorite]



One of the appeals of the Peoples' Temple was a promise of a just society. That vision is utterly different from the self absorption that Landmark and it's ilk depend on.


Many cults (and churches) are built on the premise of a just society. It's one of the selling points used to draw idealistic new recruits. Even personal fulfillment and self improvement is easily sold as part of making a just society. Talking such a good game covers up an awful lot of greed and lust often driving the leaders.

Except that that is exactly what Oprah adjacent new age bullshit is. Same spiel, same techniques but dressed up differently. Obviously new age woo does not necessarily imply a cult but it's a good first step.

Um, yes? No "except" about it really. The difference is the "self help" oriented cults don't seem intended to appeal to poor people so much.
posted by 2N2222 at 4:16 PM on October 21, 2018


Mod note: A couple deleted. Quick reminder: anyone can make a post about the topic that interests them; nobody has to read a thread about a topic that doesn't interest them. If you want a post about hockey, better to make that post than complain that a post about soccer isn't about hockey (If you'd just like suggestions for good articles or podcasts on hockey, Ask Metafilter is your pal.)
posted by taz (staff) at 5:55 AM on October 22, 2018 [6 favorites]


robocop is bleeding,

https://bigfootcollectorsclub.podbean.com/e/bcc-episode-23-%E2%80%9Cthe-lizard-man-of-scape-ore-swamp%E2%80%9D-w-allison-munn/

Episode 23 is also about cults. I'm listening to it now, but it's a lot of fun-- includes the classic line "I thought I was there to judge an a cappella contest."
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 7:13 AM on October 22, 2018 [2 favorites]


First I'd ever heard of NXIVM as well. I just...don't...understand how these wealthy, influential people don't see the self-actualization stuff as hogwash.
posted by desuetude at 8:28 AM on October 22, 2018


First I'd ever heard of NXIVM as well. I just...don't...understand how these wealthy, influential people don't see the self-actualization stuff as hogwash.

EGO is a hell of a drug. Sadly, Donald J. Trump didn't get sucked into this, although it would have totally reinforced his narcissism, and rendered his harm to a set of < 20 people.
posted by mikelieman at 8:35 AM on October 22, 2018


I'm on episode 5, and yeah, the host seems to be trying really hard to get Edmonson to admit to feeling guilty and she's just... not? I think that this organization seems to reinforce (or select for, or both) self centeredness in people, and that's part of it. For all their talk about saving the world it's all completely self focused.
posted by quaking fajita at 9:26 AM on October 22, 2018 [2 favorites]


this organization seems to reinforce (or select for, or both) self centeredness in people, and that's part of it. For all their talk about saving the world it's all completely self focused.

it's as if they've taken cocaine addiction and removed the drug from the equation.
posted by philip-random at 9:54 AM on October 22, 2018


I just...don't...understand how these wealthy, influential people don't see the self-actualization stuff as hogwash.

I've listened to the podcast avidly, both because of being intrigued but also because I spent summers growing up near one of the key members and I suspect that some of the cult-like aspects were learned through or at least appealed to that person because of experiences I also had. (Which, I will say, have made me thrice-skeptical of anything resembling a cult but I can see how it goes the other way.)

Still...I think your statement kind of answers itself. Why would wealthy, influential people be assumed to have more ability to discern the empty promises of something like NXIVM? Because your assumption perhaps is that if you have wealth and influence you also have insight and knowledge?

Well...that's exactly what NXIVM and its ilk promises, just in the reverse order. Come to us for the insight and knowledge, and wealth and (even more) influence will naturally flow from that.

I picture a person who went to a 'good' school, where s/he was nurtured for potential not on the basis of actual achievement but on the good fortune of having picked or gotten into or paid for a good school...the kind of school that at assemblies reminds its students that they are the future leaders of the world without really actually challenging its students too much.

Then on to a good university with convivial peers. Then out into the real world and..here's where this upper middle class golden child runs into a wall of sorts, which is why am I not the light in the world I was promised I would be?

Into that gap steps NXIVM which promises hey, we know you are great, but here's one more course+network opportunity to hurdle.

I get that these aren't the people that we need to weep for, nor did I in listening, but I do think that the MLM/sales aspect of the NXIVM story is useful to understand...we need to get away from the idea that if a successful-looking person is shilling something, they must be right.

And then the DOS/sex slave aspect of it...I think I am just way too jaded but again for me it's like, this is absolutely the end game of the very structures we are talking about in the #MeToo movement.
posted by warriorqueen at 10:49 AM on October 22, 2018 [4 favorites]


Woah, I had never heard about this until about three days ago, mainlined the podcast, and now here it is. It struck me that the person they found to speak out about this "sex cult" had no experience with the "sex" part of the cult, which made me believe (like those above) that maybe the sex part has been overblown.

I sort of understand how someone would land in a religious cult, but I have a hard time understanding how people could devote themselves to a self-help figure to the point that they will accept being branded, and will allow others to be branded too. I have friends who are TrueBelievers in MLMs, and I have often thought the ideology was sort of cultish, but I can't see even my most ardently devoted-to-essential-oils friend joining a secret society and calling herself a slave.

Also, I get that the main respondent was friends with the reporter, but I felt that she got away a little cleaner than she deserved. She was complicit in other women getting branded. She had three slaves of her own. That's not the behavior of someone with one foot out the door, as she claims.
posted by arcticwoman at 11:47 AM on October 22, 2018 [2 favorites]


I finished this a week or two ago. My lasting impression of it is that the defense attorney in episode 6 is doing an excellent job showing what you pay a good attorney to do. He came across as reasonable, gave ground where he needed to, and otherwise did a good job stirring up (reasonable?) doubt in my mind about the whole thing. It'll be interesting to see how this all plays out in court.
posted by HiddenInput at 11:47 AM on October 22, 2018


And I guess I just want to soften what I said above. Edmonson's behavior was that of someone who had been abused and victimized into being complicit with her abuser. I thought that could have been explored a little more.
posted by arcticwoman at 11:50 AM on October 22, 2018 [1 favorite]


I came away with it, honestly, feeling like maybe the "sex cult" part of it had indeed been overblown

I always assumed the "sex" part of the "sex cult" came from the public's inability to imagine what else a woman's mons is for. Why brand girlparts if you're not fucking them?
posted by DarlingBri at 12:07 PM on October 22, 2018


Also, I love the lawyer's point that his last client is Martin Shkreli, and therefore he's had a lot of smart clients and can't speak to whether Raniere is the smartest person in the world.
posted by quaking fajita at 12:12 PM on October 22, 2018 [2 favorites]


I came away with it, honestly, feeling like maybe the "sex cult" part of it had indeed been overblown

I always assumed the "sex" part of the "sex cult" came from the public's inability to imagine what else a woman's mons is for. Why brand girlparts if you're not fucking them?


I've been following this since the news broke but haven't listened to the podcast...yet.

My initial reaction was that the whole thing was the sex cult but as I read more it seemed more like the sex cult was a smaller subset of the whole cult.
posted by mmascolino at 12:23 PM on October 22, 2018


The Albany Times-Union ( as opposed to the Florida Times Union in Jacksonville ) has covered this extensively, since it's a local story https://www.timesunion.com/nxivm/

And yes, the branding/sex cult thing was an "upper level" Inside a secretive group where women are branded

I'm not posting excerpts, it's all about abuse, and no-one needs to see that. Use the links if you want to learn more.
posted by mikelieman at 12:39 PM on October 22, 2018 [1 favorite]


My initial reaction was that the whole thing was the sex cult but as I read more it seemed more like the sex cult was a smaller subset of the whole cult.

Yeah, but it seems like it was maybe even a much smaller subset of that, and that there was a huge control aspect to DOS, but at least from the podcast itself it was sort of hard to tell if there was really evidence of sex being the larger point of it, or if the sex was incidental or unrelated? But the way the charges are, my impression is that it sounds like he could walk for having a bunch of women branded, starved, and woken up in the middle of the night just to fuck with their lives... just as long as the whole thing wasn't officially prostitution, which is pretty terrifying.
posted by Sequence at 1:55 PM on October 22, 2018


These people drop a lot of F-bombs. It's like "fucking" is the only adjective they know.

Having now listened to all the episodes I thought the most interesting part was listening to the indoctrination strategies / weird groupthink / specialized vocabulary. I haven't had a lot of exposure to MLM/culty stuff so it was all new to me. The "sex cult" stuff, even the branding ceremony, maybe I'm just jaded but I didn't get as much out of it.
posted by quaking fajita at 4:20 PM on October 22, 2018


If you're interested in compelling podcasts about dangerous cults, I can't recommend Oh No Ross and Carrie's investigation into Scientology enough. The tone is superficially cheerful and whimsical but it's a serious investigation and I found it absolutely riveting.
posted by treepour at 5:10 PM on October 22, 2018 [4 favorites]


So wait... how did Edmonson’s husband not notice his wife had been branded... for four whole months?
posted by panama joe at 11:26 PM on October 22, 2018 [2 favorites]


Also, I gotta say, the whole master/slave terminology really gets at the heart of what it means to be an MLM. It’s like yeah, it sucks to be called a slave and get woken up in the middle of the night, but just think of how nice it would be to have six people doing one hour of work for YOU every week!
posted by panama joe at 11:42 PM on October 22, 2018


I only just got around to making any kind of headway with this podcast.

I've normally got a reasonable tolerance for listening to traumatic material but I just couldn't finish the first episode of this. Not in several short attempts today anyway.

I found it really quite distressing material. I'm weighing up whether to push on as it's something I feel is important to understand and listen to, but I don't think I was that far off a physical reaction to how traumatic it was.
posted by edd at 8:48 AM on October 26, 2018


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